1 Chronicles 5:25 And they transgressed against the God of their fathers, and went a whoring after the gods of the people of the land… In the Divine wisdom it had been planned that the idolatrous Canaanites should be wholly dispossessed, so that no remnants of the race should exert an evil influence on God's people when settled in their lands. Such a plan distinctly intimates the Divine sense of the peril in which the contact of idolatry would place an unsophisticated people. And such the Israelites were, for though their fathers had known Egyptian idolatry, the race that entered Canaan had been entirely isolated in the desert districts. They failed to carry out fully the Divine plan. Some of the Canaanites were left unconquered through the hurry of the tribes to locate themselves on their allotted lands. Some were left because the people had not faith in God enough to conquer them. And these remnants became a snare and a trap to the simple people, who were easily fascinated by ceremonial and licence. We learn - I. THE TEMPTATION OF IDOLATRY. From the standpoint of our spiritual Christianity, we sometimes wonder how any one can be attracted by the helpless and often hideous idols of heathen nations, or deceived by the claims of their priests; and yet the appeal of idolatry being to certain marked features of human nature, a little searching might show idolatry, in a skilful disguise, even imperilling our spiritual Christianity, and it is not quite certain that any of us could claim the right to "cast the first stone." To what in man does idolatry make its appeal? 1. To the sensuous element. We want everything brought within the sphere of the senses, and we only consider that we know What the senses can apprehend. So it is ever attractive to man to offer him his God as within the grasp of his senses. He will delude himself into the idea that the sense-form only helps him to realize the spiritual and invisible Being, the great Spirit, but almost inevitably the sense-hold becomes a slavery, and the thing seen is accepted as the reality. 2. To the aesthetic element, or taste, the love of the beautiful. A spiritual and invisible God asks from his creatures a spiritual and invisible worship, with a material expression held within careful limitations. A God within sense-limits only asks sense-service, and man satisfies himself with making it ornate, elaborate, and the perfection of taste, according to the sentiment of the age. Illustrate from refined Greek humanism. 3. To the active element. Idolatry has something for its votaries to do, many prayers to say, pilgrimages to take, sacrifices to bring, etc., good works by which to win favour. 4. To the sensual element. All idolatrous systems are more or less immoral, and give licence to the bodily lusts and passions. The purity of the claims of spiritual religion constitute, for man as he is, one of its chief disabilities. Show how Canaanite idolatry illustrates these, in its influence on the Israelites. II. THE SIN OF IDOLATRY. Take the case of nations outside the covenant; what may be known of God by them declares him as above his creation, and naturally claiming first and sole allegiance (see St. Paul's speech at Athens, and Romans 1.). Take the case of the nation within the covenant; a special aggravation is its sin against light and against its own pledge. Idolatry is a rash sin, for it sins against the basis commandment, which requires us to love God first. Its sinful character is sufficiently revealed and declared in its corrupting and debasing influence. It "brings forth death." III. THE JUDGMENT OF IDOLATRY. This is always spiritual; seen in the deterioration of the nations that serve idols. It is usually also material, and is seen in the mental, moral, and governmental slavery of the nations where idol-gods are sought. Divine judgments often - we can hardly say always - take their character from the sins which they judge. This the idea of Dante's 'Inferno.' Close by pressing St. John's counsel, "Little children, keep yourselves from idols." - R.T. Parallel Verses KJV: And they transgressed against the God of their fathers, and went a whoring after the gods of the people of the land, whom God destroyed before them. |
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