My idol factory

Growing up I never took seriously the Bible’s warnings against idolatry as I thought there were not that relevant. Maybe in Thailand where bus drivers take their hands off the wheel to say a silent prayer at every Buddha shrine they drive past! Very few of us have private shrines in our homes to other gods. How wrong I was. Idolatry is, according to Roman 1, the underlying sin of our age as people have “worshipped and served created things rather than the creator”. Our hearts are idol factories.

Ten Commandments

Have no other Gods before me, is the first commandment. The Bible is not politically correct and the competition commission would certainly not be happy. But God demands that we treasure him alone for he is the only God. This means turning from rebellion towards God and trusting in Jesus.

Have no idols, the second command, clarifies the first. To have other gods before God is idolatry. An idol can be ANYTHING that takes the place of God in your life. ANYTHING that demands your devotion and where you seek your security and significance. ANYTHING you treasure instead of God.

It could be the sex idol. You know you’re serving this god when you demand sex - when you want it, how you want it and you’re angry when you don’t get it. You’re even willing to hire an escort, watch porno or swing with someone else’s wife.

The work idol demands that we spend all our daylight hours in the office and only see our children on weekends

The money idol demands that your happiness is caught up with the JSE.

The leisure idol allows you to worship Jesus at church only when the weather on Sundays is too windy to go the beach or not wet enough to stay in bed.

The worship of the acceptance idol calls for your Facebook status to be changed every hour and it is also because of the worship of this idol that girlfriends allow boyfriends to take naked photos of them.
Of course there are also religious idols like my right-doctrine idol or my moral-record idol, and even my ministry-achievement idol.

The media calls you to worship these and other idols by “worship-calling”, known also as advertising.

So, do you worship Jesus alone, or some other idol? Do you strive to keep the first two commandments?

Are you a (irritating) compulsive grumbler?

Have you been to a braaivleis recently? Did you come home depressed because of the compulsive grumblers? I did. Too much corruption in the government! Too much unemployment! Too much crime! The petrol price. The schools. The youth. The weather! You name the subject, it gets grumbled about. Perhaps even more seriously, we grumble privately to ourselves: Life is so unfair. My salary is too low. If only God would… Grumble, grumble, grumble. Grumbling should be declared our national hobby! What astounds me is that Christians are often the biggest grumblers.

It may astound you too to know that in the Old Testament after God had supernaturally, miraculously and powerfully rescued the Israelites from Egypt and killed their enemies (read Exodus 15!) they grumbled about how unfair life was at the first opportunity. The Bible reveals some deep insights into the truth about grumbling:

1. Grumbling is always against God
Moses reminds the discontented crowd in Ex 16:8 that they are not grumbling against him, but against God. Interesting point. The God the Bible presents us with is the Sovereign God who controls and purposes all things, even calamity (c. Ex 4:11, Ps 115:3, Eph 1:11). Therefore when you grumble about the government you are really grumbling against God who ordained and appointed that government. When you grumble about South Africa want to emigrate, you are grumbling against God who ordained that you were born in South Africa. King David sinned against Bathsheba and Uriah the Hittite with adultery and murder. Yet, David could say in Psalm 51 that he sinned against God and God alone. Why? Sin is ultimately always against God! And therefore ultimately only God can forgive sin. The same with grumbling.

At the Lausanne Congress the sobering point was made that there are no countries “closed” to Christianity, only "countries where Christians are not currently willing to pay the price to take the gospel there." I may add “or to stay there”.

2. Grumbling is evidence that we make much of ourselves and not of God
The ultimate purpose of God rescuing the Israelites and killing the Egyptian army was not to that the Israelites could make much of themselves, but that God would be made much of. God acted to “gain glory” for himself (Ex 14:4, 17, 18). God was and is at work in the world and in our lives, not so that we may think we are something, but that we and the world may see that God is worthy of all glory. When we grumble about circumstances we show that we are more concerned about our happiness and comfort, than showing our confidence in the sovereign God to an unbelieving world. When we grumble we show that we are concerned for our own glory and not God’s.

3. Grumbling shows how spiritually immature we are
“Why do you keep on testing me?”, God asks the Israelites (Ex 17:2, 7). Did I not control nature for your rescue? Did I not open the Red Sea? Did I not destroy your enemies? If I have done all this for you, do you not think that I can and will keep on providing for you? Grumbling shows that we do not trust God in our present situation and that we are failing the maturity test. God ordains tough times for us so that we will keep trusting in him for our joy and his fame; instead we often distrust God by grumbling and rob ourselves of joy and bring dishonour on God’s name.

Romans 5:10 speaks to this: For if, when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!

If God did so much for us when we were his enemies, how much more will he keep doing for us now that we belong to Jesus? Stop grumbling and start trusting.