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When Jesus Was Tested for Idolatry

Even Jesus faced a real temptation regarding exclusive worship

Jesus really tempted

In previous posts we have seen how Abraham was tested for whether he had an idol, and now we turn to see how Jesus himself was tempted to worship another god.

How could it be that the Son of God could be tempted to worship anyone but God? He is divine himself and has lived for all eternity in the Father’s presence. Even so, he did face a real temptation in this regard.

It happened in his 40-day wilderness trial. After two unsuccessful temptations, Satan took Jesus “to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.” Then he brazenly offered: “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me” (Mat. 4:8–9, italics added). So Jesus faced an undisguised test regarding exclusive worship.

How could Jesus be tempted?

It raises many questions. How could this offer tempt Jesus? How are we similarly tempted? What does this teach about the nature of God, and mankind? What does this teach about God’s command to worship him exclusively?

Regarding the first question: Was Satan’s offer a ridiculous miscalculation, a gambit that had no chance of appealing to Jesus? No, Satan knows much about human nature. This was his ultimate chance to advance his rebellion against God, so he was surely exercising all his cunning powers.

The key to understanding this temptation is to remember that Jesus was both fully God and fully man, which meant his human nature was susceptible to every temptation common to man. Hebrews 4:15 says, “We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.”

Nothing about Satan’s offer could appeal to Jesus in his divine nature, for “God cannot be tempted with evil” (Jam. 1:13). And even as Satan appealed to Jesus’ human nature, he did not offer himself as the bait, as though anything about him could inspire Jesus to worship. No, the key word in understanding this temptation is glory.

Glory

The narrative reads, “The devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to him, ‘All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me’” (Mat. 4:8–9, italics added). What Satan knew could appeal to Jesus’ humanity was glory.

This is what mankind wants. Glory drives sports. When men and women train for the Olympics, for example, they push their limits in work and pain, and their reason for doing so is not merely to stand on a platform and have precious metal hung around their neck and hear their national anthem. There are easier ways to hear anthems and quicker ways to get gold.

What athletes want is glory. Not just the glory of applause, but the glory of greatness, of being the best, of displaying their talent for all to see and extol. They want the glory of competition, the glory of courage and sacrifice, the glory of passion and ultimate effort, the glory of teamwork and sharing arenas with other great athletes.

They want the glory of being watched by millions on television, the glory of their names inscribed in Olympic history. They want the glory of winning, setting records, nearing perfection. They want the glory of making family, friends, and hometown proud. People will do almost anything for glory.

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Peace through Surrender

When you surrender everything to God, you’re free

Isaac on the altar

Abraham’s second great test for idolatry came when God commanded him to do the unimaginable.

Genesis says, “After these things God tested Abraham and said to him, ‘Abraham!’ And he said, ‘Here am I.’ He said, ‘Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you’” (22:1–2).

This is now decades after Abraham’s first encounter with God, and God has given him the desire of his heart by making possible the miraculous birth of a son through his wife Sarah. The Lord gives; sometimes he takes away.

The Lord knew how Abraham felt about Isaac. God called him “your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love.” He knew Abraham had for decades focused his hope on having a son, and once Isaac was born Abraham loved him above all. God also knew that his blessings can replace him in people’s hearts. Consequently one of the most harmful things that can happen to us is to get what we want. We can only find true life in our loving Creator. Because of his jealous love for Abraham God had to test to see if Isaac had become his god.

The test was stark: him or me? Obey me and sacrifice Isaac. Protect Isaac and disobey me. Which will it be?

God does what is right

The subject of testing teaches much about God. He tests for exclusive worship because of what he said in the Ten Commandments: “I the LORD your God am a jealous God” (Exo. 20:5). He forbids idols because he is jealous, not in the insecure and fallen way that humans are jealous, but rather in the strong and righteous way of guarding a romantic relationship from what it should not abide. Even heathens call adultery cheating. God knows if we are in a true love relationship with him we should not cheat on him. Your heart can have only one God.

So the test of exclusive worship includes the command to surrender whatever holds the place in your heart that belongs only to God. However, notice that after Abraham surrendered Isaac, the Lord allowed him to keep Isaac. God’s purpose was not to take what Abraham loved, but to ensure his heart was properly ordered. Abraham showed that no one could take God’s place in his heart.

You likewise must not only surrender competing loves, but also wholeheartedly embrace God, for your heart abhors a vacuum. It will have a first love.

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Why People Do Not Believe in the True God

They do not believe in God because they do not want him to exist

Not Believe in God

We saw in the previous post that just because people receive objective evidence of the one true God does not mean they follow him. In fact, the Bible teaches that precisely the opposite happens.

Apart from God’s intervention the fallen human heart recoils from the one true God. Rather than worship God as he is and change as he requires, fallen people create substitute gods that suit their desires. In Romans 1, the apostle Paul said that people

“by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.” (Rom. 1:18–23)

Three surprising facts

Notice three key truths about the turn from God to idolatry. First, verses 19–20 say all people know from objective evidence that the one true God who created all things exists.

Second, verse 18 says they respond by “suppressing” the truth. They do not want to deal with God as he truly is, so they push reality about God from their consciousness.

Third, verse 23 says they exchange what they know to be true about God for idols. They create gods to substitute for the true God they spurn. This is what Israel did with the golden calf. This is what Abraham did until God appeared to him in Ur.

And this encounter brought Abraham’s first great test. Would he now give exclusive worship and devotion to the one true God? Abraham’s actions show he passed the test. He obeyed God by leaving Ur. When he came to the Promised Land, he built altars of worship and called on the name of the Lord (Gen. 12:7–8; 13:4, 18). In the remainder of his story, there is no hint of idolatry.

Will you follow in Abraham’s steps?

If you are not yet a Christian, you face the same test Abraham did. In your heart of hearts, even if you have never encountered God in an extraordinary way, you know he exists. You have been guilty of suppressing what you know of him and exchanging devotion to him for devotion to other things you have made ultimate instead, such as money, sex, music, career, family, friends, romance, movies, sports, food, hobbies, education, the beauty or build or health of your body, and so on.

The question is, When you encounter the truths about Jesus Christ, will you surrender your idols? Will you make him most important? God calls you to worship and serve him exclusively. He alone is worthy, and therefore he is a jealous God.

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God Forgives Idolatry

Although God is rightly jealous of false gods, he is also merciful

forgives idolatry

We have seen in previous posts in this series that God is rightly jealous when people worship idols and make created things their ultimate priority, rather than making God their chief concern in life. Nevertheless, we see in the life of Abraham that God will forgive those who have lived in such idolatry.

Abraham grew up in idolatry

Scripture says that before God intervened in Abraham’s life, he, his father Terah, and his brother Nahor served other gods (see Joshua 24:2).

Fathers teach their children to worship their idols. Scripture says Terah raised his family in Ur, a large, prosperous city on the banks of the Euphrates that archeologists have found had a temple to the moon god. So Abraham grew up in an idolatrous environment, with statues of idols enshrined in his home, with regular visits with his father to the temples of false gods, eating meals and performing sacrifices in home and temple dedicated to these gods. This was his life from the cradle and through his formative years as a toddler, boy, and teen. Abraham grew up worshiping idols.

But God had designs on him. Sometime after Abraham reached manhood, God first revealed himself to him when he lived in Ur, before he and his family moved to Haran and Abraham later moved to Canaan. In Acts 7:2–4 the martyr Stephen says of this event:

“The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham while he was still in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran. ‘Leave your country and your people,’ God said, ‘and go to the land I will show you.’ So he left the land of the Chaldeans and settled in Haran.”

This meeting in Ur must have turned Abraham from idols to the one true God.

Repentance is not automatic

But as Israel showed above, even after extraordinary encounters with God, turning from idols to God is not automatic, as we might suppose. Millions of Israelites saw how God judged the Egyptians and their idols with ten plagues, saw the Red Sea part and walked through it on dry ground, saw the pillar of cloud and fire leading in their journey, saw how God provided water and manna in the wilderness, saw God’s stormy glory on Mount Sinai, and heard God’s voice announcing the Ten Commandments. Yet after a lull in the action they quickly made a golden calf and held an idolatrous party.

Just because people receive objective evidence of the one true God does not mean they follow him.

But Abraham did. He repented of idolatry, and God forgave him.

If we repent of loving anything more than God, he will also forgive us.

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The Savior for Every Kind of Idolator

The definition of idolatry includes far more than the worship of statues

Definition of Idolatry

In the crisis at the foot of Mount Sinai, what saved people was a mediator. Instead of jumping at the privilege of having God’s nation descend from his line, Moses interceded for the guilty, and God mercifully relented.

Today what saves us from God’s wrath against those who love false gods is another mediator who is infinitely greater, the one and only mediator between God and mankind, Jesus Christ. He alone can be our mediator, for he alone died on the cross for our failure to worship God exclusively. We all need Jesus to mediate our relationship with God, for all are guilty of idolatry in one form or another.

Idolatry without statues

In some cultures, idolatry involves blatantly honoring statues bearing names of false gods. It is obvious and deliberate. But in other cultures, idolatry is subtle, a matter of the heart, committed without statues but fundamentally the same.

Colossians 3:5 teaches that idolatry is essentially about love: “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming” (italics added). This verse equates covetousness and greed—a matter of the heart and its loves—with idolatry.

Elsewhere the New Testament likewise speaks of betraying God in a way that involves the heart and our excessive love of what God has created, admonishing Christians, “You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God” (James 4:4).

One’s ultimate concern

In his book Counterfeit Gods, Timothy Keller defines idolatry as anyone or anything that becomes our ultimate concern, ultimate love, instead of God. If our highest love centers not on God but on something he created, we commit idolatry. We do not worship him exclusively.

Over your lifetime, what have been your ultimate concerns in place of God? Is something or someone presently pushing him from his rightful place as your chief love?

Because Jesus is your mediator, you have forgiveness through faith in him. Because Jesus is your mediator, he calls you to repent of betraying God. God’s command to worship him exclusively is a critical test.

Israel failed it. Abraham passed, and to him we turn in the next post.

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Idolatry, Betrayal, and Divine Jealousy

Idolatry is not merely the stumbling of an immature son; it is the betrayal of a spouse.

idolatry betrayal divine jealousy

In the previous post we saw that Israel began worshiping a golden calf at the very time that God was enacting his covenant with them through Moses on the top of Mount Sinai.

At the top of the mountain, God reported the adultery to Moses. With the fury of a husband betrayed on his wedding night, God announced, “I have seen these people, and they are a stiff-necked people. Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation” (Exo. 32:9–10).

God was ready to start over. Although he would fulfill his promise to Abraham by using his descendant Moses to begin a new Israel, he had lost patience with that faithless generation.

This was so because in the context of worship a different metaphor describes the relationship. In the context of worship, God was not like a father training his young son; rather, on the basis of the covenant just sealed in the covenant meal, this was a marriage. Idolatry is not merely the stumbling of an immature son; it is the betrayal of a spouse. Idolatry is adultery, the one thing a marriage should not abide.

What sex is to marriage, worship is to a relationship with God. Therefore idolatry could break the covenant.

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In Bed with Another God

Israel’s worship of the golden calf reveals the disposition of every human heart

golden calf

Exodus 20:18–20 says that after God spoke the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai, the people were terrified and said they could not bear to hear more. So Moses climbed the mountain again to meet further with the Lord.

The first thing God said to Moses again concerned idolatry: “You have seen for yourselves that I have talked with you from heaven. You shall not make gods of silver to be with me, nor shall you make for yourselves gods of gold” (Exo. 20:22–24, ESV). Just in case someone had missed the point, God repeated what was most important to him.

Worship took center stage in what followed. After God elaborated on the Ten Commandments (Exo. 21–23), he called Israel’s elders to worship him in a covenant-making meal (24:1). After that, Moses again ascended the mountain for his famous 40-day meeting with the Lord, which focused on God’s instructions for Israel’s worship, which involved detailed plans to create a tabernacle and to consecrate a priesthood qualified to mediate for the people (Exo. 25–31). Worship was the pure consummation of marriage between God and Israel.

Wasting no time in finding an idol

Meanwhile at the foot of Mount Sinai, Israel was making eyes at another god. Impatient with Moses, the leaders beckoned Aaron, “Come, make us gods who will go before us” (Exo. 32:1), and he complied. From their jewelry he molded a golden calf. Aroused, the leaders proclaimed, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.” They offered sacrifices to the calf and celebrated an idolatrous festival.

God’s betrothed people were in bed with another god. Their betrayal could not be more appalling. This was Israel’s defining moment, and it was a disaster. They had bombed the test of exclusive worship.

This story reveals how quickly the fallen human heart turns to other gods. The Golden Calf is not just a sad story of Israel’s gross idolatry; it is the story of you and me and every human’s readiness to move God from his rightful place in one’s heart and replace him with some other ultimate devotion: work, money, romance, sex, family, friends, homeland, hobbies, sports, power, comfort, politics, the stock market, gambling, pornography—any created thing. God is rightly jealous that we should love him more than any such thing.

Jesus commanded, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.” (Matthew 22:37–38)

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What Marriage Teaches about Worship

God’s jealousy makes perfect sense

God's jealousy

I never knew my grandfathers. My paternal grandfather died before I was born, and my maternal grandfather was a mystery figure. He was alive, but we never saw him, never conversed on the phone, never talked about him, never hung photos of him on the wall. He did not reside with my grandmother, who lived an hour away. My parents did not divulge where he lived or why he did not live with my grandmother, and I did not ask. At some point I learned my grandparents had been divorced.

Actually I did see my grandfather once when I was around 10. He came to our home along with others from my mother’s family. I watched him with curiosity but did not speak with him. He was there with a woman who was not identified. I did not learn why my grandparents divorced until I was around 30. My grandfather did well enough in business that he and my grandmother employed a housekeeper. She was the unidentified woman at the family get-together when I was 10. My grandparents divorced because—well, you guessed it.

What a marriage must not tolerate

A husband and wife forbear many things in each other: irritating habits, stubborn flaws, and countless offenses. In love they overlook them. Their marriage vows require that they forbear all wrongs. All wrongs except one. What marriage should not abide is adultery. Romance and marriage are exclusive. Sexual relations are exclusive. If not, the end is near.

What sexual relations are to marriage, worship is to our relationship with God. He requires that we reserve worship exclusively for him, and he is right in doing so, for he alone is worthy.

Ten Commandments

At Mount Sinai God gave the Ten Commandments to the nation he had graciously delivered out of Egypt. The first two of those commands put first things first:

“You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God.” (Exo. 20:3–5)

Early in his relationship with Israel God clearly stated his nature. The message was blunt. I am a jealous God. Worship me exclusively. Do not even think about betraying me.

And God says the same to us. We live in a world of tests and temptations. Will we faithfully honor God above everything he created? In upcoming posts of this series we will examine how Israel, Abraham, and Jesus faced this test in different ways. And thereby we will learn how we can avoid spiritual adultery.

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Newsletter, June, 2023

Celebrating a graduation. Congratulations, Swetha!
With my wife and grandkids
With longtime friend Craig, who was playing his trombone at the Union League Club in Chicago
The banquet room at the Union League Club, where we went to watch Craig play the trombone. Thank you, Craig!
For you who have never used anything but a mobile phone,
these are telephone booths at the Union League Club!

Happenings

–In May I attended the Discipleship.org conference in Indianapolis. I heard several motivating and instructive messages and got some excellent books. Thanks to Tom McElroy from Navigators Church Ministry for making my attendance possible and for letting me ride with him there and back.

–I either got a new neighbor upstairs or my old neighbor recently got a big dog who likes to whoof and whoof and whoof. Pray for us.

–I’m spending many hours working on the technology of our church using Subsplash for our website, app, livestream, and online giving.

–My son Mark had a major healing from digestive troubles that he had suffered for several years. Thanks be to God, our healer!

–In our church I am preaching through the Gospel of Luke, now in chapter 7. Jesus is awesome!

Featured email course

You read this blog because you want to know God better. To that end, I highly recommend you sign up for my email course on the goodness of God’s holiness. You will never begin to understand God until you grasp holiness. Click here to sign up.

Most recent Bible memorization and meditation

Luke 6:46–49. “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you? Everyone who comes to me and hears my words and does them, I will show you what he is like: he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when a flood arose, the stream broke against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built. But the one who hears and does not do them is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the stream broke against it, immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great.”

“Coincidentally” I saw this week that John Piper has a new book coming out titled All That Jesus Commanded. I think I’ll read that.

My next theme

Last week I finished the series on being “Tested by Truth and Error.” My next series is on “Understanding God’s Jealousy.” That is not exactly a warm and fuzzy topic, but it is must reading for those who want to know and love God as he truly is. He says numerous times that he is a jealous God, and he even says that his very name is Jealous (Exodus 34:14). That’s important. That is a truth with which we need to come to terms. So join me by reading here beginning next Monday. Your reward will be a deepened relationship with our greatest Treasure, the God of all things.

Recent reading

Who Shall Ascend the Mountain of the Lord? By L. Michael Morales. This is not light reading, but it is rich biblical theology on Leviticus. Yes, you read that right. I am reading a book on the theology of Leviticus. Why? Because Leviticus is concerned with God’s holiness, and that is a subject I want to understand as deeply as I can. When Jesus said that we should love our neighbor as we love ourselves, do you know what Old Testament Book he was quoting from? You guessed it (19:18).

The Complete Book of Discipleship, by Bill Hull. I have heard of Bill Hull for a long time but never read anything by him, so I picked this up at the conference. I’m on page 35, and I now know why Bill Hull is an important writer on discipleship.

Prayer and Fasting, by Roadcup and Eagle.

Reading and rereading: Isaiah. 2 Corinthians.

Botany for Gardeners, by Brian Capon. I’m not a gardener, but this is extremely interesting. Each time I pick it up, I am left marveling at our Creator.

King Jesus and the Beauty of Obedience-Based Discipleship, by David Young. Why had I never heard of this book or this author?

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Members at Heart

Part 8 of 8 qualities of the heart that resists error

Church membership is like an umbrella in a downpour.
church membership

This is the concluding article in a series examining eight soul qualities that make us immune to false teaching.

8. Church membership

Jesus says you are a sheep who needs the protection of shepherds (see John 10:1–15 and John 21:15–17). If enfolded in the flock, you benefit from the spiritual covering of your church (see 1 Corinthians 5) and from human shepherds who watch over your soul (see Hebrews 13:17).

Wolves eat stray sheep. Jesus intends that church be the safe place.

Membership is a matter of the heart, not a formality. A member’s attitude is, “I belong; I am involved; I am submitted; I contribute.” It is the opposite of independence, anonymity, and consumerism. The church keeps you safe when you engage in meetings, build relationships, and submit to shepherds. Your attitude toward the church determines how well it can protect you.

The church protects because it is the body of Jesus Christ. He is its head, the one who ultimately cares for the members of his body through his body.

Jesus is the great Shepherd of the sheep, the chief Shepherd over the under-shepherds (see 1 Peter 5:1–2; John 21:15–17). It is he who ultimately keeps you from falling prey to wolves.

 Jesus is the truth. It is he who ultimately enables you to pass the test of error by giving a love and ear for truth.

Jesus is the Word. It is he who gives the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, and promises, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away” (Luke 21:33).

And so it is Jesus Christ who faithfully helps you pass the test from false teaching and prove true to him. As you do your part to navigate through a world of errors, you can rest assured you are safe in the arms of Jesus.