Calling Out the Idols
“But God shows his anger from heaven against all sinful, wicked people who suppress the truth by their wickedness [or who, by their wickedness prevent the truth from being known].” - Romans 1:18 NLT [emphasis added]
“We destroy every proud obstacle that keeps people from knowing God.” - 2 Corinthians 10:5a NLT [emphasis added]
The Christian’s responsibility is to call out idols that keep people from knowing God. This is not a pleasant duty, but it is part of the battle plan. It is not quite as simple as tearing down a statue alongside a chariot path in 700 BC Israel; something that resembled an oxen or sea monster that was put up overnight by a local band of religious kooks. These days idols are ideas. They pop up here and then there, they move fast and are hard to get a hold on. They are arguments that have memorable catch phrases like these:
If it feels good, do it.
Anything is ok if no one gets hurt.
All we need is love.
A woman’s right to choose.
These statements define freedom from authority, from morality, from self-denial, from the discipline and perseverance which could indeed lead to freedom to overcome human weakness and destruction. How about the freedom to play Chopin or Beethoven on the piano or violin with abandon, a joy that is reserved only for those whose discipline and practice have freed them to achieve such heights.
There are so many idols that need to be identified, captured, put on trial, and sentenced to the fiery pit from whence they came. So, I will proceed to pick them off one at a time. Please be patient.
The Suppression of Truth
In Romans 1:18, God appears to be angry. The Greek word οργη, or wrath, means a rightly directed anger to destroy evil. This is the goal of nearly everyone from the far-left, anti-war protester to the Navy Seal with a knife in his teeth and a gun in his hand - get rid of evil. His anger isn’t lurking as much as it is going to be; αποκαλύπτεται (apokalýpto, “to uncover”) revealed apocalypse now, soon, and forever. In general, we begin by identifying and calling out anyone and everyone who suppresses the truth. This is what God intends to destroy and he calls on us to participate. Those who do suppress the truth do so with what is called wickedness. Wickedness is a seldom used word that means a willful decision to sin or do evil. God’s anger is directed at those who willfully choose to suppress the revealed truth from God, about God himself and humans, and the state of the world.
Suppression, or the pushing down of the truth, is fundamental to Lucifer’s global strategy. I am reminded of this while watching cable news. Something as simple as the evening news can be infuriating to watch. Networks routinely suppress the story line that they don’t agree with. The press used to be the referee and hold each political party accountable. You can turn to CNN and watch what is being covered, then switch to Fox News and conclude that they are reporting on two different universes. Their power is not only in the questions asked, but on what is not covered. It is also revealed in their guests, their on-air talent’s views, and how those views are so in step with the network’s philosophy, rather than the down the middle hard news coverage. Depending on your political views, you find yourself either murmuring to yourself, shouting at the TV, or simply shutting it off and leaving the room. This is the kind of disgust that God experiences when he sees his opponents suppressing the truth because it keeps people from knowing the truth about him. He is angry about this.
This Is Not Politics
Everything is political, but God is not political. The difference is this: politics is arguing about what is true and, frankly, they rarely find it or agree on it. The result is compromise; this is the limit of human reasoning and capacity. God, however, is the source of all truth, he is the truth, and our very lives depend on knowing and living by that truth. Not knowing the truth is deadly. It rips apart the world into tribes who war against each other. It separates humans from their Creator and evil flourishes.
The Facts Are Obvious
“They know the truth about God because he has made it obvious to them. For ever since the world has been created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities - his eternal power and divine nature. So, they have no excuse for not knowing God.” - Romans 1:19,20 NLT
In order to qualify as a willful suppressor of God’s truth it makes sense that you would have ready access to that truth. God is not indiscreetly ready to take out every ignorant human. His targets are the ones who know the truth and who suppress it and keep the knowledge of God from those who need it. Who then is in danger?
I have special animas for those proud pseudo-intellectuals, some with degrees and some who have read a couple of books who deny the obvious reality of God. The history of contemporary philosophy and its stepchild, progressive theology, is that you can’t really know anything! From Kant’s assertion that you can’t trust your own eyes to Hegel’s infamous dialectic (Thesis-Antithesis-Synthesis Model), which says truth is a blend of opposing ideas synced together, human reason’s shortcomings leave you scratching your head. As the great philosopher Dallas Willard once quipped, “If you laid every philosopher in the world end to end, they couldn’t reach a conclusion.”
Human reason is a tool, a wonderful ability that makes science possible, but has not and never will scratch the surface of the true nature of reality. Revealed truth is the doorway to reality and that is what God is upset about. Don’t suppress my message, don’t reject your visitation in Jesus the Christ. Let the light of the world shine through. Don’t suppress it.
The fundamental platform on which suppression of truth stands is a sinister motive to oppose God. Paul mentions this in his penetrating phrases, “They know the truth about God because he has made it obvious to them” (Romans 1:2). Through creation he has made the invisible clearly visible. Obvious. Clear. Visible. If they don’t know God, it is because they have a very deeply seeded reason not to. He goes on to tell us why
“Yes, they knew God, but they wouldn’t worship him as God or even give him thanks. And they began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. As a result, their minds became dark and confused.” - Romans 1:21 NLT
To know God, in this case, means they had ample evidence for his existence, his divine nature, and his eternal power. The natural response would be to worship him and to thank him. They chose instead to suppress him and to invent silly ideas about him - but, why? What I will be introducing in this article, and in a series of future ones, is a story of revolutions. The cultural revolution, the sexual revolution, the perverse revolution, and finally, the lawless revolution.
Before any of these other revolutions can take place, there must be the death of God revolution. There is only one answer as to why people became wicked. Their leader, Lucifer, is wicked, and his goal is to destroy everything that God has created and loved. He is determined to kill what God loves the most, his creation. People don’t become wicked; we are born wicked. From our viewpoint, we choose it. Why do we choose it though? We don’t quite know, do we? We do know, however, that when we choose it, we have done something wrong or nonsensical. It is something like the madman genius, Friedrich Nietzsche, who reportedly said, “We have killed God and the world doesn’t have enough water to wash his blood off our hands [my summary].”
The atheist doesn’t really live with a clear conscience. He actually lives with a seared conscience, or in a state of suspension of all his innate knowledge. He is mad at God for existing and mad at God for not doing a better job with the world. So, what is the first idol to be identified, and for us to laugh off the stage? God either doesn’t exist or is some manufactured being too weak to control his world, too cold to care for it, or too preoccupied with his other worlds and projects that we are somewhere lost on his desk under some other pile of papers on his to do list. These inventions are about as plausible as the dancing Jesus bobblehead doll that my son gave me for Christmas. It came with instructions and made me laugh. I have never once surrounded it with fruit and flowers and bowed before it. I have never prayed to it. It’s just a stupid doll - I think I should put it in the garage.
[1] 2 Corinthians 10:3-5. Also mentioned by Lesslie Newbigin as a key component for the church to establish a missionary encounter with an unbelieving culture.
[2] Attributed to George Bernard Shaw - “If all the economists were laid end to end, they’d never reach a conclusion.”
[3] John 10:10
