Sermon Notes: Exodus 9:1-7 – Idolatry

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At some point, we have to look closer at Egypt’s idolatry while we are in Exodus with a little more granular look than we have because it’s staring us down, and it’s also likely our number 1 challenge personally and corporately and we may not know it. 

As I’ll mention in a few minutes, the first four commandments deal with idolatry because it’s a worship issue, it’s the foremost issue on the Lord’s mind in the commandments, so it must be a real human dilemma. 

It’s a challenge for me.

Idolatry is tricky in our time of history because it’s hard to see, and it often feels so right, particularly when we have done the magical work of putting Christian t-shirts on our idols. I’ll explain the language you’ve heard me use before (idols on Christian t-shirts) through a personal example in a bit. 

The Egyptians are eaten up with blatant idolatry, and it’s a devastating thing. 

Perhaps what’s more nefarious about idolatry is that it is not blatantly obvious to the human perception because we’ve done what Ezekiel was warned about in his 14th chapter regarding those who came to see him for a word from the Lord: we set up idols in our hearts and still come to inquire of the Lord because we believe what we have put in our hearts is the Lord’s stuff, and we’ve done this through self-deception and/or cultural acclimatization.

If you’re like me, you’re even questioning what I just wrote. How can it not be blatantly obvious?

  1. We are either blind in sin to it because we just don’t know better, and are just not followers of the Lord.
  2. Or, we have renamed our idol and sought to make it something more palatable or acceptable to ourselves and our conscience and that’s how we take idols into our hearts. 
  3. Or, we put the Lord and his way on hold for a more expedient way just until we get ourselves where we believe we ought to be, then we pick Jesus back up again like the nice good luck charm we want him to be, put him in our pocket or around our neck and move on.
    1. Are these Christian behaviors? Non-Christian behaviors?
      1. Non-Christians live like this in complete blindness. 
      2. Christians will wrestle their whole lives to kill this behavior and wrestle this dead flesh to the ground to pin it, and if they aren’t wrestling this, it’s likely evidence they are not really a Christian. Just a time-stamped manifestation of cultural Christianity.

About Egypt and this issue, “…The symbolism of the fifth plague is especially potent because many of Egypt’s gods and goddesses were depicted as livestock. Some Egyptians worshiped the bull, which they viewed as “a fertility figure, the great inseminator imbued with the potency and vitality of life.6 Cults dedicated to the bull were common throughout Egypt. There was Buchis, the sacred bull of Hermonthis, and Mnevis, who was worshiped at Heliopolis. Sometimes bulls were considered to embody the gods Ptah and Ra. But the chief bull was Apis. At the temple in Memphis, priests maintained a sacred enclosure where they kept a live bull considered to be the incarnation of Apis. When the venerable bull died, he was given an elaborate burial. 6 Currid, A Study Commentary on Exodus, 1:192. Cited in – Philip Graham Ryken and R. Kent Hughes, Exodus: Saved for God’s Glory (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2005), 262–263.

Sign 5 is the death of their livestock, and it’s another full frontal assault by the Lord on the false worship of the Egyptians and Pharaoh to crust their idolatry.

Let’s read it together. Exodus 9:1-7.

Watch out for idolatry. We are not immune. V. 3

  1. Idolatry is the number one problem for those who are not followers of Jesus Christ.
    1. We know this because the Lord addresses it as primary in the Ten Commandments, and because it is the place the heart went in rebellion when it took up allegiance to the Serpent in the garden in Genesis 3.
      1. And because we are descendants of Adam and Eve, we have the same flesh and the same spiritual curse in us. 
    2. Idolatry is not something we are easily rid of the moment we believe. 
    3. Sanctification is the work of the Lord via the present ministry of the Holy Spirit in which he continually cleans up our minds, giving us the mind of Christ, helping us with the thoughts we take captive with our mind, and helping us to bring our actions in line with the new heart we possess through the saving work of Jesus for us. 
    4. Idolatry is perhaps the first and fiercest battle we face on a daily basis.
      1. Note how primary the Lord treats it, and how he addresses it in the Ten Commandments.
  2. Exodus 20:3-7 (ESV) 3 “You shall have no other gods before me.4 “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 5 You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments. 7 “You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.
    1. The first four of the Ten Commandments are directly related to the worship of Yhwh.
    2. The first three of the Ten Commandments are directly related to the Lord’s identity and not robbing him of glory by attributing any act of worship to any being other than Yhwh.
      1. The worship of Yhwh is so important that how his name is used is related to the worship of God. 
    3. Of course, the remaining six commandments are about how the Lord’s people are to relate to one another.
      1. This four and six breakdown of the commandments is why the New Testament summarizes the Ten Commandments as loving God with all the heart, mind, and soul, and loving one’s neighbor as oneself. 
      2. Luke 10:25-28 [25] And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” [26] He said to him, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” [27] And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” [28] And he said to him, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.”
        1. Thus, if our care for one another is not right, our relationship with the Lord is off. There is something or someone sitting in first place other than Jesus.
        2. If we are not relating correctly to each other it affects our worship of the Lord or is evidence the Lord is not the object of our worship.
  3. Idolatry strikes at the heart of our created purpose, and that is to worship the Lord in our affection for and labor with the Lord in overseeing creation.
    1. Thus true worship is affection for and labor with the Lord. Spirit and truth. 
    2. Idolatry is any action humans or other beings engage in by directing their affection for and labor with someone or something other than Yhwh as revealed in Jesus Christ. (definition mine)
      1. Idolatry inevitably takes some physical form that looks like what we have affection for and what we are serving or laboring with or for. 
      2. Thus, images of who or what we have affection for are part of idolatry, and with that, we invite the object of our affection’s presence into our lives to animate us for it’s purposes.
        1. Note This Is God’s Pattern That Idolatry Steals: Jesus is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of creation, and he gives his Spirit to animate to life the repentant worshiper in their affection for and service with the Lord.
          1. Idolatry steals this true and beautiful pattern of abundant life with the true and living God to create a life of devastation for the idolator as the enemy steals worship from the Lord.
            1. Worship of anything other than the God of the Bible results in an image being created whether physically or in our minds, and then what we have affection for above the Lord is taken into our hearts and takes up residence to animate the idolator to actions that match it’s mission.
              1. You can use these last few sentences to diagnose just about any form of idolatry. 
        2. Often in the Bible, we see this agriculturally and with procreation as the great need was food and advancing family lines and thus nations.
          1. Therefore, these are the most common forms of idolatry for that day. 
        3. Let’s get a little more granular by being transported to 2023 in Rome, Georgia. 
          1. Idolatry can also be less tangible things such as self-pleasure, which can take many forms. 
          2. Let’s focus on one big example, and I’ll keep the language safe for little ears.
            1. Throughout history and particularly today idolatry has taken one form in the male/female relationship that is continually misused in the adult film industry.
          3. It is a billion-dollar industry because it strikes at the heart of missional identity. Delight and filling the earth in that delight under the holy reign of God is good, and will bring husband and wife closer together in their worship of the Lord.
            1. Abused and turned in on itself, this action of worship becomes an evil alter of idolatry that destroys its participants. 
            2. Rather than submit to the Lord’s good purpose, it is used merely for pleasure and profit divorced from the created purpose. 
          4. The worship of self-pleasure results in the act itself as the physical image of worship (the actual physical manifestation of the idol) and culminates in the bed becoming the altar for the image with the act and pleasures collapsing on themselves in eventual devastation of the human heart. 
          5. Then the images, the people themselves, are indwelled by the spirit(s) of lust and a host of other evil things that animate the humans to continue the sin that will leave them ultimately ruined.
            1. We’ll see this pattern of idolatry with Aaron and the people later in Exodus.
              1. This particular example of idolatry is nothing short of humans worshiping themselves while using other humans to do so. 
              2. It is particularly nefarious because as idolatry destroys, in this case, it destroys image-bearers and that is the enemy’s goal. 
              3. Thus we do what Paul says in Romans 1, we worship the creature rather than the Creator. 
              4. You can take this example and work it out with just about every object of worship under the sun, including the sun itself. 
    3. And, the wild thing is that all Christians, no matter how advanced or civilized we are, likely have or have had to dethrone objects of worship we have set up in front of the Creator Lord Jesus.
      1. Personal example: Because of my constant world of chaos growing up, I love peace and order.
        1. There is nothing wrong with peace and order. 
      2. Often idolatry takes a good thing we turn into a first place God thing then it becomes a very bad thing. 
        1. Yet, my love for peace and order can override the Lord’s commands to deal with certain things that may cause temporary chaos in order to get to true peace, order, health, and wholeness.
          1. Nothing wrong with peace and order. 
          2. Yet ignoring or not obeying the Lord’s commands or general revelation’s good ways on how to have it and getting peace and order my way is setting up peace and order above the Lord to have peace and order my way faster because ultimately I don’t see Jesus’ way as better for me or expedient enough. 
          3. Rather I see Jesus’ way as a hindrance to what I perceive as a better way.
            1. Thus, I worship peace and order in the form of myself and my internal needs and do so in the name of the Lord Jesus.
              1. I can justify my idols with the best of them. 
            2. The physical image I set up is myself in my internal peace to get to the Lord’s ends MY way.
            3. Then I’m harassed by the spirit of lies and self-deceit about which way is best for good health using good and even Bible language, in conflict with the Holy Spirit, and that interaction works its way out in confusion and disappointment for me and others around me.
              1. Idol wearing a Christian t-shirt. 

Application

Evaluate yourself for idols regularly, and turn from them immediately. 

  1. Our motivation for such vital work is the grace of God.
    1. We must believe that in salvation, we are preserved from the holy wrath of God. v. 1-6
      1. The Lord distinguishes between Egypt and Israel in bringing justice down in righteous wrath over the false worship of Egypt and Pharaoh. 
      2. For those who have the righteousness of Jesus counted to them, we are spared from ever receiving justice for sin. 
  2. All that true followers of Jesus will ever get is the deep and glorious love of God in all the Fatherly forms his love takes from discipline to refine us to provision for us.
    1. Part of being in that love and receptive of that love is the awareness of when something evil challenges that deep love by seeking to replace it by capturing our allegiance. Some nefarious idol. 
  3. 2 Corinthians 13:5 (ESV) 5 Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test!
  1. Jesus is either in you through the Holy Spirit because of repentance and faith or he is not. 
  2. Examination of ourselves to check in on our faith is one of the pieces of evidence we are in the faith, and that we are actually aware of and becoming more aware of idols that attempt to compete for the allegiance that belongs to Jesus. 
  3. A failure to examine is evidence we don’t care and that we are taking things for granted and have a lack of understanding of what God has said and what he means.
  4. Worship is an examination.
    1. Worship exposes who or what we worship. 
    2. The object of that worship can be covered up so others can’t see by human efforts to hide, but the motives of the heart are laid bare for us to see.
      1. The Lord already sees, yet it is often we who are self-deceived. 
      2. Idols are experts in self-deception. 
    3. Therefore, worship the Lord this morning because he is really Lord, and root out all things that vie for his place
  5. As we worship this morning, if you are aware of an idol, simply repent. Turn from it. Get rid of it with any means necessary to root it out.
    1. Confession to the Lord. 
    2. Confession to a trusted friend. 
    3. Sing like nobody but the Lord is watching. 

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