John Bright, a prominent Quaker in the 1800’s, is quoted as saying of an unknown person:

"he is a self-made man, and he worships his creator.”

This is beautiful in its simplicity, and potent in its punch.

The American dream, to rise from the mud to a place of power and authority and wealth. If possible, to do so in the face of doubting opposition. When these ambitions come to fruition, who do you suppose will most likely get the honor and glory?

The American Dream is to be self-made. It’s the only time when worshipping one’s creator is a stupid, stupid decision.

My favorite part of the Old Testament is definitely the stories of Elijah and Elisha. I suppose because they’re some of the most potent places we see God’s power moving directly through a person. Plus, they’re just plain cool… maybe even bad-ass. (Though I’m not sure that’s the best reason to appreciate it).

Reading in 1st Kings about Elijah this morning, I came upon the story of Elijah’s God-off with prophets of Baal. The story where the prophets of Baal and Elijah each build an alter and slaughter a bull on it, then ask their respective God to consume the offering with fire. The God who responds is the true God.

Of course the prophets of Baal chant and dance around and mutilate themselves and nothing happens. Meanwhile Elijah goes out of his way to make it impossible for the offering to burn by dumping water all over it and building a trench to catch the water. Still, God consumes the whole alter and all the water with fire and the people watching are stunned and fall down declaring the Lord is the true God.

Right before all this though Elijah provokes the other prophets and people with these words. 1 Kings 18:21:

"How long will you go limping between two different opinions? If the LORD is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him." And the people did not answer him a word.

I think these words are haunting. Although almost no one, especially Christians, are torn between the Lord and some definite false deity, nearly everyone offers at least a portion of their worship to something other than God. Money, power, love, family, success, even ministry.

Elijah’s words are potent to us who are Christians. “Well which is it, is your _____________ (fill in the blank; money, power, success, etc.) the God you will serve, or is it the Lord God in heaven?”

Because as Jesus said, you cannot serve two masters. Yet we continue to try and split our attention. We will probably struggle with that till the day we die. But as Elijah proved to the prophets of Baal, even the most rigorous tests of God’s power prove that God is the Lord of all and always prevails.

If we want to really enjoy him and live our fullest in him, we have to choose and live that choice.

Psalm 115:4-8:

Their idols are silver and gold,
    the work of human hands.
They have mouths, but do not speak;
   eyes, but do not see.
They have ears, but do not hear;
   noses, but do not smell.
They have hands, but do not feel;
   feet, but do not walk;
   and they do not make a sound in their throat.
Those who make them become like them;
   so do all who trust in them.

There’s a really basic principal here that most of us don’t realize—and the word is completely blind to: you become like what you worship. And we all worship something.

If we worship money, we will become greedy. If we worship fear (in other words, if we surrender ourselves to whatever is necessary to keep fear at bay), then we will live our lives always in fear. But, if we worship the One True God, the God of Life, we will be alive.

When we worship something with no life, we will have no life. When we worship the source of life, we have just that. I think that’s pretty cool.

One of my favorite songs of all time is Simon & Garfunkel’s The Boxer. The final verse always stands out especially.

In the clearing stands a boxer
And a fighter by his trade
And he carries the reminders
Of ev’ry glove that layed him down
Or cut him till he cried out
In his anger and his shame
"I am leaving, I am leaving"
But the fighter still remains

I’ve always heard this lyric with Christian ears. In a sense, we are all fighters. Before Christ, our very life relies on it. The false gods we submit ourselves to are not gracious and they do not forgive. We fight for what we want, and desire. Yet after Christ, there is no need to fight. But before all of our service is given to Christ, we continue to do so. I continue to do so.

We carry the scars and wounds from our battles with us until one day we see how much they have marred our appearance and we cry out them, “I am leaving, I am leaving!”

But so many of us, so much of the time, are too afraid to truly leave them behind. And so, “the fighter[s] still remain”.

“Those who will never enter the water but with flags or bladders under them will scarce ever learn to swim; and it cannot be denied but that the constant and unvaried use of set forms of prayer may become a great occasion of quenching the Spirit, and hindering all progress or growth of gifts or graces.“

John Owen, famed puritan author and preacher, seems to think that getting stuck in one style of worship or prayer will go a long way in hindering our growth. I agree. I know that absolute repetition, while good in some things, makes us stale in other things.

I think we would do very well to seek out variety in our prayer and worship.

In circles of people with extremely charismatic language, I often hear people say things things like, “The Lord is telling me…” or “I feel like the Lord is saying…”. Whether I agree with that or not is not so much in discussion right now. But what is actually said is.

Before Jesus’ death, he told his disciples that his death was necessary that the Holy Spirit would come. He explained the Spirit’s function in John 16:14:

“When the Spirit of truth comes…[v14] He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you.”

When the Spirit of God speaks to us, it is about Jesus; of Jesus. It is about God’s Word. The Spirit will not speak to us about things that aren’t taught to us from God’s word. This is why the Puritans understood that the modern gift of prophecy is when a person, usually a teacher, is given insight and understanding of God’s word.

You might not agree with that last paragraph, and that’s alright.

What bothers me is when people use the concept of the Spirit’s speaking to a believer as a means to make a point, or convince hearers of their opinions or personal beliefs.

For example, If you’ve dated within the Church, you’ve probably heard something like, “God is telling me I need to be single.” Or maybe you’ve just heard of people saying that kind of thing. In charismatic worship settings (which I tend to enjoy, by the way), you might’ve heard someone say something like, “The Spirit is telling us we need to lift our hands,” or “The Spirit wants us repent of [fill in the blank].”

I strongly believe this language is an abuse of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. Well, at least about 90% of the time anyway.

When the Spirit speaks, it is to glorify Jesus—namely in the Word of God. It is more sound to say, “God’s Word says [fill in the blank]—I believe we are guilty of this, and should repent.” If this message is truly from the Spirit, this language will still cut people’s conscience and lead to repentance. And if it doesn’t, either people’s hearts are hard or else the Spirit wasn’t highlighting that issue in specific.

Or, perhaps, “I have been reading the word of God and praying and I feel that I need to be single for some time.”

When the Spirit speaks, it is from God’s word, which is about Jesus, of Jesus. And the language chosen is important. There are at least two major dangers in speaking with this kind of hyper-spiritual language.

1. Human beings are a complicated mess of flesh and emotion and ideas. Unless the the word being spoken can be thoroughly confirmed by God’s written word, it can only truly be spoken with some marginal level of confidence. Anything more than that is probably a confidence conjured from elsewhere inside us. Speaking with such presumption is clearly dangerous. Prophets of the old testament who prophesy falsely were to be put to death. That’s not the case today, but the principal stands. Speaking for God when God may not be speaking is big deal.

2. Human beings are also rational, intellectual creatures. These are gifts given to us by God. And, we have a thorough and complete written Word from God. When language such as “God is saying…” is used, it effectively closes the door to disagreement and rational discussion. It makes it impossible for “iron to sharpen iron”.

It is wisdom that we would use our language carefully when talking about the Spirit’s speaking to us and to our congregation. When the Spirit speaks, he is teaching what he has already said in God’s Word to the church.

We should be so hasty as to assume the Spirit is saying what we might think he’s saying but be confident that if he is speaking, it will be heard even if we don’t use such confident language.

I always find it so bizarre thinking about the ancient practice of idol worship. Not because my own faith doesn’t look a bit crazy to people on the outside. But I think ancient idol worship is really out there.

Check out this reference to it in Isaiah. This language is common. Isaiah 2:8:

Their land is filled with idols;
they bow down to the work of their hands,
to what their own fingers have made.

Imagine starting with a block of wood and a knife. Imagine carving out the likeness of some animal or cultural symbol. Then, imagine setting it up on a mantle and trusting that the thing you just made is going to somehow produce food and money and health and comfort.

It would seem like logic would have to kick in somewhere in there and you’d have to say, “wait a second, I actually made this thing. I knew it before it was my god.”

I think most of us would like to think we’ve risen above this behavior. But I think most of us know it’s not entirely true. Christians and non-Christians alike make idols out of things all the time. We’ve just become better, as a society, at disguising it.