Veneration or Idolatry?
“You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth.” Exodus 20:4 NASB
Idol – In August, 2017, Chaim Clorfene published an article with an enticing title: “How to Save the USA in Ten Easy Lessons.”[1] He asserts that since the United States has abandoned Torah, it is bound for collapse. Only return to Torah can save the USA. He begins the article by insisting that Israel’s concealment of the Ark of the Covenant has striking parallels. In his opinion, the Ark was “the Temple’s lifeforce, its reason for being.” Because it was concealed, all of the subsequent destructive empires were able to overrun Israel. In parallel, once the United States began removing the Ten Commandments as public declarations of its biblical foundation, “America’s rejection of the Ten Commandments has sealed its doom.”
Clorfene’s desire for reformation is admirable, but his logic seems a bit flawed. His view of the Ark smacks of Hollywood’s version in Raiders of the Lost Ark, that is, somehow it is the Ark that is the true source of Israel’s power. But the Bible says nothing about the Ark’s concealment.
The belief in a hidden Ark took root in Jewish literature. According to Second Maccabees (2:4-8), Jeremiah managed to conceal it. However, the Book of Maccabees was written over 400 years after Jeremiah’s time, and the idea that he hid the Ark is contradicted by his own statement that men should not mention it, miss it or make another (Jer. 3:16).[2]
There is a big difference between veneration and worship. Israel discovered this difference when it experienced defeat at the hands of the Philistines (you remember the story in 1 Samuel 4). Thirty thousand men died believing that the Ark guaranteed their success. It didn’t. The Ark is a great symbol of YHVH’s devotion to Israel, but it isn’t YHVH. It requires veneration, not worship.
Clorfene’s mistake is also paralleled in America. American believers tend to worship the Book, the Bible, rather than the God behind the Scriptures. We observe this every time attempts are made to guarantee the Bible’s certainty, as if belief in God depends on an infallible document. Should we not be more concerned about living the character of God than “proving” the Bible is true?* Yes, the Bible needs veneration. It is crucially important since it reveals who God is and what He wants. But, just like the Ark, it will not save us. Not even if we restore the Ten Commandments. A return to God is not the same as legislating a morality based on Exodus 20. America has not lost its power because it failed to exhibit the Ten Commandments. America is a nation that no longer worships the one true God, just like Israel in those terrible times before the exile. Restoring something “hidden” can’t rescue us. Only devotion to YHVH is capable of that, and it might be too late.
Topical Index: Ark, concealment, Ten Commandments, Exodus 20:4, 1 Samuel 4
[1] https://www.chaimclorfene.com/new-blog/2017/8/15/how-to-save-the-usa-in-ten-easy-lessons
[2] http://jbqnew.jewishbible.org/assets/Uploads/403/jbq_403_athaliah.pdf
*Please don’t draw the conclusion that I think the Bible isn’t true. That isn’t the point.
HELP ME PLEASE! This is for all of you who write CHECKS for monthly donations. I will be gone from the USA on December 28, 2017 for several months. I want to send all the donation letters with the correct amounts, but to do this I need to get all the checks in hand and in the bank by December 27. So, if you would please be sure than any checks you intend to send between now and the end of the year get to me no later than December 26, I would greatly appreciate it.
Skip
Thanks Skip once again. I have learn from you several things.
One of them was in a lecture you had in Seguidores de Jesús here in San Salvador, when you taught us about idolatry. Since then, I’m so clear how much idolatry we might still have in our ways, when trying to control the chaos around us… today you have expanded a little bit more this important issue.
The second most important thing I have learn from you was several months ago in this forum… I should never spend my time debating with someone who already have decided that I’m wrong in my point of view about something… that also makes me responsible of preparing myself on being able to truly hear and analyse the point of view of my peers before engaging in such a conversation. Shalom!
Thanks Skip. I just appreciate All you do and share. It has been my distinct privilege to have known and met some mighty men of God. Bond slaves of Christ. I had dinner last night with Phil Downer of DNA miniseries. Former president of CBMC. He runs with all his might, soul and strength his race for Christ. He runs like an athlete preparing to win. I see this in you as well Skip. Oswald Chambers reading for Dec 10th talks about disceplineing the flesh for the sake of Christ. I know this is off topic. But we can so easily make our lives, our comforts our ideas and worst of all “our ministries” idols. YHVH prefers obidienace to sacrifice. Idols tend to require we sacrifice our lives ourselves our children to them . Yahwah however requires our obidienace and from that he gives us true life and that eternally.
Worship is for Presence in the eternal Now. An functional action for a Functional action. No forms exist in the present; they exhibit in the past – even the split second past. God is not found in the past, nor in the forms the past solidified into. He is not found in the Burning Bush, on SInai, or at Bethel, either – much less the Shroud of Turin, the host of catholic communion, or in anything we can discern with our senses. The Ark of the Covenant still had to be engulfed with the Shekinah Presence before it was anything but a box with a stone with stuff written on it; even if it was a stone that was written on by the very finger of YHVH. That Ark was still in the past – even the stone was a form of the action that that Presence took in history.
We participate in the present only by faith – until we get our new bodies, anyway. Therefore, God can only be worshiped through a spirit that is intersecting with reality (truth), which is where we find the present. Worship is a spiritual exercise for us, with our bodies hitchhiking along for the ride, for in the spirit we can participate in the present, even if our bodies are a split second behind!
Idolatry is about hanging around the forms of the past. The religions that worship the dead realize this a good bit better than we do sometimes, I have thought.
Mankind has been through countless times of unbelief.
Right now is one more of them.
I pray our Father works mightily through those of us who know Him,
obey Him and trust Him to do more than we can think or imagine.
That truth that He does so is one of the many reasons why we worship Him.
Appreciated.