Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2565
“But they were the ruin of him, and of all Israel.” 2 Chronicles 28:23.
I HAVE a little to say about the condition of Judah under Ahaz before I come to personal dealing with souls from this text. God had given to His people a very simple mode of worship. He was the invisible and only living God and they were to worship Him in spirit and in truth. There was to be one altar and that was to be at Jerusalem. But all the rest of the world was given up to idolatry and the Israelites were not a very spiritual people, so, by-and-by, they wanted something to see, some image, some symbol. When the 10 tribes broke off from Judah, they set up images of a bull to represent the strength of Deity. Those who kept to the worship of the invisible Jehovah without emblems, ridiculed these symbols, and called the bulls, in contempt, calves. But the calf-worship became very strong throughout Israel and there were many in Judah who were attracted to it. It was the worship of God, but it was the worship of God in a wrong way, for there was a very express Commandment which forbade it—“You shall not make unto you any graven 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 yourself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Me.”
There are still many who worship idols and images, but they say, “No, we do not worship them; we worship God through them.” Just so, but that is as much forbidden in the Second Commandment as the worship of other gods is forbidden in the First—they are both violations of the Divine Law! When the people of Judah had gone so far as to worship God through images, they went still farther and bowed down to Baal and Ashtaroth. They even bowed down to the sun and even flies, for Baal-Zebub, the “God of Flies,” became one of their objects of adoration! Associated with this idolatry was everything that was sinful. I do not dare tell you what horrible and loathsome abominations were witnessed in connection with the worship of these gods.
Do not, however, condemn those Jews and Israelites without remembering another story. In this world, in later times, the Son of God set up a pure and undefiled religion in which there was no similitude of God whatever. But, after a while, they who professed to worship Christ felt they needed to have a cross and crucifix, pictures and images. Of course they did not worship the cross, or the crucifix, or the pictures, or the images! No, but they professed to worship Christ by the help of these things. That was the first violation of the simplicity of worship and it was, in reality, departing from the living God. In a very short time they took to the worship of saints—and from that they went to the worship of cast clouts and rotten rags until some of us have seen, with our own eyes, bones—supposed to be the bones of saints— decayed teeth and all kinds of rubbish made the subjects of worship when they have been exposed to the gaze of the deluded people! Into such idolatry, by slow degrees, did those fall who professed to call themselves Christians—and only three or four hundred years ago, from one end of this island to the other, the land was full of “holy crucifixes,” images, relics and I know not what! The people were utterly given up to idolatry and the Gospel of God was scarcely known!
Then rang out, clear and shrill, the voices of Wycliffe, Luther, Calvin and the like and, after a while, men arose who said, “We will worship none but God—and all these images we utterly abhor.” There was, for them, nothing but the prison, the stake and all manner of cruel deaths—but they were steadfast even unto the end! You know how brave Hugh
Latimer, as he began to burn at the stake in his old age, cheered up his companion by saying, “Be of good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the man! We shall, this day, light such a candle by God’s Grace in England as I trust shall never be put out.” And so they did. There came out to die for Christ, poor, humble, illiterate men and women—and some of noble rank! And even bishops could sometimes take their share of the persecution and die until, at last, men began to hate the idols by reason of the cruelty which was used in keeping them up! Then came a revolt against Romanism and all over England men smashed the “holy water” basins, defaced the pictures, pulled down the images and treated them with utter contempt! And England was freed from the idolatry under which she had groaned so long. We thought she would always remain free, but, alas, we only dreamed it. By-and-by there came men in the Established Church who did not bid us worship saints, nor did they, at first, go very far in idolatry, but they said that they must have vestments, incense and I know not what. And now they have boldly set up the crucifix—that calf of Baal, for it is nothing better—that image which they adore and which we loathe because it has become the thin end of the wedge—the first open return to idolatry!