Living With Idols (Revelation 17:1-18:24)

 Sermon for Milledgeville & Whitestown UMC

Living With Idols (Revelation 17:1-18:24)

 

Billy Idol’s wife gets very upset when he’s behind on yardwork.

In the midnight hour, she yells: mow! mow! mow!

 

Why did the little cloud idolize the big cloud?

Because its the raining champion.

 

What exactly is an idol? Why is idolatry so offensive to God?

 

In the Bible an idol is a statute made of wood or stone, or gold or silver, which depicts a god or goddess. Many foreign gods were popular in the nations near Israel. Haddad was depicted as a Bull, a god of the Akkadians, Assyrians and Arameans. Baal was a Canaanite god also depicted as a bull. Dagon, worshipped by the Philistines, resembled a fish. Anubis, the Egyptian god of the underworld, had the head of a jackal. Diana was depicted as a woman with a crescent moon crown.

 

Israel was influenced by cultural and political forces that led them into the worship of pagan deities. Solomon had 700 wives. His marriages with foreigners solidified political alliances. But Solomon’s wives brought with them their foreign gods. Solomon built them shrines and brought pagan priests to Jerusalem. The northern tribes, who broke away from Jerusalem after Solomon’s death, were even worse in their pursuit of pagan gods. Jezebel, Queen to King Ahab, led Israel in the worship of Baal. She suppressed the worship of Yahweh.

 

Moses warned of intermarriage with the people of Canaan for this very reason. Give your heart to a foreigner and they will lead you away from the pure worship of the one true God.

 

The prophet Isaiah spoke on God’s behalf.

 

This is what the Lord, Israel’s king, says,
their Protector, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies:
“I am the first and I am the last,
there is no God but me.

 

A man gets trees from the forest;
¹⁵ He uses it to make a fire;
he takes some of it and warms himself…
   Yes, he kindles a fire and bakes bread.
Then he makes a god (from the same tree) and worships it;
   he makes an idol and bows down to it.
He prays to it, saying,
‘Rescue me, for you are my god!’ (Isaiah 44:6, 14b-15, 17b)

 

Idol worship is rare in our society. I suppose there’s the occasional Buddha. Neo-pagans sometimes include small symbols in their worship, but most of us don’t pray to statues. There are, however, lesser versions of idolatry just as offensive to God.

 

Paul provided an excellent definition of idolatry.

 

They exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creation rather than the Creator… (Romans 1:25)

 

Idolatry is to exchange the truth of God for a lie, to replace the creator with a created thing.

 

A created thing can be anything in this world, a person, a place, an experience, or activity, a product, a possession, an aspiration. Popular idols in the lives of Americans come from entertainment: sports, movies, music, concerts, television, gaming, and amusements. Sports teams and sports figures are idolized. Actors and actresses are idolized. Film franchises produce frenzied fandoms. Gamers spend an incredible amount of time at their gaming consoles. Cosplayers dress as their favorite characters.

Americans spend on average over $3600 a year on entertainment. That’s $300 a month. Entertainment providers rake in billions and billions of dollars every year.

 

How much is God getting from our annual budgets? How much of our discretionary spending supports God’s mission in the world?

 

Entertaining is expensive and time-consuming. I spend more time watching movies and television than I do in prayer, worship, study, or mission work. Entertainment is like an idol to which I give much of my heart, time and money. I don’t believe that entertainment can save me. I don’t pray to a statue of Darth Vader. I see it as fun, not faith. Still… time and money spent before a screen signals a competing allegiance.

 

Entertainment is not a bad thing, but it does reveal competing affections between our love for entertaining ourselves and our love for God. Sundays used to be sacred in America. For most Americans, worship of God has taken a back seat to children’s extracurricular activities and professional sports.

 

Our careers can be an idol in our lives. Our ambitions can force everything else to serve the career. Family, faith, community, even friends can suffer our lack of love and attention as we serve our career goals. We tell ourselves it’s for the good of the family, but in truth, it’s for our egos.

 

Even family can become an idol. Sometimes marriages fall apart after the kids grow up and move on. Many a mother, who gave their entire lives to their children, find themselves in a terrible identity crisis when their children no longer need them. When one builds their identity around a person, place, or thing, one will always find themselves wanting. We were made for a life-giving relationship with God. Nothing else will satisfy our basic need to love and serve God. If we’re not giving our hearts to God, we will give them to something lesser, and be all the poorer for it.

Pagan practices associated with idol worship includes rites and incantations to adjure the gods to grant them their desires. A pagan posture toward God is “Do for me.” Jesus models what the Christian posture should be. “Not my will, but thy will be done.” We pray not to ask God bend the world to our will, but to transform our lives. Prayer can change our selfish and idolatrous hearts and moves them closer in line with God’s desires.

 

"The Whore of Babylon"
A caricature of decadent Rome

In today’s reading, John sees a vision of the Whore of Babylon. She is a caricature of Rome's excesses. All the merchants, craftsmen, national leaders, and sailors mourn her fall, for they profited from her insatiable lust for luxury. Her consumption was matched only by her cruelty, as she subjugated peoples and nations, and sold human lives into slavery. The Whore of Babylon represents any world system that impoverishes and oppresses people to benefit the few and powerful.

 

She is described as the great prostitute who sits upon many waters. This is a way of speaking of Rome’s imperial control of many regions and seacoasts. Rome controlled the Mediterranean from Europe to north Africa, the Aegean Sea, the Red Sea, and the Persian Gulf.

 

The great prostitute is adorned with fine clothing and jewelry, the raiment of royalty and wealth, but she carries a gold cup filled with the filth of detestable and unclean things. She consumes filth. She looks nice on the outside, but she is filled with the impurity of idolatrous pursuits.

 

The Bible uses adultery and sexual immorality to describe idolatry. Israel was chosen to be God’s own possession. Israel was wed to God, but they were unfaithful. They chased after the foreign gods of neighboring nations. They were unfaithful to the God who formed their nation, who delivered them from slavery. They committed adultery with foreign nations and their idols.

 

 

The Whore of Babylon represents worldiness. The world dresses with fine clothing and expensive jewelry but, when you look closer, you begin to realize the filth in which the world wallows. Pornography and human trafficking, drug abuse and thieving scams, greed and the rape of the environment, war and oppression: Filth!!

 

The whore of Babylon rides a scarlet beast with 7 heads and ten horns. The beast of the sea was such a creature. The symbolism says that the beast has all the power over many peoples and nations. Because it shares the color of the red dragon, we know that the beast she rides is allied with Satan. The beast and the whore are in league with each other. Some have suggested that one is corrupt religion and the other corrupt government. In all likelihood, the Whore of Babylon is Rome and the beast she rides the Roman Empire, the many nations in submission to Rome.

 

An angel interprets the meaning of the beast. Some have tried to tie current nations and leaders to the beast’s seven heads and ten horns. Others have suggested a list of Popes to represent the beast. The safest interpretation is more general. Rome subdues many nations, riding upon their power and resources, like the woman rides upon the beast. But the beast hates the woman and devours her. Eventually Rome will be devoured by its own empire. Historically speaking, that is what happened. Rome fell through overspending, poor leadership, and multiple abuses of their client states. German Visigoths sacked Rome in the 5^th century. Evil begets evil and evil devours itself.

 

Greed brought Rome down. For greed is idolatry, making our (Ephesians 5:5) covetous desires a god in our hearts, The people who profited from their relationship with Rome mourn her fall. The kings of the earth joined Rome in greedy idolatrous pursuits. Merchants enjoyed her wealth. Sailors and their captains mourn because they no longer visit Roman controlled ports to transport goods and slaves.

 

 

The angels celebrate the downfall of Rome and the patrons of Rome mourn. That’s what will happen for all who give their heart to something of this world in the place of God. We may enjoy our idols for a time, but those idols will fall, and we will be left with sorrow and emptiness. Only the living God deserves our hearts. Only the Lord deserves our worship.

 

The angel calls to God’s faithful, “Come out of her, my people, so that you will not take part in her sins, or receive her plagues.”

 

Christians are guilty of making their own congregations an idol. They have fought over buildings. I know one congregation that split over the movement of a piano in the sanctuary. It’s about comfort. They fight to keep their image of the church the same. Ignoring Christ’s call to spread the gospel, they busy themselves with minutia and fight over the color of the carpet or the paint on the walls. We can make our own personal idea of church an idol in our hearts and minds. We never ask ourselves what our neighbors need from us, because we’re too inwardly focused on our own comfort. By doing so, we fail to fulfill Christ’s vision for His Church.

 

Christ calls us to come out of idolatrous pursuits, all the things of this world that compete for our hearts’ desire. Christ calls us to come to Him in obedience. For if you love Jesus, you will keep His commands. And His command is to love God with all that you are, and to love your neighbor, and share the good news about Jesus.

 

May the Lord make us the ever-faithful bride.