American Idols - Isaiah 2:8-9,11

"Their land is full of idols; they bow down to the work of their hands, to what their fingers have made. So humanity is brought low and man is humbled...Human pride will be humbled and the loftiness of man will be brought low; the Lord alone will be exalted on that day."

We tend to think that idolatry is an Old Testament phenomenon.

Long ago, unenlightened people made little figurines from wood or stone or they built altars in the woods or on mountaintops. To us, that's idolatry.

We think we're more sophisticated today, so idolatry isn't a big problem like it was in the Old Testament.

However, it's not that idolatry isn't as prevalent today as in the Old Testament. It's just that our idolatry manifests itself differently. It's more sophisticated like we presume to be.

Idolatry is certainly just as prevalent in the modern world as it was in the Old Testament, if not more so, and certainly just as egregious (if not more so)!

Yet, Isaiah describes it perfectly. We worship the work of our hands. In other words, we worship what we have achieved or want to achieve--success, prosperity, fame, power. These are our American idols.

And the worship of them leads to human pride. And human pride puts the focus of our existence on ourselves rather than on the exaltation of God.

You see, human beings are designed for worship, designed to worship their Creator. That's the way God made us.

Worship does not mean participating in a church service or a prayer meeting. Sure, worship may occur at these events. But it's something much more than that.

Matt Chandler in his book, The Explicit Gospel, says worship is a way of life for those who are passionate for and enthralled by the glory of God. He says that when you understand that God is the driving force behind everything, then everything we do is enlightened and enlivened by the glory of God.

Unfortunately, human beings have perverted the worship of God. We have turned from worshiping God to worshiping the things that God has made.

Although we are wired for worship, we are also congenitally idolatrous and we seem to want to worship just about everything but God.

And that's rebellion against God. That's treason. That's idolatry. That's sin!

That's insurrection against the Creator of the universe, God Almighty!

Since idolatry is rebellion, it's a capital crime. And since it's rebellion against God, its punishment is of eternal proportions. Its punishment is the eternal fire of hell, the place of punishment prepared for the devil and his angels (Matthew 25:41).

Because God is holy, only what is holy can approach Him. So there is some some drastic action required to turn human beings away from idolatry and back into God-worshipers. "For this is God's will, your sanctification" (I Thessalonians 4:3).

But it's nothing human beings can do. There's nothing we can do to make ourselves holy enough to approach God.

So God has come down to us to pull us up to Him.

God became like us so we can become holy like Him. So we can worship Him.

Isaiah said we must be humbled to turn us away from our idolatry. When you are humbled, that means you submit yourself to something greater. Like bowing down before a king.

And it means the same as pledging your allegiance or swearing your loyalty. Therefore, humility is the exact opposite of rebellion.

So God honors humility. And God can humble us as Isaiah predicts He will on the Day of the Lord or we can humble ourselves before that day and plead for God's mercy.

We humble ourselves and make a plea for God's mercy by humbling ourselves (pledging allegiance or loyalty) and placing our faith in the substitutionary work of Christ, Who by His earthly life, death, and resurrection reconciled us with God.

To save us from God's wrath. "Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath" (I Thessalonians 1:10).

And to make us holy so we can worship God with our lives.

So the choice is clear--God's wrath or God's grace. The latter seems to me the preferred option.

One final note: "Being saved" doesn't necessarily place you in the category of being a good or nice person. It primarily means you are a criminal whose punishment has been commuted!

God's grace and God's severity are like the two faces of God. They are both aspects of His Essential Being.

God's grace tempers His severity. God's mercy saves you from His wrath!

"For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us" (I Thessalonians 5:9).