Deviant Worship
By Pastor Matt Black
15
July 2007
Lord's Day Evening
Isaiah 17:1-11
Introduction: Open your Bibles to the book of Isaiah 17. The title of tonight’s message is “Deviant Worship”.
I may say some things that come home tonight—we want to worship the Lord in the way He has prescribed. We dare not innovate on the worship of God. The Word of God regulates what we do in our corporate worship. Why do we have preaching? Because the Word commands us to preach sound doctrine and to guard that doctrine. Why do we sing reverently and with a holy and a pure heart? Because the Lord commands us to sing with Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual songs. The song the choir sang “Search Me O God” was an example of a Psalm. That’s Psalm 139:23.
We are going to talk about idolatry in Israel and Damascus Syria, but we are not going to keep it there. We are also going to about talk idolatry in our own lives. We are going to talk about the breaking of the second commandment, which states: “Thou shalt have no other gods before me”. The first commandment teaches us that we are not to worship another god beside the living and true God. We are not to worship Allah, Amen? Allah is a false god just as Baal is a false God. Jesus is the Way the Truth and the Life, not Buddha, Krishna, and not the 7000 gods of Hinduism. It is sad in our country that we now have groves and high places. We have temples for little gods made with men’s hands. Oh that the men and women of our country had the spirit of Josiah, who as a child commanded that the idols would be destroyed and brought down! So the first commandment is (quote it with me): “Thou shalt have no other gods before me”. And the second? “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven images.”
The first commandment is against polytheism—all the false gods of the heathen are not to be worshipped, for they are simply devils or simple vanity.
The second commandment is not against polytheism, but against syncretism. We will talk more of what that is, but the second commandment forbids against the use of idols and images in the worship of God. In Isaiah 17, we have Ahaz king of Judah involved in an unholy religious and political alliance with Syria whose capital city is Damascus—he was worshipping the gods of the nations, Molech and Ashterah, and . It wasn’t that Ahaz was forsaking God all together—he was in his mind simply heightening and helping the worship of the Lord. We are going to see that our churches are making this same error today. We don’t need to help the Holy Spirit of God convert sinner’s hearts. The Word of God is sufficient. We need the simple preaching of the Word. We are going to look into these things tonight.
So let’s stand and read Isaiah 17:1-11 tonight—it is a timely and a timeless warning to God's people here tonight. We need to hear this tonight. “1 ¶ The burden of Damascus. Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap. 2 The cities of Aroer are forsaken: they shall be for flocks, which shall lie down, and none shall make them afraid. 3 The fortress also shall cease from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus, and the remnant of Syria: they shall be as the glory of the children of Israel, saith the LORD of hosts. 4 And in that day it shall come to pass, that the glory of Jacob shall be made thin, and the fatness of his flesh shall wax lean. 5 And it shall be as when the harvestman gathereth the corn, and reapeth the ears with his arm; and it shall be as he that gathereth ears in the valley of Rephaim.
6 ¶ Yet gleaning grapes shall be left in it, as the shaking of an olive tree, two or three berries in the top of the uppermost bough, four or five in the outmost fruitful branches thereof, saith the LORD God of Israel. 7 At that day shall a man look to his Maker, and his eyes shall have respect to the Holy One of Israel. 8 And he shall not look to the altars, the work of his hands, neither shall respect that which his fingers have made, either the groves, or the images.
9 ¶ In that day shall his strong cities be as a forsaken bough, and an uppermost branch, which they left because of the children of Israel: and there shall be desolation. 10 Because thou hast forgotten the God of thy salvation, and hast not been mindful of the rock of thy strength, therefore shalt thou plant pleasant plants, and shalt set it with strange slips: 11 In the day shalt thou make thy plant to grow, and in the morning shalt thou make thy seed to flourish: but the harvest shall be a heap in the day of grief and of desperate sorrow.”
Tonight we are looking at an unholy union with a marriage between two unequally
yoked nations, and we have paganism corrupting the nation of God’s people. As
a result of this unholy union we have a prophecy of doom and judgment.
Now unholy political unions are simply mirror reflections of unholy marriage unions—the Bible commands to not be unequally yoked with unbelievers.
In the Law we read you shouldn’tintermarry with the evil nations around you. Turn over to Exodus 34. God gives commands against marrying those who do not know the Lord. He says, you shall not give your daughters to their sons, nor shall you take their daughters for your sons. In other words, marriage was not to take place outside the nation, and for a very good reason.
Look at Exodus
34:12-16, "Take heed to thyself, lest thou make a covenant with the
inhabitants of the land whither thou goest, lest it be for a snare in the midst
of thee: 13 But ye shall destroy their altars, break their images, and cut down
their groves [Asherah]: 14 For thou shalt worship no other god: for the
LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God: 15 Lest thou make a covenant
with the inhabitants of the land, and they go a whoring after their gods, and
do sacrifice unto their gods, and one call thee, and thou eat of his sacrifice;
16 And thou take of their daughters unto thy sons, and their daughters go a
whoring [play the harlot] after their gods, and make thy sons go a whoring
after their gods.”
God was
calling the His people out of the surrounding nations to be a holy people--an
undefiled people. And he knew that having intimate relations with the
world was the first way that leads to a forsaking of God. So
physical marital fidelity was the first line of defense against spiritual, covenantal
adultery against God. They had to make sure they had a believing
home, a home that had a prayer closet and a family altar!
The history of Israel is her stubborn refusal to obey these most basic of laws,
both personally as they married foreign women, politically
with foreign nations, and spiritually with the worship of
idols. From the very beginning Israel prostituted herself with
foreign gods. So rather than praying for rain for a crop, she prayed to
the Philistine Baals. Or rather than praying for health and help
in the home, she prayed to Chemosh, the detestable god of Moab. Rather than wanting God as her father, Israel ran after the Sydonian goddess Ashterah.
Rather than flee to the true and living God for protection, she fled to Molech
and to Milkim, the gods of Ammon. And so her heart was turned from the
ways of God to those of the nations. From the Law to lewdness, from faith
to works.
Now all of this idolatry talk must be irrelevant to 21st century people,
right? We have evolved past such ignorant and primitive barbarianism,
right?
21st
Century Insights & Applications
Let me make some further insights that will apply this more clearly to our
day. Not all of Israel's idolatries involved bowing down to sticks and
stones and trees. Much of it took place in the political area as she
made alliances in war with other kingdoms. Specifically, the nothern people of Israel, here called Ephraim, entered into a political unholy union with Syria, which is represented
by the city Damascus. And northern Israel did this in an attempt to
destroy her own sister Judah! And to save herself from Assyria which is
"the rod of God's anger" (Isaiah 10:5).
Meanwhile, back in Judah, King Ahaz also made an alliance with Assyria in order
to protect herself from Damascus and Israel. These kinds of marriages are
personified politically and religiously in two people in our text, which are
not mentioned by name, but they are there. King Ahaz of Judah and King
Pekah of Syria. King Ahaz was so evil, that he was the first king in
all of Israel's history to actually sacrifice a human being in fire--HIS OWN
SON! He was an unbelieving man who rejected God's Messiah, the
Redeemer of Israel. We learned about that in Isaiah 7. God said He would
send a Son, and His name would be called Immanuel, God with us. Ahaz rejected
this sign and was instead himself rejected.
This sermon of Isaiah 17 that Isaiah is preaching is a warning Ahaz's Judah. It picks up where chapter 7 left off. Likewise he had a counterpart in the
northern tribes of Israel named Pekah who made an alliance with Syria. Both Israel and Judah were in an unholy alliance with unholy nations.
Political prostitution is no different than what was happening in the families
of Israel and Judah. They were marrying foreign idolatrous women.
Of course throughout the Scripture, idolatry is prostitution. The two are
linked.
Turn over to Ezekiel 23. Here idolatry is linked to spiritual idolatry.
Ezekiel 23:37, “That they have committed adultery, and blood is in
their hands, and with their idols have they committed adultery, and have also
caused their sons, whom they bare unto me, to pass for them through the fire,
to devour them.”
James said in the New Testament in James 4:4, “Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God”.
Now go back to Isaiah 17. Here we see an unholy adulterous marriage between Israel and Syria. In this passage called Ephraim and Damascus are talked about as one in the same, because they have a political marriage--in God's eyes, he sees northern israel and Damascus Syria as one nation! Israel has become one with a harlot!
v Verse 1, "Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap."
v Verse 3, "The fortress also shall cease from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus..."
The essence of the message to Israel in this chapter is found in verse 10, "Because thou hast forgotten the God of thy salvation, and hast not been mindful of the rock of thy strength, therefore shalt thou plant pleasant plants, and shalt set it with strange slips". This verse gives us another term for idolatry--it defines what they had done by alllying themselves with a wicked nation committed idolatry with their gods. They had "forgotten the God" of their "salvation".
Here in verses 10 and 11 we understand how one becomes an idol worshipper--how one forgets God. Look again, “Because thou hast forgotten the God of thy salvation, and hast not been mindful of the rock of thy strength, therefore shalt thou plant pleasant plants, and shalt set it with strange slips: 11 In the day shalt thou make thy plant to grow, and in the morning shalt thou make thy seed to flourish: but the harvest shall be a heap in the day of grief and of desperate sorrow.”
We plant our idols--we plant pleasant plants--we nurture our idols like beautiful flowers we plant in a garden. We water them and feed them ourselves. We slip in extra vines to hurry the growth of the idol in our own hearts, to make it bigger and more powerful and more seemingly worthy of our worship. We not only do that, but we fence them in, trying to protect the idol from God who seeks to come in and remove them. All of this we do for idols, and so in the morning the idol blossoms from our own labor--it prospers from all the care and time we spent to help it grow.
But what happens on the day of harvest? You get a sick sense of grief, and a sorrowful pain. Look at the end of verse 11, “But "the harvest shall be a heap in the day of grief and of desperate sorrow.". Grief here has the idea of sickliness. It is the way you feel when you want to vomit, and the words desperate sorrow are much more emotional than this--it has the idea of incurable pain. Think of the last time you or a loved one was in the hospital for some sickness or surgery. They doled out the pain killers. What would that experience been like without pain killers? That's what this is speaking of. You want to vomit--you feel sick and the pain just keeps intensifying.
What is the cause of the pain of heart that is worse than physical pain? It is idolatry. What is the cause of the sick feeling in your stomach? It is idolatry--either your own idolatry, or someone else's spiritual adultery with wickedness.
Now in this metaphor of the garden there is a theological meaning and a historical context.
Theological Meaning. The theological meaning is that the idols we create in our hearts do not just blow upon us in the wind or surprise us in the dark. Idolatry is far worse than that. It is a cunning and persistent attitude that constantly springs up in your heart. It is a purposeful and active rebellion on our parts. It is like James. We are tempted as James says (James 1:14-15), “every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. 15 Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death”. This is the pattern of the idolatry and adultery of the heart. The only answer to this is that we must guard our selves diligently from idols! John in the New Testament says in his first letter 1 John 5:21, “Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen”.
Historical context: This garden is historically referring to the groves of trees where idolatrous Asherah images were carved into the trees and perhaps painted with gold and silver along with the incense stands. These groves were essentially brothels of the most abominable nature.
And we are going to use this ancient historical context to springboard into our current neo-pagan postmodern society, because our nation which was once as pristine as David’s Israel has now been divided and conquered by the pagan deities of godless nations. Of course all of this paganism has influence on the people of God, and as a result we have increasingly mixed up churches.
Let’s start by trying to understand what Asherah, sometimes translated as “groves” or “wooden poles” or “images” what they are all about and what the related incense stands are all about. What is an Asherah? We read about these Asherah many times in the Old Testament even in Exodus 34.
Jeremiah 10 has something to say about these idols, that we sometimes jokingly say refers to Christmas (though these verses have nothing at all to do with Christmas). You understand what I mean when I read them.
Jeremiah 10:2-4, “Thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them. 3 For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. 4 They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not.”
This text of decorating poles is fundamentally linked with the idolatry of Isaiah’s text. What is this particular form of idolatry? What does the idol represent? What is the reality behind the sign? But what is an Asherah, or as it appears in the plural in the Bible, Ashtoreth? Well, they were idolatrous images of some kind.
Asherah in the Bible is the fertility goddess worshipped by the Zidonians (the ancient Phonecians), and later the Assyrians called her Ishtar. Jeremiah when referring to this false goddess in Jeremiah 44:17, not to “burn incense to the Queen of Heaven.” The Egyptians called her Isis. The Ephesians called her Diana. Many of the secular Ephesians making Diana shrines opposed the Apostles and yelled out with great wrath saying, “Great is Diana of the Ephesians” (Acts 19:28). In all of Asherah worship, the abomination of ritual prostitution was practiced. Paul refers to this even in the epistles. By the time of the New Testament the Greeks had adopted Asherah and called her Diana. There were temples in Ephesus and Corinth and many other places. Sadly, in Cornith, women were forced to serve in the temple before they could marry.
This is why Paul warns of Diana worship in 1 Corinthians 6:15, “Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them the members of an harlot? God forbid.”
But back in the day of Isaiah, there were only shrines in groves of the trees where there would be carvings of this goddess. The Scripture does not have any detailed descriptions of what these groves looked like, but we do know that these idols were carved into wood that could be set up, torn or chopped down, and burned. So you had these groves and a very licentious female idol that at times they would decorate with gold and silver.
First Commandment Violation: Worship only God.
You would think that Israel could avoid this clear idolatry. It was obviously a breaking of the first commandment right? The greatest problem in Israel was not the outright breaking of the first commandment. Most of the time Israel would not simply syncretize another god together with the true and Living God, Yaweh. Israel’s practice was not polytheism, but syncretism.
Those are big words. Polytheism is the belief in many gods. That is what is forbidden in the first commandment. Israel was to be radically monotheistic. As Deuteronomy 6:4-6 famously says, “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD: 5 And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.”
Second Commandment: We are forbidden from worshipping God in the wrong way!
But it is syncretism that is forbidden in the second commandment. We cannot take the Lord and mix His worship with idols. We are not to worship the right God in the wrong way. Benjamin Keach’s catechism question 57 asks, “What is forbidden in the second commandment?” And the answer is “A. The second commandment forbids the worshipping of God by images, or any other way not appointed in His Word.”
Worshiping the right God the wrong way is to contaminate pure worship with pagan methods. That is syncretism. Put God and idols in sync together and call it the worship of the true and Living God. That’s syncretism. It is worshipping God through pagan and worldly means. It is deviant worship.
Specifically, syncretism consists of…
You see this in Jeroboam I, a king of Israel. 1 Kings 12:25-33—turn there. This is the key text in the Bible on deviant worship. “Then Jeroboam built Shechem in mount Ephraim, and dwelt therein; and went out from thence, and built Penuel. 26 And Jeroboam said in his heart, Now shall the kingdom return to the house of David: 27 If this people go up to do sacrifice in the house of the LORD at Jerusalem, then shall the heart of this people turn again unto their lord, even unto Rehoboam king of Judah, and they shall kill me, and go again to Rehoboam king of Judah. 28 Whereupon the king took counsel, and made two calves of gold, and said unto them, It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem: behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. 29 And he set the one in Bethel, and the other put he in Dan. 30 And this thing became a sin: for the people went to worship before the one, even unto Dan. 31 And he made an house of high places, and made priests of the lowest of the people, which were not of the sons of Levi. 32 And Jeroboam ordained a feast in the eighth month, on the fifteenth day of the month, like unto the feast that is in Judah, and he offered upon the altar. So did he in Bethel, sacrificing unto the calves that he had made: and he placed in Bethel the priests of the high places which he had made. 33 So he offered upon the altar which he had made in Bethel the fifteenth day of the eighth month, even in the month which he had devised of his own heart; and ordained a feast unto the children of Israel: and he offered upon the altar, and burnt incense.”
And then jump down to 1 Kings 13:33-34, “After this thing Jeroboam returned not from his evil way, but made again of the lowest of the people priests of the high places: whosoever would, he consecrated him, and he became one of the priests of the high places. 34 And this thing became sin unto the house of Jeroboam, even to cut it off, and to destroy it from off the face of the earth”. What you will find there is that Jeroboam is an evil king, but he is not an idol worshipper—he worshipped Yahweh. How? —By new images. Shrines that were not prescribed, priests that were not Levites, and unappointed feasts that he just invented.
Ahaz did the same thing. He prescribed new methods and eliminated old ones.
Now let’s get to the root causes of these people’s syncretism. Why did they do it? Why did they forsake the ways of the Lord and invent new ways to worship Him?
We just don’t get that the problem in Israel’s worship was syncretism. The Word of God was not enough for Israel. They needed a little more of the world.
I want us to begin to understand the importance of this message and what it means to us. This whole text of Isaiah 17 is about the Asherah. The Israelites believed that Asherahs were the mediums through which the power of God, Yahweh, happened.
So in Israel’s case, the idols existed because God needed our help. They were not there primarily to be worshipped in place of or even beside of Him. So the thinking is something like this: since His face could not be seen, and since we all know that we can all learn better through visuals, we just should give them a few object lessons for their instruction.
Now there is something going on out there I’ve got to tell you about. I have a hall mate in college who is now a pastor in what is called an Emergent church. They call their worship “organic worship”. Let me read to you a little bit of this from a church that is
At Westwinds, worship services are organic, earthy and multi-layered…The music, the art, the lighting effects, the powerful monologues and visual props form a tapestry that prepares the congregation to meet God…
He goes on to say they have replaced simple God-ordained preaching with something else,
"Worship experiences are 'moment collections' that we design to increase the incidences of bumping into the presence of God,”… "We hope we are creating moments where people can't help but experience God." At a service a few months before, Westwinds served communion to break a week of fasting…That day's "moment collection" incorporated the smell of baking bread, the worshipers' own hunger pains, poetry readings, fast food commercials playing on television sets throughout the auditorium, art on the big screen, and music. …These elements … and the pastor's words created a "moment collection"—a context for Jesus to speak to His people…
This ambiance art began the communication process before anyone spoke a single word. Certainly God uses the spoken word to speak to His people, but He also uses paintings, dance, sculptures, poetry, or other forms of art to whisper to His people, reaching them through its inherent power. Some people aren't "word" people who are looking for reasons to believe or principles to follow—they are "image" people who long to synchronize their soul with God's will through beauty, rhythm and intuition. They prefer the "picture" to the "thousand words."
The art might create an ambiance for the words, or the words might create a context for the art to impact someone's heart. Which one upstages the other isn't the point. The art doesn't exist for itself and neither do the words; both elements are signposts that point to Christ. To put it another way, both are tools God uses to speak to His people.
Whoa, did you catch all of that? Do you see what is going on? This kind of thing, though you may not be aware is happening all over the place. My hall mate at college is now leading a church like this. The chaplain of my campus society at college is has joined into this movement.
The whole syncretistic worship of God is idolatry!! The thinking goes like this:
Since God’s ways are so intolerably slow and developing, we need to push them forward faster. Since God’s ways are not easily seen with the human eye, we need to show people that He can still be trusted in tangible ways. In essence the message is God needs our help to accomplish His purposes. This is what lies at the heart of Israel’s corruption.
Specifically, since God is described as a Father figure—the Israelites thought perhaps a little goddess worship will help the people relate to Him on a more balanced scale.
Now let us apply these ideas to our own contemporary situation. Effects of cultural goddess worship are infiltrating our country and our churches. I don’t know of very many people talking about it, but it’s true. This goddess worship is finding expression in our culture and in our churches through the environmental, feminist, and sodomite agendas of our day. Be sure, brethren, goddess worship is alive and thriving in contemporary American culture.
At the heart of goddess worship are two elements:
The earth serves as a comforting, non-threatening god that will allow men and women to corrupt themselves with one another. The earth’s not going to tell you what to do and what not to do is it? As the earth is fertile and produces food and happiness for us, so the most out of control Asherah in our day, sexual consumerism, the selling of sex. Likewise promises happiness and pleasure to all who will run towards her. But this black widow’s promise has millions and millions of people caught in her web and in the end she will only devour the one she catches. Is not this the meaning of Isaiah 17:11, “In the day shalt thou make thy plant to grow, and in the morning shalt thou make thy seed to flourish: but the harvest shall be a heap in the day of grief and of desperate sorrow.”
Conclusion: Beware of trying to worship God in any other way than is prescribed by the Bible. I’ve said it before—if it is new, it’s probably not true. Nothing wrong with new songs, but the truth ought to be the same, and the tune ought to be a holy unworldly and other worldly tune.
Don’t give in to the feminization of the church. We’ve got female pastors, and soft cushy, sensual music in our churches. Ladies ought to cover themselves and be modest and shamefaced. Sensuality is idolatry. Intimacy is reserved for the relationship of a husband and wife. Ladies listen to 1 Timothy 2:9 In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array;
The church is not a place for entertainment but for worship! We are to “lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.” The church needs to forsake the flashiness of this world and worship Christ in plainness and obedience and not use worldly methods but depend on the old fashioned power of the Holy Spirit.