Calvin points out that “man’s nature is a perpetual factory of idols” (Inst. I.11.8). Man’s mind is so full of pride and boldness that it dares to imagine a god according to its own capacity. And that capacity reveals itself in producing statues, pictures and anything else to represent God. Yet we know that God is invisible and cannot be represented by the visible. But we persist in this production, don’t we? Calvin says that man’s mind “sluggishly plods, indeed is overwhelmed with the crassest ignorance…it conceives an unreality and an empty appearance as God” (Inst. I.11.8). He further says that “to these evils a new wickedness joins itself, that man tries to express in his work the sort of God he has inwardly conceived. Therefore, the mind begets an idol; the hand gives it birth” (Inst. I.1.8). We still see this today in our superstitious culture. [Read more…]
Loving Your Enemies
Loving our enemies (Luke 6:27 – 42) involves:
- The loss of personal personhood
- The loss of personal privilege
- The loss of personal power
- The loss of personal possessions
We must:
- Forego
- Forgive
- Follow
Selfless
We need to die to self in order to become selfless. Listen to: http://s3.amazonaws.com/BethelSermons2017/2017Apr02ra.mp3
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What Do the gods Offer
It is as Augustine says in his "City of God" that the only cause for the perishing of Rome was that she chose to have guardians that could also perish. Is this not the same for Jerusalem in the days of our Lord? She chose not the Lord to save her, and thus because she trusted in herself and her righteousness – she likewise perished (AD 70). In the same way, what is our country entrusting herself to? Do we not see the influence of pagan idolatry raising one again its ugly head? God has been banished like a naughty schoolboy, but He shall take His vengeance because He is a consuming fire. Great nations perish unless their people (like ancient Nineveh) repent. May we learn this lesson well as Augustine understood it.
The Downgrade of the Supernatural
The moment you exchange the supernatural for the natural – all faiths become the same and therefore are the product of a particular culture or people or person. This in turn forces you to accept all since they are the same and not supernatural. This has always been in existence and idolatry is the clearest example of this. Idolatry therefore is not distinguishing God alone as he has revealed himself supernaturally in the Scriptures. If you can bring all faiths to the same level then there is no one true faith. Yet Jesus made it abundantly clear that he alone is the Way, the Truth and the Life and therefore all other faiths are not faiths at all – they are perversions of Satan and the sinful human heart and mind. They are not therefore true. They are rivals to God – they are idolatrous. To exalt God above all is only his due since he alone is God. All others are gods, and therefore not gods at all, since an idol in any form whatsoever is not true or real. So always magnify God as he is and never seek to reduce him to any contemporary model or thought. That would be to downgrade the supernatural and you would have created a new idol for yourself.