Amos 2:4 - Homiletics

Heredity and the idol taint.

"And their lies led them astray, after which their fathers walked." Idolatry was Israel's besetting sin. Within two months of their leaving Egypt they fell into it, and, in spite of Divine deterrent measures, they returned to it persistently for nine hundred years. They took to idol worship, in fact, as "to the manner born" And that the sin was constitutional, and in the grain, is evident from the fact that there was no corresponding secession from idol worship to the service of the true God ( Jeremiah 2:11 ). It was, moreover, the germinal sin. Deranging the primary relation to God, it led to the derangement of all other relations subordinate to this. From it, as a fruitful seed, sprang up in a luxuriant crop the hateful national vices, in which the heathen around were not merely imitated but outdone. And then, as was natural, all the national troubles, including the crowning one of captivity in Babylon, were brought on them by this and its resultant sins, and were designed to be at once its punishment and cure. How near the practice lay to the sources of national corruption and calamity this passage shows. We have here—

I. AN IDOL A LIE . This is a strong figure, and very apt ( Jeremiah 16:19 , Jeremiah 16:20 ; Romans 1:25 ).

1 . It is a figment of the imagination. "An idol is nothing in the world" ( 1 Corinthians 8:4 ). It is simply, as the very name implies, the creation of an errant fancy. If we think that to be something which is nothing, we deceive ourselves; and the idol which is the occasion of the deception is an illusion and a lie. There are idols in every human heart. Such are all its passions and lusts ( Colossians 3:5 ; 1 John 5:21 ). And they are lies. They are conversant with unrealities only. They deceive by false shows and promises. They promise joys that are purely visionary. They afford joys that turn out greatly poorer than they seemed. They refuse to believe in evil consequences that are manifold and inevitable. Every man who has given them entertainment has deceived himself ( Romans 6:21 ).

2 . It is the devil ' s figurehead. This is Paul's reading of the natural history of an idol ( 1 Corinthians 10:19 , 1 Corinthians 10:20 ), and it was that of Moses (Le 17:7; Deuteronomy 32:17 ) and Ezra ( 2 Chronicles 11:15 ) and David ( Psalms 106:37 ) before him. Thus the imaginary god is, after all, a real devil, anti therefore doubly a lie; for he "is a liar, and the father of it." He suggests it, and designs it, and works through it, and embodies himself in it, and then crowns all by concealing the fact. The "kingdom of the beast" in prophecy is probably the great idolatrous confederation or false Church in which idolatry is wedded to empire (Dr. Wylie, 'Great Exodus'). So with the spiritual idols of our hearts. They are of the devil ( 1 John 3:8 ), produced by his working ( Acts 5:3 ) and charged with his evil nature ( John 8:44 ). To serve the flesh in the lusts of it is, in a very literal sense, to serve the devil.

3 . It disappoints all expectations from it. "Ye are of nothing," says Isaiah, addressing idols, "and your work of nought" ( Isaiah 41:24 ). So we say, "Out of nothing nothing comes." Idol impotence, declared in Scripture ( Jeremiah 14:22 ), and proved by experiment ( 1 Kings 18:24 , 1 Kings 18:29 ), is a corollary from the very nature of things. So with spiritual idols. Nothing comes out of them to the purpose. Covetousness and concupiscence and frivolity promise happiness, and it never comes, but is wasted by them beyond recovery. And then, instead of happiness, there comes a ruined estate, and shattered health, and blasted hopes, and an accusing conscience, and the first tooth of the worm that never dies.

II. AN IDOL A CORRUPTING LIE . "Caused them to err," or "led them astray." There is a whole philosophy of morals in this statement.

1 . Wrong belief leads to wrong action . The modern byword that "religion is not a creed, but a life," is cant generally, and a blunder always. Religion is neither a creed nor a life; it is both. "if ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them." You cannot do them otherwise; and in that case, to know them is useless. It is impossible to steer right with a wrong theory of navigation or with no theory. So a right life is impossible where there is a wrong creed or no creed. A creed is but a formula, of which the intelligent life is the tilling up. Belief in idols, or in any ordinance of their worship, is a mistake, and acted on must lead astray. So, too, with the idols of sinful appetites. We expect happiness from serving them, and serve them with that view. What is this but committing sin on principle—wrong practice the inevitable outcome of wrong theory?

2 . Idolatry casts off God, and so all restraints on ill-doing. Morality has its basis in religion. The standard of it is God's character. The ground of it is God's command. If there is no God there is no duty, as theists understand duty, and men may live as they list. This was what Israel did as soon as they became idolatrous (verse 7). Idolatry was equivalent with them to a deed of indemnity for sinning. So with the worshippers of idol lusts. The idolatry that makes a god of ourselves makes us also a law to ourselves.

3 . An idol is evil even as a conception, and the worship of it makes the idolater like it. "Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?" The idol invented by corrupt man is a corrupt creation. The gods of Greece and Rome were many of them simply the embodiments of human vices; and as they were models for men to study and imitate, the worship of them made the people like them. We are naturally assimilated to the likeness of the thing we serve, if we serve it truly. Let this warn us to take service only with a pure master.

III. AN IDOL AN HEREDITARY LIE . "After which their fathers walked." Reason suggests and history shows that the idols of the fathers are the idols of the children.

1 . All practices tend to become hereditary. Children are imitative. They do what they see done. An act repeated becomes a habit, and the habit leading to persistence in the act, presses it on others' attention, and leads to its being imitated. It is thus that the social and religions customs of a community assume an aspect of heredity, and propagate themselves down the generations.

2 . Evil practices do so especially. ( Proverbs 22:15 .) Evil is congenial to human nature, and men will do the thing that is pleasant. Hence evil never dies, whilst good is dying out continually; and evil propagates itself, whilst good can be propagated only by a perpetual exercise of Divine influence.

3 . Family sins are the most surely hereditary of all. Dispositions run in the blood. The drunkard, the thief, the libertine, each transmits his evil appetite or tendency to his children, and so practically ensures their failing into his sin. There is no reason to except a taste for idol worship from the operation of this law. In the literal sense it is an appetency easily transmissible. In the spiritual sense it is more easily propagable still. If "the fathers have eaten the sour grapes" of idol service in any form, "the children's teeth" are more than likely to be "set on edge."

4 . Idol worship is self-worship in an insidious form, and therefore specially congenial to human nature. Self is the idol easiest to enthrone. The injunction to love ourselves is not given in Scripture. It is safely and properly assumed, and made the model and measure of our love to others ( Matthew 19:19 ). Self-love is an affection native to the heart, and that in ideal strength. Now, an idol represented the maker's ideal of himself. It was, therefore, agreeable to his nature, and its service congenial, and so of easy transmission from generation to generation. All sin is really at bottom self-worship. We prefer ourselves to God; our will, our pleasure, our way, to his. We push him off the throne, and ourselves on it, and then do as we list. It is only grace that says, "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?"