Monday, September 14, 2015
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I've lived long enough to see a lot of crashes. Not cars or planes - people. Actually, we see it in the news all too often don't we? Sometimes it happens to our teams that we root for. My football team, for example in the NFL went one year from the Super Bowl to a very embarrassing losing season. They had been at the top of the heap and they ended up at the bottom the next year. But we've watched heroes crash haven't we; pastors, Christian leaders, politicians, judges, athletes? We see it all the time. In fact, maybe you've heard some crashes in your own life.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "When Idols Crash."
Our word for today from the Word of God comes from 1 Samuel 5. Now, the Ark of God is where the presence of God was located in the Old Testament. So, remember that as we read this word, "After the Philistines had captured the Ark of God, they took it to Ashdod. Then they carried the ark into Dagon's temple and set it beside Dagon. (That's their god.) When the people of Ashdod rose early the next day, there was Dagon, fallen on his face on the ground before the Ark of the Lord! They took Dagon and put him back in his place. But the following morning when they rose, there was Dagon, fallen on his face on the ground before the Ark of the Lord! His head and hands had been broken off and were lying on the threshold; only his body remained."
Well, here's the idol, Dagon, the center of the Philistines' worship. They'd pinned their hopes on him, or it, and it kept falling over. I mean, what do you expect though, when you put that idol next to the Lord himself? The idol just couldn't stand up. Idols never can. They all eventually crash, leaving only God for us to worship.
It's interesting that the Apostle John concludes his book of 1 John written to Christians with this word, "Little children, keep yourselves from idols." See, there's a tendency for us, even as Christians, to unintentionally make gods out of earthly things and earthly people. No, it's not a statue in the closet. You don't burn incense. It just becomes the main focus of your time, your energy, your planning, your money. And every idol either has let you down or is about to. That's why we keep hearing the crashes of idols.
I remember several years ago in the middle of an economic earthquake, how my friends on Wall Street would say, "Ron, we always thought we were depending on the Lord until this happened. And then we find out what we were really depending on. And when it let us down, we were a mess."
There is a man who has given so much to his career and his institution, only to be suddenly attacked by the people he's given so much for. Again, something was crashing. The dad who's worked and planned so hard for his son to receive a top honor, only to watch him lose it in the final round. He said, "Ron, it was the death of a dream."
See, our idols are subtle. Your career can become your focus, your children can, a position you really want, maybe someone you're in love with, a financial goal, a home, a dream - just an idolatrous dream you have. And instead of it revolving around God, you've drifted into having God revolve around it. It is an idol.
The First Commandment said, "You shall have no other gods before Me." Either it has crashed, it is crashing, or it will crash. It has to, so you'll come back to where you started; depending on, living for the Lord Christ alone. The hymn writer said it so well, "The dearest idol I have known; help me tear it from the throne."
It hurts to have an idol crash, but it's a loss that will bring you back to God's best. Your idol will crash; it has to. But that's okay. When it does, the only God worth worshiping is there for you, beckoning for you to come back home.