Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

Ahaz was twenty years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem sixteen years. Unlike David his father, he did not do what was right in the eyes of the Lord. He followed the ways of the kings of Israel and also made idols for worshiping the Baals.

• 2 Chronicles 28:1-2

Amon was twenty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem two years. His mother’s name was Meshullemeth daughter of Haruz; she was from Jotbah. He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, as his father Manasseh had done. He followed completely the ways of his father, worshiping the idols his father had worshiped, and bowing down to them. He forsook the Lord, the God of his ancestors, and did not walk in obedience to him.

• 2 Kings 21:19-22

All who worship images are put to shame,
    those who boast in idols—
    worship him, all you gods!

• Psalm 97:7

Lord, my strength and my fortress,
    my refuge in time of distress,
to you the nations will come
    from the ends of the earth and say,
“Our ancestors possessed nothing but false gods,
    worthless idols that did them no good.
Do people make their own gods?
    Yes, but they are not gods!”
“Therefore I will teach them—
    this time I will teach them
    my power and might.
Then they will know
    that my name is the Lord.

• Jeremiah 16:19-21

When people thought of false gods in biblical times, they thought of Baal, Asherah, and Molech.  There were a few others, but sometimes they were just called the Baals.

But then, today, people talk about self-love being the greatest of false gods.

When it came to idols, we have had politicians that we idolized, movie stars, television stars, that favorite newscaster that you could always “trust”, and do not even get me started with sports heroes.  Those come in all ages and sizes.

What about musicians?  For those few left out there that love Big Band, can you pick your top two or three musicians at each instrument for your super huge band?  Okay, making it more up to date, the same thing with a modern band – name the genre or subgenre.  Yep, How much different is preferring Artie Shaw to Benny Goodman (Big Band clarinetists and band leaders) and then idolizing them?  When I was in my teens, I had every Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass LP that they had ever recorded, including the remastered biggest hit albums.

At one point or another, I have worshipped them all.

And we can repent of such worship, but there is one false god that we have difficulty with.

If I were to take a piece of wood and carve it to look semi-human, and I called it Jesus Christ, the name would be meaningless.  I said look semi-human.  My carving skills were not that good when I was not rusty.  That would be worshipping a graven image, making a god out of wood, a god that could not speak, could not hear, could not see, and would never answer my prayers.

But what if I went through the Bible and cut out the ten percent that I really did not like?  Okay, another ten percent that caused me heartburn…  At what point, is that creating a false god and calling that god, Jesus Christ?

We need to be careful here.  We need to accept those parts in the Bible that make us uneasy.  Maybe there is a reason we are uneasy.  Maybe that reason is that God wants us to come to the reality that we cannot make our own god, and the God of the universe simply wants us to take that ten percent as being beyond our understanding, but in some way, it is part of who God is.

I have written recently about how God is beyond whatever infinity we can imagine and then some.  And maybe some of those spots in the Bible that seem too good to be true or too terrible to be true or too awesome to be true are the reasons we love God all the more.

God is beyond human understanding, but that should never prevent us from our quest to be more like Him.  We will have an eternity to catch up with all His awesomeness.

Just one of my “A Thought On” series to give you a kick start on thinking about the topic.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.