Judges 18:11-31: Israeli Idol: I like to think of God as...
Introduction
I like to think of God as… If I were God, I would… I can’t believe in a God who…
Ever heard these phrases in a conversation? Ever used them your self?
Because when someone starts their sentence like this, more likely than not the next thing they will evidence is their “Idolatry”, that they are remaking God in their image.
I like to think of God as not sending anyone to hell. If I were God, I would have stopped all war. I can’t believe in a God who sent the Tsunami.
Such statements reflect the God of our imagination, not the God who is there, as revealed in the bible. Idolatry is us making God in our image.
Context
Last week we looked at Samson. Samson was a judge in denial. He was destined for greatness from birth. But he went looking for fulfillment in all the wrong places. His weakness was Philistine women. And pretty much he did what he wanted, ‘Whatever was right in his own eyes’, just like Israel, whether it was marrying them, or fornicating with them.
The last 5 chapters of Judges show us that Samson wasn’t on his own in doing his own thing. He was no Robinson Cruso. In fact, Israel was exactly like Samson. Chapter 17 verse 6 is the refrain that is repeated in the last 5 chapters:
In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as he saw fit. (Judges 17:6 NIV)
And this ‘Do what you like’ anarchy affected two areas: Israel’s religion, and Israel’s morality.
This week, we look at how Israel did whatever they liked about religion. When it came to worshipping Yahweh, Israel was happy to make up whatever rules it liked.
And next week, we see how Israel wanted to make up their own morality. Israel’s sexual ethic was one of the areas where ‘she did what was right in her own eyes.’
The spread of idolatry
Judges chapters 17 and 18 are one story. It starts with an episode of mother and son. It finishes with a whole tribe in idol worship. It documents the spread of idolatry that is typical of Israel. From little things, big things grow.
We are introduced to a son named Micah. ‘Micah’ means ‘Who is like Yahweh?’ And we learn that Micah is nothing like Yahweh! Because Micah steals his mother’s silver stockpile. He is a son who pinches her pension. And then Micah hears his Mum’s curse, and so returns the money. Presumably he’s afraid. Anyhow, the mum makes a strange promise. Chapter 17 verse 3:
I solemnly consecrate my silver to the LORD for my son to make a carved image and a cast idol. (NIV)
Thanks God. Let me make you an Idol.
Hullo! She worships Yahweh. Yet she wants to worship Yahweh her way, using a carved image covered in molten metal. That was exactly the way Yahweh said NOT to worship him. The 2nd command says:
You shall not make an idol, and bow down and worship it…
Yet off goes Micah, and gets an idol made. Micah and his mum are like Jephthah. They wanted to worship Yahweh the Canaanite way. They are like Samson. They want to do what is right in their own eyes, even if it is evil in Yahweh’s eyes.
Yet this is just the start for Micah, for he is a religious man. He set up his house as a house of god. He had his newly made silver image. He also made some other idols. Like Gideon, he made his own Ephod. And finally, he set up his son as priest in his house, a job for the boys. It’s a real backyard operation, like someone whose hobby gets the better of them and takes over.
And Micah did all of this in opposition and disobedience to Yahweh, the law of Moses, the real house of God at Shiloh, and the real priests, the sons of Aaron who had the real Ephod.
But then, Micah’s chance comes to play with the big boys. A Levite is passing by. We don’t learn his name until chapter 18 verse 30. But when we do, it’s a big name. This is Jonathan, Son of Gershom, Son of Moses (Judges 18:30). Hey, this is Moses’ Grandson! This is the big one. So Micah pays Jonathan to stay and live with him. Micah’s now got a pet priest. Micah wants him as a ‘Father’, a pappa, a pope, someone who will guide him, even though Jonathan is the age of Micah’s sons. It’s all up side down, like when the 20 year old mormon missionary insists you call him elder!
So here is idolatry, self-willed false worship occurring in the midst of Israel. And God had already given his verdict on it. Deuteronomy chapter 13 verses 12 to 15:
If you hear it said about one of the towns the LORD your God is giving you to live in that wicked men have arisen among you and have led the people of their town astray, saying, "Let us go and worship other gods" (gods you have not known), then you must inquire, probe and investigate it thoroughly. And if it is true and it has been proved that this detestable thing has been done among you, you must certainly put to the sword all who live in that town. Destroy it completely, both its people and its livestock. (NIV)
And then 600 Danites, fully armed for battle, come upon Micah's house. And we read the account and know what they ought to do. Judges chapter 18 verses 14 to 18:
Then the five men who had spied out the land of Laish said to their brothers, "Do you know that one of these houses has an ephod, other household gods, a carved image and a cast idol? Now you know what to do." So they turned in there and went to the house of the young Levite at Micah's place and greeted him. The six hundred Danites, armed for battle, stood at the entrance to the gate. The five men who had spied out the land went inside and took the carved image, the ephod, the other household gods and the cast idol while the priest and the six hundred armed men stood at the entrance to the gate. When these men went into Micah's house and took the carved image, the ephod, the other household gods and the cast idol, the priest said to them, "What are you doing?" (NIV)
And we think, well, the army of Dan are going to do the godly thing. They will rid the evil from Israel, and put to the sword Micah and Jonathan and any other evil doer and burn the images and idols and other instruments of false worship in the city square. For that's what God told them to do. But that's not what happens. Judges chapter 18 verses 19 to 21:
They answered him, "Be quiet! Don't say a word. Come with us, and be our father and priest. Isn't it better that you serve a tribe and clan in Israel as priest rather than just one man's household?" Then the priest was glad. He took the ephod, the other household gods and the carved image and went along with the people. Putting their little children, their livestock and their possessions in front of them, they turned away and left. (NIV)
And we think, 'What? Are you serious? And of course, Judges is deadly serious. Because everyone is doing what is good in his own eyes.
From Micah's perspective, that's the problem of buying your priest. Your man might get a better offer. For the army of Dan are not instruments of God's wrath. They are nominators on the road. They see in Jonathan good rector material. Come and be our pope! And we read that verse 20: Then the priest was glad. Finally, my ministry is being recognized. So Dan gets their Man and they steal Micah’s idols. Poetic justice really, given Micah stole his mum’s money. And they set up their new home. Chapter 18 verse 28 to 31:
The Danites rebuilt the city and settled there. They named it Dan after their forefather Dan, who was born to Israel – though the city used to be called Laish. There the Danites set up for themselves the idols and Jonathan son of Gershom, the son of Moses, and his sons were priests for the tribe of Dan until the time of the captivity of the land. They continued to use the idols Micah had made, all the time the house of God was in Shiloh. (NIV)
Micah’s weird backyard religion started off in the privacy of his own home. It ended up taking pride of place, in the geographic heartland of Israel. The gangrene has spread. From little things big things grow. The seemingly religious and generous decision of a little old lady and her strange son, well meant, seemingly harmless, led to the whole tribe of Dan being corrupted. All their worship was man made, rules conceived of and taught by men, with man made idols, contrary to God’s word, with man appointed priests, not the Sons of Aaron, and God was not pleased. No, God spat them out of the land, with their idols, when he destroyed Dan in 722BC.
The attraction of Idolatry
Now, we must ask, what was the attraction of idolatry? Why do people want to make up their religion as the go along? Why did they want to worship the right God the wrong way? Why did they want to buy their gods and their priest?
We get an insight from Micah himself in two places.
First, Chapter 17 verse 13. After Micah closes the deal to get Jonathan as his priest, he says:
Now I know that the LORD will be good to me, since this Levite has become my priest. (NIV)
Micah lacks assurance. He wants good things to happen to him. He wants to prosper and be successful (compare Judges 18:5) Like Jephthah, he is trying to manipulate Yahweh and lock God in. And by catching Moses’ grandson, he thinks he has caught Moses’ God.
Second, in Chapter 18 verse 24, when with great pathos he pleads with Dan for the return of his priests and gods, Micah says:
You took the gods I made, and my priest, and went away. What else do I have?
Such thinking is worthy of our pity.
What else do I have. Micah has lost his security blanket and teddy bear. If he doesn’t have these visible things, he has lost his God. As if Yahweh could be stolen.
The attraction of idolatry is it gives us a handle on God. We can see our gods. We feel close to them. They make us feel good. They are convenient. They don’t demand too much. We’ve made sure of that, because we made them.
However, the second commandment made it clear.
You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the LORD your God, am a jealous God… (Deuteronomy 5:8-10 NIV)
Do not make. Do not bow down. Do not worship. That was God’s command to Israel.
Our idolatry
Now obviously, we don’t have any idols. We don’t have trouble with this command. We aren’t that stupid to fall into idolatry.
Except... You come into our church buildings, and on our walls we have pictures of white skinned, blonde haired, blue eyed Jesuses. For the first 500 years, Christian buildings didn’t have any images at all. Now, we have them, even in protestant churches. Jesus had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. But we see these handsome Surfer-cum-hippy Jesus’ all around us.
The Sistine Chapel artwork of Michelangelo is amazing, isn’t it? That picture of God’s finger touching Adam’s. But hang on, that’s meant to be a picture of God the Father. An older man with a beard reaching out to the younger. Isn’t that an image of the invisible God? Yes it is. No man has seen God. He is invisible, no one can see him. And yet he is pictured as an old man with a beard.
I don’t think such pictures are helpful They are stumbling blocks. They lead us astray. And the more realistic the pictures or statues are, the more they lead us astray.
Humans always want to see God and Jesus.
But God is Spirit, He is without body. We want to look him full in the face. But God continually denies us this. You cannot look at my face and live.
And though Jesus does have a body, he is away. He is in heaven. He left us no record of what he looked at. Why? Because what he looked like didn’t matter.
And the Spirit doesn’t have a body. He blows wherever he pleases.
But still the Christian church has kept making images and statues of God and Jesus and the saints, and having people kiss them, pray in front of them, and use them to think about God.
Many people use crucifixes to remind themselves of Christ crucified. I was given a stainless steel one when I was an altar boy, a little cross with a man on it. Usually made out of gold or silver. In some Catholic Church buildings there are big ones over the altar.
But a crucifix is not God’s way of seeing Christ Crucified. God allows us to look at Christ Crucified with our ears. In Galatians 3:1, Paul says to the Christians:
You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you! Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as Crucified. I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by observing the Law or by believing what you heard.
You see Christ crucified by believing what you heard.
Again, Jesus himself says:
Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. (John 3:14-15)
Moses lifted up a snake in the desert. The story is that Israel sinned, so God sent snakes to bite the people. They were dying and cried out to the LORD. And God told Moses to make a bronze snake and put it on a pole. If anyone bitten looked at the snake, they would live. So he did, and they did. But during King Hezekiah’s time, people began to worship the snake. That’s what humans always do. So Good king Hezekiah became an iconoclast. He broke the snake God told Moses to make. For no man made thing is ever to be worshipped.
Jesus uses the story of the Snake on a pole as an analogy. Jesus invites us to look at him lifted up on the cross. Just as Moses invited the people to look at the snake on a pole, so we are called to look at Jesus on the cross. But the way we look is by believing.
This is looking with your ears. You look to Christ when you hear about his death for your sins and believe that you, you yourself, have gained a part and share in what Jesus won on the cross. You look at the cross when you believe HE HUNG THERE FOR YOU. So we can save all the paint, all the marble, all the colourful glass, all the gold, all the silver, all the metal, all the time, all the money.
To see Jesus, all we need to do listen to the good news that Jesus.
Paul tells the people of Athens.
….we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone – an image made by man’s design and skill. In the past God overlooked all such ignorance, but now he commands all men everywhere to repent. (Acts 17:29-30 NIV)
Dear friends, Keep yourselves from Idols (1 John 5:21)
Let’s pray