False worship

We now come to the epilogue of Judges. 

The next couple of stories seem to be out of sequence with the rest, and probably happened shortly after the death of Joshua, as Phinehas, the grandson of Aaron was still the high priest.

And they are very shocking stories in their own ways.  Both stories can be summed up in a sentence that is repeated twice. 

In Judges 17:6 and Judges 21:25, it says,

In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as he saw fit.

Other translations put it, “everyone did what was right in their own eyes.”

In this passage, we see how one man and his family worshiped as they saw fit.

A man named Micah stole silver from his mother, but later admitted it and gave it back to her mother.  So far so good.

But then she “consecrates it to the Lord” by giving it back to Micah to make a graven image and an idol to worship, in clear contradiction to the first and second commandments that God had given the people.

How in the world she could say out of one side of her mouth, “I’m consecrating this to the Lord” and out of the other side say, “by making a graven image and and idol” is beyond my comprehension.

Perhaps she thought, “Well, I’m making these idols but am calling them “Yahweh,” the name God had revealed himself as.  But she was worshiping God in a way that  was right in her own eyes, not as God had commanded.

Micah then made the image and the idol and started worshiping them.

Then one day, a Levite, someone who was supposed to be serving God in the tabernacle, happened to pass by.  On seeing him, Micah offered to hired him to be his own personal priest for the god he made. 

Incredibly, the Levite agreed.  This man who should have known God’s commands well completely rejected them for the sake of money.

Not only that, in chapter 18, we see that the whole tribe of Dan started to worship the idol that Micah made.

What can we get from this?

Micah and his mother thought that what they were doing was perfectly okay.  Either they didn’t know God’s commands concerning idols, or they ignored them.

Either way, they actually thought they would receive God’s blessing. Apparently, so did the Danites.

But God did not and does not accept this kind of worship.  Jesus put it this way,

Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.

God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.  (John 4:23-24)

In other words, it’s not enough to just have passion as you worship.  To just worship in your spirit as it were. 

Your worship needs to be based on God’s truth.  You need to worship God for who he says he is, and worship God as he requires.

But you can’t do that unless you know what God has said in his word and obey it.

How about you?  Are you worshiping God as he has revealed himself.  Or have you set up a false image in your mind of him and are worshiping that? 

Are you worshiping God as he has required?  Or are you worshiping him as you see fit?

May we always worship God not just in spirit, but in truth.