Latest / Reformed Thinking / Sins of Action: Idolatry—Enacted Allegiance and the Restoration of True Worship in Christ

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Sins of Action: Idolatry—Enacted Allegiance and the Restoration of True Worship in Christ · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome back to the Dee Dive. Today we are, we're shifting
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  gears a little bit. We're stepping into a pretty
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  specific lane, a specific tradition, and, well, let's be
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  honest, a very specific worldview.
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  We're launching a series that we're calling Reformed Thinking.
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  It's definitely a distinct flavor of theology, there's no
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  mistaking it. There isn't.
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  And just to, you know, set the table for you listening, when we
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  say Reformed, we are not talking about just generic broad strokes
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  Christianity. We're going to be looking at
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  this topic and future topics through the very particular lens
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  of the Protestant Reformation. Right.
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  And things like the Westminster Confession of Faith, the
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  writings of the Puritans, and of course, modern theologians,
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  we're still working within that same stream.
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  Exactly. It's a system that, I think it's
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  fair to say prides itself on being rigorous, logical and,
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  well, it really doesn't pull any punches, does it?
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  I've heard it called theology with a hammer.
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  It has a tendency to find our most cherished assumptions and
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  just shatter them. That's a good way to put it, and
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  that's exactly what happened to me reading through this stack of
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  source material for today. Because the topic on the table
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  is idolatry. And I'll be completely honest,
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  when I first saw idolatry on the schedule, I sort of mentally
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  checked out for a second. I thought, OK, golden calves,
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  statues in some ancient temple history lesson.
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  Yeah, you know, I don't have a shrine in my living room.
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  I don't bow down to a little statue of Zeus or ball before I
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  go to work. So I figured I'm good, right?
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  This one doesn't really apply to me.
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  And that is the standard modern reaction, isn't it?
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  We tend to view idolatry as this primitive superstition that, you
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  know, we've evolved past. It's something ancient people
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  did. But these sources, I mean, they
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  are arguing very forcefully that I'm completely and fundamentally
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  wrong about that. They aren't framing idolatry as
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  a as a feeling or a bad habit or some kind of superstition.
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  No, the language is much stronger.
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  It's legal language. They're calling it treason
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  specifically, and this phrase jumped out at me.
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  Covenant treason, and they call it a sin of action.
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  That's what really stuck with me.
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  The core idea seems to be that you might say you're not
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  religious, you might claim you don't worship anything.
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  But if we were to audit your calendar and your bank account,
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  they would tell a completely different story.
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  That's the central tension here, and it's really what these
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  Reformed theologians are getting at.
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  They start from the premise that human beings are, by their very
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  nature worshipping creatures, Homo adorans.
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  Worshipping man. Exactly.
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  You don't get to choose whether you worship.
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  That's simply not an option on the menu of Being Human.
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  You only have a choice of what you worship.
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  So it's like gravity, it's always on, it's always working.
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  You are always being pulled towards something.
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  You are, and the well, the terrifying part of Reformed
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  theology is its assertion that if you are not consciously,
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  actively and intentionally worshipping the Creator, you are
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  by default worshipping something in creation.
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  Inevitably. There's no neutral ground.
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  There is no neutral ground, Which brings us right to the
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  core problem. We need to define the sources we
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  have and they range from, you know, the Westminster standards
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  themselves to a very modern cultural analysis.
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  They all make a huge deal about correcting our basic
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  misconception of what an idol actually is.
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  We have to get past the Sunday School flannel graph idea.
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  We do. The image of people dancing
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  around a golden statue is. It's just not the whole picture.
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  It's not even the main picture for us today.
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  So OK, how do they define it then if it's not about statues?
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  The most concise definition the sources give is that idolatry is
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  enacted allegiance. Enacted allegiance.
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  OK, let's unpack that, because that's a mouthful.
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  It is, but enacted is the key. It means idolatry isn't just a
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  bad thought in your head or wrong belief.
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  It's something you do. It's where you physically place
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  the weight of your life. So it's about where you transfer
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  your trust, your hope, your your fear.
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  Yes, all of it. You're transferring those things
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  from the Creator to something created.
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  One of the sources uses this phrase that I thought was just
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  brilliant. It says idolatry is betting your
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  eternal soul on a mist while rejecting the infinite wheat of
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  God. That's powerful and and it
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  brings us right into the vocabulary they use, doesn't it?
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  This is one of the most fascinating parts of the reading
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  from To really get what they're saying, you have to look at a
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  couple of Hebrew words. You really do.
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  The Old Testament relies so heavily on 2 specific words to
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  describe this whole dynamic. Hebel and Kabod.
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  OK, let's start with the first one, Hebel.
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  Hebel. This is a word that the
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  prophets, especially guys like Jeremiah and Isaiah, use over
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  and over again when they're talking about idols.
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  And it literally means. It literally means vapor, breath
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  or mist. It's actually the exact same
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  word that's used in Ecclesiastes.
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  You know, vanity of vanities. All is vanity.
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  That's Hebel of Hebels. So mist of mists.
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  Precisely. Think about your breath on a
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  freezing cold morning. You can see it right?
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  It looks like a physical solid object for a second, but what
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  happens if you try to grab it? Your hand just goes right
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  through it, There's nothing there.
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  There is no substance. It can't hold you up, can't bear
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  any weight. It promises presence.
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  It looks real, but it lacks any actual solidity.
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  It's a phantom. OK, so that's the idols there,
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  Hebel, what's the contrast? The contrast is kabad.
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  Kabad is the Hebrew word the Bible uses for God's glory.
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  And while we think of glory as, I don't know, bright light or
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  something, right, but fundamentally the word means
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  weight, heaviness, substance. It's the complete opposite of
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  hebel. God is the one weighty,
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  substantive, solid reality in the universe.
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  Everything else gets its reality from Him.
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  So the exchange, the act of treason and idolatry, is taking
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  the weight, the kabad that belongs only to God and trying
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  to place it onto a vapor, a hebel.
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  That is it, perfectly stated. You are treating a vapor your
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  career, your reputatus, your political 'cause as if it's
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  heavy enough to sustain the full weight of your life, your hopes,
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  your identity. And at the same time, you're
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  treating the infinite God, the one with all the kabod, as if
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  he's irrelevant, as if he's a puff of smoke.
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  It is, as one source put it, an ontological absurdity.
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  It's a denial of basic reality. You're leaning your full weight
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  on a spider web and expecting it to hold you.
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  You know, that makes so much of our modern anxiety make sense.
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  If I'm leaning all my hopes for security and meaning on my bank
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  account or my kids success, those things are hebel.
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  They are. They're vapor.
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  And of course they buckle under that pressure.
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  They were never designed to hold that kind of weight.
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  Never. Only God has the kabad the
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  sufficient heaviness to hold you up.
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  One of the authors made a fascinating point.
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  When you ask a created thing to be God for you, you ultimately
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  crush it. You end up destroying the very
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  thing you love because you're asking it to do a job it's not
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  capable of doing. You suffocate it.
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  You make your marriage an idol, and you crush your spouse under
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  the weight of your expectations for ultimate fulfillment.
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  Exactly, the idol always fails you, and in failing it often
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  breaks. Now the sources don't just stay
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  in the Old Testament, they jump forward to the New Testament to
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  connect all this to something that feels very, very modern,
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  Greed. There's this Greek word they
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  highlight pleionexia. Right.
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  And this comes straight from Colossians chapter 3, verse 5.
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  The apostle Paul makes this. I mean, it's a really jarring
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  statement if you stop and think about it.
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  He's listing these terrible sins and he says put to death,
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  therefore what is earthly in you?
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  Sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire and
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  covetousness. And then he adds, which is
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  idolatry. He just equates it.
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  Wanting more stuff is the same thing as bowing down to a
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  statue. He does.
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  And that word pleionexia, it's not just a mild desire.
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  It literally means a thirst for having more, right?
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  It's an aggressive, grasping greed.
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  It's the default mindset of our consumer culture.
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  More is always better. So why is that idolatry?
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  Why is it not just, you know, a character flaw?
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  The reason Paul calls it idolatry is because of what the
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  money or the possessions represent.
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  When you hoard wealth, or when your life is consumed by the
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  pursuit of more, you are performing a liturgical act.
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  You are acting out a belief system.
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  You're saying with your actions? You're saying this wealth is my
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  fortress, the stock portfolio is my security.
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  This is what will save me when things go wrong.
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  This is my refuge. You're trusting in the created
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  thing, wealth, rather than the creator who provides.
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  It so it's active. It's not just I like having nice
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  things, it's I am trusting these things to do for me what only
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  God claims He will do. Precisely.
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  The hands, as the Puritans would say, expose the heart.
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  Your actions reveal your true allegiance, and that leads
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  directly to this, a really helpful diagnostic tool that one
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  of the essays offers. Yeah, this is very practical.
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  It is because, you know, any of us can sit here and say, oh, I
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  trust God. We all say that.
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  But the sources are insistent. Don't look at your pious
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  feelings or your statements of faith.
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  Look at your verbs. The four action words.
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  I thought this was just a gut punch in a good way.
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  If you want to find your idol, you just have to watch where you
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  spend these four things. Worship, trust, obedience and
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  sacrifice. Let's let's run through those
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  because this is really where the rubber meets the road for anyone
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  listening. OK, let's do it.
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  So first, worship. This isn't about singing songs
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  in this context, it's about what you celebrate.
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  What do you truly reverence? What is the one thing that if
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  you get it, you feel like your life is a success?
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  You give an example. Sure.
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  Let's say you're offered a major promotion at work.
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  But to get it, you have to compromise your integrity, maybe
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  lie about some numbers. You take it and you feel great
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  about it. Yeah, you celebrate the success.
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  What have you just demonstrated? That the promotion was more
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  valuable than your integrity. Right.
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  You just worship the idol of career success.
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  What you celebrate, what gives you that ultimate sense of I've
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  made it. That's a good candidate for your
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  idol. OK, number 2 is trust.
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  What do you really, truly lean on when the phone rings at
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  midnight with bad news? What's the first thing you
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  instinctively reach for to make yourself feel safe?
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  And be honest about it. You have to be brutally honest.
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  Is your first instinct to pray and trust God?
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  Or is it to open the banking app to make sure you have enough
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  money? Is it to pour drink?
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  Is it to lose yourself and some distraction online?
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  Where do you flee for refuge? That's your functional trust.
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  That's convicting. OK, third one, obedience.
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  This is a huge one. Who or what do you refuse to
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  displease? We all face moments of
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  conflicting loyalties. All the time.
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  So your boss tells you to do something unethical, and God's
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  Word tells you to be honest. Who wins that pug of war?
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  The winner is your God. If you find yourself
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  consistently disobeying a clear command of scripture because
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  you're more afraid of the anger of your spouse or your friends
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  or your political. Party.
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  Then they've become a functional deity in that moment.
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  That's right, your obedience reveals your allegiance.
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  And the last one, number four, is sacrifice.
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  What are you willing to give things up for?
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  What do you bleed for? We act like sacrifice is this
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  ancient Pagan thing, burning animals on an altar.
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  But people do it every day. Every single day, people
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  sacrifice their families on the altar of their careers.
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  They sacrifice their physical health and their sleep for
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  entertainment. They sacrifice their integrity
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  for social approval. Whatever you find yourself
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  consistently giving up other good things for in order to keep
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  it happy and fed, that is your God.
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  It is. That's incredibly sobering.
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  It really moves this whole discussion out of the realm of
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  abstract spiritual ideas and right into my Google Calendar in
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  my credit card statement. And that's the whole point of
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  the stream of Reformed theology. It refuses to let religion stay
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  locked up in your head as a set of beliefs.
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  It demands to know who or what owns your life in actual
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  practice. OK, so we've defined the terms.
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  We understand it's an act of treason.
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  We know it's a about betting on vapor instead of weight.
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  Now we need to get a little more theological, a little more
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  specific. The source has spent a good
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  amount of time distinguishing between the first commandment
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  and the second commandment. And I'll be the first to admit,
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  for most of my life I kind of thought they were basically the
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  same thing. You know two ways of saying
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  don't worship idols. That's a very common view.
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  Don't have other gods and don't make carved images.
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  On the surface it seems a bit redundant, doesn't it?
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  But for reformed theology, the distinction between them is
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  absolutely vital. So break it down for us, the
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  first commandment. You shall have no other gods
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  before me. That commandment guards the
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  object of our worship. It answers the fundamental
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  question, Who are we worshipping?
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  It forbids us from bowing down to Bow, or Zeus or Mammon or the
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  Self. It establishes exclusive
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  monotheism. There is only one God worthy of
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  worship. The Who?
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  OK, so the second commandment is you shall not make for yourself
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  a carved image. And that guards the mode of our
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  worship and answers the question, how are we to worship
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  the one true God? This is where the sources
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  brought up that phrase, the regulative principle of worship.
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  That's a core Reformed idea, right?
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  Can you explain what that is? I can.
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  The idea is that God is not just picky about who you worship, He
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  is also very specific about how he wants to be approached.
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  The Regulative Principle of Worship, or RPW as it's often
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  called, says that in corporate worship we are only to do those
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  things which God has explicitly commanded in Scripture.
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  So it's not. Whatever is not forbidden is
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  permitted. No, it's the opposite.
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  It's whatever is not commanded is forbidden.
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  We don't get to invent new and creative ways to worship God and
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  then just hope He likes them. The phrase that kept coming up
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  in the source material was will worship.
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  Yes, from the Greek Ethel Thrasia.
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  It literally means self-made religion.
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  It's when we as creatures decide, you know what?
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  I think God would really love a laser show.
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  Or I bet God would be really impressed if we did this
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  dramatic reenactment of a Bible story.
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  But if God hasn't asked for it. If God hasn't asked for it, the
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  classic Reformed view says it is not just neutral, it's actually
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  an insult. It is an act of supreme
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  arrogance. It's presumptuous.
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  And the main example they use for this is the story of the
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  golden calf. This this part of the reading
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  honestly blew my mind. I had always, always thought
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  that the golden calf was the Israelites switching gods.
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  You know we're done with Yahweh, this invisible desert God.
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  Let's worship this Egyptian cow God instead.
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  That is the common misconception, and it's what's
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  taught in most Sunday schools. But if you read the text in
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  Exodus 32 very carefully, that's not what's happening.
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  Aaron builds the golden calf, presents it to the people, and
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  then he says tomorrow shall be a feast to the.
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  Lord, He uses the name Yahweh, God's personal covenant name.
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  He does. He's not introducing a new God.
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  He's saying this is Yahweh. This is the God who brought you
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  out of Egypt. Now we have a version of him we
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  can see and touch. So wait, just to be clear, they
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  were trying to worship the true God, but using the calf as a
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  representation. Precisely.
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  They weren't trying to switch gods, they were trying to switch
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  methods. They had become impatient with
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  an invisible, transcendent God they couldn't control, so they
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  adopted the worship style of their old masters in Egypt.
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  They wanted a visible, tangible, manageable version of Yahweh, A
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  mediator they could see and carry around.
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  And God's reaction was not positive.
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  He was absolutely furious. He told Moses he was ready to
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  wipe them all out because he is not a tame lion.
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  He is not to be reduced to an image made by human hands.
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  That is the fundamental error of violating the second
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  commandment. So you can be completely sincere
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  in your desire to worship. Oh, they were very sincere.
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  They were celebrating, they were feasting, they were giving their
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  gold jewelry to make the thing. But sincerity does not validate
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  disobedience. Sincerity is not the standard.
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  God's Word is the standard. This has some pretty big
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  implications for how we think about the modern church, doesn't
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  it? The sources were pretty direct
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  in their critique of using entertainment in worship
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  services. They are very critical, yes.
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  The argument from these theologians is that when we turn
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  the church service into a production, when we rely on mood
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  lighting, fog machines, emotional manipulation, or slick
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  marketing, we are essentially building a modern golden calf.
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  How so? Because we are using the methods
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  of the world to try and make God more appealing, more palatable
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  to the flesh. We are shaping the worship of
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  God based on consumer preferences rather than biblical
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  commands. One of the sources used the line
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  we are attracting goats rather than feeding sheep.
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  That's a sharp line. It is a very sharp line.
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  The expert view here is that God has ordained specific means by
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  which His sheep are to be fed and strengthened the preaching
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  of the Word, the administration of the sacraments, and prayer.
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  If you have to trick people into coming to your church with
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  entertainment or a rock concert, you are not building a church,
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  you are building an audience. And that in itself is a form of
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  idolatry, because it centers the preferences of the consumer
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  rather than the commands of the king.
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  The sources also took a direct swing at the Roman Catholic
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  Mass. In this section, I wanted to
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  make sure we represent that argument accurately.
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  They did, and it's a standard and historic part of Westminster
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  theology. The critique focuses on the
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  doctrine of transubstantiation and the subsequent adoration of
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  the host, the. Consecrated bread.
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  Yes, from the Reformed perspective, by bowing to the
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  consecrated bread and giving it the worship the latria, which
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  belongs only to God Himself, it constitutes a sin of action that
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  violates the second commandment. It is treating a created
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  substance, bread, as if it is the uncreated Creator.
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  So that same fundamental confusion.
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  It's the same confusion of the creature and the creator.
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  So whether it's a pop concert style church service design for
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  seekers, or a highly ritualized service bowing to a piece of
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  bread, the underlying Reformed concern is exactly the same.
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  Are we doing what God has said, or are we doing what we think is
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  best? Are we following his script or
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  are we writing our? Own.
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  That is the point. It is the arrogance of the
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  creature thinking we know better than the creator how to
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  facilitate a meeting with him. OK.
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  We have looked at the definitions, the vocabulary, the
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  theology of the first two commandments.
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  Now I want to get into a the source is called The Anatomy of
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  Modern Idols. This is where they really start
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  stepping on a lot of toes. They list four or five very
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  specific cultural idols that they argue function as sins of
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  action in our world today. And it's critical to remember as
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  we go through these that the sources don't see them as just
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  bad ideas or social problems. They see them as rival religions
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  with their own liturgies and demands for sacrifice.
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  The first one on the list is probably the biggest.
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  They called the Idol of the Self, or more technically,
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  expressive individualism. This is the air we breathe in
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  the modern West. It's so pervasive we don't even
• 18:44
  notice it. It's the core belief that the
• 18:46
  inner psychological self, my feelings, my desires, my
• 18:50
  internal sense of identity, is the ultimate source of truth and
• 18:54
  reality. And the external world,
• 18:56
  including my own physical body, must be made to conform to that
• 18:59
  inner feeling. Precisely.
• 19:00
  The inner self is sovereign. The source material gets very,
• 19:03
  very specific here. It brings up the issue of
• 19:05
  transgenderism as a prime example of.
• 19:08
  It does, and we we need to be very clear about the theological
• 19:11
  argument that's being made here. The source we're referencing
• 19:14
  calls this ideology a form of neo gnostic heresy.
• 19:17
  OK, unpack that. What is neo Gnostic mean here?
• 19:20
  Gnosticism was an ancient heresy the early Church had to fight.
• 19:24
  One of its core tenets was that the physical world, the material
• 19:27
  body, is bad or at best irrelevant.
• 19:31
  The real you was a pure spiritual spark trapped inside a
• 19:36
  meet prison of a body. And the source is arguing that
• 19:38
  modern gender ideology is doing the same thing.
• 19:41
  It's arguing the logic is identical.
• 19:43
  It says my physical body, my biology, my DNA says one thing,
• 19:47
  but my inner feelings, my psychological sense of self say
• 19:50
  another. Therefore, the body is wrong and
• 19:52
  must be corrected. The sin of action in this case
• 19:55
  is the medical or surgical alteration of a healthy body to
• 19:59
  match the inner feelings. So from this specific
• 20:01
  theological perspective, it's a profound violation of the
• 20:04
  creator creature distinction. Yes, that's the heart of the
• 20:07
  critique. It is the creature, the human
• 20:10
  being, asserting the authority to be their own creator.
• 20:13
  It is an implicit statement that says God made a mistake when he
• 20:16
  formed me in the womb, and I, with the help of modern
• 20:19
  medicine, will correct his error.
• 20:22
  That is an act of worship to the sovereign self.
• 20:24
  The sources also drew a Direct Line from this idol of self to
• 20:27
  the practice of abortion. They used the biblical term
• 20:30
  Molech. They did.
• 20:32
  Molech was a Canaanite deity mentioned in the Old Testament,
• 20:35
  a false God to whom the Israelites were forbidden to
• 20:38
  sacrifice their children. It was considered an
• 20:40
  abomination. And the sources are arguing this
• 20:43
  is happening today. The argument being made is that
• 20:46
  modern abortion is not just a medical procedure or political
• 20:49
  issue. It is a liturgical sacrifice.
• 20:51
  It is the very real sacrificing of human offspring to secure the
• 20:55
  demands of modern idols, the idols of the idols of career,
• 20:58
  financial security, convenience and personal autonomy.
• 21:02
  The logic, according to the sources, is this.
• 21:05
  I cannot have this child right now because it will interfere
• 21:08
  with my life plan and my freedom, my education or my
• 21:10
  economic status. Therefore, the life of the child
• 21:14
  is sacrificed to preserve the idol.
• 21:16
  It's the ultimate bloody sin of action, shedding innocent blood
• 21:20
  to keep the idol of the self happy.
• 21:22
  There's a very heavy accusation. It is intended to be.
• 21:25
  The point from these theologians is to force us to see the
• 21:28
  spiritual reality behind the political and social debates.
• 21:31
  OK, let's move to the next major idol identified, the idol of the
• 21:36
  state or statism. This is what happens when God is
• 21:39
  systematically pushed out of the public square.
• 21:42
  A vacuum is created, and since human beings are religious
• 21:45
  creatures, as we've said, they will inevitably look for a new
• 21:48
  savior to fill that vacuum. And in our time, that new savior
• 21:52
  is increasingly the civil magistrate, the government.
• 21:55
  The government, Yes, We look to the state to be our provider,
• 21:59
  our protector, our educator, our moral guide.
• 22:01
  We expect it to solve all of our problems, from poverty to
• 22:05
  healthcare to meaning itself. The source mentions the classic
• 22:09
  Reformed concept of sphere sovereignty.
• 22:11
  Which is the idea that God has given distinct authority and
• 22:14
  responsibilities to different spheres of life.
• 22:17
  Right. The family, the church, and the
• 22:20
  state each have their own lame their own God-given
• 22:23
  jurisdiction. Statism happens when the state
• 22:25
  bleeds out of its lane and tries to be all three.
• 22:28
  So where is the concrete sin of action here?
• 22:31
  How does this play out? The sin of action is primarily 1
• 22:34
  of abdication. It's when a father says it's not
• 22:37
  my primary job to advocate my children or teach them right
• 22:40
  from wrong. That's the school's job, the
• 22:41
  state's job. It's when the church says it's
• 22:44
  not our primary job to care for the poor and the widow in our
• 22:47
  midst. The government has welfare
• 22:49
  programs for that. It's a transfer of trust and
• 22:50
  responsibility. Exactly.
• 22:52
  It's relying on Caesar to do what Christ commanded his
• 22:55
  people, his church, and his families to do all.
• 22:57
  Right from the state to something even more abstract,
• 23:00
  the idol of ideology. The source material was very
• 23:03
  direct in naming woke ISM or critical social justice here.
• 23:07
  It was, and it was careful to define these things not as mere
• 23:11
  political theories or tools for social analysis, but as
• 23:14
  comprehensive alternative religions.
• 23:17
  How does it build that case that it's a religion?
• 23:20
  Well, you just have to look at the structure.
• 23:22
  The source points out that this ideology has all the hallmarks
• 23:25
  of a religion. It has its own doctrine of
• 23:28
  original sin, which is understood as oppression or
• 23:31
  whiteness or historical privilege.
• 23:33
  It has its own priesthood, the activists, the academics, the
• 23:36
  diversity consultants who interpret the doctrine and
• 23:39
  pronounce judgement. It has its own forms of penance,
• 23:42
  things like virtue signaling, public apologies, land
• 23:44
  acknowledgments, checking your privilege.
• 23:46
  But the source argues there is a massive deficit in this
• 23:50
  religious system. A fatal deficit.
• 23:53
  It offers law, and lots of it, but it offers no gospel.
• 23:57
  It offers a constant burden of guilt, but it offers no real
• 24:01
  atonement or forgiveness. You can never be fully justified
• 24:04
  or forgiven in that system. You can only be a perpetual
• 24:07
  Sinner, a perpetual ally, doing perpetual penance for your
• 24:11
  immutable characteristics. And the sin of action for a
• 24:14
  Christian, then, is participating in the liturgy of
• 24:17
  this rival religion. Yes, the sources issue a strong
• 24:20
  warning against Christians participating in these secular
• 24:23
  liturgies. The marches where you chant the
• 24:25
  required slogans, the corporate training where you make the
• 24:27
  required affirmations. The argument is that these are
• 24:30
  not just neutral social statements.
• 24:32
  They are acts of burning incense to the spirit of the age.
• 24:36
  It's signaling allegiance to a worldview that is, at its root,
• 24:40
  fundamentally opposed to a biblical understanding of sin,
• 24:42
  justice and redemption. One last idol on their list is
• 24:46
  maybe the most common one, the idol of Mammon.
• 24:49
  Money. The respectable idol, the one
• 24:51
  you can bring right into church with you.
• 24:53
  And often no one notices it. In fact, you might even be
• 24:55
  praised for it. But the sources say it is
• 24:57
  measurable. It's not just a feeling of
• 24:58
  greed. It's not.
• 25:00
  It is measurable by your anxiety levels and your work habits.
• 25:04
  If you are consistently working yourself to the point of
• 25:07
  exhaustion, chronically neglecting your family, and
• 25:11
  regularly skipping corporate worship in order to make more
• 25:14
  money, you are actively sacrificing to Mammoth.
• 25:17
  You're acting out the belief. That you're acting out the
• 25:19
  belief that God cannot or will not provide for me.
• 25:23
  I must be my own provider. My salvation lies in my own
• 25:26
  effort. And the sacrifice demanded by
• 25:28
  this idol, as one source put it, is rest, family time and the
• 25:32
  Lord's Day. That's right.
• 25:33
  If you cannot stop working on a Sunday not because of a true
• 25:36
  emergency, but because you are afraid you won't get ahead or
• 25:39
  you'll fall behind, your functional God is your bank
• 25:42
  account, not the Lord of the Sabbath.
• 25:44
  Man, this is these idols are everywhere.
• 25:47
  It feels impossible to dodge all of them all the time.
• 25:50
  And I think that leads us right into the next section of the
• 25:52
  material evasions and excuses. Because even as I'm listening to
• 25:56
  you lay all this out, my brain is already firing off
• 26:00
  justifications. Well, it's not that bad for me
• 26:03
  or but my situation is different.
• 26:06
  That is the natural defense mechanism of the sinful heart.
• 26:09
  We desperately want to justify our treason.
• 26:12
  The 1st and most common excuse is this sincerity defense.
• 26:17
  OK, maybe I do some of these things, but I really love God,
• 26:20
  I'm sincere, my heart is in the right place, and I just happen
• 26:23
  to like these other things too. We touched on this with the
• 26:25
  golden calf, but the sources also bring up the story of Nadab
• 26:29
  and Abihu from the book of Leviticus.
• 26:31
  Right, the sons of Aaron, the strange fire guys.
• 26:34
  The strange fire guys, they were priests.
• 26:37
  They offered incense to God, which they were supposed to do,
• 26:40
  but they did it in a way that God had not commanded.
• 26:43
  They used fire from an unauthorized source and the text
• 26:46
  says fire came down from the Lord and consumed them.
• 26:49
  They were probably sincere. They were probably very sincere.
• 26:52
  They likely thought they were innovating in worship, maybe
• 26:54
  even improving it. But sincerity is not a
• 26:57
  substitute for obedience. God is the king.
• 27:01
  You don't get to walk into the King's throne room and start
• 27:03
  rearranging the furniture because you think it looks
• 27:06
  better. You approach him on his terms,
• 27:08
  or you don't approach him at all.
• 27:09
  OK, what about the next one? This is the one I use all the
• 27:11
  time. The culture neutrality defense.
• 27:13
  Yeah, it's just a movie. It's just how I spend my money.
• 27:17
  It's just social media. It's just how the world works.
• 27:20
  These things are neutral. The sources hit this one really
• 27:23
  hard. By going to 1st Corinthians
• 27:24
  chapter 10, the apostle Paul is dealing with the question of
• 27:28
  eating meat that had been sacrificed to idols in a Pagan
• 27:31
  temple. A very practical cultural issue.
• 27:34
  Very. And some of the Corinthians were
• 27:35
  saying, hey, we know these idols are nothing, so who cares?
• 27:38
  The meat is just meat. But Paul's response is shocking.
• 27:41
  He says I do not want you to be participants with demons.
• 27:44
  Participants with demons, I mean, that seems so extreme for
• 27:48
  just participating in the local culture.
• 27:50
  Paul's point, and the point of these Reformed theologians, is
• 27:54
  that culture is never truly neutral.
• 27:57
  Cultural practices are liturgies.
• 28:00
  They are formative. They train our hearts and our
• 28:02
  loyalties. So if you spend 4 hours a day
• 28:04
  scrolling on social media in 10 minutes reading the Bible.
• 28:07
  Then you are being discipled by the algorithm, not by the Holy
• 28:10
  Spirit. You are willingly participating
• 28:12
  in a system that is expertly designed to make you envy, hate,
• 28:16
  covet, and lust that Paul would argue is a form of fellowship
• 28:21
  with the demonic. It's participating in a rival
• 28:24
  spiritual formation program. Wow.
• 28:26
  OK, that's a challenging thought.
• 28:28
  What about the third excuse, the balance defense?
• 28:31
  This is the sophisticated one. I can serve 2 masters.
• 28:34
  I just need to find the right balance.
• 28:36
  I have my Jesus life over here and my career life over here.
• 28:39
  I keep them in their proper boxes.
• 28:40
  Jesus himself answers that one directly in the Gospels.
• 28:43
  No one can serve 2 masters. And notice he doesn't say it's
• 28:47
  really hard to serve 2 masters. He doesn't say you shouldn't
• 28:49
  serve 2 masters, he says it is impossible.
• 28:52
  Why impossible? People feel like they're doing
• 28:54
  it all the time. Because eventually their
• 28:56
  commands will conflict. It's inevitable.
• 28:58
  Eventually Christ will say give generously and your idol of
• 29:02
  mammon will say hoard for your security.
• 29:04
  Christ will say be honest and your idol of career will say lie
• 29:08
  to get the deal. And in that moment, Jesus says
• 29:11
  you will hate the one and love the other.
• 29:13
  The moment of truth. It's the moment of truth.
• 29:15
  The idol is whatever you refuse to surrender when Christ
• 29:18
  commands it. If you say Lord, I'll do
• 29:20
  anything you ask, ask. Just don't ask me to give up
• 29:23
  this relationship or don't ask me to risk my reputation.
• 29:25
  Then Christ is not your Lord, that thing is.
• 29:28
  This is it's a lot of law. It feels very heavy.
• 29:32
  It really does feel like that hammer you mentioned earlier.
• 29:34
  And that's what the law is supposed to do.
• 29:36
  In classic Reformed theology, this is the first use of the law
• 29:40
  to be a mirror. It's meant to show us our sin.
• 29:42
  It's meant to reveal the dirt on our faces and to crush our self
• 29:46
  righteousness. Well, I can say the mirrors
• 29:48
  working. I feel pretty filthy right now,
• 29:50
  but we can't just stay here, can we?
• 29:51
  We have to get to the cure. We absolutely cannot stay here.
• 29:54
  So Section 5 of the sources. The Gospel Cure.
• 29:58
  Yes, and this is absolutely vital, because if we just stop
• 30:01
  it, you're a treasonous idolater.
• 30:03
  Now stop sinning. That's just moralism, and
• 30:06
  moralism has no power to change the heart.
• 30:09
  So sources make a really interesting point here.
• 30:11
  They say that the law it can act as a hammer to smash the idol,
• 30:15
  but it cannot remove the love of the idol from your heart.
• 30:18
  That's a key distinction. You can, through sheer willpower
• 30:22
  or fear of consequences, force someone to stop a particular
• 30:26
  behavior. You can force an alcoholic to
• 30:28
  stop drinking, but you cannot, by force of will, make them stop
• 30:32
  wanting the drink. To cure idolatry, you need what
• 30:35
  the old Scottish preacher Thomas Chalmers famously called the
• 30:38
  explosive power of a new affection.
• 30:40
  I love that phrase, can you break it down for us?
• 30:42
  It's a simple but profound idea. It means the only way to truly
• 30:46
  drive out a false, inferior love from your heart is to replace it
• 30:50
  with a greater, more beautiful, more compelling love.
• 30:52
  You only stop worshipping the vapor, the Hebel, when you're
• 30:56
  truly captivated by the weight, the kabod of God's glory.
• 30:59
  So we need a better image, something more beautiful than
• 31:01
  the idols. And the gospel says we have one,
• 31:04
  we have the Lord Jesus Christ. The source material reminds us
• 31:07
  that we are image craving creatures.
• 31:09
  We want to see God. And the gospel says you want to
• 31:12
  see God, look at Jesus. Colossians 1.15 He is the image
• 31:17
  of the invisible God. Exactly.
• 31:19
  We don't need to make statues or invent new worship styles
• 31:22
  because God has given us his perfect living, breathing sun,
• 31:25
  and he is infinitely more beautiful and satisfying than
• 31:28
  any idol we could ever chase. The idol takes your life.
• 31:32
  Christ gives his life for you. The idol demands you sacrifice
• 31:35
  your children. Christ becomes the child
• 31:37
  sacrificed in your place. That's the Christ as atonement
• 31:41
  piece of the puzzle. It is, and this is the immense
• 31:43
  relief for anyone listening listening who feels crushed by
• 31:46
  the law right now. Christ bears the curse for your
• 31:48
  idolatry, this covenant treason we've been talking about all
• 31:51
  this time. He was executed for it on the
• 31:53
  cross. You are justified, declared
• 31:55
  righteous despite your treason because of His work.
• 31:58
  That is the good news. That is the heart of the good
• 32:00
  news, and it goes even deeper with the concept of union with
• 32:04
  Christ. This is deep Reformed theology.
• 32:07
  When you have faith, you are spiritually united to Him.
• 32:11
  The Source calls him the true iconoclast.
• 32:13
  An iconoclast is a destroyer of idols.
• 32:16
  Right. Remember when Jesus was tempted
• 32:18
  in the wilderness, Satan offered him all the kingdoms of the
• 32:21
  world, the ultimate idols of power and glory.
• 32:23
  He said just bow down and worship me.
• 32:26
  And Jesus refused. He smashed the temptation.
• 32:28
  OK. Now, because we are united to
• 32:30
  him by faith, his perfect refusal to bow to idols is
• 32:34
  counted as our perfect refusal. His perfect record of loyalty is
• 32:38
  imputed to us. When God the Father looks at
• 32:41
  you, the believer, He sees the perfect idol smashing
• 32:44
  righteousness of His own Son. That changes everything.
• 32:46
  It means I'm not fighting to try and earn God's approval.
• 32:49
  I'm fighting from a position of already.
• 32:51
  Having it, you are fighting from a place of victory, not for
• 32:53
  victory. Precisely.
• 32:55
  We still have to fight. That union doesn't mean we just
• 32:57
  sit back and do nothing. We do.
• 32:59
  It empowers the fight. And that's the final section of
• 33:01
  the material Repentance in action.
• 33:04
  The sources call this the third use of the law.
• 33:07
  Which is the law serving as a guide for the Christian life.
• 33:10
  It shows us, out of gratitude for our salvation, how we are to
• 33:14
  live in a way that pleases the God who saved us.
• 33:17
  So give us the how to It can't just be feel bad about your
• 33:20
  idols and then feel good about Jesus.
• 33:22
  It has to be practical. No, Repentance is an action.
• 33:25
  It's a verb. The source material lays out
• 33:27
  three basic steps, identification, renunciation and
• 33:31
  replacement. So first identification.
• 33:34
  We've already touched on this. You have to do the hard work.
• 33:36
  Look at your fears. Look at your anger when you're
• 33:38
  swarded. Look at your checkbook, in your
• 33:40
  calendar. Locate the idol.
• 33:43
  And then you have to be honest and call it what it is.
• 33:45
  Don't call it a struggle or a weakness.
• 33:47
  Call it a false God. Call it treason.
• 33:49
  Naming it is the first step. OK, second step renunciation.
• 33:53
  This is the painful part. This is where the fight gets
• 33:55
  real. It means cutting off the supply
• 33:57
  lines to your idol. The sources quote Jesus
• 34:00
  directly. If your right eye causes you to
• 34:02
  sin, tear it out and throw it away.
• 34:04
  That's a radical refusal to pamper sin.
• 34:06
  It's utterly radical if your idol is lust and Instagram is
• 34:10
  the primary fuel for it. Renunciation doesn't mean you
• 34:13
  try to use it less. It means you delete the account,
• 34:17
  you tear it out. If your job is your idol of
• 34:20
  Mammon and it is forcing you to neglect elect your family and
• 34:23
  your soul renunciation might mean you need to find a
• 34:26
  different job. It's a violent, decisive action
• 34:29
  against your own sin. And then finally replacement.
• 34:32
  You can't just leave a vacuum there.
• 34:34
  No, because as Jesus warned, if you just sweep the house clean,
• 34:37
  7 worst demons will come back and move in.
• 34:40
  You have to replace the idol liturgies with the worship
• 34:43
  liturgy. A means of grace.
• 34:44
  Yes, the regular disciplined intake of the word, the
• 34:47
  sacraments and prayer. But the source material got even
• 34:50
  more specific. It mentioned things like
• 34:52
  instituting family worship. Replacing the screen with
• 34:55
  scripture. What a concrete act of
• 34:58
  iconoclasm that is, instead of the family gathering around the
• 35:01
  glowing altar of the television every night to be catechized by
• 35:03
  the culture, you gather them around the Word of God to be
• 35:06
  catechized by the Creator. It fundamentally retrains the
• 35:09
  hearts affections. And they also mentioned Sabbath
• 35:11
  keeping. This is a massive one in
• 35:13
  reformed thinking. Choosing to take one full day
• 35:17
  out of seven to cease from your normal work and rest in God is a
• 35:20
  declaration of war against the idol of Mammon.
• 35:23
  It is a tangible act of trust. It's saying with your time, I
• 35:27
  believe God can provide more for my family in six days of work
• 35:30
  than I can provide for them in seven.
• 35:33
  It breaks the frantic cycle of anxiety and self-reliance.
• 35:36
  The sources call all of this the call to iconoclasm, the active
• 35:40
  destruction of the high places in our own lives.
• 35:43
  It is. It's refusing to pinch that
• 35:45
  grain of incense to Caesar. It's refusing to just nod along
• 35:48
  with the mob at work or online. It is standing firm and
• 35:51
  declaring 3 year actions. As for me, in my house we have 1
• 35:55
  Lord and we will not bow. This has been, well, intense,
• 35:59
  but incredibly necessary, I think.
• 36:02
  As we start to wrap this up, let's try to summarize the main
• 36:04
  thrust of it all. I think the summary is pretty
• 36:06
  simple at its core. Idolatry is not a feeling.
• 36:10
  It is a sin of action. It is covenant treason.
• 36:12
  It's the insane act of exchanging the infinite weight
• 36:15
  and glory of God for a fleeting vapor.
• 36:18
  And the only cure is not trying harder, but seeing something or
• 36:23
  someone better. The only cure is the living God
• 36:26
  found in the face of Jesus Christ.
• 36:28
  You know, it reminds me of the very end of the book of first
• 36:31
  John in the New Testament. The whole letter is this
• 36:34
  beautiful, complex argument about love and theology and
• 36:36
  walking in the light. And then the very last line is
• 36:39
  this abrupt command. Little children, keep yourselves
• 36:42
  from idols. That's the charge after
• 36:44
  everything else. That's the final practical
• 36:47
  command. It is.
• 36:48
  And the reason isn't because God is a cosmic killjoy who wants to
• 36:51
  take away our fun. It's because He loves us, and He
• 36:54
  knows that idols are slavers. They promise freedom and
• 36:57
  fulfillment, and they deliver nothing but anxiety and death.
• 37:00
  Christ is the only master who bleeds for his own servants.
• 37:04
  To the final thought for you listening, check your verbs,
• 37:07
  check your calendar, check your bank account, and when you see
• 37:10
  the trees in there, don't despair.
• 37:12
  Look to Christ, He is worthy. And he is sufficient.
• 37:16
  That is it for this deep dive into reformed thinking.
• 37:18
  Thanks for being with us. Goodbye for now.