The Burden of Idolatry
Download MP3If you have a bible, invite you to turn to Isaiah forty four and forty six as we continue our study in the book of Isaiah. And if you are new to Redeemer, my name is Joel Brooks. I'm the lead pastor here, but I have taken the last five Sundays off from preaching. And I wanna thank Caleb and Cole and Dwight and Connor and Ford for, for preaching during the this time. They did a absolutely tremendous job and I just want you to know how good it was for my soul, just to come and to listen to you guys and hear the word of God proclaimed.
Joel Brooks:A couple of weeks ago, I was in Montana all by myself. Lauren was here in Birmingham and I went on a really long hike all the way up to over 11,000 feet. I was feeling pretty good. But then a storm moved in, fog rolled in, and I began to get a little disoriented because I I don't use trails and so there wasn't like I could just follow a trail back down, everything started to look the same. The more I hiked, the more lost I got.
Joel Brooks:And then miraculously, my phone just dinged. I was like, I got cell phone service and sure enough, I I had one bar of service there. So I called up Lauren. And I want you to know that her version of this might be a little different than my version of this. I'll let you decide who is right or not.
Joel Brooks:But I I In my memory, I called up Lauren and I told her, say, hey, I'm I am up here in the mountains. I have hiked almost 20 miles. I'm exhausted. I'm lost. Fog is rolling in.
Joel Brooks:I think I'm just gonna have to hole up here and just kind of sleep sleep on the mountain and try in the morning. And Lauren responds with, did you get my text? I said, I haven't looked at it. She goes, I found a new antique dining room table. The reason I tell you this is because this morning's text is on idolatry.
Joel Brooks:And and my wife clearly does not idolize her husband, and so I want to praise her for that. Actually, Lauren, she she took my GPS. She said, do you want me to call a ranger? She was she was very nice, and and obviously, I'm here. And TBD about the antique dining room table.
Joel Brooks:So Isaiah, we're gonna read the first 17 verses of chapter 44 and then later we will read 46. But now hear, Jacob, my servant, Israel whom I have chosen. Thus says the Lord who made you, who formed you from the womb and will help you. Fear not, oh Jacob, my servant, Jeshurun whom I have chosen. For I will pour water on the thirsty land and streams on the dry ground.
Joel Brooks:I will pour my spirit upon your offspring and my blessing on your descendants. They shall spring up among the grass like willows by flowing streams. This one will say, I am the Lord's. Another will call on the name of Jacob. And another will write on his hand, the Lords and name himself by the name of Israel.
Joel Brooks:Thus says the Lord, the king of Israel and his redeemer, the Lord of hosts. I am the first and I am the last. Besides me, there is no God. Who is like me? Let him proclaim it.
Joel Brooks:Let him declare it and set it before me since I appointed an ancient people. Let them declare what is to come and what will happen. Fear not nor be afraid. Have I not told you from of old and declared it? And you are my witnesses.
Joel Brooks:Is there a God besides me? There is no rock. I know not any. All who fashion idols are nothing and the things they delight in do not profit. Their witnesses neither see nor know that they may be put to shame.
Joel Brooks:Who fashions a god or casts an idol that is profitable for nothing? Behold, all his companions shall be put to shame and the craftsman are only human. Let them all assemble. Let them stand forth. They shall be terrified.
Joel Brooks:They shall be put to shame together. The ironsmith takes a cutting tool and he works it over the coals. He fashions it with hammers and works it with his strong-arm. He becomes hungry and his strength fails. He drinks no water and is faint.
Joel Brooks:The carpenter stretches a line. He marks it out with a pencil. He shapes it with planes and marks it with a compass. He shapes it into the figure of a man with the beauty of a man to dwell in a house. He cuts down cedars or he chooses a cypress tree or an oak and lets it grow strong among the trees of the forest.
Joel Brooks:He plants a cedar and the rain nourishes it then it becomes fuel for a man. He takes a part of it and he warms himself. He kindles a fire and he bakes bread and he makes a god and worships it. He makes it an idol and falls down before it. Half of it he burns in the fire.
Joel Brooks:Over the half, eats meat. He roasts it and is satisfied and he also warms himself and says, I am warm. I have seen the fire. And the rest of it, he makes into a god, his idol, and he falls down to it and worships it. He prays to it and says, deliver me for you are my God.
Joel Brooks:This is the word of the Lord. You would pray with me. Father, what I ask this morning is that through your spirit, you would expose in us the lies that we have come to believe. We have some deep seated lies in our heart that we've convinced ourselves are true. These lies are idols, and I pray you'd expose them.
Joel Brooks:We'd see them for what they are, and then we would look to Jesus who truly will carry and save us. In order to do this, I pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore. But lord, may your words remain and may they change us. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen.
Joel Brooks:Isaiah 44 begins with one of the most beautiful, life giving promises of God. He tells the people that are living in exile, the people who are far far away from their homeland, who had long ago given up any hopes of having a good life. That's something that they would just watch the Babylonians have. But that life was not for them to ever experience. God now tells them that he is just gonna pour out blessings upon them.
Joel Brooks:He's gonna pour out his his spirit. The language that he uses here, it's just it's over the top. It's lavish. He's gonna pour out water on a thirsty land. That arid desert, it's now gonna have streams flowing all through it.
Joel Brooks:And he's not just gonna give them a drop or or a sip of the spirit. No, he's gonna pour out his spirit along with all of the spirit's blessings. And what you have being described here is a people who who will become totally immersed and saturated with the joyful life giving presence of God. It's astounding, these few verses. Now let me ask you, is there anyone in this room who doesn't want that?
Joel Brooks:I mean, I want that. Do we have any exhausted people in here? I mean, some of us we're we're we're coming just towards the end of summer and we're not going into fall at all rejuvenated. Some of us have just gotten off vacation and we're almost at the edge of burnout. If that if that's you, there's there's hope here in this passage.
Joel Brooks:This is this is what I want to experience. I wanna be totally immersed and saturated with a joyful life giving presence of God. So these first few verses in Isaiah 44, they describe the life that I want to have and I I bet you want to as well in which you get to enjoy God's blessings, his peace, his security, his rest. And Isaiah then warns, there's just one threat to all of this. It can be yours.
Joel Brooks:There's just one threat. Idolatry. And this is why Isaiah here for the last time in his book, he absolutely hammers home the foolishness of idolatry for two whole chapters. Because idolatry is the one thing that could keep us from experiencing these blessings. And idolatry is when we go to anything other than God in the hopes of getting the blessings that only God can give.
Joel Brooks:That's why it's so foolishness. Idolatry is when we go to anything other than God in the hopes of getting the blessings that only God can give. Hear me, there is not a single blessing that's listed here that is dependent in any way upon you having having more money. There's not a single blessing here that is dependent upon you having a spouse or the next vacation already planned and paid for. It's not a single blessing here that's dependent upon you getting that new patio furniture you've been eyeing Were you dropping a few pounds?
Joel Brooks:Those things might be good. They might give you a little, you know, a little endorphin hit. They won't last. I mean, I came back from hiking so much, I'd actually dropped a couple of pounds. Got a little endorphin hit, made me feel good.
Joel Brooks:But if I would actually think that living a blessed life depends upon that, well, that would just be foolish. That means I would have turned that or I've turned other things into an idol and hear me, if you do that, you're always gonna be disappointed in an idol. Idols are like the, they're like cotton candy. They they look pretty. They look like they have substance.
Joel Brooks:You taste them. You get this little temporary sweet but actually there's no, there's nothing behind it. Nothing that can actually nourish you or sustain you. It's only gonna rot your teeth. You know, the intro to Jesus' sermon on the mount, his most famous sermon, the very first thing that he tells people that sets the stage for everything that follows it is this.
Joel Brooks:Blessings are in no way dependent upon the things that you currently value. That sets the stage for the Sermon on the Mount. He wants everyone to know that the blessings that God gives are in no way dependent upon you having the things that you so value. And he says it this way, blessed are the poor, blessed are those who mourn, blessed are the meek, blessed are those who are hungry, or those who are thirsty. And what Jesus wants people to know that the very start of this sermon is this, the only things that living a blessed life depends upon is my presence.
Joel Brooks:That's it. That is the only thing necessary is my presence. Do you believe that? Because let me tell you, struggle. I struggle at times.
Joel Brooks:Now unless you're reading from the, the NIV, the nearly infallible version out there, you're gonna notice that when Isaiah writes this long section about the foolishness of idolatry, he actually departs from his normal poetry that he's been using and he just writes in a basic prose here. And I love this. I think the reason that he does this is because he doesn't think writing about idols is worth the effort. Believe it or not, I occasionally write poetry. What might be even harder for you to believe is I don't think it's terrible.
Joel Brooks:I It's not like I have publishers you know like knocking on the door or anything. It's But it is a step up from bad. One might even say that through whispers heard, I shape into words, thoughts scattered wide, just needing a page to reside. It's not the worst thing you've heard. And I I I don't write many poems.
Joel Brooks:It takes enormous effort for me
Jeffrey Heine:to do so. Some of
Joel Brooks:you know, you know, I'm I'm dyslexic. Sometimes that works in my favor. People are like, I love it when you switch those words. I'm like, yeah. I do.
Joel Brooks:But I've gotta really love someone to write a poem for them. Same for Isaiah. He's thinking, why waste all of that energy on idols? Why try to make something beautiful that clearly isn't? Now Isaiah's first line about idolatry, it's just devastating.
Joel Brooks:Verse nine. All who fashion idols are nothing. And the things that they delight in, they do not profit or you will gain nothing from them. Isaiah says that if you go and you make an idol out of something, perhaps made a make an idol out of gold or of silver or of a career or of romance or an idol of kids or money. Do you know what you are?
Joel Brooks:Nothing. The reason that you're nothing is because the thing that you love so much is is nothing. It will not endure. It will not last. What Isaiah is saying here, it's really quite profound.
Joel Brooks:He's saying that you become what you love. Saint Augustine, he would later talk about this in great detail. Augustine would say this, more than the things we think or more than the things we do, we are shaped most by what we love most. We are shaped most by what we love most. You become what you love.
Joel Brooks:And so Isaiah here, he's warning us, you better think long and hard about the things that you give your heart to. That that have your affection because you will allow that thing to become the thing that defines who you are. I'm getting a little ahead of myself. We're we're gonna talk about the love that we give to modern idols in a moment. But first, I think we need to hear Isaiah mock idolatry just a little bit more.
Joel Brooks:And make no mistake, he mocks it. First, he mocks the iron worker. Verse 12. The ironsmith, he takes a cutting tool, he works it over the coals, he fashions it with hammers, he works it with his strong-arm. He becomes hungry and his strength fails.
Joel Brooks:He drinks no water and is faint. Did you notice the progression we see of this man? He starts off strong, then he gets hungry, then he gets dehydrated, then he gets tired and then he even gets faint. What Isaiah wants you to know is this, turning something into an idol is exhausting work. It'll leave you depleted.
Joel Brooks:This is why for some of us, that remodeling job when you decided to to redo your kitchen, Or or perhaps when you were starting to plan your next vacation? Or perhaps when you were going to watch your child playing the next ball game? It's why those things that should have been life giving, things should have been joyful, even liberating, actually became points of intense frustration and anxiety for you. Exhaustion. The reason those things weren't liberating didn't give you joy, but instead brought you frustration and exhaustion is because you were putting all of your hope and your heart into them and they cannot carry that weight.
Joel Brooks:They can't do it. If you feel yourself getting weary with life, struggling for joy, there is a good chance it's because you've been making gods out of things that have no business being gods. Next, Isaiah describes the woodworker. Verse 13. The carpenter stretches a line.
Joel Brooks:He marks it out with a pencil. He shapes it with planes and marks it with a compass. He shapes it into the figure of a man with the beauty of a man to dwell in a house. And notice here that instead of god making man, we have man making god. And he's making this God into just whatever he wants this God to look like.
Joel Brooks:Now I I can remember, I can't remember actually, it's the famous sculptor. It was either Michelangelo or da Vinci. I'm not sure who said this because honestly, I didn't really listen in school much. But but one of them said this when asked about how they sculpted this horse and how he could sculpt such a beautiful lifelike horse. He said it's simple.
Joel Brooks:I just imagine a horse, and then I cut away everything that doesn't look like a horse. I've tried that, whittling, and it it didn't work out for me. But I get what he's saying there. That's exactly what these woodworkers are doing. They're imagining God.
Joel Brooks:And this is what I think God looks like. This is what I think he should be. And then they're just whittling away, they're chipping away at everything that doesn't look like the God that they have imagined. And usually, this God just looks like a slightly better version of oneself. Do you think we do that today?
Joel Brooks:I mean, it seems like everyone has their own thoughts on whom God actually is. Their own ideas as to what God is like. I mean, you hear all the time, you're like, my God. Well, my God, he is a God of love and he doesn't really care what I do as long as I don't hurt anyone. Well, my God, my God's just fine with with my lifestyle choices here.
Joel Brooks:He
Jeffrey Heine:just wants me to
Joel Brooks:be happy. Well my God, he doesn't judge any anyone let alone send them to hell. Except for Hitler. You know, there's always the hit yeah, Hitler he goes, Stalin he goes. But but other normal people know God doesn't judge like that.
Joel Brooks:And it seems like everybody has their own little version of God. Isaiah says, that's idolatry. It's idolatry because god has actually let us know exactly who he is. He has spoken to us through his word and he has spoken to us through his son. And he has let us know exactly who he is and what he is like and what he wants us to do is not for us to try and chip away at him in order to get God to look more like us.
Joel Brooks:He wants through his spirit and through his word to chip away at us to get us to look more like him. We don't just chip away the parts of God we don't like. That that don't look like us. Because this is the other way around. You don't conform me to your image.
Joel Brooks:I will through my spirit and through my word conform and even transform you into mine. To do anything otherwise is idolatry. What god wants to conform us to and transform us to is the most glorious image. We'll look more at that next week. Isaiah, he ends this section on idolatry in chapter 44 by just showing the absolute absurdity of this woodworker making this idol.
Joel Brooks:He says that the the woodworker is gonna go, he's gonna find a tree that he didn't plant or anything like that or just that that he couldn't cause to grow. He's gonna find this tree, he's gonna cut it down, he's gonna split it into some firewood and then he's gonna start a fire, bake some bread. It's like I got some leftover wood. I'll just make a god out of it. I'll make a god out of the leftover wood I didn't burn and then I'm gonna pray that that god saves me.
Joel Brooks:And I say it's like, do do you see how idiotic that is? It's a picture of Romans one in which Paul says, they worship and served created things rather than the creator. And we wouldn't be so stupid to do that here, would we? I mean, seriously. Aren't you glad that humanity has evolved past all of that primitive superstition?
Joel Brooks:We would never look to created things to save us. I mean, who here? I mean, I have a hard time even imagining it. Who here could take something good? Something like the wood that this carpenter found that he took from a tree.
Joel Brooks:A tree that was just gifted to him because he didn't make it. He didn't cause it to grow. Who here would ever take a gift like that that could be used for good, keeping oneself warm and comfortable and and making bread. Who would ever take a good gift and try to turn it into something more by treating it like a god and hope that it could save them? Anyone?
Joel Brooks:Isaiah Isaiah here, he actually paints a really good picture of idolatry, doesn't he? An idol, you know, he just wants you to know, it's not just a little statue. An idol is not just a little statue. No, an idol is a good thing. It's a gift.
Joel Brooks:It it it's a good thing that we have now turned into an ultimate thing. And that we can no longer imagine our life without is when we take a good gift from God and then we treat that thing as if it was God itself. But it's not God. It's not. And and like we've said before, god's greatest adversary is his gifts and he gives us these gifts as a way of pointing our affections towards him, not of us getting these gifts and then turning them into God saying we can't live our lives apart from these gifts.
Joel Brooks:Hear me. Good gifts make terrible gods. We're no different than the ancients when it comes to idolatry. Tim Keller has written exhaustively about this, most famously through his book Counterfeit Gods, which I would encourage you to read. But know that our culture, our city has its own idols, shrines, priesthoods, rituals.
Joel Brooks:I just I recently met with someone who's moving here, who had moved here from California here. He just moved here. He goes, I'm just so glad to finally leave a city that was so full of idols. It's like, buddy. We literally have an idol on top of a mountain over our entire city.
Joel Brooks:You will find Birmingham is full of idols. Our culture, our city has idols, shrines, priesthood, rituals. These can be found in every high office tower, in gymnasiums, in schools, stadiums, recreational ballparks, shopping centers, websites, you name it. We live in a city full of idols because we are the ones who manufacture those idols. They come from us.
Joel Brooks:Now, it's true that we might not physically kneel before a statue of Aphrodite? But we are so obsessed with the beauty of our celebrities, aren't we? Or how many of us, I wonder, spend endless hours scrolling on Instagram or on TikTok, listening to the latest priestess tell us what we must sacrifice to attain to her standard of beauty? Wonder how many girls lives are getting absolutely wrecked with anxiety or or even through eating disorders because they cannot attain to that godlike standard? Hear me, if you treat those things like God's, just know that every idol demands a sacrifice.
Joel Brooks:Every idol demands a sacrifice. And spending your time at their altars will cut you deep. Now, since we are modern people, we might not actually burn our children up to Molech or to Plutus who is the god of wealth. But you gotta wonder how many children or how many families have been sacrificed at the altar of one's career. And I've actually just read how more and more married couples are saying that they do not even want to have children because children would diminish their standard of living.
Joel Brooks:Children would take away some of their comforts. And so here we actually see children now being aborted at the altar of comfort. So make no mistake, we we have our idols. Whatever we go to in order to find our worth, that's an idol. If there's anything that's just so essential to our life, we can't imagine it without.
Joel Brooks:If it was taken away from us, we'd feel lost. That's an idol. That one thing that drives all of our decision making processes. Whether it's a money or whether it's a relationship, everything else, we always think of that first. That thing's an idol.
Joel Brooks:And here here Isaiah, here the Lord, he's saying, that's the biggest threat to actually the blessings I wanna pour on you. Because you're going to those things seeking a blessing that can only come from me. I mean, have you ever noticed how typically it's the most beautiful people who are most anxious about their beauty? The wealthiest people who are most anxious about money? Sometimes it's the the healthiest or the most fit people who are the most anxious about their bodies.
Joel Brooks:Why is that? It's because every idol demands a sacrifice. It's never enough. And the more and more they listen to that idol, the more anxious they get because it never delivers what it promises. Now I have heard it said that God created us to worship.
Joel Brooks:Perhaps you've heard that phrase before, God created humans to worship. I understand that that sentiment behind that. But if I can, I would like to tweak that statement a little bit? Because I actually think that statement, it's got some error and it can actually be a little dangerous. God did not create us to worship.
Joel Brooks:God created us worshiping. Do you see the difference? God did not create us with just the ability to worship. We were created already worshiping beings. Worship is what we do.
Joel Brooks:We cannot help but worship. We cannot help but place our hopes and our dreams and our security and our delight in something or someone. It's just part of being human. The question is this, not whether we worship or not. The question is, what do we worship?
Joel Brooks:Because we will worship something. Are we gonna place our affections, our hopes, our dreams, our security in something that will perish? Or are we gonna place it in someone who loves us and who endures forever? With that, let's read Isaiah 46. I'd love to read the whole thing.
Joel Brooks:We just we don't have enough print in our worship guide. I'm just gonna read the first four verses. Baal bows down, Nebo stoops. Their idols were on beast and livestock. These things you carry are born as burdens on weary beast.
Joel Brooks:They stoop. They bow down together. They cannot save the burden but they themselves go into captivity. Listen to me, oh house of Jacob. All the remnant of the house of Israel who have been born by me from before your birth, carried from the womb.
Joel Brooks:Even to your old age, I am he. And to your gray hairs, I will carry you. I have made, I will bear, I will carry and will save. Verse four is, it is the the apex, the theme of everything Isaiah is trying to say here. Even to your old age, I am he and to your gray hairs, I will carry you.
Joel Brooks:I have made, I will bear, I will carry and will save. I I'm imagining that most of you have never heard of Nebo. I haven't. I mean, I've heard of Baal because he's you know mentioned throughout the bible. I didn't know who Nebo was.
Joel Brooks:But Baal and Nebo, they're the patron gods of Babylon. Anyone here currently worship them? If so, it would have been a really awkward service up to this point, but no one worships them. No one knows them. Do you want to know why the the Babylonian culture did not endure?
Joel Brooks:And don't just take it for granted. Oh, that's just what happens. You know, there's a cycle, you know. Nations come and they go and they come and go. That's that's not true.
Joel Brooks:Civilizations were not intended for that. God, when he created man, civilizations were supposed to endure. And you all know why the Babylonian civilization didn't? It's because their idols or their gods failed them. Every year, these patron gods of Babylon, Baal and Nebo, they were they were carried in a procession with much fanfare, every New Year's Day.
Joel Brooks:Isaiah, he's looking at that procession there. He's like, what a sad, sad image. It's an appropriate image. These people have to carry their gods. They carry their gods because their gods cannot carry them.
Joel Brooks:The the gods have become a burden that that that people, they're they're actually having to save their gods rather than the other way around. Isaiah is also pointing to a time where Babylon is going to is gonna be conquered and what people are gonna do is they're gonna run into their houses, they're gonna pick up their gods and they're gonna try to flee with their gods. They're trying to save their gods because their gods can't save them. He just says, it's all so sad. It's all so unnecessary.
Joel Brooks:And then the Lord says, remember, I'm the one who gave you birth. Like, I I born you. I gave you life. Every person here, you are here because the Lord has put breath in your lungs. He is the one who declared you will be born, you will live.
Joel Brooks:That's the only reason any of you are here. And the Lord says, I'm the one who commanded your birth and I will take you from the cradle to the grave and even beyond it. He's gonna do what the idols cannot. He has made us. He will bear us.
Joel Brooks:He will carry us. He will save us. And it's nearly impossible not to hear Jesus's words when you when you read this. Come to me all you who are weary and burdened. Aren't you weary and burdened of having to carry all those idols that don't deliver?
Joel Brooks:Come to me if you're if you're weary and you're burdened, I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you're gonna find rest for your souls. Like I mentioned, you were not created to worship, you were created worshiping. The question is, are you gonna worship what you have to carry or what can carry you? Are you gonna worship something that makes you weary or something that gives you rest for your souls?
Joel Brooks:Jesus, please with us to drop our burdens and to come to him. Pray with me. Father, I ask once again through your spirit that you would do what I asked at the beginning of this service that you would expose the lies that we have come to believe. Lies that we believe that things can bring us blessings apart from you. Would you expose that idolatry?
Joel Brooks:And Jesus, may we hear you calling to us to come to you and find rest for our souls. And we pray this in the sweet name of Jesus, the one who carries us. Amen.
