Familiarity with Idols

Introduction:
We’ve all seen some idols, but there are far more idols that aren’t easy to spot.  Idols are anything more important to us than the One True God.  Idols are very prevalent all around us and the worship of idols creates all kinds of addictive, compulsive, and dysfunctional behaviors.  Last week we began 1 Corinthians 8 and we talked about “Know-it-all-ism.”  The church at Corinth thought they had all the spiritual knowledge they needed, the only problem with that is that they were already called out by the Holy Spirit through the Apostle Paul for being carnal and spiritually immature (1 Corinthians 3:1-4).  Knowledge had made them prideful, and being prideful lead to all kinds of sin problems.  The Scriptures very bluntly tell us that if we think we know anything, we know nothing that we ought to know (1 Corinthians 8:2).  Besides “know-it-all-ism,” the church at Corinth was also given to “Ignore-it-all-ism” thinking that an idol is nothing and interacting with it or the practices involved with worshipping it were no big deal.  The only problem with that is that idols are something because they are backed by demons and we should have nothing to do with them or the practices involved (1 Corinthians 10:20). 

Thus, in 1 Corinthians 8, the Spirit began to focus on a big problem among Corinthian believers – idols.  We tend to skip right over 1 Corinthians 8-10 because, “I don’t worship idols, this is not a problem for me.”  That is exactly what got Israel into idol worship in the OT, as well as many churches in the NT.  Frankly it gets, or keeps, many of us involved in idol worship.  There are plenty of false gods and “high places” considered perfectly normal and innocent today, and lots ways for us to become addicted to the worship of idols.

So, let’s hear what the Spirit says to the churches…

Familiarity with Idols:
Knowing an idol (1 Corinthians 8:7)
The verse starts with, “there is not in everyone that knowledge.”  What knowledge, what is this referring to?  Well, remember, this entire conversation about idols began by stating that knowledge makes us prideful and if we think we know anything, we know nothing.  The knowledge the carnal church in Corinth had is being treated as a bad thing.  They thought they knew it all, when really they were spiritual infants.  Certainly their belief that an idol was nothing to worry about had contributed to their weak spiritual condition.  That is what “that knowledge” is referring to, their belief that an idol was nothing.

The verse goes onto say, “for some, with consciousness of the idol” and lets consider that phrase for a moment.  The Greek may best be stated like this, “but some, habitually familiar with an idol…” meaning to have an acute awareness, familiarity, even a habitual practice of an idol.  Idols and their worship was so ingrained into the culture in Corinth that for the most part, those new believers didn’t even realize how involved they were.  Moreover, they were apparently not listening to the Holy Spirit to this point who would have been trying to clue them in.  Then 8:7 says, until now eat (the meat) as offered to an idol.”  Several years before going to seminary, my wife and I went with a group of teens on a work trip to a camp in NY that had been damaged in an ice storm.  There were no TV’s, video games, cell phones, ipads, ipods, etc (cell phones were the size of a small fridge and iWhatevers didn’t even exist then).  In the evening some of the kids wanted to play a card game but the people running the camp forbade it!  The teens couldn’t understand this restriction, but it turns out that the camp directors had been addicted to gambling before being saved; their idol, their demon was gambling, and they worshipped that idol by playing cards.  So, lets consider 1 Corinthians 8 not in reference to “eating meat offered to an idol” but to “playing cards to an idol”…

“we know that we have all knowledge.  Knowledge puffs up, but love edifies.  And if anyone thinks that he knows anything, he knows nothing as yet he ought to know.  But if anyone loves God, this one is known by Him.  Therefore concerning the playing of cards, “we know” that playing cards to an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is no other God but One.  For even if there are so called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as there are many gods and many lords), yet for us there is One God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we for Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and though whom we live.  However, there is not in everyone this knowledge, for some, with familiarity with playing cards, until now play cards as a thing offered to an idol, and because of their habitual familiarity making them weak, they are defiled.” (NKJV)

The camp directors had habitually played cards to gamble, became addicted to it, and for them playing cards was worship to that idol. Just like a drug addict, they couldn’t now play an innocent game of cards, nor could they conceive of an innocent game of cards. For others, playing cards is not worshipping an idol, whether the idol of gambling or entertainment or anything else. Playing cards isn’t inherently sinful or idolatrous, but like anything else it can be. One problem is that like a person taking that first ever drink of alcohol, you don’t know if it will become an idol and an addiction or not!

Here is one I struggled with…learned two tough lessons, and must work to make sure I don’t forget and relapse!

“we know that we have all knowledge.  Knowledge puffs up, but love edifies.  And if anyone thinks that he knows anything, he knows nothing as yet he ought to know.  But if anyone loves God, this one is known by Him.  Therefore concerning that ’68 Dodge Convertible and ’72 Plymouth, “we know” that having a car is nothing in the world, and that there is no other God but One.  For even if there are so called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as there are many gods and many lords), yet for us there is One God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we for Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and though whom we live.  However, there is not in everyone this knowledge, for some, with familiarity with having a car, until now drive that car as a thing offered to an idol, and because of their habitual familiarity making them weak, they are defiled.” (NKJV)

I sacrificed for those cars – lots of time, money, I loved those cars. They became idols and my worship of them was demonically driven, though I thought I was just a normal guy who really liked his car. Then God slowly began to open my eyes and firmly rip those idols from my hands. Do I still own a car? Yes. Do I have to cooperate with the Holy Spirit, worshipping God, to guard against idolatry due to past habitual familiarity with car-idol worship – YES!
We could go on and on with examples of modern-day idolatry.  It could be shopping.  For me, going to the mall is torture, and online shopping a tiresome chore unless it’s jeepparts.com (I don’t know if that is a real website or not, no advertisement is intended).  But I shop for clothes, shoes, food an most other things only because I absolutely have to or else I’ll die of starvation with no clothes on and nobody wants that.  For others, shopping is the worship of fashion, appearance, materialism, pride, or other idols.  Our familiarity with existing idols most often keeps us from realizing that they are idols, or that they are a problem.  That leads to more idolatry…

Making an Idol (1 Corinthians 8:8)
I do like the NIV’s wording here, “but food does not bring us near to God; we are no worse if we do not eat, and no better if we do.”  Food, playing cards, cars, shopping, and other such things don’t bring us “into God’s presence.”  These are not of themselves evil or righteous, but these kind of things, can become an idol; they can be used by demons to get our worship off of God who truly deserves it and onto something, anything, else.  Obviously there are things that are inherently sinful that can be idols too, like sex outside of marriage, gambling, and pride.  But we make all kinds of things idols, and our worship of them is addicting.

Before we started Celebrate Recovery here, I said that Christians, myself included, would benefit from what happens at CR.  I grossly underestimated how true that is…  God has used CR to open my eyes to how familiar we are with idols, and opened my eyes to how addicted we are to the worship of those idols.  Many people have thought they could worship their idols and God too because they didn’t see their idols as a problem.  The Jews in the OT had idols they thought were no problem, as did the Jews at the time of Jesus, the people in the church at Corinth, the people in the churches of Galatia, Ephesus, Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis, Laodicea, the church of the dark ages, the church of Luther’s time, and the church in America today has idols, lots of them.  What about us?  Are we suddenly immune to the idolatry all around us?  What I’ve learned at CR is that we are familiar with idols; and they need to be torn down.  Idols of career, money, houses, pleasure, entertainment, self, family, etc…  They all must go because we are to have not other Gods before our God.  Luke 14:25-33 makes this very clear.

Conclusion:

What in your life has become an idol, and your worship of it an addiction?  What is it that you pursue more than your time with God?  What do you get more excited about than spending time with God as you read the Bible?  Can you honestly say, “nothing at all?”  What do you love more than you love God?