118 Sermon Illustrations on Idolatry

In the imperial city, after allowing more than one half for natural deaths, the number of exposed infants is, according to Barrow, about four thousand a year. Some of the scenes he witnessed while at Pekin, were almost incredible. Before the carts go around in the morning to pick up the bodies of infants thrown in the streets—amounting to about four and twenty every night—dogs and swine are let loose upon them. The bodies of those found are carried to a common pit without the city walls, in which the living and the dead are thrown together. This, however, is a small proportion, compared with other places. In some provinces not one out of three is suffered to live.

In Sevel, a large and populous village in Southern India, the gospel, says the Rev. Mr. Dent, has publicly triumphed over heathenism. There were a few families there under instruction, of the Shanar tribe. All of them, with three exceptions, joined the congregation; and they then agreed among themselves to demolish their peicoil (or devil temple), and convert it into a place of worship. Soon after, I visited the village, and the people informed me of their intention: I rejoiced exceedingly, that they had come to this determination; and encouraged them to it, by citing a few passages of Scripture that related to the destruction of idolatry. They asked me to come to the spot; and I did so, in order to witness the spectacle. The most forward among our people entered the temple first; and one of them, with an axe in his hand, and with this sentence, "O Christ, help!" in his mouth, gave the chief idol a blow, and severed the head from the body: then came others, and threw down the idols and altars that were therein, demolished the inner courts and walls, and leveled them all to the ground. The idols, broken to pieces, they threw out for public exhibition; saying, "Such are the gods we have ignorantly worshiped and believed all this time! They cannot help themselves; how can they help us?" There was a great crowd of spectators collected together at this place. The heathen of the village were quite angry at this outrage and injustice, as they termed it; and would have made some attempts to recover the gods, but my presence tended considerably to still them. The heathen cried out, "O ye fools, ye madmen! what have ye been doing? Have ye cut down and destroyed the tutelar gods and goddesses of your village? Be sure that you and your families will ere long be visited. Ammen will revenge herself upon you all, shortly." Our people replied: "These are sand and clay, made by our own hands: they can never do us any injury! The Lord Jesus alone is God: Him we all worship, and he will protect us." I had a good opportunity of addressing the crowd on the folly and absurdity of their religion, and of directing them to the Lord Jesus, the Savior of poor lost creatures. The sight was overpowering to me, having never witnessed any thing of the kind before; and I thanked God for this public triumph of Christianity over idols and idolatry in the village. We went afterwards, and had a prayer in that place, which but a little before was a devil-temple, and a nest of all unclean things!

About ten years after what the Spaniards call "The Conquest," the celebrated apparition of the Virgin de Gaudaloupe, made its appearance in the following manner. Adjacent to the city of Mexico is a hill entirely barren; an Indian accidentally passing heard sounds of music, and, at the same time, saw an aerial female figure in a praying attitude. The Indian, alarmed at the vision, fled; but passing near the hill a few days afterwards, the same strange occurrence again took place. The figure called him by name, and told him to repair to the spot on a certain day, and he would find her picture buried under a heap of roses;—he did so, and met with it as directed. The Indian carried this mysterious figure to the Bishop of Mexico, who was, of course, in the secret. A solemn conclave of the clergy took place, and the Bishop, with the most profound reverence, knelt before the picture and named it Neuestra Senora de Gaudaloupe. A magnificent church was built for her reception, and she received the exalted title of "Patroness of Mexico," which she enjoys to the present day. This is the origin of the Virgin de Gaudaloupe, conformably to the records of the church now existing at Mexico. The original picture is still exhibited in the Virgin's Church; it is painted on a cloth of linen manufacture, called "Uangochi," composed of coarse threads spun from the fibres of the aloe (Agava Americana) and woven very wide apart. The Indians and the Creoles say, that the picture is miraculous, because, as you approach it, the painting becomes less visible, and when quite close all traces of the picture disappear; their blind superstition not permitting them to discover that the open texture of the material upon which it is painted, is the cause of this disappearance.

A priest told the writer of the above, another circumstance respecting the Virgin, respecting another part of the miracle, viz., that the picture was found under a heap of roses in the winter season, and on a spot where those flowers had never bloomed. It never occurred to the priest that, a few leagues from this barren hill the climate was quite different and where roses grow throughout the year. Consequently the persons who painted the picture of the Virgin did not require any celestial aid to procure a bed of roses.

In such veneration do the Indians and lower order of Creoles (and indeed many of the middling and higher classes,) hold their patroness, that they have paintings of her in all their houses, invoke her in all their prayers, and implore her assistance in all their difficulties.

I have seen people, says a traveler, of all ranks and ages prostrate themselves before the statue of St. Peter at Rome, and after saying a short prayer most humbly kiss his toe. To such an extent is this carried, that the great toe of the image (it is so wretched a thing I can hardly call it a statue) is from time to time worn away, and the brazier is called in to supply another, that the toe-worshipers may not miss the object of their adoration. But a letter would not suffice to tell of half the instances that I have seen acted before my eyes of the most degrading superstition and image worship.

The following is a translation of a proclamation for the coronation of an image of the Virgin:—

"The most reverend chapter of St. Peter's at Rome, in compliance with the will of the count Alexander Sforza Pallavicini, is accustomed to distribute every year certain crowns of gold, to decorate the brows of those images of the blessed Virgin, the most celebrated either for their antiquity, their wondrous works, (query, prodigies or miracles?) or for their popularity, in order to increase ever more and more the worship of such images, and to excite the piety and devotion of the faithful towards the great mother of God.

"Now the above-mentioned most reverend chapter, having listened to the claims urged in favor of the image of the immaculate conception, which is adored in the church of Jesu Vecchio, in Naples, represented by a little wooden statue, three feet high, with an infant Jesus in its arms; and having found these claims to be supported by satisfactory evidence and solid documents, have judged it right to award a golden crown, not only to the image of the Virgin, but also to that of the infant Jesus in her arms. With this decision the supreme pontiff, Leo XII, has signified his approbation in his apostolic brief, (query, bull?) issued on the 2nd of December, 1826; and he has not only signified his approval of this act, but has been pleased to grant an abundant portion of grace and indulgence to all who shall assist in the ceremony of the coronation, or be present in the church on that great day. Then follow the order to the archbishop to do it, and the approbation of the king of Naples, as well as all the prayers and hymns that are to be said or sung to this little wooden image, before and after the coronation, etc. etc.

At Dijon, as I walked along, wrote the Rev. Dr. Wilson, bishop of Calcutta, in 1823, I observed on all the churches an immense placard. I stopped, from mere curiosity, to see what it was. It was an advertisement of a new edition of the History of the Miraculous Image of Notre Dame, at Dijon. I hurried to the church, and looked all around: I saw a gaudily embellished building, filled with altars, and pictures, and statues, but no image that I could discover. I went out and inquired of an elderly woman. She took me up to an altar on which was the statue of the Virgin, resembling that of a blackamoor, and decked out with tawdry ornaments. I afterwards bought the book; it positively asserts that various miracles have been performed by this wretched figure! Nay more, indulgenees are granted to all who worship this image, and a society is formed to celebrate feasts to her honor. As the image is black, the author attempts to prove, very gravely, that the Virgin Mary was of a swarthy complexion!

### 302. Confession and Absolution.

Halle, in Saxony, so remarkable for the hospital erected by the celebrated Francke, seems to have been, in the dark ages of Popery, like Athens of old, a "city full of idols," Acts xvii. 16, (marginal reading.) The churches contained forty-two entire bodies of Romish saints, and more than 8,000 smaller relics! A work, published by the authority of the archbishop, contains engravings of more than 200 vases in which these relics were kept. Some of them are particularly specified, as earth from a field at Damascus, where Adam was formed from the dust of the ground! Several bones and part of the standard of St. George; pieces of Noah's ark; portions of the bodies of several patriarchs and prophets; the rods of Moses and Aaron; clothing which had belonged to the Virgin; and a piece of the skin of Bartholomew! Among the entire bodies was one of the infants slain by Herod; also seventeen bodies of the companions of St. Ursula, who were, by mistake, said to have been 11,000 in number, instead of one named Undecimilla; also the glass or mirror used by these virgin martyrs, with much more of the like trumpety. On the Sunday next after the eighth of September, in every year, these relics were carried in solemn procession, and exhibited to the people. To all such as beheld them with devotion upon this occasion, offering prayers, and giving money to the collegiate church, indulgences, or pardon of sins, were promised, for 29,245,- 120 years, and 220 days. We are not told by what process of calculation this extraordinary number was ascertained; but the authorized writer might well boast that a great treasure was to be obtained at a small price, had not the treasure, even if obtained, been utterly worthless. There was, however, a qualifying clause; the indulgences were only to be obtained by those who were "suited to deserve them;" an expression which, as Sockendorf observes, would be as unintelligible to the people, as the millions and hundreds of thousands spoken of in the calculation. Into what fearful delusions do mankind fall, when they forsake the simple truths of the Bible!

Dr. Raffles, in his tour through Europe in 1817, visited the church of the Minorites, in Aix La Chapelle. After describing sundry antiquities, among which were "the remains of one of the children whom Herod killed in the hope of destroying Christ," he proceeds:

"All this was interesting, but the cream of the antiquities yet remained. We were conducted to the vestry, or robing place of the priest, where a young man whose province it is to expose these wonders to the gaze of the credulous, threw open the curiously painted doors of an immense recess, where in an instant we were dazzled with a profusion of gold and precious stones, wrought into various forms, to contain or emblazon the precious and sacred relics.

* * * * We were shown, 1. The girdle of Jesus Christ, brought from Jerusalem, by Charlemagne, and with that monarch's seal annexed to it. 2. Girdle of the Virgin Mary, derived from the same quarter. 3. A bone of the Virgin Mary's father. 4. A bit of the cord with which Jesus was bound when he was scourged. 5. A prickle from the crown of thorns. 6. A bit of the sponge with which they supplied the vinegar. 7. A bit of one of the nails by which he was fastened to the cross. 8. And lastly, some sweat which fell from him in the garden of Gethsemane. To this may be added a link of the chain with which Peter was chained at Rome! a bit of the bone of Simeon's arm, with which he embraced the infant Jesus!! a rib of St. Stephen!!! and a tooth of St. Thomas!!!!

I thought of the sailor, who, after his messmates had told some wonderful stories of what had been found in the bellies of whales and sharks, and such monsters, determining to outstrip them all, said he had once been present at the catching of a fish, out of whose belly, when opened, there came a ship, with all its masts and rigging, and the whole of the crew.

We were present to-day, say the author of "Rome in the Nineteenth Century," written in 1818, at one of the most ridiculous scenes I ever witnessed, even in this country. It was St. Anthony's blessing of the horses; which began on that saint's day, and, I understand, lasts for a week. We drove to the church of the saint, near Santa Maria Maggiore, and could scarcely make our way through the streets, from the multitude of horses, mules, asses, cows, sheep, goats, and dogs, which were journeying along to the place of benediction; their tails, heads, and necks, decorated with bits of colored ribbon and other finery, on this—their unconscious gala day. The saint's benediction, though nominally confined to horses, is equally efficacious, and equally bestowed upon all quadrupeds; and I believe there is scarcely a brute in Rome, or in the neighborhood, that has not participated in it. An immense crowd were assembled in the wide open space in front of the church: and from the number of beasts and men, it looked exactly like a cattle fair. At the door stood the blessing priest, dressed in his robes, and wielding a brush in his hand, which he continually dipped into a huge bucket of holy water that stood near him, and spirited at the animals as they came up, in unremitting succession, taking off his little skull-cap, and muttering every time in Latin, "By the intercession of blessed Anthony the abbot, these animals are freed from evil, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Amen." The poor priest had such hard work in blessing, that he was quite exhausted and panting, and his round face looked fiery red with his exertions. The rider, or driver of the creature, always gave some piece of money, larger or smaller, in proportion to his means or generosity; and received an engraving of the saint, and a little metallic cross; however, all animals might be blessed gratis. Several well-dressed people, in very handsome equipages, attended with out-riders, in splendid liveries, drove up while we were there; and sat uncovered till the benediction was given. Then, having paid what they thought fit, they drove off, and made way for others. One adventure happened, which afforded some amusement. A countryman having got a blessing on his beast, and therefore putting his whole trust in its power, set off from the church-door at full gallop; and had scarcely gone a hundred yards, before the ungainly animal tumbled down with him, and he rolled over his

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The destructive influence of ancestor worship far outweighs its benefits. It is a ruthless and voracious land-grabber; the best of the hills are for the dead. The living may go to Jericho, or may huddle together down in the malarial flats, while the ancestral shade rests in the high places on the hill. The exhilarating surroundings of the trees and green sod are for the dead, the living are left to the dust and heat and smells of the market-place.

Ancestral piety forbids the digging of the hills for gold or silver or any other treasure. What are the living and what is yellow gold compared with the sweet repose of my father’s ghost? Away with all sordid visions and leave the hills in peace!--JAMES S. GALE, “Korea in Transition.”

Miss F. M. Dennis writes from Ebu Owerri, a place about seventy miles southeast of Onitsha, North Africa:

It is a custom in this Ibo country when a child is born for the parents to go into the bush, cut a stick from a tree and plant it. When the child is old enough to walk and know anything it worships this young tree. All the Ibo people have them. But until the child comes to man’s estate and has a household, this is the only idol he has.

Havelock, the English general in India, once held a wonderful prayer-meeting in the idol temple at Rangoon. In the hand of each of the idol gods that lined the sides of the great apartment, his men put a torch, and by the light of these torches in the idols’ hands they held their worship.

See REMAINS.

NATURE WORSHIP

Father Brebeuf, writing about the Hurons in 1636, tells of a certain rock which they passed on their way to Quebec, and to which they always offered tobacco, placing it in the cleft of the rock and addressing the demon who lived there with prayer for protection and success. When the Indian in crossing a lake finds himself in serious danger, he prays to the spirit of the lake, throwing an offering, perhaps a dog, into the water. When the sound of the thundering frightens him, he prays to the thunder-being for protection. When he needs rain, he directs his rites to the god of rain and thunder. Air and earth and water are alive with spirits, any one of which may be prayed to; but, as a matter of fact, certain ones are singled out for worship. Add to these the many animal deities which are invoked even more frequently than those of the elements in the sacred formulas of the Cherokees.

There is an ancient legend of a devout man who had, among many other virtues, the gift of healing, unto whom divers made resort for cure; among the rest one Chromatius, being sick, sent for him. Being come, he told of his sickness, and desired that he might have the benefit of cure as others had before him. “I can not do it,” said the devout person, “till thou hast beaten all the idols and images in thy house to pieces.” “That shall be done,” said Chromatius. “Here, take my keys, and where you find any images let them be defaced,” which was done accordingly. To prayer went the holy man, but no cure was wrought. “Oh!” saith Chromatius, “I am as sick as ever. I am very sick and weak!” “It can not be otherwise,” replied the holy man; “nor can I help it, for certainly there is one idol more in your house undiscovered, and that must be defaced, too.” “True,” said Chromatius. “There is so, indeed; there is one all of beaten gold. It cost two hundred pounds. I would fain have saved it, but here, take my keys again. You shall find it locked up fast in my chest. Take it and break it in pieces.” Which done, the holy man prayed and Chromatius was healed. (Text.)

The Chinese claim that they do not worship the idol in their devotions, but rather the thought or the spirit that the idol represents. So they worship at the shrine of “Long Life,” “Happiness,” “Offspring,” “Ancestors,” “Agriculture,” “Heaven,” “Earth,” “Rain,” “Sunshine.” The bat means happiness; the peach, long life; the pomegranate, many children; the dragon, power; indeed, everything has its significance. This explains their designs upon cloth, embroideries, cloisonne, and porcelain, every figure and stroke having its meaning. The material thing represents a thought.

Is there not a legitimate use of symbols? And may they not be made to have a language that speaks through the senses to the soul?

Tribesmen in Bismarck Mountains of central Papua New Guinea worship President Johnson because he had big ears, and they have a photo of him pulling on the big ears of his beagles. Photo is hung in a cave and flowers are offered to it, according to Dr. Ulrich Ritterfeldt of the University of Utrecht in Holland.

Weeping statues of the Virgin Mary and other miracles are drawing much attention, especially from Catholics. Article discusses how such things can happen naturally, and how some have been faked.

Sermon in Ten Commandments series. 2 & 3 Idolatry and swearing.

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DON'T MANIPULATE GOD

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I. Gods to fit every occasion. Exod 20:4-5

II. Making your own god.

A. A prominent theme in Old Testament.

B. Seems incredible people could carve something and call it a god.

C. The paradox is that idolatry starts out with good intentions.

III. The twentieth century has its idols also.

A. Idolatry means making MEANS into ENDS.

B. Idolatry means substituting the THING for the PERSON.

IV. The true God is a jealous suitor.

A. He is a jealous God. Exod 20:5

B. Punishment or consequences?

V. Taking the Lord's name in vain. Exod 20:7

A. Idolatry is visual, swearing in vain is verbal misrepresentation.

B. The Name of God, in vain.

C. All our promises should be binding.

VI. Are you manipulating God?

A. Physical idols are scarce, but idolatry is rampant.

B. Don't invoke God, or imagine him on your side, if you are

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William Barclay, "Ten Commandments."

I. Idolatry - visual misrepresentation of God.

A. Old Testament prophetic passages:

B. Seems incredible people could carve something and call it a god.

1) But easy to understand the process.

a) God is unseen, which is hard to comprehend.

b) An image is made to REMIND us of God.

c) Bit by bit the image ceases to represent God and begins

1> Example of bronze serpent. Num 21:6-9; cf. 2 Kg 18:4

2> Crucifixes can go through same process.

2) The paradox is that idolatry starts out with good intentions.

a) An aid to worship becomes the barrier to worship.

C. The twentieth century has its idols also.

1) Idolatry means making MEANS into ENDS.

a) Liturgy and buildings can take the place of God.

b)

2) Idolatry means substituting the thing for the person.

a) Our god is that which we think to be the most important

1> It is where we give our time, thought, strength.

2> When things become more important than people,

A> Example of the Industrial Revolution.

b) Idolatry is not just a mistake of primitive people.

II. Swearing - verbal misrepresentation of God.

A. In vain.

1) Literaly means "for unreality."

2) Vanity, false report, empty, insincere, frivolous.

3) God's name must never be used this way.

B. How we take God's name in vain.

1) Breaking a pledge to God.

a) A very serious sin.

b) Jesus forbids oaths altogether. Matt 5:33-37

1> Some circumvented truth by avoiding God's actual name.

2> Oaths occur in Bible: Jesus, Paul.

c) All our promises should be binding.

1> Ordinary promises.

2> Work contracts.

3> Oaths in law-court. "The truth, the whole truth,

4> Specifically religious pledges.

A> Marriage.

B> Baptism pledge (parents for children).

C> Communion.

2) Bad language.

a) We will give account for every chance word we speak.

b) Every promise is sacred, and irreverence is blasphemy.

Stuart Briscoe

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I. Thomas Watson, Puritan preacher, said in the 1600's:

A. Easy to preach on.

B. Hard to preach on - if we are honest.

II. God denounces idolatry.

A. Don't make idols.

B. Don't worship idols.

C. Don't miscalculate God's reaction.

1) He is a jealous God.

2) (Goes with his holiness.)

D. Punishing future generations:

1) Cruel and unusual?

2) Perfectly natural, as any psychologist will tell us.

3) If God doesn't have the rightful place in our lives, the

E. Don't forget God's grace.

1) God shows us love, "hesed".

F. Be on your guard!

1) Jeremiah and idolatry. Jer 10:2-5

2) Jesus and idolatry. Matt 6:24

III. The dangers of idolatry.

A. Is it important today?

1) (Little boy and thunderstorm following curse word.)

B. Essence of idolatry. [from Barclay]

1) Means into ends.

2) Things for people.

3) Placing imagination above revelation.

4) Limiting God's transcendence.

a) We tell kids to treat God's house differently. Could

C. Putting humans in control.

1) We control our god.

2) Fashioning God in a popular style.

a) How can we be faithful, and relevant?

3) Detracting from God's image.

a) Jesus Christ is the only representation of God we need.

IV. Taking God's name in vain.

A. Easy commandment, since we don't think we break it, at least

B. What's in a name?

1) Reputation.

a) (Personal story of two missionary women in Congo.)

2) Character.

3) Personality.

4) Authority.

C. God's name.

1) In OT, God reveals himself by name.

2) God is knowable.

3) God saves us.

D. How do we take God's name in vain?

1) Being too casual, saying things we don't mean.

2) Making a name for ourselves.

a) We do religious things for our own benefit.

3) Praying for our benefit.

a) Tacking "In Jesus' name" on end of our prayers.

4) Not committing ourselves to God's control.

#3184

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What competes with God for your affections?

When we allow anything apart from God to rule us, compel us, or control us,

we have created an idol.

1. God's view of Idolatry. Jer 2:28; Hos 13:4; Exod 20:2-5; Dt 7:5,16;

Ezek 6-11

2. Promises, Promises. 1 Cor 10:14; Ezek 14:3; Jer 14:10; 1 Tim 6:10;

Col 3:1-3, 1 Jn 2:15-17

3. Destroying the Destroyers. Ezek 14:5

a. Unveil them. Ezek 8:16

1. Our gifts.

2. Our strengths.

3. Our ministry.

4. Our productivity.

b. Repent of them. Ezek 14:6; Is 30:22

c. Return to unadulterated fellowship with God. Hos 14:1,4;

Ezek 6:9; Jer 3:12-13,22

d. Vigilantly guard against new idols. 1 Jn 5:21

4. At Rest in God.

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When Mahmud of Ghazni invaded India, his conquering forces entered a celebrated temple to destroy it. He was entreated by the priest to spare a certain idol but refused. Instead, he rained repeated blows upon it. Suddenly the image burst open, and a stream of precious stones cascaded from its hollow interior.

So, too, for each idol the Christian destroys in his life, he gains more than he loses! Every one that is demolished brings him new treasures of grace and removes another hindrance to a productive life of prayer!

In A.D. 165, the Roman Prefect Rusticus encouraged Justin Martyr and his six companions to be sensible. They only needed to swear to the divinity of Emperor Marcus Aurelius and they would go free, unmolested. Threats of a swift beheading at the hands of a centurion did not shake their faith in Christ.

"Do with us what you will," Justin replied. "We are Christians and do not worship idols."

In "Bono: The Biography" (Piatkus, 2001), Laura Jackson describes the powerful effect the U2 singer can have on an audience. In the middle of a 1983 Los Angeles concert, Bono leaps from the stage in what has become by then his customary effort to make authentic connection with the crowd.

Draped in a white flag, he's raised from the ground by screaming fans. The flag is torn to pieces as he's swept through the arena and onto the balcony. Up there he's mobbed; his clothes are torn, he feels the situation getting out of control. He tries to settle the crowd by threatening to jump if they don't calm down.

In the shouting and confusion, through the sound of the rest of U2 still playing on stage, Bono leaps and descends twenty feet towards the crowded floor below.

He's caught by a mob of excited fans.

Clothes tattered, he rushes back to the stage. But in his wake, several enthusiastic fans follow his lead and hurl themselves from the balcony. Thankfully, they too are caught by the audience below. Later, Bono is horrified to learn about his fans' lemming-like behavior and realizes the tragedy to which it could have led.

The Christian as rebel

In my late teens, U2 was one of my first contacts with Christianity and the idea that there could be a God-a God who might even have relevance for my life.

With friends on a hedonistic 18-hour car trip to Northern Australia-where the beer is cold and the girls tanned and golden-haired-I first listened closely to a pirated tape of U2's music. I liked the songs; they seemed somehow different from most radio pop fare.

Shortly thereafter I read Eamon Dunphy's The Unforgettable Fire, a "definitive" 1987 biography of the band. I discovered for myself the group's-especially Bono's-spirituality. From my reading U2 appeared to combine passionate commitments to authentic artistry, social justice, and the Christian faith.

For the first time in my life Christianity began to make some kind of sense. It was 1987 and The Joshua Tree had been dominating charts and airwaves for several months. I'd never owned a U2 record, but now was clearly the time. With a handful of dollars-mainly provided by my mother-I went out and bought both The Unforgettable Fire (1984) and The Joshua Tree on cassette.

Like Jack of Beanstalk fame, I showed these cassettes to my mother. I did it in part because she always liked to know what I was doing with "her" resources. But it was also an act of reconciliation.

For most of my teens I'd fought with my mother. Some of these clashes were physical, as when she had attempted to keep me from seeing my girlfriend. In my mid-teens, I had rebelled against my parents' values. Although they weren't Christians, their values were sacrosanct and my binge drinking, drug-taking, sex before marriage, and frequent blatant disrespect for them (sometimes publicly) put me at a distance from my mother.

"What have you gone and spent your money on that stupid pop music for?" she screeched. I tried to explain that this band was "Christian"-tried to explain, in that way teenagers have of saying a lot without saying anything, that my purchase marked also a change of attitude.

"You waste your money like that again and you won't get another cent from me, do you understand?"

I walked out of the room enraged-and firmly committed to the two U2 tapes in my hand. My mother may have wanted to throw her Jack's "worthless beans" out the window, but I had them in my possession and was determined to see what would grow from of them.

I think the Bono that Laura Jackson describes would get a kick out of this little story. Wasn't he the guy who in high school flirted with both Christianity and punk's outward rebelliousness; who attended prayer groups and was at the same time dubbed "the anti-Christ" because of his punk attire and individualism?

So, too, my exploration of Christianity became inextricably linked with youthful rebellion.

Christ, but not church

Not long after my twentieth birthday, in the words of the U2 song, "Promenade," I climbed the "spiral staircase to the higher ground" and became a Christian.

U2's music was a key plank in my conversion. Accompanied by some of the most creative sounds rock had ever produced, Bono's God-infused lyrics penetrated the soil of my soul, which had been earlier ploughed by two Christian friends.

The church-at least in the institutional sense-played almost no role in my conversion. I attended various churches as a young Christian and couldn't get out the door and past the pastor quick enough. What I experienced in those services-from Catholic to Pentecostal-bore no relevance to the cultural, artistic, supernatural, and nature-centered experience of God I had enjoyed in my conversion.

For five years I drifted-and my chief "discipler" became Bono Vox from the rock group U2.

The public Christian

In 1987, his face and faith splashed across the pages of Time magazine, Bono was the loudest voice in rock and one of the most public professed Christians in the world.

It was at this time, according to Jackson, that Bono tried desperately to ensure he wasn't idolized. I'm not what the archetypal idol should look like-or feel like he said. He didn't want to buy into the adulation his band was surrounded by at that stage, which evoked comparisons with the Beatles.

"We think we're overrated," Bono said.

Inwardly Bono was struggling both with dealing with his band's success and holding together his crumbling private life. He was throwing himself into worldwide causes at the same time he was becoming prone to heavier drinking. With a heavy touring schedule forcing months of separation from his wife, Ali, his marriage was under enormous pressure.

But sections of his live audiences began copying the "outward" Bono's every move. While commentators quizzed him on whether his followers were displaying mindless devotion, he insisted U2 fans were free-thinkers.

Some may have been. But not this fan, who'd planted his U2 tapes and was watching and hoping the tall plant growing out of them would lead to spiritual treasure.

Another late-eighties' U2 book release was Bono: In His Own Words. Given my limited involvement in church (and my only passing interest in the Bible), this book became my holy scripture. Its only contents were quotes from Bono-on all aspects of life. So there it was. How to live the spiritual life. I became a Bono fundamentalist.

A new fundamentalism

What I gleaned from Bono: In His Own Words (which may have been very different from what he intended to be gleaned from these out-of-context quotes) was that religion was the enemy of God; the Pope was the devil; the Bible could barely be trusted; morality was secondary to following the spirit (whatever interpretation of "spirit" you may bring to the word); and being good to people was what mattered.

I had all my "how-to-live" information. Now I just needed something to do with my life.

I was a Christian. I loved music. I could write a bit. I could hold a tune. And I knew there was one thing underpinning all Bono's opinions and attitudes-even his Christianity. He was a rock star. (Plus, his real name was Paul Hewson. It couldn't be a coincidence that I was christened Paul as well, could it?)

With no musical background, it took me more than a year to learn guitar and quite a bit longer to learn to sing properly. But I felt convinced God had called me to rock stardom, so for hours every day I sang and wrote the best songs I could-and played them to my helpless housemates.

It took a couple of years to get a band going. It took hours of writing and practice to get some songs together. Took a few more months to get a gig. Took another band before there was a decent crowd. Couldn't ever get a record deal.

But it did take five years of my life. Five years where I followed the rock star/Christian/evangelist/artist life: Bono's life.

It did take more than two years to fill the hole in my life that remained once I finally realized I'd never play before a stadium full of adoring fans. It was a hole that often took on the shape of suicidal thoughts. But I filled it-and am still filling it-with God. Minus an idol or two.

Heaven and hell

Towards the end of my "rock star" life, I decided to give up drinking as a "witness" to my non-Christian friends (I didn't have any Christian ones), people who were drunk or stoned several times per week.

It was hard. But I felt I was doing it for Jesus. I was making a sacrifice, and it was worth it to ensure that my friends came to heaven. If there was one thing my conversion had left me certain of it was the distance between the heaven I was going to and the hell I'd been rescued from.

Plus, hadn't Bono and other members of U2 made similar sacrifices? As Laura Jackson mentions in her biography, the band members (except for Adam Clayton) were well known for shunning "rock star" pleasures.

Before rehearsal one afternoon during this sober period, I read a Rolling Stone feature interview with Bono. The "Zoo TV" tour was just starting and U2 and Bono were undergoing a metamorphosis. The article spoke of Bono's smoking, drinking, partying, flirting, and naked romps on the beach with women other than his wife. He cursed and swore. And then he talked about U2's music and his band's place in the world:

"I want heaven and hell for my band," Bono said.

Heaven and hell? As in the marriage of the two that William Blake wrote about? For me, Bono was the closest thing to Christ on the planet. But the hell I knew I'd been dragged from couldn't be put together with any notion of heaven.

Now, as a 33-year-old, I have a strong appreciation for the artistic and other struggles U2 was going through at that time. It was a period in Bono's life when, as Laura Jackson writes, the singer didn't know where the stage personas he'd created ("Mephisto," "The Fly," et al.) ended and Bono began. But as an early twentysomething man trying to be the next Bono, my idol's behavior and words had let me down. I was crushed, beached. What was I going to do now? Where could I look for guidance?

The way out

I ended up back into drugs, Richard Bach books (it was a bad time), heavy drinking, womanizing. I believed in Christ and reincarnation. I saw spirit beings (which I later learned weren't angels). I "astral traveled."

But then another mentor appeared in my life: Eunice, a 78-year-old Pentecostal woman. During my rock music phase, I still needed to earn a living (unlike the millionaire Bono) and did so by caring for disabled people in their homes. Eunice lived with her cerebral-palsied son. Through many conversations, she helped me see that the seeds U2 had planted were still growing. I was still climbing toward the treasure at the top of the beanstalk-I was just on a detour. She prayed for me and I received the Holy Spirit.

I looked also to other mentors: C. S. Lewis, Soren Kierkegaard ... the Bible became important. Finally, even church became significant in my spiritual walk.

As a twentysomething, I was shattered by what was for me Bono's "infidelity" revealed in Rolling Stone. But as a 33-year-old, I'm glad I read that article. The aftermath, despite its ups and downs, was a much-needed step toward my becoming the free-thinking human being that Bono hoped all his fans were. And an imitator of Christ.

Follow me

Fans will find plenty of Christian rock idols to choose from today: Creed, Moby, Sixpence None the Richer, plus any number of acts that straddle the zone between "secular" and "Christian" audiences. Christian music stars come in all music flavors, too: hip-hop, dance, pop, techno, reggae, rock . . .

There are plenty of reasons for young Christian music fans to look up to them-not least of which is the fact (it might seem obvious) that they're Christian. Many of them, Bono included, pour out their imperfect lives just like the rest of us: with as much integrity as they can muster. They wrestle with their calling as artists, live their lives to the full, preach the gospel in word and deed. They give millions of dollars away for work that promotes the kingdom of God.

With a popular culture dominated by adherents of every other worldview, young Christian music fans could do worse than imitate a Christian musician.

After they are first imitating Christ.

If they're not, the fans risk living someone else's life, that of an idol who-despite a connection with Christ, despite an often express wish otherwise-could ultimately lead them away from Jesus.

____________

Paul Mitchell writes from the Melbourne area of Australia, where he is coordinating editor of Zadok Perspectives and contributing editor for the literary journal Cordite.

Southern Baptist “Top Gun” Richard Toliver found freedom in the cockpit, from which he had dodged missiles and anti-aircraft fire while flying 446 combat missions in Southeast Asia during his twenty-six-year Air Force career. He also battled racism.

Toliver’s idyllic childhood was spent in multi-racial California — ”paradise,” as he remembers it — during the early 1940s. He dreamed of flying airplanes like those that flew overhead from nearby Oxnard Naval Training Base. That dream shattered when his family returned to his segregated birthplace in the South after wartime jobs ended.

“I hated the next ten years living in the South,” Toliver told SBC Life. “I was trapped in a prison. Everywhere there were barriers of poverty, color, hopelessness, despair, and vicious name-calling.”

Today, Toliver at eighty-two years old has held key positions at Apollo Baptist Church, an SBC congregation in Glendale, Arizona. He also is president of the local chapter of the Tuskegee Airmen, active in the Red River Valley Fighter Pilots Association, and a nationally known motivational speaker.

In his nearly five-hundred-page memoir — An Uncaged Eagle: True Freedom — Toliver gives credit to the many people who encouraged him throughout his life. He writes of his courageous mother, family relatives, and a white man who was a “ray of light” in the darkness of racism. That man provided Toliver, a Black high school graduate, with a scholarship to study at Alabama’s Tuskegee Institute, now University. There he met and learned from the Tuskegee Airmen who broke the military’s color barrier in World War II, who “inspired, motivated, and prepared” Toliver for an Air Force career, he said. Civil Rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., fellow Air Force officers, and in the 1990s, presidential candidate Ross Perot were others who impacted Toliver’s life.

More than anyone else apart from God, Toliver credits his wife Peggy’s Christian life for his success. Married fifty-eight years, she dazzled Toliver and the Air Force community with her gracious attitude, warmth, and servant’s attitude while successfully parenting the family’s three biological and five fostered or adopted children.

Toliver’s disciplined character and Peggy’s background as an educator and stalwart Christian kept their children on the right path, the retired colonel said. They were also aided by Peggy’s mom, Elsie Hairston, who lived with the Tolivers for twenty-seven years after his father-in-law died.

“The most important part of my life’s experience was discovering that God is in control of everything,” Toliver said. “He allowed me to become all that I am today.”

After years of putting God off and making “deals” he failed to keep, Toliver had what he calls a “Damascus Road” experience at high altitude in clear air. The F-15 he was piloting was struck by lightning. After safely landing the crippled jet, Toliver heard a voice that said, “How long are you going to keep up this charade? How long are you going to refuse to settle your debt with me?”

Toliver wrestled with those questions over the next few days. “Even the family dog avoided me!” he said. He found himself spiritually and mentally on trial. There was a “Prosecutor,” who listed even his sins from childhood and declared him “guilty.” However, an abiding “Presence” stood in Toliver’s defense, and “the hand of Jesus reached down and grasped my outstretched hands,” Toliver writes of his gripping salvation experience in his book.

Toliver, the first fully qualified African American F-15 pilot and successful in hundreds of combat missions, once acquired the nickname “Black Baron.” This was in deference to the acclaimed German “Red Baron” of WWI. After Toliver’s conversion, others started using “Preacher” as his call sign as a recognition of the pilot’s frequent scripture-based remarks and lifestyle void of previous colorful language and behavior.

Working out his salvation took much longer than his initial capitulation to Christ, Toliver said. He had to deal with the incessant anger that burned within him whenever faced with adversity, setbacks, and real or perceived racism. “I was committed to allowing the Lord to guide my path, but ‘self’ kept getting in the way,” he said.

Through Bible study and prayer, Toliver eventually came to realize that achieving success in the Air Force had become an idol for him. Ultimately it was in the person-by-person forgiving of people who had wronged him that Toliver first glimpsed true freedom. He had to forgive his father for leaving his mother with six children to struggle for themselves in the Deep South. Next it was his brother-in-law for his mistreatment of Toliver’s sister.

“Only then did the healing begin for past hurts caused by racial prejudice, slights, disappointments, and other emotional barriers,” Toliver wrote. “I finally found my freedom. The cage of despair had to be opened from the inside, and the path to freedom was through the door of forgiveness.”

After hearing a base chaplain preach that parents needed to allow Jesus Christ to be the perfect model for their children, Toliver called his family together. He told them he was flawed, and they needed to look to Jesus as their example. “A tremendous burden was lifted from my shoulders,” he said after his family reiterated their love for him even though they recognized he was not perfect.

Toliver retired from the Air Force in 1988, four years after being promoted to Colonel. Consulting jobs led to political activism, which in time resulted in being introduced to Ross Perot, the U.S. presidential candidate for the Reform Party in 1996. In Perot’s introduction to Toliver’s book, the billionaire wrote, “Dick spent his formative years overcoming incredible obstacles during some of the most challenging racial times of the Deep South. ... His personal struggle and eventual freedom serve as a roadmap for anyone who feels trapped by life’s circumstances.” Toliver’s bottom line: “True freedom ... enables us to act selflessly, forgive all injuries, love unconditionally and humbly serve without expectation of rewards. It is the spiritual state that reaches the very presence of our Creator.”

Deep within us all is a manufacturing process whether we know it or not: Slowly but steadily, we craft our idols, linking them together based on our own thoughts, desires and preferences until one day they take full residence in our hearts.

We should know these idols are just that -- idols. They’re our own creations. They do not speak. They do not feel. They are mere fabrications to which we willingly bow down to instead of the living God.

If we’re truly honest, there are a few reasons why we are prone to treasure these idols -- even more than Jesus.

They tell me what I want to hear.

Because idols are fashioned around our preferences and desires, we can rest assured that our idols are always going to tell us exactly what we like to hear. That we are right. That everyone else is wrong. That our sin is no big deal. That the best thing we can do in life is pursue that which will satisfy us at a given moment, no matter what it is.

But Jesus? Well, Jesus will tell us the truth. He loves us too much not to. Jesus, who knows our hearts more fully than we know ourselves, will cut through our web of self-deception, look us squarely in the soul, and tell us the uncomfortable, unvarnished truth about ourselves, Himself and the world.

They think I’m the most important thing in the universe.

Most of us still think, at some level and at some time, that we are truly the center of the universe. And our idols will agree. Our idols will affirm that because we are at the center, then anyone who doesn’t align with our desires or opinions is simply wrong or out of touch. Further, our idols will bolster our belief that, because we are central, it’s perfectly fine for us to see others as a means to our own ends. They will support our “use” of other people to gain whatever it is they can offer us.

But Jesus? Well, Jesus knows that God is the center of the universe. He makes decisions based not on what will make us the most comfortable, but instead on the glory of the Father. This puts us in an uncomfortable position because when we walk with Jesus, we must constantly remember that we are not the lead actor in this story; in fact, this is not our story at all. We are a subplot operating in a narrative thread with God at the center of all things.

They hate all the same things I do.

It is amazing how quickly we can move over the line of annoyance or even dislike into the realm of hatred. Most of the time the only thing we need to push us over the edge is someone else to agree with us -- to affirm that, yes, that person or that thing or that group is indeed the worst. Armed with the confidence that can only come with agreement, we can easily talk ourselves into deeper and deeper levels of hatred, all the while with our idols cheering us on.

But Jesus? Well, Jesus is the friend of sinners. He’s the advocate for the outcast. He’s the one who constantly crosses lines of human division and brings together sinners, saved by grace, into often uncomfortable relationships. He’s the one who is building a people of incredible diversity who have nothing in common except the only thing that matters -- the grace that has saved us in Him. Jesus is the one who builds bridges, not tears them down, and He expects us to follow Him across.

Yes, the heart is an idol factory. Today it’s busily working. Building. Manufacturing. And whatever comes out of that assembly line will tell you what you want to hear; they will think you’re the most important thing in the universe; and they will hate all the same things you do. In short, those idols will be another version of our worst selves.

Fight it today, Christian. Fix your eyes on Jesus. Shut down the factory, and then wake up tomorrow and shut it down again. Don’t abandon the true Jesus for an idol of your own making.

________

Michael Kelley is director of groups ministry for LifeWay Christian Resources of the Southern Baptist Convention

*

[Original illustration at this number was added to HolwickID #17925]

“Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.” (Romans 1:24-25 NKJV)

The Heathen Judicially Abandoned to Their Own Folly

• wherefore, etc. — Ps 81:12, Eph 4:18-19, 1 Th 4:4 — judicial consequences of sin. “They dishonored God by vile corporeal representations of Him, and He punished them by corporeal debasements of themselves.” (Wordsworth)

• who — as being persons who (Vaughan) or, seeing that they (Wordsworth)

• [ex]changed — bartered

• truth…God — true idea of God

• lie — Isa 44:20, Jer 10:40 — idol, false God

• worshiped — religious homage

• served — conduct corresponding with their notion of the god they served. Hence worship of Venus led to lasciviousness

• creature — things made

• Creator — the Maker of all

• blessed — Gk., [eulogetos] a word applyingonly to God

• Amen — Heb. word=truth, or truly. “They trifle with the truth, until, at last; Delusions strong as hell shall bind them fast.” (Cowper)

A lie — Rev. T. Robinson

I. An idol a lie:

1. As professing to be what it is not;

2. As deceiving him who trusts in it.

II. Everything opposed to God a lie.

III. Everything a lie which

1. Disappoints man’s hopes;

2. Fails to satisfy the cravings of his immortal soul.

IV. That life a lie which is not

1. According to God’s will;

2. Directed to His glory;

3. The realization of His enjoyment.

The Goddess of Reason — In the Paris papers of August 1,1817, we find among the obituaries the following announcement: “Died, within these few days, in the hospital of pauper lunatics of Salpetriere, where she had lived unpitied and unknown for many years, the famous Theroigne de Mericourt (the Goddess of Reason), the most remarkable of the heroines of the Revolution.” This female (nearly in a state of nuditv) was seated on a throne by Fouché and Carnot, in the Champs de Mars, and hailed alternately as the Goddess of Reason and Liberty. There was something remarkable in the history of the latter days of this poor creature, and her life is not without its moral. She who was taught publicly to blaspheme her Creator, and dishonor her sex, was for the last twenty years of her miserable life subject to the greatest of human calamities — the deprivation of her reason. She repented severely of her horrible crimes, and her few lucid intervals were filled up by the most heartrending lamentations. She died at the age of fifty-seven. — Dr Cheever

“Practicing vice against nature, and that, in such strange and abominable instances of sin, that nothing could equal the corruption of their manners but the delusion of their judgments; both of them the true and proper causes of one another.” — Dr. South