American Idols
We are
made in God’s image.
The
sheer fact that we could spend the rest of our lives contemplating what it
means to be made in God’s image, without beginning to scratch the surface,
reminds us that we are God’s image, not gods.
We
are, in some ways, to God as our mirror image is to us. There is a resemblance,
a connection, but the difference is one of ontology, dimension.
Thus,
God creates, and we create. But when we look at creation more closely we find
that He speaks things into reality, while we merely rearrange what He has
already created.
I’m
stringing words together; He spoke language into being. Adam named the animals,
but God formed them.
God also,
we remember, named Adam. Naming, whether from God or man, is the exercise of
dominion. It is rule and authority.
Naming
has the capacity to shape not the thing in itself, but our perception of the
thing. This is why we find the conjugation of adjectives so amusing — I am
thrifty; you are cheap, and he is miserly.
Each
adjective lives in the same neighborhood, and could, in some sense, be used to
describe the same behavior. But the choice of the name effects the perception
of the reality.
This
is the game that the Devil plays with us. He, because he is merely a creature,
hasn’t the power to create.
Instead,
he has only the power of naming, without the authority. We are seduced by him
when we think his thoughts after him, when our perceptions are his perceptions.
His
very first assault was undermining the very words of God: “Hath God indeed said …?”
That’s his game.
We are
told, for instance, that we live in a “secular” society. To be sure there are a
few religious holdouts, most of them living in what is derisively named (there
it is again) “fly-over” country.
But
the “real” world, the world that counts, exists on two coasts. On the east
coast, in what we have named the “power corridor” of Washington D.C.,
Philadelphia, Boston, and New York, we have titans of industry and governance.
On the
west coast we have the professional namers, the visual mavens who form our
culture through entertainment.
Where
it counts we are supposed to be secular, that is, beyond worship. This,
supposedly, is where culture is formed, and thus we have a
secular culture.
This
too, however, is but the Devil’s sleight of hand. Renaming isn’t the same as
remaking. And one thing man will never be is secular.
When
someone claims, “I’m not a very religious person” translate it to the more accurate,
“I’m not a very truthful person.”
We are
all religious people. That we name our worship something else doesn’t change
its true nature.
We are
still worshiping. The trouble is that the things we don’t call gods, but treat
as gods, are merely his image bearers.
We
worship the creation rather than the creature, and none more frequently than
that two dimensional copy of God, man.
Here I
am not referring to philosophical humanism, though such would fit. My point
isn’t that those who will not have God in their thinking will instead worship
man in the abstract.
Rather,
we worship men in the flesh. What is Beverly Hills but our own Mount Olympus?
We
watch television news magazines that tell us what the magazines are saying
about what our gods on television are doing.
We
stand and gawk while they walk sundry red carpets. We build shrines to them on
the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
We
even have established religion in this country.
Local
and state politicians live or die by whether or not they are willing to gather
the funding to build temples to the gods of this age.
Yankee
Stadium is less a copy of the Roman Colosseum than it is the Athenium.
It is
where we gather together for worship, where we hoot and holler for the home
team, as if our souls depended on it. These gods never fade away; instead, they
simply retire to their respective halls of fame.
To
note that we treat our celebrities like gods isn’t merely saying that we treat
them better than we ought.
Rather,
it gets to the heart of the issue, the heart that Calvin rightly called a fabricum idolarum, an idol factory.
Calling
it cheering, calling it appreciation for the art of filmmaking, doesn’t change
what it is — worship.
The
bad news of the world out there is that these gods cannot save. They are deaf
and mute.
The
bad news for us in the church is that we too are idolaters. We gleefully blend
together our worship of these gods with the worship of the living God and
praise ourselves for our cultural relevance.
There
is, however, only one thing relevant to nationwide idolatry, the call to put
away these gods, to repent and believe the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
We
worry that God might judge us because of our national failure to keep the
second table of the law.
With
abortion we murder more than a million babies a year.
With
tax-and-spend policies we live by stealing.
With
our eyes we commit adultery, even as we worship the gods of Hollywood. And we
fuel it all with the envy of consumption.
But we
are fools if we think the first amendment trumps the first commandment.
Our
only hope is that we would worship the living and true God, and bring no other
gods before Him.
God will grant us the ultimate gift, eternal life in His
Kingdom through His grace if we repent of our sins and obey His commands .
To experience God as a personal, caring, loving Father,
you have to receive Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior. You will
become a child of God and begin the fulfillment of the reason you were created
by God.
Say
the following prayer:
“Father God, I confess I am a sinner and
my sins have separated me from You.
I am truly sorry. I now want to turn
away from my past sinful life and live a new life pleasing to You.
Please forgive me, and help me avoid
sinning again.
I believe that Your Son, Jesus Christ died
for my sins, was resurrected from the dead, is alive, and hears my prayer.
I invite Jesus to become the Lord of my
life, to rule and reign in my heart from this day forward. Thank You that
according to Your Word, I am now Your child, and I am born again.
Please send Your Holy Spirit to help me
obey You, and to do Your will for the rest of my life. I promise to study Your
Word – the Bible.
Please use me for Your glory.
In Jesus' Name I pray. Amen.”
RELATED POSTS:
10 Idols of Your Heart to Remove
http://puricarefiles.blogspot.com/2016/05/10-idols-of-your-heart-to-remove.html.
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WHAT
ARE GRAVEN IMAGES OR IDOL WORSHIP?
http://puricarefiles.blogspot.com/2016/11/graven-images-or-idol-worship-first.html
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Why does
God demand our worship?
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Why does
God demand our worship?
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"There Is None Like You"
Lenny LeBlanc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0A-zcVgesomericobaguio
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnhUh2tt97QCarleenSabin
lyrics
There is none like You,
No one else can touch my heart like You do,
I can search for all eternity Lord
And find, there is none like You.
There is none like You.
No one else can touch my heart like You do,
I can search for all eternity Lord
And find, there is none like You.
Your mercy flows like a river so wide,
And healing comes from Your hand.
Suffering children are safe in Your arms,
There is none like You.
There is none like You, (There is none like You, Lord)
There is none like You.
I can search for all eternity Lord,
There is none like You.
I can search for all eternity Lord,
There is none,( there is none,)
There is none Lord,
There is none like You.
No one else can touch my heart like You do,
I can search for all eternity Lord
And find, there is none like You.
There is none like You.
No one else can touch my heart like You do,
I can search for all eternity Lord
And find, there is none like You.
Your mercy flows like a river so wide,
And healing comes from Your hand.
Suffering children are safe in Your arms,
There is none like You.
There is none like You, (There is none like You, Lord)
There is none like You.
I can search for all eternity Lord,
There is none like You.
I can search for all eternity Lord,
There is none,( there is none,)
There is none Lord,
There is none like You.
R.C. Sproul Jr. has served previously as a pastor, professor, and
teacher. He is author of numerous books, including Tearing Down Strongholds and A Call to Wonder.
http://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/american-idols/
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