We hope everyone had a blessed Christmas! Many of us are still enjoying time with family and friends.
We have decided to take off this week from posting. Instead, we will wrap things up next Wednesday 1/4, when Pastor Ben will discuss the final chapter and epilogue.
By Bob Perez
After looking at personal idols such as love, money and success from the previous chapters, we now move to harder-to-detect idols that are “more hidden”, as Keller puts it. These are idols of our culture and society.
As one example, Keller notes that the prevailing, single-minded goal of many in the business world is to maximize company profits, no matter the consequences. The blind pursuit of profits at any cost (financial or otherwise) is so deeply entrenched that it is part of our culture and has become part of the value system of business, held up as the most important thing. Integrity and employee welfare take a back seat.
Religious idolatry is seen when doctrinal truth is elevated in importance until it becomes a false god. Pride and over emphasis on spiritual gifts and ministry success can also be idols.
We also read the story of Jonah and how a complex mix of idols was at work that prevented him from being in step with the Lord. Even after being disciplined by the Lord and spared, it seems that he still failed to see past his idols and fully trust and obey. The book of Jonah ends on an unusual note that Keller finds compelling.
Jonah was blinded by his idolatry such that he did not want God to extend His grace to Nineveh and was angry at God after He did so. Who is our Nineveh? In other words are we blinded by our idolatry to the point that we don’t want to see the Lord change someone by grace through the Gospel? Of course, not openly, but secretly? Do we withhold prayer or lack concern for someone spiritually because of what they’ve done to us, a group they belong to, etc?
How should Jonah´s stubborn idolatry affect us? Even after being directly disciplined, and then saved from death, his idols still clouded his thinking and caused him to sin against God, right down to the very end. What should we do with this information? Does this mean we should be more patient with others (or ourselves) regarding battling against idolatry? Why or why not?
Keller talks about idolatry in religion. How exactly can a genuine follower of Christ get caught up in religious idolatry? Is this possible? How? For example, how do we know that we are not a scoffer, and instead are simply passionate about right doctrine?
Thinking further about idolatry in religion, how can a greater knowledge of the corrupting nature of idolatry upon religion and Christianity specifically, impact the way we share the good news of Jesus with others? Keller says, “Thinking we have tried God, we have turned to other Hopes, with devastating consequences. “ More precisely, what words do we have for people who think they have tried God but have only been exposed to a vision overrun by counterfeits? Can we talk through how idolatry distorts the truth of the Gospel and prevents people from seeing and knowing the one, true, living God?
How does meditating on Jesus’ sacrificial love for us on the cross help us see our hidden idols and battle against them? Do family, racial, religious or general cultural ideals influence us so that God is minimized? How does the reality of the Gospel affect the way we see and understand God’s grace towards others?
May Christ and His gospel reign supreme in our hearts and our minds, such that hidden idols are revealed and brought down. For His glory and for our joy!
By Bob Perez
This week’s post on Chapter 6 of Counterfeit Gods is forthcoming. Each post is supposed to take place on Wednesday but this week’s is late. My apologies. Look for the post on/before Friday morning (12/23).
In the meantime, here is a helpful read from Desiring God: Ten Ways to Bring the Gospel Home This Christmas
Merry Christmas to all as you celebrate the incarnation of our Savior!
By Josh Hayward
Keller strikes again with another heart-penetrating chapter on the idolatry of power and the desire to gain control. Like almost all idolatry, the desire for power, says Keller, may be a good desire gone bad. Our idols are not necessarily inherently evil things; rather, they become evil when we elevate them in our hearts to the point where they rule us. This is what happened for Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon. He was a man who desperately desired to maintain power granted to him as King. But a disturbing dream threatened his idol; thus he responded with much anxiety and fear. Keller points out that “Many people with a great drive for power are very anxious and fearful” (108). Nebuchadnezzar was no exception. Why is this the case? Their worth and security is found in the control they have over others. Therefore, there is a constant fear that this control might be threatened or even lost, causing such power-cravers to be in a continual state of insecurity.
Keller insightfully points out the reality that power idols express themselves through a great variety of other surface idols (111). The helpful example he provides is of a young man before he was saved who sought control by taking advantage of women sexually; but after he trusted Christ, he was made aware of the obvious sin of sexual immorality, and was changed in this area. Yet the idol of power and control still remained, forcing him to be the winner of ever argument, be critical of others, have the last word in every conversation, etc.
The question remains: What cures us from this power-craving idolatry? Once again, Keller asserts that the consistent answer to the problem of all idolatry is the gospel. We must renew our thinking about who God is and what he has accomplished for us in Christ. The omnipotent one was mocked as powerless, “He saved others; he cannot save himself” (Matt. 27:42). At that moment, as Christ hung on the cross, he forfeited his ability to use his divine power to save himself, precisely because he was saving sinners who crave the idol of power. Therefore, through faith and repentance, we must forfeit our desire for power by resting in the one who is now exalted at the right hand of God, reigning in absolute power!
By Drew Rogers
Once again Keller has successfully exposed another of our counterfeit gods, namely our striving to find meaning in our lives through the pursuit of our achievements. These may be found in our professions or our families or any other pursuit where success becomes an obsession and in some way proves our worth, gives us value or over stimulates our feelings of self worth which will result in a false sense of security. Keller again uses biblical characters to drive the point home and expose our hearts to our Counterfeit gods. In this chapter we a find Naaman a wealthy man and a valiant soldier, highly decorated and honored for his many achievements. Yet despite all of his success’s Naaman was a leper. He carried in his body the sentence of death. (2 Kings 5) Despite all that he had and all that he had accomplished these things could not buy him the only success that matters; the death sentence removed. In the end Naaman is cleansed of his leprosy but only after having counted all that he had and accomplished,as being nothing, and having to trust in another for his healing. The story should sound familiar and resound in our own hearts for we too without Christ have a sentence of death hanging over us and we too in order to be healed need to trust in someone (Christ) outside ourselves and count all that we think we have to offer as nothing. As Paul says in Philippians 3:8 “Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ.”
So how does all this help in overcoming our propensity to substitute success and make it a counterfeit god when we know that only the true God satisfies all of our needs that we turn to success to satisfy? Let me first say that this chapter and all the previous chapters and all the chapters to follow describe the hidden idols of our hearts and attempts to expose them. Once exposed we see them as wrong desires ones that will never satisfy, then our natural bent is to rid ourselves of these wrong desires and set a new course. If you are at all like me, failure lies close at hand and the cycle repeats its self over and over again. What I have learned is best explained through a sermon written by Thomas Chalmers called “The expulsive power of a new affection” and here is a quote: “There are two ways in which a practical moralist may attempt to displace from the human heart its love of the world; either by a demonstration of the world’s vanity, so as that the heart shall be prevailed upon simply to withdraw its regards from an object that is not worthy of it; or, by setting forth another object, even God, as more worthy of its attachment; so as that the heart shall be prevailed upon, not to resign an old affection which shall have nothing to succeed it, but to exchange an old affection for a new one. My purpose is to show……. that from the constitution of our nature, the former method is altogether incompetent and ineffectual and that the latter method will alone suffice for the rescue and recovery of the heart from the wrong affection that domineers over it.“
In other words, when your heart is increasingly satisfied in God, that new affection gradually expels old cravings and old frustrations from the heart. Here is the way Keller describes it; “The idol of success cannot be just expelled, it must be replaced. The human heart’s desire for a particular valuable object may be conquered, but its need to have some such object is unconquerable.” (p 93)
Therefore Christ in all his glory must become that new affection of our hearts for Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 4:6 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. God in his mercy has given us hearts so that we can love God with all our being; Deuteronomy 30:6 And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.
Here is one last quote and some concluding thoughts; I was reading again part of Henry Scougal’s The Life of God in the Soul of Man. He made this penetrating comment: “The worth and excellency of a soul is to be measured by the object of its love” (p. 62) our true value our true worth is measured not by the worlds success’s but how much we value the excellencies of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. So what can we do to bring this about in practical ways: Pray that God would cause us to see him more clearly so that we would fall deeper and deeper in love with him, second read the word, for there is the clearest expression of the person of Christ and the Father, read books like Keller’s that always points us to the greater worth, God himself, and surround yourselves with people who love the Lord and express that love in their lives. This list is not exhaustive but it serves me well and I pray that it may also serve you in seeing more of the unfathomable beauty and worth of Christ, and in seeing, fall more and more in love with him, and may He become increasingly the object of your love.