Greg Ford - Why God Hates Idols
This whole cover-to-cover series-I started prepping for it about nine months ago, and it’s been the hardest thing I’ve ever done in terms of preparing for a teaching series. It’s like a lifetime’s worth of learning and work. You’re going over these texts and sharing many of these large ideas, and essentially, as a communicator and as a teacher, you’re trying to synthesize information and make complex things simple. But if you oversimplify it, then that’s also not good. So you’re trying to find a way to bring it all together and then to build on each one of them. So it’s really stretched me; it’s been tremendously difficult but very rewarding at the same time. I’m really glad that we’ve done it.
One of the things that sort of led you to know today’s conversation is that some of the stuff I’m going to share with you today is really what sparked the idea for this whole series. I was wanting to look at really violence in the Old Testament. I see a lot of confusion about that-people look in the Old Testament and see God essentially saying, «Completely destroy a group of people.» It often feels like there’s a discrepancy between the God of the Old Testament, who says to destroy your enemy, and then Jesus of the New Testament, who says to love your enemy. I heard one lady say one time, «I almost feel a need to hide from the God of the Old Testament in the arms of the Jesus of the New Testament.» I think a lot of people would feel that sort of internal confusion and conflict: what do we do with these texts?
When I was looking at that to do as a series, I realized, man, there’s so much groundwork you need to do. We’re in week eight right now, which means we have seven weeks of workup that we’ve done to get to this moment in time. That’s why today, if you’re just coming in, I would encourage you to go back and build your way up to today, even after today, because it’s tremendously important. This last week, actually, I posted on social media; I put several hours' worth of lectures and debates on the topic of violence in the Old Testament, especially as it’s communicated by God. You’ll notice if you took me up on it, if you went and listened to the stuff I shared, not everyone I shared had the same perspective. In fact, one of them was a debate between two renowned, well-known, highly educated, very sincere theologians who did not agree on how these texts ought to be interpreted. Often it’s like we just want it to resolve-man, just give me the right answer. That’s how we approach education, and yet I think most of the time it’s healthy to approach subjects with curiosity, to be very open to hearing all sides of how these things are seen and how we ought to think about them, and not feel this compulsion to try to like, «I got to get the answer and I got to get it now,» but to be able to sit with it and wrestle with it. I think there’s a lot of deepening, and I think a lot of discipleship, frankly, that happens in that process.
So we’re going to continue on today, particularly looking at why God hates idols. Why does God have such a short fuse when it comes to idols? I’m going to kick off today with a quote from a renowned atheist, which is not normally how people start sermons in churches, but I’m going to go ahead and do so today because I think it’ll be helpful. This is well-known atheist Richard Dawkins. He wrote a book called *The God Delusion*, and he says this in the book: «The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it, a petty, unjust, unforgiving control freak, a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser, a misogynistic meaning prejudice toward women, homophobic meaning prejudice toward homosexuals, racist meaning hating someone based on their race or culture, infanticidal meaning murdering infants, genocidal meaning killing and extinguishing whole groups of people, even nations or tribes, filicidal meaning killing your own children, pestilential meaning inflicting people with diseases, megalomaniacal meaning infatuated with your own power, obsessed with your own power, power-hungry, sadomasochistic meaning finding pleasure from pain, particularly in sexual behavior, capriciously malevolent meaning moody and mean-bully.»
That’s a mouthful! That’s a lot. You go, «Okay, you’re a Christian, you see something like that from Richard Dawkins, and immediately you get angry about it. You go, 'Why would he say this? You’re my enemy! '» Well, where is he coming up with this? Richard Dawkins didn’t just make this stuff up. He’s come to these conclusions based on verses that he’s read-passages that he’s read in the Old Testament that have led him to these conclusions. Well, what passages would we be talking about? I’ll just give you a small cross-section and then we’ll look at them. Instead of getting angry with the guy, we’ll look at what he has to say and see how we perceive it.
Exodus 20:4-5 says, «You must not make for yourself an idol of any kind or an image of anything in the heavens above, on the earth below, or in the waters beneath the earth. You must not bow down to them or worship them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God who will not tolerate your affection for any other gods.» So that’s where he would get the «jealous and proud of it.» That’s where he would get petty.»
Deuteronomy 7:2 -4 states, «When the Lord your God has delivered them to you- them being the Canaanites-and you have defeated them, you must destroy them totally.» That would be where he would get «genocide.» «Make no treaty with them, show them no mercy. Do not intermarry with them.» That’s where he would see racism. «Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons, for they will turn your children away from me to serve other gods.»
Okay, let’s start with this: we’ve been looking at the Bible as literature; we’ve been looking at the Bible as history, as we gather and ultimately end up in a place of theology, starting in those two ways. When you see, certainly, probably the big word that jumped out at you when I read that was when God declares himself as being jealous. You’re going to see he does it again in Exodus 34. He’s going to say, «My name is jealous.» So when you see that, at first, you’re like, «Well, gosh, hopefully, when we get into the Hebrew here, we' ll see that this is just a poor Hebrew-to-English translation, and hopefully when there’s like a really cool range of meaning when you get into the Hebrew word for jealous, it means really nice things.» Unfortunately, that’s not the case.
If you look into the Hebrew and go to something like Strong’s Concordance or something like that, and you’re looking at the definition, the Hebrew word for jealous means jealous. That’s what it means. So you look at that and go, «Okay, what’s up with that?» We have to start with, in our world, when you hear 'jealous, ' what images conjure up in your mind? Richard Dawkins, I think, sums it up: he says «he’s jealous and petty.» His next word was «petty.» When we think of jealous, we think immediately of petty; they’re almost synonymous.
For example, if you’ve been in a romantic relationship with someone who was jealous, you know it went something like this: that person had insecurities. They saw themselves as a grasshopper; therefore, everybody else were giants. They tried to mask that insecurity by controlling your behavior. They were afraid you were going to leave them, and frankly, they may have powered up and acted angry or been domineering in their behavior. But internally, it was masking a personal insecurity. They see themselves as very cheat onal, very relatable, and therefore everybody’s a threat. So all you did was look at somebody, and they think you’re flirting. Or if you talk to them, they think you’re flirting. Or if you laugh at something they said, they think you want to sleep with them. Now we’re on the way home in the car, and we’re in a huge argument about the fact that you looked or talked or laughed, and you’re like, «What is going on here? Why am I defending myself?»
They might be very angry about it, and now you' re walking on eggshells. It gets down to this person’s insecurity. They’re trying to control my behavior; they’re afraid I’m going to leave them for somebody else because that’s how they see themselves. They don’t trust me. I had no ill will, no mean motive. I wasn’t trying to plot my way out, but I’m starting to wonder if this is a good relationship because they are trying to control me in a way that feels like bondage, not safety, not security, not love.
So that might be how a jealous, petty relationship might play out. Jealousy is probably one of the ugliest character traits, period. It is so hard to admit that you would have jealousy; it’s very hard. Imagine you’re talking about somebody you’ve got beef with. You’re talking to a trusted friend, a supportive ear, and you’re talking to them about this person you don’t like, and they go, «You know, I think you might be jealous.» How would anyone receive that? You' d be like, «Yeah, I don’t like you either, actually. You’re my other enemy!» It is so hard to admit.
Again, we all have some jealousy; we all have some insecurity. But it is so difficult to admit that you have any jealousy. It does feel petty. In fact, many of us have experienced the feeling of jealousy, and then you get mad-mad at yourself for feeling jealous. Have you ever been in that spot? You know, maybe you’re at work-dude, you did a bunch of work and they give the credit to somebody else publicly. You know, they say, «Shout out to so-and-so. Stand up!» And you’re like, «What? So- and-so showed up for the photo op! They showed up at the end! What are you talking about? I did 90% of that work!» Have you ever felt slighted when they gave the credit to your boss or a coworker and forgot to mention your name? And you’re driving home and you’re ticked-you’re cussing into the steering wheel or praying or whatever you do. You’re driving and you hate that you feel what you feel. «I don’t want to feel this,» like you know all the mantras. You know that we could get a lot done if we didn’t care who got the credit and whatever. So you’re like, «Why do I want the credit? I don’t want to want the credit. But doggone it, I want the credit. And I’m upset that I’m jealous that this person’s getting credit for my work!»
So you’re driving down the road, feeling this jealousy-it feels petty; you know it’s petty, and you’re trying to weed it out of your life and your psyche and get to the root of it. So to portray God in that way-like God is moody, God is petty, God is jealous-when we see that, that’s the definition that comes into our mind’s eye.
That is absolutely not what is being communicated in his use of jealousy. When you think of it like this, think of it as a very strong word that’s not necessarily talking about an insecure God who’s petty. It’s talking about a very serious conversation where I want you to pay attention to this. We’re not playing around. It’s that sort of language. As a parent, as a dad with my kids, often I’ll be patient with them on certain things. They make a mistake and I let them work their way through it. I let them fail their way forward. I might pose a question back to them; I’m being gracious-I’m being patient. It’s not edgy. There are certain times and certain subjects that I go, «Hey, I’m not playing on this. Don’t test me. This is what we’re doing. Do it just like that. If you don’t do it just right, I promise there will be consequences. Don’t try me; I’m not in the mood. This isn’t the subject or the topic; you got me?»
There’s a time for grace; there’s a time for truth. I love you, but I will drop the hammer, so don’t do this. You got me? You understand? There’s no wiggle room. If you go 5% over the line, that’s a whole sin.
So look in my eye, hear the tone of my voice, listen to my choice of words-all these things mean it’s time to get serious about what I’m talking about. When you see God saying, «I’m jealous; my name is jealous,» this is not petty and jealous like your ex-girlfriend or boyfriend. This is a serious topic. I’m not playing around. Sit up straight and listen to what I’m going to say. And by the way, it’s for your good. The topic at hand with jealousy is idolatry.
So let’s think this all the way through. Because you come back to idolatry, you’re like, «What’s up with idolatry?» You’re going to see that the children of Israel come through Egypt; they go into the wilderness; they go to Mount Sinai- they get the Law. I’ll just quickly connect the dots so we’re all on the same page. We started this whole thing in Genesis 1 and 2, where God creates Shalom on the earth. He loves people; he' s putting you here; you’re very good. He creates people and says, «I want you to be in a right relationship with God, yourself, and the world around you.» Shalom-security, fulfillment, peace. This is how I’ve designed it. Even with flesh, even with imperfections, we navigate our mistakes and redemption and ultimately restoration and new beginnings.
So that’s… you’re human; you’re going to walk that process. But what I want for people is right relationship with God, yourself, and each other. That’s my mission; that’s God’s mission, his purpose. So when the whole thing becomes very violent and chaotic, God sets Abraham aside. «Abraham, I’m going to make a great nation out of you. I’m going to make promises to you, but don’t get it twisted-my promises are connected to my purposes.» What are your purposes? To have a right relationship with God, ourselves, and the world around us. I want to bring Shalom to the earth.
This thing’s gotten crazy, so I’m doing a green-field project. I’m setting you aside; I’m going to make promises to you; we’re going to multiply; I' m going to set you apart from the world. When I set you apart from the world, it’s not that I prefer you over everyone else-what I’m doing is I’m setting you a part; I’m going to give you law and land and a place to display Shalom on the earth. And once you all have it down and it’s clockwork and it’s who you are, I’m going to send you into all the world as my ambassadors to ultimately redeem people.
So I love them all. Right? That’s what he promises to Abraham. Eventually, the nation of Israel ends up in bondage in Egypt. «I' m going to lead you out; I’m going to get you out of here.» He takes them out of Egyptian bondage and ultimately to the Promised Land. As they enter the Promised Land, now we have everything coming to fruition. After hundreds of years, it’s coming to fruition. Now we got the law; now we got the land; we’ve got the promise and the purpose-here we are to do this. And what you have are the Canaanites that are the ones in the region who are full of idolatry.
When you start reading about this idolatry, you’re going to see names like Baal, you’re going to see names like Asherah. You’re going to see other names, but those are the primary ones. So at first glance, God’s short fuse with idols feels petty; it feels like your boyfriend going, «Why are you looking at other people?» Because when you look at these idols, at first glance you go, «Well, they obviously aren’t real. They are representative of theological ideas.» So you have Baal, who’s not a real entity, but Baal is a false god, and Asherah is a false god.
So you go, «Okay, what are these things?» Okay, so Baal was, in the Canaanite world-in the Phoenician world — the supreme god. It would be like in Greek mythology being Zeus, so Baal is seen as the god of storms, often portrayed holding a lightning bolt. A god of storms. Asherah is the goddess of fertility. When you start to think about these things, you think about the gods being seen as providing rain. What does that do? It produces food.
So they’re looking at, you know, fertility is not only our ability to build out our family, but also the fertility of the land, which not only feeds us but creates economic prosperity. They would also turn to these gods for conquest or military victory. At first glance, what it feels like is that God is jealous that Baal and Asherah are going to get credit for his work. You know, that one day, it’s just going to be a big storm, and you made a sacrifice to Baal and it rains, and the crop comes up. Everybody eats, and they go, «Great job, Baal,» and God’s like, «Oh, you know I made the ecosystem!» They’re giving it up to Baal; they’re giving it up to Asherah because they had a family or the fertility of the land.
So at first, it appears to be that, but it has absolutely nothing to do with that at all. It’s not God’s petty and he’s worried that someone else is going to get credit for the harvest. It is spelled out why God is so upset about this. Look at this in Leviticus 20:23. He said, «Do not live according to the customs of the people I’m driving out before you. It is because they do these shameful things that I detest them.» In Deuteronomy 20:18, it says, «This will prevent the people of the land, being the Canaanites, from teaching you to imitate their detestable customs in the worship of their gods, which would cause you to sin deeply against the Lord your God.»
Deuteronomy 7:16: «Do not worship their gods for they will be a snare to you.» So what are these detestable practices? It’s very clear: God is not worried that Baal’s going to get the credit for his rain. What he’s concerned about are the detestable practices. What are these practices? Well, when you look into the sacrifice, the rituals, and the way they worship these false gods, they were connected to tremendously detestable things, like human sacrifices. So you’re going to see they did everything from child sacrifices to human sacrifices. This is going to be a toxic element of the Israelite culture.
You’re going to see even Israelite kings, as you read later, will sacrifice their children to Baal. Well, what’s the point? Why would you sacrifice your child to Baal? Well, you sacrifice your child to Baal because for some reason, when something bad’s happening, Baal must be upset. We have to prove to Baal that we love him. We have to prove to Baal that he’s the big guy. We have to prove to Baal, because Baal, in their theological worldview, is moody, and if he didn’t get enough glory, he’s going to make our lives miserable.
So think about this. In our context, let’s close the historical distance. In our context, if you want eggs, you go to Kroger. If that Kroger doesn’t have eggs, you go to a different Kroger. If that Kroger doesn’t have eggs, you go to a different Kroger. If three Krogers don’t have eggs, you go to Meijer. If Meijer doesn’t have eggs, you go to Giant Eagle. If Giant Eagle doesn’t have eggs, then you eat bread. Bottom line is, you ate. In that ancient world, when there is a drought, people start deteriorating-we start questioning our survival. I look at my children. If I have four kids — an infant and three kids-I’m looking at my children and I see we’re starting to suffer from malnourishment. It must be because I’m in cahoots with, in connection with, in relationship to the Canaanites and their theological beliefs about Baal.
They’re like, «The reason is because we’ve upset Baal. If you really want to solve this problem, you’re going to have to sacrifice one of your children.» Now I’m starting to look, and now we’re having internal conversations in our family. «You know what? We probably need to sacrifice the infant. Although we don’t want to, we will prove our loyalty to Baal.» So do we want to lose three? We’ll sacrifice the one for the three. This is a mentality God tried to extinguish from the minds of his people all the way back with Abraham, where he does a provocative example that has all of us on the edge of our seats, where God says, «I want you to sacrifice your son.»
Abraham is so used to this being a way that people relate to gods and expectations of warped theology, and God says, «I’m going to correct it in a real-time example that you’ll never forget.» So you have Abraham ready to carry it out, goes all the way, sets up the sacrifice, raises his hand to kill his own son, and God says, «I am not the God that you kill your son for. I am the God who blessed you with that son. I am the God of the promise. I am the God you can trust. I am the God that will provide. I am the God that will protect. I am the God that loves, that gives grace to your child. In fact, I love you and your child so much that I will eventually go to the length of sending my son to earth as a sacrifice for your sin. I am not the God you do the child sacrifice thing for-I’m different than Baal.»
So now you’re going to start mixing in these ideas; you’re going to start perverting, okay? And so child sacrifices, human sacrifices, were a part of their rituals-detestable debased sexual practices were a huge part. Temple prostitution-everything from that to what we would look at, without question, as sexual abuse. They would abuse people sexually and then attach theology to it. If you have been in any way a victim of sexual abuse, you know the prison that that introduces. You know the darkness of what that does to a person in terms of your self-worth, and the fact that you’ve been debased down just to your body. It’s the opposite of shalom-in shalom, they were naked and unashamed. They were secure in who they were; they knew their identity. That’s what God wants for you. When you’ve been debased sexually, you’ve now been taken down just to the sum of your parts and treated in an inhumane way.
You know all by itself, that is a dark place to fight your way out of. Some of you have had the courage to go into counseling, and you’ve had the courage to trust and have faith again, and you’ve had the courage to invite God to help you in that healing process, and it’s been really stinking hard. Imagine you take that, and you attach to it theological perversion that would say, «Hey, these sexually abusive acts are actually what God wants.»
This is what God wants. You’re going to see that self-mutilation and self-harm became part of their sacrificial spiritual rituals. In fact, if you fast-forward to 1 Kings 18, you’re going to see Elijah is battling the prophets of Baal, and the prophets of Baal are trying to conjure up the favor of Baal and to get Baal to do what they want him to do. And when they can’t get Baal to act, what do they do? They start to cut themselves; they start to harm themselves.
So you now have these warped theological views with detestable practices. And so when you see, «Don’t intermarry,» this isn’t like about the color of anyone’s skin. This is not about like, «We season our food differently.» This is not about, «We wear different outfits and have some unique cultural stuff.» That has absolutely nothing to do with it. It’s saying this: when you marry somebody, what do you do? You accept all of them. You welcome them in. And so he’s going, «If you welcome in this culture that has this theological perversion and detestable acts, you’re going to bring now children into the world believing this stuff, and it’s going to perpetuate perverse beliefs about God.»
Think of it like this: if you distorted my image in a petty way, I wouldn’t really care. For example, if you took a picture of me and put me on some Snapchat filter and made my face look weird, made my body look weird, whatever, that’s just like, «A little weird, distorted, ha ha ha, you post it.» Am I ticked? Nah. Bro, it doesn’t even phase me. I’m like, whatever. I look at it and think, «Maybe at worst, I’m mildly annoyed. What’s for lunch?» Like, I don’t care. It’s not a big deal. I’m not tracking you down. I’m not going on and commenting. I’m not like, «Take it down.» I don’t care.
It means nothing to me; it doesn’t matter. It’s just a little innocuous distortion of my image. On the other hand, if you got some AI technology and made deepfakes of my voice so it sounded just like me and you put words in my mouth that I would not say and you messaged out there things I would not message out there, and so you started to distort my values, you used this to create video imitations of me doing things and behaving in a way that’s inconsistent with my character — literally the opposite of what I’m here to do and what I believe-if you did that and deceived my children and the people I care about, the people I' m trying to serve, the people I want to make their life better and build community, if you did that and deceived them and now I’m watching them believe these deepfake lies, and they’re starting to hurt themselves because of them, my kids are starting to self-harm because of what they believe about their dad, and then they’re turning on each other, and they’re starting to tear each other apart, what would I do then?
I wouldn’t turn a blind eye to that. I would cloud up and rain on that. I would try to find out who you are on that. I would come out very publicly and say that’s a lie on that. I would fight back on that. I would say «Get rid of that! Get it out of here! Ban it! Destroy it! I don’t want any remnant of it. I don’t want any whiff of it. I don’t want anything that’s even a half of a second of a clip out there. I don’t want anything that someone would hear and believe a lie about me that causes the opposite of what I’m trying to do with my life.»
So when we look at why does God hate idols, why is God saying «Don’t intermarry?» It has nothing to do with racism. It has nothing to do with genocide. It has nothing to do with these things. It’s God ultimately saying, «These distorted images and the practices that are connected to them bring so much harm, pain, and destruction that I don’t want even a remnant of this.» You know, I mentioned a petty boyfriend or girlfriend or whatever before. Imagine- let’s assume health. Let’s say you have a healthy husband. I’ll just use me for example. Let’s say I’m a healthy husband, and in my relationship with my wife, I love her so much. I love her more than she loves herself, and yes, I love to be loved by her, but I love her for her.'Til death do us part, for better or worse.
I know her so well: I know where her vulnerabilities are; I know where her liabilities are; I know where she’s prone to being manipulated. I know the Egypt that she’s come out of. I know the bondage that she was in. I know every single thing about her, and I’ve loved her through this whole journey. We’ve made a covenant; we’ve made promises to one another in purpose. We’ve agreed on how we’ll conduct ourselves, and then I look and I see some man who is deceptive.
I see a man who is manipulative, and I know who this man is. It’s not just that he makes me feel less about myself because he’s got this or that thing I don’t have. It’s that I look at this guy and I know exactly who you are. I know what you’ve done with the last five women. I know exactly your MO. You are smooth in the way you find someone’s vulnerability, and like a snake, you go in and exploit it. And if I saw that and I talked to my wife, I’d go, «Babe, what are you doing? What are you doing? Yes, of course it would break my heart to see you give into a seduction, but it’s not even just about how I would feel. It’s how you-what are you doing? You’ve come out of Egypt! You were in bondage! Look how far we’ve come! Let’s not walk out of the slavery of Pharaoh into the arms of Baal! What are we doing? Don’t do this! We’ve made promises connected to purpose where we want to walk in real freedom, real fulfillment! We want to walk in true security! We want to operate the way that God intended!»
God is not trying to rob us of our pleasure; he’s trying to put it in its proper context. What are you doing? You’re giving in to a seduction — don’t even answer his texts! Don’t call him back!
It’s not just breakfast; it’s not just a little bit-it’s just, don’t flirt! What are you doing? This isn’t about me and how I feel. I’ve seen you in your bondage. This is- I don’t want bondage! That’s what we fought our way out of Egypt! We came out of Egypt! Don’t go into the arms of Baal!
See, this is the spirit of God. This is when you see 'jealous, ' don’t see petty. Don’t see petty; don’t see ugly human character traits. See a God who is incredibly patient. He says, «I so badly want to heap unfailing love to a thousand generations! I love you! I’ll be patient with you! This is the God who does the blood walk by himself. This is the God who knows you can sometimes be seduced, begging you not to be seduced. Don’t welcome that in! Don’t welcome that in! Understand your vulnerabilities! I know you feel like a grasshopper and everyone else is a giant, and those giant nations often will seduce you into believing the way they believe. You welcome that into your life-it’s ultimately going to bring harm. I want to bring Shalom! I want to bring peace! I got a better way; I need you to trust me! I need you to obey me! I’m not playing around on this subject; I’m dead serious! I need you to do exactly what I’m saying! I’m setting you apart! I’m calling you out!»
By the way, just a little side note: God’s not racist. You’re going to see that the Canaanites that God’s against- he talks about the culture and the detestable practices. Sitting like a boulder in the Book of Joshua is the story of Rahab. They go into Canaan and you have this character emerge named Rahab, who you think is this is like straight out of central casting- someone who’s going to be destroyed.
She is a Canaanite prostitute. They go into Canaan and this Canaanite prostitute takes the spies from Israel and says, «Come into my home! I’ll keep you safe.» She finds out who their God is and says, «I’m with that!» She pledges loyalty and faithfulness to God at the risk of her own life, willing to die for it, protects them. And when Jericho falls, God saves her, spares her. It has nothing to do with being a Canaanite; it has everything to do with the warped theology, the detestable practice. Rahab, like it or not, is celebrated throughout the rest of the Bible like a heroine. Rahab ends up in the Book of Matthew. It says Rahab the prostitute was King David’s great-grandmother.
So you have this woman — it has nothing to do with skin color; it has everything to do with the detestable practice connected to the theological perversion that God did not want to be perpetuated. Let’s get this over with. This is why I’ve set you apart; I want to send you back, but I gotta set you apart first!
If you keep this toxicity, it’s going to linger. We gotta cut it off here right now. Is this making sense? At the end of the Book of Joshua, Joshua ends the way the Torah ends. So the Torah, being Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, and Moses gives a swan song series of speeches at the end to a new generation. He says, «Hey guys, let’s learn everything we can from our parents and grandparents, and now when we take the Promised Land, let’s take it wiser than we used to be and not repeat these mistakes.»
Joshua emerges in the Book of Joshua as the new Moses, and so he leads them into the Promised Land. Just like Moses ends with a series of speeches, Joshua dies at the end of Joshua, but he ends with his own series of speeches just like Deuteronomy. And within that, he’s essentially saying, «Okay, now we’re not learning from our parents and grandparents; we’re learning from our own time. The fact that we went into the Promised Land, and we did not fully drive out the Canaanites, and we allowed them to influence us and we allowed them to seduce us,» and he says in Joshua 23, near the end, verses 12 and 13, «If you turn away and ally yourselves with the survivors of these nations that remain among you and if you intermarry with them and associate with them, then you may be sure that the Lord your God will no longer drive out these nations before you. Instead, they will become snares and traps for you, whips on your backs, thorns in your eyes, until you perish from this good land which the Lord your God has given you.»
We’re going to keep looking next week. We’re going to go into the Book of Judges. And what you’re going to see is as we run this thread through Judges, through the Kings, and through the prophets, you’re going to see that Baal and Asherah keep showing up, keep seducing. A lot of what God is delivering them from is connected to this, and essentially what Joshua warned them about, they didn’t do. So it’s going to linger. And so God is going to raise up prophets over time to stand up to a new generation and go, «Guys, don’t give in to the Bales. Don’t give in to the Asherah.»
So it’s going to get all the way to the book of Hosea, and we’re going to look at prophets, priests, and kings in a few weeks. But the prophet Hosea-prophets would be selected to do provocative things to disrupt the status quo, to say things you can’t unhear and to do things you can’t unsee. And it was often symbolic, so that like everyone had to pay attention, and then the point was made.
Hosea must have drawn the short straw because he gets the worst assignment ever. God says, «Okay, I want to show the nation-I want them to see unmistakably what is going on here.» So he says, «Hosea, here’s what I want you to do in front of the whole nation: I want you to go and marry a prostitute. I want you to let her cheat on you. And when she cheats on you, I want you to go buy her back. And then she cheats on you, and you buy her back. Then she cheats on you, and you buy her back. You just keep buying her back.» And when everybody looks at you and says, «This is the biggest idiot in the world! Why didn’t he just give her to the streets? Why didn’t he just let her go? Why does he keep buying her back?» He said, «When it gets to that moment, then I want you to let them know this is what I’ve been doing with you and Baal and Asherah. You just keep cheating on me, and I keep buying you back. So as dumb as Hosea is, I guess I must be dumb too because I keep buying you back; I keep buying you back.»
Hosea 2:16–17 says, «In that day, declares the Lord, you will call me my husband; you will no longer call me my master.» If you’re reading that in verse 16, there’s a footnote there. If you click that, the word that’s translated in English «my master» is actually the word they use for «my Baal.» Verse 17: «I will remove the names of the Baals from her lips; no longer will their names be invoked.» Hosea 2:19 — 20: «I will betroth you to me forever; I will betroth you in righteousness and justice, in love and compassion. I will betroth you in faithfulness, and you will acknowledge the Lord.»
So what you’re going to see throughout the rest of the Bible or the Old Testament is that Baal and Asherah continue to have a foothold in the heart of the nation all the way until they’re driven off their land when the Assyrians and Babylonians come. The nation falls apart and then they are taken off of their land miles and miles away. Now you’re far enough away from Baal, we don’t hear about Baal anymore.
Which- goodness, let’s sit here and think about it for a second-often there is something that is manipulating a vulnerability and an insecurity, and it’s coming in. And instead of trusting God’s hand, trusting God’s plan, trusting God’s promises, trusting God’s purposes, living in obedience to him for the purpose of Shalom, we just keep allowing manipulative, seductive things and people to come and exploit us, to get us to sell out to an idol.
At some point, you get warned. You get warned; somebody warns you. Somebody has a crucial conversation with you. Somebody in love says, «Look, God loves to lavish his love to a thousand generations, but when you do these things, it affects your household, it affects the three and four generations; it affects people around you. There is collateral damage. Stop before it’s too late! Repent! Run to the arms of your gracious God! Be obedient to what he’s called you to do! Be obedient to the promises and the purposes. Do it his way!»
And often we don’t fully get it out. We keep taking the text; we keep taking the breakfast; we keep flirting; we keep flirting, and we end up back in this thing. And often it’s when the whole world is shattered-you know it’s all fallen apart. I’ve lost everything; I paid a price I didn’t want to pay. Now I’m not even on my land anymore. I’ve lost everything-that finally, finally, finally is taken away.
Today, friend, I invite you to trust a God who is not jealous in a petty way, who’s dead serious about an important topic for you. To look at the areas where you might be prone to vulnerability, you might be prone to deception-it may arouse an insecurity in you, a craving in you, a desire in you. It’s not that God’s trying to rob you of pleasure and joy; it’s that he wants to maximize Shalom in your life. There’ll be plenty of pleasure and joy! You do it God’s way, you end up doing it your way, you end up doing it Baal’s way, you end up stuck, snared further than you want to go, longer than you want to be there.
Trust God! Trust God! Obey God! Repent! Trust his grace and his goodness and do it his way.
Let’s pray. Lord, today, we thank you for the way that an ancient text and an old story somehow seems right on the money. Lord, I know when we look at these things, we think about what you brought us out of. Lord, every person, the conscious mind to hear what I’m saying that’s still breathing breath has come through things, may still be dealing with residual issues, but has come through-is surviving, is still here. And so, Lord, you’ve brought us out of Egypt, and yet, Lord, often we come out of bondage and are now being tempted with a new bondage. Lord, help us to have the wisdom to trust you and to do it your way.
Lord, help us to take seriously the topics that are in front of us, the things often that seduce us or draw us in. Lord, help us to repent, to be restored and redeemed, Lord, to walk into what’s next, but to learn the lesson of today and yesterday. Lord, we thank you that you are patient and that you lavish love to a thousand generations, and yet you love us so much that you bring moments like this of truth to save us, to protect us, and to help us. In Jesus' name, amen.