American
Idolatry
Have you ever read the story
about how Aaron and the Israelites sinned in the wilderness when they made the
golden calf? While Moses was up on the mountain receiving revelation from God,
the people said to Aaron, ”Come make us a god who will go before us; as for
this Moses, the man who brought us up from the
What exactly is an idol, what is idolatry, and what
does it mean to be an idolater?
“In the Old Testament, the word
“idol” means “vanity”(Jer.
An idol is:
- an object of passionate devotion.1
- any object
of ardent or excessive devotion or admiration.2
- something or
someone on which the affections are strongly and often excessively set.3
- any thing or
person that is the object of excessive or supreme devotion, or that usurps the
place of God
in human affection.4
- whatever
claims the loyalty of that which belongs to God alone.5
Idolatry is:
- immoderate (exceeding just and/or suitable bounds of)
attachment or devotion to something.1
- excessive devotion to or reverence for some person or
thing.2
- blind or excessive devotion to something.6
- immoderate attachment to or veneration for any person
or thing.4
- the giving of absolute religious devotion and ultimate
trust to something that is not God; immoderate
attachment or devotion to or veneration for
something.3
An idolater is:
- a person that admires or loves intensely or often
blindly an object not usually a subject of worship.1
- an adorer, idolizer, devoted
admirer of (some person or thing).4
- a person that denotes
intense or excessive and often blind affection, adoration, or admiration to an
object
not normally or usually a subject of worship.3
It is obvious from the above
definitions that idolatry is not limited to statues, images, and figures made of
wood, stone, and precious metals, which is what we generally see in the Old
Testament. An idol can be much subtler and harder to recognize or detect.
Virtually anything can become an idol. From the above definitions, we see that
an idol is basically anything that takes the place of God in our lives, whether
by devotion to, time involved with, adoration of, thoughts toward, commitment
to, enthusiasm for, attitude toward, motivation in, use of finances toward, and
priority rank. So how can a person tell if his devotion to something or someone
is excessive and/or takes the place of God?
Let’s take an in-depth look at
some criteria which should help you to be able to determine whether or not
something is an idol for you.
MINDSET
Idolatry is more of a state of
mind/thinking than it is related to a particular object or activity. The object
and/or activity is merely a reflection of the state of thinking or the attitude
of the mind. For example , ”greed”, which the Bible says amounts to idolatry in
Col. 3:5, is an attitude; it’s an excessive desire for some selfish gain. And
because of the excessive desire for something, it turns into excessive devotion
to something other than that which is legitimate, namely to God Himself. And
when that happens, the illegitimate object of devotion becomes one’s idol,
whatever it is.
What are your thoughts and
attitudes toward objects or activities that are consumptive? For example, how
do they compare with your attitude toward “spiritual” things like praying,
reading and meditating on God’s word, or witnessing? Which do you consider more
important? Which do you get more excited about? How excited are you to spend
time alone with God as compared to traveling somewhere or playing something?
Which do you look forward to the most?
What you talk about can be a
gage of what might be an idol in your life. What do you talk about a lot and
how do you talk about it? For example, do you talk about sports a lot, but
hardly ever talk about God and/or spiritual things? Or, are you more excited in
talking about sports than you are about God and/or spiritual things?
We are supposed to be
wholehearted in everything we do for the Lord. However, sometimes we can be
wholehearted in something that God doesn’t intend us to be doing. Or, we can be
wholehearted in something that is legitimate and within God’s will for us, but
give excessive devotion to it so that it usurps our being able to do God’s will
in other areas. For example, let’s say you were married within the will of God.
It is God’s will that a husband be devoted to his wife and love her as Christ
loved the church. There is nothing wrong with that. That is perfectly fine and
legitimate. But, let’s say that you are so devoted to your wife that it keeps
you from being able to do other things that you know to be God’s will for your
life. In this case your wife, who is ordinarily part of God’s will for your
life, has become an idol to you. Who or what are you supremely loyal/devoted
to? Who do you supremely admire: a music celebrity, TV or movie star, famous
athlete, wealthy business CEO, fluent politician, or some intellectual?
TIME SPENT WITH OR ON
The amount of time you devote
to something can be an indicator that something is an idol in your life. If you
know for a fact that you are allowing something or someone to occupy more time
in your life than God intends, then that thing or person has become an idol.
You are excessively devoted to it, as seen by your time commitment to the
person, activity, or thing.
Let me give you a word of
caution though. Just because something takes up a lot of your time doesn’t mean
that it is necessarily an idol. Some things may require a sizable chunk of you
time, but may be perfectly legitimate and part of the will of God, even though
they may not seem spiritual. For example, a secular job may take 8 hours out of
your day, but it may be God’s means of providing for you, or it may be the
channel through which God wants to use you. But you need to be convinced that
that is how God wants you to spend your time.
With that in mind, here are
some questions you can ask yourself that may help you recognize an idol in your
life, if you have any. How much time do you spend doing it (insert questionable
activity)? Why are you doing it? Are you spending an inordinate amount of time
doing it? Is it hindering or competing with your time for God? Do you find that
you have the time to do the particular activity, but don’t have the time to
read the Bible, pray, meditate, or evangelize and follow-up new believers? Or,
how much time do you spend with a particular person, or on a particular object?
Are you spending more time being occupied with it, him, or her than you know is
the Lord’s will for you?
You really need to know God’s
will for your life to be able to answer those questions. What may be God’s will
for me may be excessive devotion for you, and vise versa. For example, it may
be part of God’s will for you to have a secular job working 40 hours a week,
when for me 10 hours is more than what God would have me work at a secular job.
So, if you aren’t completely sure about God’s will for your life, then it might
be helpful to do a Bible study on the subject and/or talk to your spiritual
leader who can give you some help regarding the matter.
HOW MUCH YOU THINK ABOUT IT
Even though you may not spend
much time doing a particular activity, thoughts about that activity can consume
your mind/thinking to the point where they take the place of God in your life.
For example, you spend so much time thinking about your possessions, some
self-centered activity you’re involved in, or self-centered relationship that
it competes with your thoughts about God, evangelizing the lost, helping
Christians grow spiritually, or how you can help people in general. In fact,
you may spend more time thinking about your idol than you do about all of the
above put together. You may be so engrossed in thinking about your idol that
you can’t even concentrate while attending a Bible study. You try to pray, but
thoughts about your car keep popping into your mind. Instead of thinking about
God at night, meditating on spiritual things, or praying, you’re thinking is
consumed with sports, eating, playing video games, hunting, fishing, surfing,
illicit sex, furniture, music, painting, a dream mansion, movies, how you can
get bigger muscles (or if a girl, how you can make yourself more attractive
looking), how you can make your car go faster, how you can get rich, how to
capture a mate for selfish reasons, how to net that career position, or what
you want to add to your computer, or whatever your idol happens to be.
Let me give you an example.
There is a Christian I know who has a nice Corvette. Nothing is necessarily
wrong with that if God has blessed you with it, and it wasn’t something you
sought out with selfish motives. But, this Christian worships his car, both
physically and in his thinking. Before he gets into his car to go anywhere, he
lets the engine idle for 5-10 minutes. He takes a long feather duster-looking
thing and goes over his whole car, making sure to get rid of any dust. He does
the same thing when he gets out of his car. When he is not working on his car
or driving it, he is constantly thinking about it. He is always trying to think
of things he can do to make it perform better or run faster. Sometimes he’ll come
talk to me and tell me what he’s thinking about doing to his car next.
It may be that you don’t get
very many opportunities to do something you extremely like, but you spend an
awful lot of time thinking about it. For
example, you may only get to play basketball a couple of times a week, but you
spend most of your waking hours thinking about it (like new moves you can try,
how you can beat so-in-so, and/or how you can improve your game). Things or
activities become an idol when you are more devoted in your thinking to them
than you are to God.
Here are a few questions I
thought of that might help you determine whether or not something has become an
idol in your thoughts. Has any object, person, or activity captured so much of
your thoughts that it hinders your walk with God? Is it hard for you to
read/meditate on the Bible or pray without thinking about this activity,
person, or thing? What do you think about most of the time? What do you think
about at night when you go to bed? Do you spend an inordinate or excessive
amount of time thinking about a particular person, thing, or activity in
comparison to the teachings of the Bible and their application? What is the
main focus of your attention? What is your motivation for thinking about it?
HOW MUCH YOU TALK ABOUT IT
What you talk about and the
enthusiasm, intensity, and eagerness with which you talk about it reveals a lot
about what you are really devoted to or what you think about. It can reveal
whether or not your devotion to something or someone is excessive and,
therefore, an idol. What you think about will eventually come out in your
conversations. Jesus said , ”For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the
heart.” (Matt. 12:34) (The “heart” here means “mind” or what a person thinks
about.) So, one of the things that will help you identify any idols in your
life is to analyze what you talk about.
For some people, all they talk
about is sports. They talk about their favorite sports team (how they did on
last night’s game, how they’ll do in their next game, what they need to do for
the rest of the season in order to make the playoffs). They talk about their
favorite player’s stats. They can tell you all the different statistics on a
person or team (pass completion, yardage, rushing percentage, number of touchdowns,
or home runs, hits, singles, doubles, triples, RBI’s, walks, etc.). But, they
can’t quote to you five verses from the Bible or what they read in their Quiet
Time yesterday.
What do you talk about most?
Sometimes we are not always aware of how much time we spend talking about
something. So, something you might want to do is to try to be aware of how much
you talk about different things. Do you talk about the Bible, witnessing
experiences, or the needs of other Christians with the same intensity and
enthusiasm that you do when you talk about going shopping, eating, sports, the
opposite sex, your girlfriend, spouse, computers, politics, TV programs, music
groups, movies, financial investments, or your job? Sometimes it may be that
you are stuck on talking about yourself. You love talking about yourself. I
know some people who would spend hours telling me all the intimate details of
their lives if I let them. Are most of your conversations about you and focused
on you? Maybe you are your own idol.
You see, there is nothing
necessarily wrong with talking a lot about a particular thing, person, or
activity, as long as it’s the right thing. Actually, there are some things we
should be talking a lot about. I Pet. 2:9 says, ”But you are a chosen race, a royal
priesthood, a people for God’s own possession so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of
darkness into His marvelous light. We should be proclaiming God’s
excellencies.
When I’m at the college campus
witnessing, I talk a lot about Christ. In fact, just about all of my
conversations with people have to do with Him. In that case, it is good that I
should talk a lot about Christ. So, just because you talk a lot about something
or someone doesn’t necessarily mean it is an idol. It depends upon whether that
something is God’s will.
Another example: While you are
at work, you talk a lot about whatever it is you do. That is part of your job.
There is nothing inherently wrong about that. In that case, you have to weigh
in other factors and compare it with how
you talk about other things (e.g. Bible reading, witnessing, teaching other
believers, what you learned in Bible study, ministry activities, experiences
with God, etc).
Here are some good questions
you can ask yourself, or you can make up similar questions to ask yourself: Am
I as intense, enthusiastic in talking about it (insert questionable item -
sports, computers, clothes, hobbies, food, work, etc.) as I am in telling a
friend about a spiritual truth I learned in the Bible? Is there a legitimate
reason for me to be talking a lot about a particular thing, person, or
activity? Can I justify the amount of time I devote to talking about it? What
is my motivation for talking about it? Is it for selfish reasons, or is it to
help me fulfill God’s will for my life and, thereby, glorify Him? Does it fit
in with the will of God? Am I more eager to talk about bodybuilding (how I can
get bigger muscles, better muscle tone, workout programs, and nutritional
supplements) than I am to talk about what I learned in Bible study? Am I more
eager to talk about last night’s game with my friend who is a sports fan as I
am to tell him the gospel? Am I more eager to talk about my girlfriend than I
am to talk about my relationship with God? Am I more eager to talk about my
computer (what programs I want to get, new hardware, what I can do to make it
faster) than I am about my ministry?
COMMITMENT TO
The level of a person’s
commitment to something or someone in comparison to his commitment to God or doing
God’s will may be an indicator as to whether or not something is an idol to
that person. Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying that commitment is
necessarily wrong or that a person shouldn’t be committed to things like
his/her job, spouse, or promises made. It is a person’s level of commitment
that matters and how that commitment stacks up to a person’s commitment to do
the will of God. Actually, all of a person’s commitments should be integrally
tied in with his commitment to do the will of God. They should be a natural
extension, if you will, of his commitment to serving God. There are cases,
however, where a person is so committed to something or someone that it
supersedes/overrides/negates/blocks/stops/interferes with/hinders his ability
to do the will of God. Maybe I can give you a few examples or
illustrations. I knew a Christian who
was into bodybuilding and was very committed to it. He would spend 2-3 hours a
day, 3-4 days a week in the gym, working out, pumping iron, lifting weights,
trying to build and maintain his muscle mass (actually, I’ve known many
Christians like this). I would say this person was very committed to his
physique. I doubt he ever missed a day in the gym. In fact, he would miss our
Bible studies before he would miss a day in the gym. He made some efforts to
serve God, but his efforts paled in comparison to his commitment to
bodybuilding. How did he do when it came to having a Bible reading time?
Sporadic, at best, and if he did have one, it was usually short. His body was his
idol.
Some people are more committed
to watching TV or sports than they are in coming to Bible study. Some people
are more committed to their family members than they are to God. I’ve known
several people who knew it was God’s will for them to be discipled or trained
to be able to evangelize and carry on a Christian ministry. They chose not to,
however, because their parents did not want them to. They were more committed
to their parents than they were to following God. This test of commitment also
applies to people who are doing full-time Christian work. A person may be in
full-time Christian work and still be over committed to something so that it
hinders him from doing God’s will. For example, you know you should be
evangelizing, studying the Bible, praying, or helping new Christians grow
spiritually at a certain time, but you are so committed to your appetite,
computer, sport, or leisure reading that you do that instead because you’re
more loyal to it.
Is there anything to which you
are committed that is not God’s will? Is there anything to which you are
committed that does not in some way help advance the kingdom of God or in some
way help you to accomplish your goal in life of glorifying God through
evangelism, building up other believers, and living a holy life? Is there any
commitment that hinders you from doing God’s will? Is your commitment to the
thing, activity, or person in question out of proper proportion with what you
know to be God’s will? Are you more committed to watching sports on TV than you
are to reading the Bible? Are you more willing to miss a Quiet Time with God
than you are a meal? Are you more willing to miss a prayer time than you are an
opportunity to play sports? Are you more committed to your family,
girlfriend/boyfriend, or wife/husband than you are to obeying God? If you
answered “Yes” to any of the above questions, then you probably have an idol.
ENTHUSIASM AND/OR EXCITEMENT FOR
Just because a person spends
more time doing “spiritual things” than he spends with some activity, person,
or thing doesn’t necessarily mean he/she doesn’t have and idol. The person’s
enthusiasm, attitude and energy toward a thing, person, or activity may betray
where his/her interest really lies. If your most passionate interest and
excitement are directed toward something or someone other than God or serving
and worshipping Him, then that thing (or person) might be an idol in your life.
What do you get most excited about? What most captures your interest? Are you
more enthusiastic about playing or watching sports or being on the computer
than you are about reading the Word of God? Are you more excited about eating
food, being with a friend, or reading the financial section of the newspaper
than you are about doing Bible study? Do you get more excited about shopping at
the mall or hearing the daily political news or engrossed in some hobby than
you do about hearing how God is working in another person’s life? Are you more
excited about seeing the latest secular movie, listening to some music group,
or messing around with your car/truck/motorcycle than you are about hearing an
important spiritual message that could really help you grow and develop into a
more Christ-like person? Are you more interested in lifting weights than you
are about helping new Christians grow spiritually? I hate to name specifics for
fear that you might think that this does not apply to you when it really might.
Try to put in other things, activities, people for these questions to see how
you’d answer them. Personalize them. For example, instead of “sports”, insert:
working at your job, doing school work, partying, dancing, socializing, going
out with your girlfriend/boyfriend/husband/wife, dreaming, hunting, fishing,
gardening, surfing, or something else you like doing. Instead of “seeing the
latest movie”, insert: getting new clothes, getting a new car, listening to the
radio, making more money, thinking about a house, searching for a mate,
watching TV, talking on the telephone, getting some new jewelry, losing weight,
or something else you like a lot. Could any one of these things be an idol in
your life?
MOTIVATION IN
Your motivation for doing
something is important also, and it can be an indicator as to whether or not
something is an idol in your life. Anything done from a selfish motivation is
basically putting self in the place of God and, thereby, becomes idolatry. You are doing it for yourself, not God. Your
selfish interests determine what you do rather than what God wants you to do.
Self is taking the place of God. Your devotion to yourself is usurping that
which belongs to God. It is self-worship. You are your own God. You are your
own idol.
So, why do you do whatever it
is that you do? Why do you play sports? Why do you lift weights? Why do you
want a new car? Why do you want a house? Why do you want to get married? Why do
you want more money? Why do you watch so much television? Why do you go to the
movies? Why do you spend so much time on the computer? Why do you have to have
the latest clothing fashions? Why do you spend ten hours a day sleeping? Why do
you eat so much food all the time? There is nothing necessarily wrong with any
of these things. There may be legitimate times when those things are O.K. and
within the will of God. I’m not saying that just because you do them, you are
sinning and/or committing idolatry. However, if you are doing them for the
wrong reasons, then they are sinful, and you have allowed your own selfish
desires to take the place of God. Are you doing any of the things above (or
anything else for that matter) for selfish gain or pleasure? Or, are you doing
it because it will help you to accomplish God’s will for your life? Are you
doing it because it will help you to know or serve God better?
FINANCES INVOLVED
The way you spend your money
may be a good indicator of whether or not something is an idol in your life.
This is hard to narrow down and say , ”Well, if you spend X % of your money on
this thing or activity, it is an idol in your life.” Or, “If you spend any
money on this, it must be an idol.” Every person is different, and everyone’s
ministry varies. Therefore, some Christians may be justified in spending more
money on a certain thing, where other Christians would not. Some Christians may
be justified in buying an item that most Christians should not or don’t need
for their ministries.
For example, it may be
perfectly O.K. for a person to buy a fax machine, top of the line computer
system, extra large copying machine, multiple fast rapid duplicating machines,
etc. That person might be able to justify the cost; whereas, a different person
who works through a different channel may not. One person might need a public
amplification system, where another may not. I may spend 50% of my income on
stuff for my body, but that is because I have a medical condition, and I have
to have certain expensive medicine to survive. Or, I may spend 90% of my money
on literature, but it is not an idol because I don’t even buy it for myself. I
buy it to donate to other Christian missionaries. Or, I may have spent $1, 000
on Christian books during the past year. But that doesn’t mean it is an idol.
It could be that I didn’t have any books at all, and I’m trying to build my
library both for my Christian growth and for others to use for their growth.
Books are expensive, but the one-year, $1, 000 initial investment was
justifiable. For another Christian, he may worship knowledge and spend $1, 000
on books , magazines, and pamphlets per year for the sole purpose of gaining
knowledge to build up his ego and stature. Hopefully you get the point. You
have to analyze your own situation, consult God and determine for yourself how
God would have you to use your resources. You have to determine whether or not
God even wants you to spend your money on a certain thing. And you have to
determine how much He wants you to spend on that certain thing. The problem is,
most people do not consult God about their finances. They think, “Well, it’s my
money. I worked hard for it. I can spend it on whatever I want.” Actually, it
is God’s money, and we are expected to be good stewards with what God has
entrusted to us. He gave us the health, intelligence, skills, and opportunity
to have the job we do. And even if it was “your” money, you are still expected
to use it to God’s honor and glory and not for selfish purposes.
For example, let’s say you have
plenty of clothes, and there is nothing wrong with the clothes you have. If you
always have to have the latest fashion and more of them, then they could be
your idol. If you are a girl, do each of your dresses have to have a separate
pair of colored shoes? Isn’t a couple of pairs of shoes enough? It’s the same
thing with purses. Do you have to have a purse for every occasion and to match
every outfit? A $30 purse would do just fine, but do you have to buy the $100
purse? If you are a guy, your idol may be gym shoes. A $40 pair of gym shoes on
sale would do just fine, but do you have to have the $140 pair because it is
the one that is cool and in style? Does it have to have a certain brand label
on it or you don’t want it because it’s not the “in” thing? You have plenty of
gym shoes, but you buy another pair because they are cool looking, even though
you don’t need them. Same thing with warm-up clothes.
There may be an occasion when
it would be wiser to buy a more expensive item for durability because it will
last longer, and you won’t have to keep buying it over and over, or for other
practical reasons. But, that’s not what I’m talking about here. I’m talking
about people buying certain clothes or items because they are more popular,
because they are more fashionable, so they can show off their new outfit, so
they can brag about what they’ve got on. This is their motivation. It is not
because they are thinking that in the long run it will actually be less
expensive because it will last longer, and they won’t have to keep buying new
ones. Rather it is devotion to clothes that is their motivation.
For some people, it is food.
Just an ordinary meal won’t do. They have to have gourmet. They spend
extravagantly. And they don’t do it just once for a rare, special occasion.
They are not really concerned about how expensive it is as much as they are
about how tasty it is.
For some people, it may be
their pet that is their idol, and the way they spend money on their pet shows.
They buy expensive doggie treats, top of the line dog food, expensive doggie
clothes, and tons of toys for their pet.
Take a close look at what you
are spending your money on. Is there something that you find yourself spending
inordinate amounts of money on? Are you spending money on things that do not
help advance God’s kingdom? Does God really want you to spend your (actually
God’s) money on that? Can you even afford it? Is it necessary? Is it going to
help you serve God better? (Even that’s not a great question because it may
help you serve God better in some way, but it may not necessarily be something
that God would want you to buy. Plus, that may not be your real motivation for
buying it. It may just be a cover-up reason to justify your self centered
purchase.) Why do you spend as much as you do on the things that you buy?
PRIORITY RANK
A person’s priorities can
reveal whether or not there is an idol in his life. What you consider to be
most important is your god. It may your family, your job, school, girlfriend,
weightlifting, entertainment, TV, pleasure, music, cars, a house, sports,
politics, or a computer. Some Christians will spend 5 hours watching TV, but
won’t spend 5 minutes reading their Bibles. Some Christians spend 3 hours in the
gym working out, but don’t spend 10 minutes in prayer. Others spend a lot of their time working on
their car, trying to make it race faster, or make it look better, but they
can’t seem to find any time for God in their lives. What do you consider to be
most important? If it is God, do your schedule and actions show it? Which is
more important to you: staying home to watch TV, or going to Bible study?
Surfing the internet or meeting with another Christian to help him grow in the
faith? Eating unnecessary food or praying to God? Listening to music or having
a Quiet Time of Bible meditation? Working on goals for your spiritual training
and growth or doing self-centered, fun activities? Letting your mind think
about worldly things or reviewing Scripture memory verses so as to renew your
mind? Playing on the computer or working on spiritual goals for the week? These
are specific questions and may not necessarily apply to everyone. One way you
may find out if you have an unknown idol is to look at your schedule and
actions - the choices that you make. If you chose to stay at home and watch the
football game instead of going to Bible study, then the football game is a
higher priority to you and is probably an idol. You may say, “Oh, I know and
believe Bible study is more important than a football game, ” but the fact that
you stayed home to watch the game shows that in reality, the football game was
more important to you. If you made the time to eat 3 full meals, but didn’t
read your Bible, then eating physical food is more important to you than eating
spiritual food. Are your priorities in line with what God says they ought to
be? What comes first in your life, as seen in your schedule and your actions?
What does your time usage show? What is your objective in life? Is it to
glorify God through faith and loving obedience in living holy, doing
evangelism, and building up other believers into Christ-like maturity? Or, did
you just make up your own plans and ask God to bless them, hoping that you can
somehow fit them into God’s will instead of first considering what God wants
you to do, and then obeying that?
Keep in mind that any one of
the already mentioned criterion alone does not necessarily constitute something
as being an idol, although it is possible. You have to factor in all the
criteria when examining something to find out if it is an idol for you. For
example, you may spend a lot of time doing something, but that in and of
itself, does not necessarily make it an idol. However, when combined with the
fact that your motivation for doing it is purely selfish, you spend a lot of
time thinking about it, you talk about it all the time, you spend a lot of
money on it, and you are much more enthusiastic toward it than you are toward
God, then it would be safe to assume that you have an idol.
How does God view idolatry?
Under this section, I would
like to ponder several questions that are intimately linked with the above main
question. How does God view idolatry? Why does God feel the way He does about
idolatry? What does God say will happen or that He will do to idol worshippers?
What are some of the results/consequences of idolatry?
First of all, God commands us
not to have any idols or other gods. This is in the Old testament, and it is
repeated in the New Testament for Christians. It always has been and always
will be against God’s will for people to worship idols/false gods (Ex. 20:3-5;
Lev. 19:4; I Cor. 10:7, 14; I Jn.
Let’s take a look at a few
more passages where God expresses His feeling about idolatry:
Deut. 6:14, 15 says: “You
shall not follow other gods, any of the gods of the peoples who surround you,
for the Lord your God in the midst of you is a jealous God; otherwise, the
anger of the Lord your God will be kindled against you and He will wipe you off
the face of the earth.”
Deut.
In Deut. 11:16, 17, Moses
tells the Israelites not to worship other gods or “…the anger of the Lord will
be kindled against you, and He will shut up the heavens, so that there will be
no rain and the ground will not yield its fruit and you will perish quickly
from the good land which the Lord is giving you.”
Deut. 32:16 says: “They made
Him jealous with strange gods; with abominations, they provoked Him to anger.
Josh.
I Kings 11:9 says: “Now the
Lord was angry with Solomon…’I will surely tear the kingdom from you, and will
give it to your servant.’”
God hates idolatry; it is an
abomination to Him; and it provokes Him to anger.
What are some of the
consequences of idolatry? What does God say will happen to idol worshippers?
Read Deut. 4:25-27. “For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.
When you become the father of children and children’s children and have
remained long in the land, and act corruptly, and make an idol in the form of
anything, and do that which is evil in the sight of the Lord your God so as to
provoke Him to anger, I call heaven and earth to witness against you today,
that you shall surely perish quickly from the land where you are going over the
Jordan to posses it. You shall not live long on it, but shall be utterly
destroyed. The Lord will scatter you among the peoples, and you shall be left
few in number among the nations where the Lord shall drive you.” What does it
say would happen to the Israelites if they worshipped idols? They would perish
quickly in the land in which they were going. They wouldn’t live long on it,
but would be utterly destroyed. The Lord would scatter them among the peoples.
Look at Deut. 32:21-25. “They
have made Me jealous with what is not God; they have provoked Me to anger with
their idols. So I will make them jealous with those who are not a people; I
will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation, for a fire is kindled in My
anger, and burns to the lowest part of Sheol, and
consumes the earth with its yield, and sets on fire the foundations of the
mountains. I will heap misfortunes on them; I will use my arrows on them. They
shall be wasted by famine, and consumed by plague and bitter destruction; and the
teeth of beasts I will send upon them, with the venom of crawling things of the
dust. Outside the sword shall bereave, and inside terror - both young man and
virgin, the nursling with the man of gray hair.” What did God say would happen
to the Israelites there? He said He would heap misfortunes on them. They would
be wasted by famine and consumed by plague and bitter destruction; they would
be killed by the sword.
What does Isa. 42:47 say will
happen to those who trust in idols? They will be turned back and utterly put to
shame. God said that He would wage war against the people in the church at
Under the Law given to Moses
for the Israelites, what was to be the penalty for idolaters (Deut. 17:2-5)? It
was death by stoning. What did God say would be the penalty for Jeroboam’s
idolatry (I Kings 14:9-16)? All the house of Jeroboam would die.
How does it make you feel
knowing what God said He would do to the Israelites in the Old testament? How
does it make you feel knowing what the prescribed punishment was in the law of
Moses for committing idolatry? Do you see the seriousness of the sin of idolatry?
What do you plan on doing about it?
Why does God get angry with
those who commit idolatry? First of all, since He commands us not to have
idols, idolatry is disobedience, and God hates disobedience (I Kings 11:9-11).
Second, an idol is nothing. Paul says in I Cor. 8:4, “…we know that there is no
such thing as an idol in the world, and that there is no God but one.” Some of
the Hebrew words which are translated “idol” in our Old Testament actually have
the literal meaning of “nothing”, “vain thing”, “useless thing”, or “worthless
thing”. Since an idol is not a real god, it is insulting to the one true God to
ascribe the worship which belongs to Him alone to that which is no god at all.
When we have an idol in our lives, we are basically saying to God, “This thing
is worth more than You God.” “God, this thing deserves my attention and worship
more than You do. This is god, and the God of the Bible is not really God.”
“God, I don’t really respect Your commandments and don’t think you really know
what is best for me.” “This is better than You are.”
Now, most of us (hopefully all
of us) wouldn’t dare say anything like that to God, and most of us don’t
actually believe it either. However, that is basically what we’re saying to God
with our actions. An idol can’t save you from hell. An idol doesn’t seek your
best interests. An idol is not God. It is not everlasting, all-knowing,
all-wise, all-powerful, completely holy, etc.
Third, God is jealous for your
well-being, and He knows that having an idol will only hurt you. Jer. 7:6 says
that to walk after other gods is to do so to your own ruin. In Psalm 106:36,
the idols of other nations became a snare to the Israelites. The idols were
like a trap to the Israelites, holding them for destruction. Being an idolater
will lead a person to hell if he is not a believer. I Cor. 6:9, 10 says, “Be
not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters…shall inherit the
What about something like
playing basketball? I mean, that seems like a pretty harmless thing. How could
that hurt you, even if it was an idol? If you are letting basketball take the
place of God in your life, it can hurt you in any number of ways. First of all,
it hurts your relationship with God. Because idolatry is sin and you are
committing idolatry, then you are losing your fellowship with God because sin
breaks our fellowship with God. Once your fellowship is broken, you lose out on
all the benefits of that fellowship, such as having the fruit of the Spirit -
love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and
self-control. Because you spend so much
time playing basketball, you don’t have much time to spend with God, to do
Bible study, or any other spiritual things, nor do you really have the desire
to because you are so caught up in basketball. It keeps you from doing more
productive, valuable, lasting work. The things of this world are passing away.
Basketball isn’t going to be around forever, nor will anyone remember what you
did in basketball a hundred years from now. Not only will what you have done
here on earth be worthless once you die, but you will also lose out on rewards
in heaven because you were not living fully for God. Having idols can also
hinder your ability to minister to others. Because you are so involved in
basketball (your thoughts and time are consumed), you have little or no time to
meet with other Christians to help them grow in the faith. And, if you do find
a little time to meet with them, you are a bad example to them with your
all-consuming devotion to sports. Another thing having an idol, like
basketball, can do is lead to other sins. For example, since you give yourself
freely to your desires to play basketball without much self-control, that habit
starts to rub off in other areas as well. Pretty soon, you start to give
yourself more and more to other desires, like maybe sexual lust. Now, you can
hardly look at a woman without thinking about her in a sexual way. These are
just a few of the ways that having an idol can hurt you. The same applies to
just about any idol. Different idols can also affect you in different ways.
Also, the degree to which you “worship” an idol will affect the results. Having
idols in our lives may keep us from fully experiencing the abundant, spiritual
life God offers. Our idols may lead us into living a destructive lifestyle.
Here’s a little story
someone put on my desk that illustrates this point well:
In The Wounded Healer, Henri Nouwen retells a tale from ancient
Four royal brothers decided
each to master a special ability. Time went by, and the brothers met to reveal
what they had learned. “I have mastered a science, ” said the first, “by which
I can take but a bone of some creature and create the flesh that goes with it.” “I,” said the second, “know how to grow that
creature’s skin and hair if there is flesh on its bones.” The third said, “I am
able to create its limbs if I have flesh, the skin, and the hair.” “And I, ”
concluded the fourth, “know how to give life to that creature if its form is complete.”
Thereupon the brothers went into the jungle to find a bone so they could
demonstrate their specialties. As fate would have it, the bone they found was a
lion’s. One added flesh to the bone, the second grew hide and hair, the third
completed it with matching limbs, and the fourth gave the lion life. Shaking
its mane, the ferocious beast arose and jumped on his creators. He killed them
all and vanished contentedly into the jungle.
We too have the capacity to
create what can devour us. Goals and dreams can consume us. Possessions and
property can turn and destroy us – unless we first seek God’s kingdom and
righteousness, and allow Him to breathe into what we make of life. – Nathan Castens, Source unknown
What are some common American Idols?
When most people think of
idols, they usually think of a statue or some image carved out of wood or
stone, or fashioned out of some precious metal like gold or silver. There are
still people that worship these kinds of idols, and there are people in
As I go through this list, I’ll
be breaking down just about every one of these items. As I do this, you may be
wondering: “Why is he doing that? Why does he keep repeating and explaining
many of the same things over and over again, only to a different thing or
activity? Why does he keep applying those criteria under section 1 for
determining an idol to each individual item? Why is he taking the time to give
example after example and asking question after question?” I’ll go ahead and
tell you now. It is because I know that if I just give you one or two things
and only break down one or two items on the list, you may have one of the other
items on the list as an idol and think, “Well, he didn’t say that much about
this one. I don’t think it’s really a problem for me.” Or, you may have one
that’s not on the list and think that because I didn’t mention it, break it
down, give examples of when it is and isn’t an idol, and give you the criteria
to help you determine that, you might not think you have a problem or an idol.
One of my goals is that if you do have an idol, you will know it, and what it
is by the end of this talk, or you will have had enough information
and examples that you would be able to easily apply them and determine whether
or not something is an idol in your life. I almost hate to name any or list any
for fear that some of you might think, “Well, I don’t have a problem with any
of those things, so I must be O.K. I must not have any idols in my life.” Not
necessarily so. Just because I don’t name it, it doesn’t mean that you don’t
have an idol or another god besides the one true God. Now, don’t get me wrong.
My goal is not to make you think that things are idols in your life if they are
not. Nor, am I trying to put you on a false guilt trip. I hope that none of
these things are idols for you. And, if none of this applies to you, then
great. Let this just be a guide to you in the future to help keep you from
having any other gods but the one, true God of the Bible. But the fact is, I’d
venture to say that many people have idols and don’t even know it. So what are
some common idols? Let’s take a look and see.
COLLEGE EDUCATION
Unfortunately, for most
Christians, this is or has been an idol. A college education/degree is not
necessarily wrong in itself (if you know for a fact that it is God’s will for
you life). How do you know whether or not it is an idol for you? Here are some
examples: You are more devoted to it than you are to God. You find time to go
to class and study, but don’t pray, read the Bible, or evangelize. You are so
wrapped up in college that you don’t have the time or energy to serve God.
Because you are taking so many classes, you have to spend so much time studying
that you hardly have any time at all to read your Bible or pray. You miss out
on important Bible studies because you are more concerned about passing your
classes than getting a good spiritual education. You are more interested in
going to college and benefiting yourself than you are about serving God and
doing His will. You go to college, not so much because it will help you serve
God, but because it will help you get a higher paying job, so you can have more
money to spend on yourself. Or, you go to college because you want to be seen
as intelligent by others. You want to be looked up to by others. You want to be
seen as someone important. You want to feel good about yourself and be able to
brag that you accomplished something big. You always wanted to be a lawyer, a
doctor, an engineer, own your own company, open up a restaurant, or become a
computer programmer.
Most Christians have been
influenced by the lie that says, “Everyone needs a college education. You just
can’t make it in this world today without a college education. You have no
chance of succeeding in life without that little piece of paper that says, ‘You
have a degree. You are now educated. You are now able to be somebody’” It is
not just the world saying this. Many churches are even preaching and
encouraging this. Unfortunately, most colleges are undermining the Christian
faith. Christians are paying good money so they can go to college and have
their faith ripped to shreds by some anti-Christian professors. And trust me,
there are a lot of them.
Don’t get me wrong, just
because you go to college doesn’t necessarily mean that you have an idol. It
may be God’s will for you to go to college. It may be that the channel through
which He chooses to use you requires that you have a college degree. Or, it may
be that you are going to college for the purpose of being able to witness to
college students and to build up those who are believers on campus. Even if you
do know for a fact that it is God’s will for you to be going to college, you
still have to be careful that it does not become an idol. It could be that you
let it get in the way of your relationship with God. You start to spend 5 hours
a day studying when 2 hours is enough. You start to think about school work all
the time to the point where you can’t even concentrate on your prayer time
without being interrupted with thoughts about the courses you are taking. You
begin signing up for more courses in one semester than you can handle without
your relationship with God being hindered. Your motivation for going to college
changes to where it is no longer for God that you are going, but it is now for
purely selfish reasons.
JOB/CAREER
Many Christians make their job
or career their god. For example: You give excessive devotion to it. You are
more committed to it than you are to the Lord God and doing His will. You spend
more time on your job than you need to. It is not just for the money either -
you worship your job. You do it in order to gain a higher position. You want
power, prestige, self-esteem, significance, and respect from others. You see
your job as an avenue for acquiring these. Or, you work long hours to escape
from boredom. Or, you do it so you have an excuse for not being at home. You
would rather be at work than at home because you don’t want to have to put up
with a nagging wife or a selfish husband. You gain security, fulfillment,
and/or significance from your job, which a good relationship with God should
have given you. However, you work so much that it hinders your relationship
with God and stunts your character growth. You can’t make it to any Bible
studies because of your work schedule. Instead of looking for another job that
will allow you the time to go to Bible study and get the valuable spiritual
input and fellowship you need, you are content to stay at your current job. You
really don’t care that much about spiritual things. You don’t have time to have
a ministry outreach of you own either because your job takes up too much of
your time and leaves you tired.
For others, it isn’t the job
that they are at. It is the career that they are pursuing that they worship.
You always wanted to be an actor. You want to make it big (play in some big box
office hit, work with the top
GIRLFRIEND/BOYFRIEND/SPOUSE
Your girlfriend (if your a
girl, insert boyfriend instead, or if you are married, insert spouse instead.)
wants to go see a movie. It is Friday night, Bible study night. You know you
ought to be going to the Bible study and getting some good spiritual input and
fellowship. It is one of the few times you can get good Bible teaching, but you
opt for the movie with your girlfriend instead. You love your girlfriend more
than God. You’ll do just about anything to be with her. You’ll drive fifty
miles to go see her if that is how far away she lives, but you won’t drive ten
miles to go to a good Bible study. You’ll do just about anything to please your
girlfriend, but you won’t go out of your way to please and get to know God
better. When it comes to a decision between doing what will please your
girlfriend and what will please God, you choose your girlfriend. In spite of
what God’s Word says about being unequally yoked, you continue to date a
non-Christian girl in hopes that she will become a Christian so that you can
one day marry her. Or, your girlfriend may be a Christian, but she is ultra
carnal/backslidden. You think about your girlfriend all the time. You can’t get
her out of your mind, yet you rarely spend any time thinking about God or His
Word. You really enjoy being with your girlfriend; whereas, Bible study is a
chore done out of a feeling of obligation. You can’t wait to talk to your
girlfriend; whereas, you pray out of a mere sense of duty, not because you
really love the Lord and can’t wait to talk to Him. Is having and or pleasing
your girlfriend or wife more important to you than pleasing God? If so, she is
an idol.
THE AMERICAN DREAM
Yes, a dream can be an idol. An
idea can be an idol. What is the American Dream? The American Dream is this
idea that in order to achieve perfect happiness, you need to have a college
education, a nice paying job, a nice house, a nice car or two, a nice family with
kids, and a nice dog. This idea is often the reason behind why so many other
things become idols for Christians, such as college, career, family, sports,
wife, house, etc. This is an idea that most young church people are striving
for. They are completely and totally devoted to it. It is what they are living
for. It competes with their devotion to God. I’ve heard many people say, “I
don’t really care about being rich, I just want to get married, have kids, a
nice house, a nice car, …” Basically, what they are saying is, “I just want to
be an average American. I don’t want to be looked down upon as abnormal.” We
just assume that is what we ought to be pursuing. It is what we’ve been taught.
It is the way we were raised. It is what a lot of churches promote. We haven’t
really consulted God and considered what He really wants us to be doing.
Now, there is nothing
inherently wrong or sinful about being married, having a house, a car, or kids.
It is when you do these things knowing that it is not God’s will for you or
when you are so devoted to pursuing these things that it takes the place of God
in your life. Joe Christian over here may have all those things. He’s got a
college degree. He’s married, he has a nice house, and he has three children,
but none of them is an idol to him. He wasn’t seeking after any of these things
for himself. He takes care of his wife and kids, but they do not get in the way
of his ministry. In fact, they compliment his ministry. As for his degree, he
got it because he believed that God wanted him to become a missionary doctor
and use medicine as a vehicle to bring the gospel to others. He had a house
because he believed it was most practical for his family, and he was convinced
that it was most conducive to his ministry. He did all this because he loved
God and knew that this was the best way he could glorify God. He was convinced
it was what God wanted and not just something he wanted for himself. None of
those things was an idol for him. So, having a house, a wife, kids, and a college
degree are not necessarily wrong. But, what is God’s will for one person is not
necessarily God’s will for another person.
Johnny on the other hand,
didn’t really consult God about any of these things. He had always dreamed
about getting married and was eager to do so. He wasn’t going to wait around
and find out God’s will about the matter. He wasn’t going to wait for God’s
timing or God’s choice. No, he was going to help God out. He was always on the
lookout for his potential wife. And, if he really loved a particular woman, he
would marry her, even if she wasn’t a Christian, or even if she was one but did
not want to put God first in her life. He wanted to go to college and get a
degree because he always wanted to be a doctor. He knew he would make lots of
money. He knew it would also please his mom and dad. It would make them proud.
Plus, he would get to help people in the process. That would make him feel good
and comfort any guilt feelings for not witnessing or doing much else for God.
It was mainly all for selfish reasons.
What goals, objectives, and
dreams are you pursuing in life? What do you think about, dream about, get
excited about? What keeps you awake at night? Why are you pursuing those
things? Are your objectives and goals based on what God wants or what you want?
SPORTS
Sports are a big idol in
So, am I saying that sports are
wrong, or that they are always an idol? No. Just because you play a game of
basketball or go to see a basketball game doesn’t mean that it is your idol.
So, what makes it an idol? When does it become an idol? How do I know when my
devotion to sports becomes excessive?
Well, you have to go back to
the list of criteria. You have to analyze your thoughts, how you spend your
time, your commitments, your motivation, your mindset, how you spend your
finances, how much you talk about it, and how much of your energy and resources
goes into it. You have to factor in all these things and see how they fit in
with accomplishing God’s purpose for your life, or if they even fit in at all.
Compare your enthusiasm towards sports with your enthusiasm toward God. If you
are so committed to sports (whether it be baseball, football, basketball,
soccer, bowling, or whether it is playing or merely watching) that it is
hindering you from accomplishing God’s will, then it is an idol. If you are
more interested in watching the Monday night football game than you are in
getting to know the Lord, then sports is your god. If your motivation for
watching or playing sports is purely selfish, for self gratification or pride,
then sports is an idol to you.
Keep in mind that there are
exceptions to the above criteria, and it’s not always any one criterion that
makes something an idol (although it can be). It may involve a combination of
things. For example, one person may spend a large chunk of each day involved in
sports because it is his job. He is a junior high coach. He sees his job more
as a mission field to teenagers than anything else. It’s not an idol to him
though. It doesn’t consume his thoughts and resources so that it hinders him
from doing God’s will. In fact, his main motivation for taking the job was
because he saw it as the channel through which God would have him spread the
gospel and inculcate Christian character into the lives of young believers.
Another guy may spend that same amount of time involved in sports, but for a
different reason. He got a similar job because he loved sports so much that he
hoped to some day coach a college football team and make a name for himself.
Both spent a lot of time with sports, but it was only an idol for one of them.
That is why it is important to look at other factors, especially your
motivation.
Why do you play sports? What is
your main reason for doing it? Is it to build relations with another Christian
that you are trying to teach? Is it to stay healthy and physically fit so that
you can serve the Lord more energetically? Is it to take a break from reading
or some other mental work to refresh your mind, get your blood pumping and wake
you up so you can do a better job of studying, or so you don’t get burnt out?
Is it to fellowship with other believers? In other words, are you doing it
because it will ultimately help you to serve God better?
Or, do you do it for mainly
selfish reasons? For example: You want to improve your skills for the purpose
of being able to show off and have others say how good you are. You are bored
with life, and you are looking for something to fulfill your boredom. Sports
sounds fun. You enjoy playing sports so much, you do it just for the pleasure.
You are jealous of others and want to play a game so you can beat them and feel
better. Do you do it because you want to build your self-esteem, ego, or pride?
Can you name the pitcher that pitched a perfect game in the 1956 world series,
but you can’t name the first 5 books of the Bible? How much do you think about
it, study it, watch it, and talk about it? Do you get as excited about having
an opportunity to witness to someone as you do about going to watch a ball game
or getting free tickets to see your favorite team play? What excites you more –
seeing a Christian who’s really hungry for the word and who comes to you for
more, or seeing your favorite football team win the Super Bowl? Are you more
eager to catch the nightly sports news than you are to find out what the topic
will be for the next Bible study?
Another important area to look
at is your finances. Some people are willing to spend $30 for a football game
ticket, for an event that only lasts a single night, when they haven’t even
given $30 to missions in the whole year.
Or, what about your priorities
and your time commitment? Some Christians won’t miss a football game, but will
use the slightest excuse to get out of having their Bible reading time or going
to a Bible study. They are much more committed to a game than they are to God.
What’s more important, watching some game that people are going to forget about
in a couple of days, or getting to know God who lives forever?
BODYBUILDING
Our society has put a lot of
emphasis on physique. Your body has to be big and muscular for you to be
considered a “real” man. You have to be strong, or you are less of a man. Or,
if you are a woman, your body must be slender and toned with all the curves in
the right places. As a result of this type of brainwashing from society, I have
seen many Christian men get caught up in bodybuilding, so much so that it
becomes an idol. And it is not just men doing it anymore. It has become more
popular among women too as they try to achieve what society says is the
“perfect body”.
Like most things, it is not
necessarily an idol in and of itself. For one person who works out lifting
weights, it is not a problem for him. He just sees it as a way of getting some
exercise and staying healthy and energetic so that he can better serve the
Lord. He does it in moderation – three times a week, thirty to forty-five
minutes at a time. He doesn’t spend much time thinking about his body or
looking in the mirror. If there is a Christian in need of encouragement,
comfort, instruction, or help, and it falls on his workout time, he is willing
to skip his workout for the Christian in need. Bodybuilding isn’t an idol in
this person’s life. Whereas, this other Christian works out for a different
reason. He is not so much concerned about being able to serve the Lord more
energetically as he is interested in building up his muscles to increase his
self-esteem, build up his pride, and attract beautiful women. He spends a lot
of time just thinking about how he can get bigger muscles, what he will look
like in a few months, the beautiful women he can attract with his awesome body.
He does that when he is not working out. Hardly a conversation goes by when he
doesn’t at least mention the subject. Any time he goes to the bathroom and
passes by a mirror, he has to look and admire his body and dream about what he
will look like if he keeps it up. He spends time each morning just gawking at
his figure in the mirror. He spends hours in the gym working out each day or
every other day. He spends a lot of money on supplements and takes them
religiously. He almost never misses a workout. He is more likely to miss his
prayer time or an opportunity to build up another Christian. Because of his
motivation and attitude toward bodybuilding, it appears to be an idol in his
life.
CLOTHES
We all need clothes to wear.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with clothes. In fact, clothing is a good
thing to have, but it can become an idol. And it is an idol for many Christian
people. But when does it become an idol? And how do you know if it is an idol
for you?
What is your attitude toward
it? What is your motivation? If you want more clothes, why do you want more or
new clothes? Is it so that you can look presentable when sharing the gospel? Is
it so that you’re not a distraction to them, so they don’t end up focusing on
what you are wearing because you stick out like a sore thumb? By the way, being
presentable does not mean that you keep up with all the latest fashion trends
and dress the same way everyone else is dressing. You may have clothes from the
70’s that are in good shape and aren’t too flashy. Those are probably just
fine. I wouldn’t even be surprised if they came back in style.
On the other hand, do you find
yourself always wanting the latest style clothing or the most popular brand?
And the reason why you want it is not just to look presentable, but to be more
attractive to others, to feel better about yourself, to boost your pride, to be
liked by or more popular with people, or to be able to boast to others about
what awesome clothes you have? Maybe it is not the most popular brand you want
so much as it is the style because you want to stick out, grab people’s
attention, or be noticed by others. It is for selfish reasons rather than
because you see it as helping you to accomplish the will of God.
How excited are you about
clothes as compared to spiritual things? Are you more excited about getting new
clothes than you are about helping a new Christian grow spiritually or learning
some new truth out of the Bible? If so, it might be an idol.
How often do you think about
clothes? Is it excessive or disproportionate to your needs? Obviously, if you
are a tailor or a seamstress or a department store salesperson, you are going
to talk about and think about clothes more. It is part of your job. So, you
have to use some discretion when answering these questions because you may be
thinking something is an idol when it is not or that something isn’t an idol
when it is. The question is, are you preoccupied with thinking about clothing?
Is it a distraction to your spiritual growth and thinking about godly
principles/subjects? Do you find yourself thinking about what someone else is
wearing and how they are out of style, or how they have something on that you
would really like, instead of thinking about how you can love that person
biblically?
Maybe, it is not so much that
you think about it all the time as it is in how you spend your money on it. You
spend more than you should, not because you can’t find something less
expensive, but because you want it. You buy way more clothes than you need. You
buy way more shoes than you need. You’ve got a pair of shoes for every outfit.
You’ve got a purse for every outfit. You are willing to spend thirty dollars
extra on an outfit that you are only going to wear for one or two occasions
just so you can have the name brand, even though another brand was fine. But
you haven’t even given $30 to missions in the past year. Or, you will work
extra hard and longer hours so you can afford to buy the clothes you want
rather than the clothes you simply need. Even if your job requires that you
wear nicer, more expensive clothes, you could go to a used clothing store and
get some awesome deals on nice clothing. But you don’t want to because you want
brand new stuff, or you can’t always find the most popular brand there. You buy
lots of expensive clothes because you want to make a fashion statement, or you
want to brag about the clothes you have, or you want other people to look up to
you – all selfish reasons.
FOOD
You probably never really
thought about this being an idol. But the Bible is pretty clear in stating that
gluttony/overeating is idolatry and is a sin – “..whose end is destruction,
whose god is their appetite” (Phil.
You don’t necessarily have to
overeat in order for your appetite to become your god, though. For some people,
all they think about is food. While they are praying or reading their Bible,
they are thinking about what they are going to eat for lunch or a snack rather
than on what they are praying or reading. Or, a person will be more excited
about what he is going to have for dinner than he is about what God wants to
teach him in his Bible study and meditation.
I can’t say that just because
you have X number of snacks a day, food is an idol. I can’t say that because
you buy expensive food or because you go out to eat a lot that it is an idol.
It really depends on why you are doing it, how loyal you are to it, and how
much it influences your decisions. When all those factors are added up, it may
show symptoms of food being an idol.
Billy over here may eat 10 to
15 tiny snacks a day to keep his blood sugar constant since he has diabetes.
Food is not an idol for him. Allen, on the other hand, is 100 pounds overweight
because he eats too much, yet he continues to eat 3 big, snacks a day on top of
his regular meals. Daron is skinny as a rail because
he has a high metabolism, but he eats like a horse, and he spends a lot of time
thinking about what he wants to eat for his next meal, how good the last meal
was, and how good the next one will be. Every time he gets a hunger craving, he
stops whatever he is doing and has a snack. He makes sure he has a desert after
every meal. He often indulges in buying expensive foods and desserts and in
eating out, even though he knows he can’t really afford it and his money could
be better spent on other things like paying the rent and supporting missions.
Food is an idol for both Allen and Daron; whereas, it
isn’t for Billy. Now God gave us many things which can be pleasurable and
enjoyable because of the good and generous God He is. Food is one of those
things, but we shouldn’t pay excessive devotion to it. It is not wrong to enjoy
what you eat, or even to look forward to eating a good meal, but just make sure
your appetite is not your god.
FAMILY
This is a big idol for many
Christians. Some may say, “Yea, but I don’t worship my dad. I don’t worship my
mom, my sister, my brother, grandma, grandpa, aunts, uncles, and cousins, so I
must be O.K. Family is not an idol for me. Let’s move on.” Not so quick! Many
Christians are more committed to their families than they are to God. I know
because I’ve met quite a few of them. Are you more committed to your family
than you are to God by doing His will? Is pleasing your father and mother more
important than pleasing God?
I don’t know how many times my
parents have asked me to do something, like go out to eat with them, go run an
errand for them, go with them to do something, or just go visit them, and it
just happens to be on Friday night during the same time I go to Bible study.
They could have easily planned around the study that they know I attend if they
really wanted me to do something with them. It is almost like they are trying
to test my loyalty to them. I have to tell them no because Bible study is more
important to me than going out to eat with my parents. Now, there may be some
legitimate times for me to miss Bible study for my parents if there was some
kind of emergency or something extra special. I have to weigh each situation;
there may be a case when I am convinced that God would have me miss a Bible
study, but that is rare.
So, when does family become an
idol, or how do you know it is an idol for you? Go back through the list of
criteria and ask yourself questions about your attitude, mindset, commitment,
finances, speech, thoughts, time spent, motives, and priorities. Usually the
biggest ways Christians idolize their family is in their priorities,
commitment, and motives. It is not necessarily how much they think about them
or even spend on them, although those can sometimes be indicators too.
When there is a conflict of
interest between doing what your parents want and doing the will of God, which
do you do? Do you look forward more to doing things with your family than you
do meeting with another Christian to teach him how to grow into Christ-likeness?
I’ve met several Christians who knew that it was God’s will for them to be
trained in this ministry, but they didn’t because of their parents. Dad always
wanted him to go to college and become a doctor, or dad wants him to go to
college and get a degree first, so that he has something to fall back on. Dad
doesn’t want him to be a missionary. Or, dad doesn’t mind him going into
full-time Christian work, so long as he goes to an accredited Bible college and
seminary and gets a respectable degree. That way he can get a more socially
accepted job and have more security. This Christian gives in to his father’s
wishes. The Christian would rather go against what he knows God wants him to do
rather than oppose his father and mother and be at odds with his family. What
about you? What would you do?
Or let’s say your dad calls you
, and you are the only one who can help him, but you already made a commitment
with a friend to go door to door witnessing. You’ve had it planned for two
weeks now, and this is the only time both of you could do it. You know your dad
won’t understand. What do you do? What would you do? It is easy to say the
right answer. But try to think back on situations in your own life where you
had to choose between doing something you knew God would want you to do and
doing something with your family. Which one usually takes the higher priority?
If it is your family, then I’d say your family is probably an idol.
TV
The average person in American
watches an average of 4 hours of TV a day. That is 1460 hours a year. That is
61 twenty-four-hour days of solid TV viewing in every year. The majority of TV
that is watched is for pure entertainment, not educational purposes. What a
waste of time! Just think of what you could do with an extra 1460 hours per
year (assuming you watched that much
television. I hope you don’t.). Obviously, there is a big problem with
television in
There isn’t much good on TV
either. Just about all of the total available programming has sexual innuendo,
violence, bad language, and/or promotes ungodly character such as lying,
stealing, cheating, pre-marital sex, extra-marital sex, greed, selfishness,
blasphemy, etc. One can not even watch regular television without the
possibility of hearing a cuss word. Even the “good” programs usually have
undertones of materialism, humanism, and false values. So, if you do watch TV,
you have to be really careful about what you watch.
Do you watch too much TV? Why
do you watch it? What do you usually watch, and why that? Do you find yourself
sitting down watching TV when you know there are other more important things
you should be doing? Do you find it hard or near impossible to go without
watching TV for a day? Do you look forward to watching your favorite programs
more than you do going to Bible study, reading your Bible, meeting with another
Christian to share with them how they can live a Spirit-filled life, or going
out witnessing? Do you pay more attention to what’s on TV than to what you are
reading in the Bible?
The same things could be said
of movies, video cassettes, and DVD’s. For example: You are so hooked on movies
that you have to go see the latest box office hit, or rent the latest video
release. You just can’t wait to see that new movie everyone has been talking
about. You spend a lot of time thinking about the last movie you saw. You can’t
wait to tell your friend how awesome it was – lots of action, great plot,
excellent acting, breath-taking stunts, dynamic visual effects, superb sound
track, and sexy women (or handsome men if you are a woman). You spend a lot of
money to see all the latest movies and rent the latest video releases. You get
excited about seeing a new movie. You look forward to it. But, Bible study is a
bore, praying is a burdensome ritual, and you hardly care to think about how
you could stimulate another Christian in the faith.
MONEY
This is the great god of the
American People. We elect a president, not because he will do what is for the
ultimate good of the people, but for what he can do for our pocket books. There
are millions of people out there looking for all kinds of ways to get rich
quick. There are other millions of people out there working night and day, not
just to make a living but because they are looking to amass great amounts of
money for themselves. They think money is the answer to every problem in life
or the solution to happiness. There are some people who actually believe this.
Does your life revolve around
money? Are you going to college so that you can get a higher paying job, so
that you can get more money, so that you have more to invest, or so that you
can buy more things? Do you want more money because it will help you to serve
God better and further God’s kingdom? Or, do you want it so that you can buy
more things for yourself? Do you want it because you believe that being wealthy
will put you in a position of power and authority? Do you want more money so
that people will respect you, so that people will love you, so that people will
look up to you? Do you want it so that you can brag to others about how much
you have? Do you want it because it will help you to reach you selfish desires
and goals in life? Are you constantly dreaming about how you can acquire more
of it? If you invest in the stock market, are you constantly thinking about
your investments, checking the stock prices several times a day, frequently
reconsidering your investments and wondering if this other stock would yield a
higher return? Do you talk about it a lot of the time? Do you talk about how
much you have, how your investments are doing, what jobs you can get that pay
more, the current job you have and how awesome the pay is? When it comes to
money, do you get really excited, especially when you just made or acquired a
large quantity? Are you, however, even more excited when it comes to reading
your Bible or witnessing? Or, do you do it out of obligation or don’t even do
it at all? Do you always find the time to make money but can hardly find time
to pray and get to know God, go to a Bible study, take in God’s word, or
fellowship with other believers?
First Timothy 6:9, 10 says,
“But those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a snare and many
foolish and harmful desires which plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the
love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have
wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.”
As with most things, money, in
and of itself, is a neutral thing. It is not necessarily wrong to be rich or
have lots of money. Money isn’t an idol just because you have lots of it. It’s
more of how you acquired it and your attitude toward it that determines whether
or not it is an idol. Are you striving to become rich for selfish reasons, or
are you merely working and investing your resources in such a way as God would
have you to support yourself, your ministry, and to glorify God? Are you more
committed to the acquisition of wealth than you are toward the acquisition of
godly character? Do you work long hours to get more money to spend on selfish
things? If you are a college student, is your reason for going to college
because you want a higher paying job, so you can have more money to spend on
yourself? Would you be willing to take a promotion/pay raise or a higher paying
job, even though it would mean that you wouldn’t have time for Bible studies or
other activities necessary for your spiritual growth, or to help other
Christians mature spiritually? Why? Are you content with what God has given
you? Depending on how you answered these questions, money could be an idol.
MUSIC
You listen to it all the time.
You always have to have it playing in the background. Your CD collection is
huge. You are always buying new CD’s to add to your collection. You love going
to concerts. You spend more money on concert tickets than you give to missions.
In your conversations, you often find yourself talking about this band or that
band or the latest song that came out. You listen to music excessively. You
would rather listen to it than listen to a good spiritual teaching tape. You
can’t concentrate when you are praying because your favorite song keeps popping
into your mind as you pray. You don’t just listen to worshipful Christian music
either. You love listening to secular music. You may even listen to secular
music more than you do Christian music. As a matter of fact, even the
“Christian” music you listen to doesn’t sound like Christian music. It sounds
just like the pagan music. If I was a pagan listening to it, I wouldn’t even be
able to tell there was a difference. Even the words could probably pass for
secular. You listen to music because you love it. It makes you feel good. It
puts you in another world. It gets your mind off reality for a little while.
You don’t listen to it so much because it puts you in a meditative state of
thinking where your mind is fixed on God, or because it helps you worship God,
or because it is spiritually edifying. You listen to it out of pure selfish
desire. It doesn’t have anything to do with building you up spiritually so you
can better serve God or worship Him. Don’t misunderstand me. There is nothing
wrong with enjoying music or deriving pleasure from it, but is it your primary
purpose and motivation for listening to it, or is it a by-product? If any of
the above uses of music are true of you, it is possibly an idol. You may want
to go through the list of criteria under Roman numeral I and ask yourself many
of those questions.
This not only applies to
listening to music, but also to musicians who play an instrument or sing. Some
people like to play their instrument just to show off how good they are and
impress people so they can build up their ego. They spend countless hours
practicing and playing to become virtuosos. They play so much that it cuts into
their time for Bible reading, praying, witnessing, meditating, or teaching
other Christians how to grow spiritually. They are much more enthusiastic about
playing their instrument than they are about trying to live a godly life or
trying to share the gospel with someone. It is not that they play their
instrument mainly to worship God either. It is primarily for selfish reasons -
it is for pleasure, they are stuck on themselves and just like to hear
themselves play because it makes them feel good. They want others to praise
them, they want others to look up to them and admire them, they are just bored
and use it to pass the time, and/or they use it to take their mind off reality.
Some people sing to get others attention or to be noticed and admired by them.
They sing because they are stuck on themselves and just like to hear their own
voice. It builds their ego. They are jealous of so-and-so’s talents and want to
be better than him. Their primary motivation is sinful.
PLEASURE
Are you always seeking to
please yourself? Are you always thinking of ways to gratify your flesh? Do you
daydream about indulging in food, sex, entertainment, or stimulating
experiences? Do you spend much of your money on amusement parks, entertainment,
or expensive food? Do you pamper yourself often? Are you more interested in
pleasing yourself than you are in pleasing God?
Our society is a pleasure
oriented society. Our motto is: “If it feels good do it”. Have you adopted any
one of the following ideas as your own: “Go on do it. You owe it to yourself.”
“Eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die.” “Do whatever feels good” “Get
all the gusto while you can.” “You only go around once in life, so you might as
well live it up” “Treat yourself to the best. You deserve it.” “Take it
easy.”?
GREED
What is greed/covetousness? It
is excessive desire, basically selfish desire. It is “an inordinate desire for
what one has not; …its basis lies in discontentment with what one has.”7
Greed can be for food, for wealth, or just about anything. The Bible clearly
states that greed is idolatry. Eph. 5:5; Col. 3:5; cf. Matt. 6:24; Lk. 16:13.
Greed is idolatry because it seeks satisfaction in something other than God. It
makes “self” one’s idol because one is obeying one’s selfish desires instead of
God. God tells us to be content with what we have (Heb. 13:5).
Greed is the underlying
motivation behind many other idols. You are not satisfied in your relationship
with God, so you seek it somewhere else.
You are not content with what you have. You want more. You dream about
getting what you want. You think about it all the time. You talk about it all
the time. You are very eager to get it. You are more excited about it than you
are about God. You want it, not for the purpose of serving God better, but so
that you can gratify your own selfish desires. Even though God has blessed you
with more than enough money to accomplish His will for your life, you still want
more. Your car is adequate and reliable for getting you where you need to go,
yet you want something better, something nicer, something faster, something
sportier. Your dwelling place is fine for your needs. But you want something
bigger, nicer, newer, fancier, something with a bigger yard. Your reason for
wanting it is not because you believe it will help your ministry. It is
primarily for selfish reasons.
It is not necessarily wrong to
want something. That does not automatically make it greed or discontentment. It
all depends on your reason for wanting it - your motivation. It is O.K. to want
something or seek something if you are sure it is God’s will, and/or your
motivation for it is because you believe it will in help you accomplish God’s
will for your life. On the other hand, if you want something primarily for
selfish reasons, to satisfy your own selfish desires, then that is greed and
idolatry.
COMPUTERS
I had to include this in the
main list of idols because computers are becoming so popular and commonplace
and have become an idol for many Christians. For example: You spend hours and
hours on the computer every day. You surf the Internet all the time. You are
constantly looking for new programs that will enhance your computer. You are
constantly upgrading your system, even though the computer you have now is good
for what you need. You spend large amounts of money on it to improve it, to
make it faster, better, give it more memory, run bigger programs. You are
thinking about your computer all the time. You are attached to it. You love
playing on the computer. You enjoy it more than reading the Bible, going to
Bible studies, or meditating on God’s greatness. You get more excited about it
than you do reading the Bible. You get especially excited when you get some new
piece of hardware or download some new program. You can hardly wait to try it
out. You can always find time to play on the computer, but you can hardly find
time to get alone with God. Your primary purpose for being on the computer is
for selfish reasons.
“SPIRITUAL THINGS”
An idol doesn’t just have to be
a secular thing. Even what we would normally think of as a spiritual or godly
thing to do can become an idol. We can make “spiritual things” our idols too.
It all depends on our reason for doing them and our attitude toward them.
For example, Bible study can be an idol. “But how?”,
you say. “I thought that was a godly thing to do, a spiritual thing to do.
Don’t you preach that we ought to study our Bibles.” Yes, it is a good thing to
do, and yes, I preach it, but you have to have the right motivation. If your
motivation for reading it is wrong, then it could be an idol. For example: You
do it simply to gain knowledge for knowledge’s sake without any intent to apply
it or use it to help you get to know God better. You do it so you can show off
to others how knowledgeable you are about the Bible and appear pious. If that
is why you do it, then you are worshipping Bible knowledge rather than God.
The book itself can become an
idol. To some people, the actual paper and ink are more important than what it
says. They might spend a lot of money to buy a leather bound book with a
beautiful cover - just another something to put on display in their house to
adore. This is similar to how the Israelites took an object that Moses made to
serve a specific purpose and turned it into an object of worship (2 Kings
18:4). Some Christians are more devoted to the Bible as a god than they are to
the God the book talks about.
Evangelism can even be an
idol. You do it because you want to look good in the eyes of others, or because
you don’t want to look bad to others, not because you sincerely love God and
people, and not because you really want others to know the truth of the gospel.
You do it so that you can brag about how many people you witnessed to. You do
it out of jealousy and competition.
Anything, even a “spiritual”
thing, that you are more devoted to, loyal to, or admire more than the Lord God
Himself becomes an idol.
OTHERS
Here are a few other things
that are common idols in
ANYTHING ELSE
An idol is not limited to any
of the things above. It could be anything that takes the place of God in your
life, whether by affections, devotion, loyalty, adoration, worship, or
obedience. The ones I listed were just some of the ones that I thought were
most common here in
I could probably write a
chapter on each one of the things on this list. There are an infinite number of
examples and various combinations of questions, and there are an infinite
number of idols, so just keep that in mind. Don’t just think that because I
didn’t mention something that it is not or can’t be an idol.
How and why do Christians have
idols/false gods?
We would expect non-Christians
to have idols. They don’t really know God in their experience. They are not in
a right relationship with Him. They do not truly trust God that He has their
best interests in mind. So, they turn to other things. Idolatry is only normal
for a non-Christian. Every person was born with a natural inclination to
worship something or someone (originally intended to be God). In the non-Christian,
this tendency gets distorted by his sin nature.
A Christian, however, is one
who is brought into a right relationship with God. A Christian is given a new
nature and a new capacity to love and worship God. He is aware that only God
can save him and that there is only one true God. It seems pretty stupid or
illogical for Christians to have idols. This reminds me of what king Amaziah
did in 2 Chron. 25:15. God asked him the question, “…Why have you sought the
gods of the people who have not delivered their own people from their hand.?”
It was so stupid of king Amaziah to seek the gods of those people he conquered,
those whom God delivered into the king’s hand. God was obviously stronger than
any of those people’s so-called gods.
So, why would a Christian have
any idols, and how does he get to that point? Since Christians still have a sin
nature, even after becoming Christians, they still have the capacity for
committing the sin of idolatry. Of all people, Christians should know better
than to have idols, but many do not, and even if they do know, they choose not
to act on that knowledge. Even so, other Christians know and believe that they
should not have idols, but are not aware that they have an idol, or they have
fooled themselves into thinking that they do not have an idol, when they really
do.
In order to guard against
idolatry in our own lives, it would be helpful to know why and how things
become idols for Christians. It can help us identify idols that we need to deal
with as well as enable us to pick up on some of the warning signs, so that we
can prevent things from becoming idols in the future. With that in mind, let’s
take a look at some of these things.
One of the first things I think
happens before you allow something to become an idol is that you
become distracted in your relationship with God. Something grabs
your attention and briefly takes your focus off God. It could be materialism,
the thought of a promising career, the acquisition of a new house, the
acquisition of a new car, introduction into a new activity, relationship,
romance, position, pleasure, entertainment, acquisition of a large sum of
money, the acquisition of some new possession, or some temptation to commit a
sin. It could be just about anything, even a “good” thing. There is nothing
necessarily wrong with most of these things, but Satan will try to use anything
he can to divert our attention away from God. Even without Satan’s help, our
sin nature can lead us away from God. I am reminded of what happened to
Solomon. He serves as a perfect example for this point. Solomon was the richest
and wisest man of his time. Surely, with his great wisdom, he would never be so
stupid as to worship idols, which really are not gods at all. But, what does
the Bible say happened? “Now king Solomon loved many foreign women…Solomon held
fast to these in love… For it came about when Solomon was old, his wives turned
his heart away after other gods; and his heart was not wholly devoted to the
Lord his God.” (1 Kings 11:1-4).
Women became a distraction to Solomon and eventually turned his heart away
after other gods.
If we can recognize
distractions when they come and not allow them to divert our attention from
God, then we can avoid letting things or people become idols. Is there anything
or anyone in your life right now that has become a distraction from your
devotion to God and has become an idol or led you into idolatry?
Another thing which leads to
idolatry is when your love for God grows cold and your relationship with Him
drifts. This is closely related to and actually amplifies the
distraction process. For example, a man who really loves his wife does not
easily fall for the distractions of other women. However, if his relationship
with his wife is suffering and his marriage is falling apart, then the
attraction of other women becomes more powerful to him. This is how it is in
your relationship with God. If you have an excellent relationship with God,
then the things of this world won’t hold much attraction to you, if any at all.
On the other hand, if your relationship to God is suffering, then you become
easily attracted to just about anything.
How do you know if your
relationship with God is growing cold? What are some warning signs? Is there
any sin that God is bringing to your attention that you have not dealt with (i.e., confessed and repented of)? If
so, it is a sign that your relationship with God is drifting. Any time there is
sin in our lives which we are aware of but allow to go unconfessed, we break
our fellowship with God (1 Jn. 1:6).
If your prayer times are merely a dull repetition of requests and do not
include much thanks, praise and sharing of your thoughts and feelings, it is a
sign that your relationship with God needs some revitalizing. If your Bible
reading/Quiet Time is mechanical and done mainly out of a sense of duty, and
you do not really look forward to doing it, then that could be a sign that your
relationship with God is drifting or has drifted. If God’s commands in the
Bible are a burden to you (you do them
only out of a sense of duty or so you don’t look bad in front of others, and
not because of a deep love and appreciation for God), then that is also a
sign that something is wrong in your relationship with God. It is a sign that
the flames of your love life for God are dwindling.
When a Christian’s relationship
with God falls apart and his fellowship is broken, then the Christian is no longer
satisfied and fulfilled by God, so he turns somewhere else and looks
elsewhere. God is and has all we need to live a complete and satisfying life.
The problem is, unless we are in fellowship with Him, we cannot experience the
fulfilling spiritual life only He can give. Most of the time, the Christian
knows intellectually where satisfaction is to be found, but he doesn’t actually
believe it. Or, he may think, “Well, I’ve tried to have a close relationship
with God before, but it was too hard, so I gave up.” I think that the reason
many Christians are not satisfied in their relationship with God is because
they are not wholly devoted to God with all their heart. What did the Bible say
about Solomon when his wives turned his heart away after other gods? It says,
“…His heart was not wholly devoted to the Lord his God, as the heart of David
his father had been” (1 Kings 11:4).
God says, “You will seek Me and find Me when you” do what? “Search for Me with
all your heart” (Jer. 29:13). Many
Christians have not really sought God with all their heart. They’re holding out
on God. Somewhere, deep down, they have not completely emptied themselves so
that God can fill them. There is something which they are holding on to, which
they are not willing to hand over to God for fear that He might not give it
back. There is some area in which they are not trusting God. They are not sure
that God would let them do the same thing they want to do, and they do not
trust that God knows better than they do. Or, maybe they know, but are just not
willing to give up their selfish desires. There is some sin, some disobedience,
some doubt that they are not willing to give up, which God requires of those
who seek Him. Therefore, they cannot really experience the kind of fulfilling
life God offers.
So, are you having a
fulfilling, satisfying relationship with God? I don’t mean problem or
temptation free because the Bible say those things will happen. I don’t mean
that you feel happy 100% of the time either because happiness is a feeling
based on circumstances, and the Bible says that even godly people will have to
face adverse circumstances. What I mean is, are you content and at peace with
God? If you are not fulfilled in your relationship with God, then why not? Are
you turning to other things to try to find fulfillment and satisfaction?
The next step, or at least
somewhere intertwined, in the process of a Christian getting involved with
idolatry is that he gets deceived into thinking other things will satisfy him.
He comes to believe that God is not sufficient for all his needs. He comes to
believe that something other than God will ultimately satisfy him. “If only I
could have this much money, I would be satisfied. If only I could get married…
If only God would give me a child… If only I could get my degree and the job I
always wanted… If only I had a body like his/hers… If only I was
handsome/beautiful … If only I had a likable personality… If only I could be
popular… If I had a powerful position… If I had a bigger ministry… If I had a
nicer car… If I had a nice house… If I had a better computer… If I had this gadget…
If I saw that movie… If I had more video games… If…then I’d be satisfied.”
Because a Christian is deceived that something else will satisfy him, he
continues to devotedly pursue and/or dream about it, so that it becomes an
idol. His devotion to it is greater than to God. The thing becomes a god to
him. For example, if it is money, then the Christian thinks, “If only I had
more money, I would be satisfied.” The problem is, no matter how much he gets,
he will never be satisfied. He may be temporarily happy for a moment, but soon
he wants more. He is still deceived into thinking that money will actually
satisfy him. So, he continues to put all his efforts into acquiring it so that
it takes the place of God in his life. Satan is a master deceiver, and he will
do anything he can to try to deceive people into believing the lie that
something other than God can ultimately satisfy them. And Satan & company
have given us plenty of counterfeits to choose from.
Are you being deceived into
thinking that something other than a right relationship and obedience to God
can satisfy you? Are you looking to anything other than God and what He says
for satisfaction and fulfillment? How would you know if you were? Why do you do
whatever it is that you do? Is it because you believe it will somehow help you
in your service to God, or is it mainly for your own satisfaction and
enjoyment? Are you content and at peace in your relationship with God?
Another step in the road to
idolatry is when a Christian starts to love other things more than God.
Not only has his relationship with God grown cold, not only has he lost his
satisfaction from God, and not only has he been deceived into thinking that
something else can satisfy him, he begins to love others things more than God.
Jesus said, “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and
love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot
serve God and wealth” (Mat.6:24). You can’t serve God and your own selfish
ambitions either.
How can you tell if you love
other things more than God? Well, what does the Bible say as to how we can know
that we love God? It says, we love Him by keeping His commandments (John
Another thing that opens the
door to idolatry is unconfessed sin. If a Christian
knows he is sinning, yet is unwilling to confess it, or just hasn’t confessed
it, he is automatically out of fellowship with God (1 Jn. 1:6). Once a Christian is out of fellowship, he is no longer
being controlled by the Holy Spirit, but by his sin nature. Since he is
controlled by his sin-nature, he is not going to seek God nor God’s will, at
least, not from a right motivation. Unless he restores his fellowship with God
quickly, he will start seeking other things to satisfy him, and will let other
things take the place of God. A person may confess his sin but still not be
willing to stop doing it (repent of it). In this case, he goes right back into
a state of sin because of his rebellious attitude toward God.
Actually, any sin itself is a
form of idolatry. It is basically self-worship. When you sin, you basically set
yourself up as your own god for a brief moment. You are saying with your
actions that you know what is better than God does. God is not the Master of
your life in this decision.
Is there any sin in your life
that you know about that you haven’t yet confessed? Or, is there any sin which
you are not yet willing to give up?
Another reason why a Christian
commits idolatry is because he is focused primarily on himself, how
he can please himself, and not on how he can please God. Since he is
self-focused, then he will allow whatever he believes will offer him the most
gratification or gain to be his god/idol. For example, since he is self-focused
and looking to gratify his flesh, food looks promising. He over indulges in food.
He buys expensive food to pamper himself, even though he knows he can’t afford
it, or at least, shouldn’t be spending that much money on food for himself. He
also thinks about food a lot. He looks forward to his next meal and just can’t
wait to eat again. Whenever he gets the urge, he just stops what he is doing to
satisfy his desires.
Is your focus on God and on
pleasing Him? If so, how much of the time? Or, do you spend a lot of time
thinking about how you can please yourself?
Another reason why a Christian
allows an idol in his life is because he does not trust in God’s plan for his life.
He does not really believe that God knows what’s best for his life. He may know
it intellectually, but he doesn’t believe it. Instead of looking to God, he
looks to other things. He looks to what his peers say, to what the movies say,
to what the media says, to what his parents say, to what the world around him
says. He buys into Satan’s lie that if he totally submits to God, to trust and
obey Him, he will not be completely satisfied. He will be missing out on
something that’s better. He seeks other things for contentment. They offer some
temporary gratification or some empty promise of future happiness, which they
cannot deliver. He believes it and makes them his idols.
How do you know whether or not
you are trusting in God’s plan for your life? Do you believe that what He tells
you to do in the Bible is the best thing for your life? Do you show it by your
actions through your obedience? Is your objective in life that which God says
it should be? Do your goals in life reflect your trust in God, or are they
self-centered and reflect a disregard for God’s plan for your life? Is your
objective in life to glorify God through faith and loving obedience in living
holy, doing evangelism, and building up other believers (1 Pet. 2:9; 1 Cor. 11:1)?
If you have a job, is it because you are convinced that it will help you
to accomplish what God says should be your objective? If you are going to
college, is it because you believe it will help you accomplish what God says
your objective should be? Is the reason for whatever you are doing because it
will help you accomplish God’s will for your life? Why are you doing what you
are doing? Are your life and activities built around sharing the gospel with
others, living a holy life full of godly character, and teaching and training
other believers to be Christ-like and to do the same as you? You see, if you
really trust in God’s plan for your life, then you will be committed to doing
what He says you should be doing.
Do you think that if you
totally surrender to God to do His will, that you will somehow be missing out
on something that would be better for you or more fulfilling? Those last few
qualifying words there are the key to the question – “better for you or more
fulfilling.” Yes, if you are totally committed to doing God’s will, there is a
cost involved, and you will have to give some things up, but these are things
that are not going to be better for you or more satisfying than an intimate
relationship with God.
How to avoid idolatry.
Now, what are some practical
steps you can take that will help you to stop idolatry and/or avoid it. Here
are a few things I thought of, and this is certainly not an exhaustive list.
The first thing you need to do
if you have set up idols in your heart is to confess (1 JN. 1:9) and repent of the sin of idolatry. Admit
your sin to God. You can’t hide your sin from God, so you should go ahead and
confess it instead of trying to hide it and pretend that it is not there. Psalm
44:20, 21 says, “If we had forgotten the name of our God or extended our hands
to a strange god, would not God find this out? For He knows the secrets of the
heart.” 1 John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous
to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” By
confessing our sins, we are completely cleansed and our fellowship with God is
restored. However, we must repent, as well, if we are to continue in
fellowship. For, if we choose to go back to the sin, we will be quickly out of
fellowship again. To “repent” means “to change one’s mind or purpose.”8
We are to have a change of thinking about idolatry. We are to decide that it is
wrong and choose not to do it anymore. In effect, we are to do what Paul says
in I Cor. 10:7, 14, “Do not be idolaters…flee from idolatry.”
For some people, this talk
might be a little painful because it hits right where it hurts. This is a
touchy subject. It is not easy to give up something you deeply love, adore, and
are devoted to. If you have ever had a loved one depart, you know how much it
hurts. Because our sin nature is deeply tied to some idol, it doesn’t want to
give it up, and so it hurts when somebody points that problem out to us because
we know it means we have to let it go. But our sin nature kicks and screams,
and says, “No, I am not letting go. You have to take me by force.” So, what I
said here may hurt. Don’t let that keep you from listening and doing something
about it because it is ultimately for your own good. Be honest with yourself
and God. Go back through the list of criteria for determining an idol with an
open heart, being willing to admit and deal with any idols the Lord might
reveal to you. If He shows you any, then confess and repent.
The next thing you need to do
is to be
Spirit-filled. Rather than being controlled by your flesh/sin
nature, allow God to be the Controller and Director of your life through His
Holy Spirit. Submit to God’s control over your life. Choose as an act of your
will to obey God and trust Him. Consequently, one of the fruit of the Spirit is
joy (Gal.
Another step a Christian should
take to stop and/or avoid having idols in his life is to realize, know, and meditate on
the fact that there is only one true God and that all other so-called gods or
idols are nothing in comparison. It is not enough to only understand
or mentally agree that there is only one, true God. You must know it and be
convinced of it and the fact that idols are nothing, that they are not worth
your time, devotion, or attention. Romans
Realize and appreciate just how
awesome God is. Meditate on it. He made the world. He put the stars in space.
He made the planets and set them certain distances from the sun. He holds all
the celestial bodies together and keeps them from exploding or imploding or
drifting away from each other. He created and sustains man and all of the
animals. I am amazed at the variety and multitude of all the different types of
animals and plants God made. There are so many, man can’t even know everything
about them, let alone the universe. I am also amazed at the complexity of the
human body. Scientists have just mapped
out the entire human genome with its billions of lines of code, and they have
just scratched the surface of how the human body works. God is full of love and
good will toward His children. He has made great promises and is faithful to
keep every single one. He is all-powerful, and all-knowing. He is righteous and
holy and true. There is no lie in Him. Only God can save us from our sins. If
you realize, know, and appreciate just who God is, you will see that an idol is
nothing in comparison.
It is stupid to worship idols
which are nothing compared to God. It is like the example that God gives in
Isaiah 44:12-20 (see also Jer. 10:1-18).
This guy takes some wood. With half of it, he carves an image, bows down and
worships it, saying, “this is my god.” The other half he uses for firewood and
to cook his food. How absurd. He makes a block of wood his god. Most people
today see the absurdity of it and don’t practice as blatant a form of idolatry
as that. But, they are still doing the same thing, just in a more sophisticated
way. Instead of a block of wood, it is a hunk of metal. No, they don’t verbally
say to their car, “You are my god.” But, they basically do it with their
actions. They devote themselves to it. They put their hope in it. They look to
it for a sense of self-importance. They look to it for satisfaction and
fulfillment. It is a hunk of metal, glass, rubber, fiberglass, and plastic. It
is not God, but they treat it like God. People do the same thing with all the
other things listed in section III. They worship a game – football, basketball,
soccer, baseball, etc. They put their hope in a team of men. They are mere men,
not God. It is just a game that lasts for a moment and is soon forgotten.
I’m reminded of an
interesting story that I came across recently: “Hideyoshi,
a Japanese warlord who ruled over
Hopefully you can see how
foolish it is to elevate people, things, and activities to the place of God. It
is useless, it is wasteful, and it is an abomination to God. Jeremiah
summarizes what I’ve said very well in Jer. 10:6, 7, 11-13. “There is none like
You O Lord; You are great, and great is Your name in might. Who would not fear
You, O King of the nations? Indeed it is Your due! For among all the wise men
of the nations and in all their kingdoms, there is none like You… Thus you
shall say to them, ‘The gods that did not make the heavens and the earth shall
perish from the earth and from under the heavens.’ It is He who made the earth
by His power, Who established the world by His wisdom; and by His understanding
He has stretched out the heavens. When He utters His voice, there is a tumult
of waters in the heavens, and He causes the clouds to ascend from the end of
the earth; He makes lightning for the rain, and brings out the wind from His
storehouses.” The psalmist in Psa. 97:9 recognized this truth. “For You are the
Lord Most High over all the earth; You are exalted far above all gods.” In I
Chron. 16:25, 26, it says, “For great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised;
He also is to be feared above all gods. For all the gods of the peoples are
idols, but the Lord made the heavens.” The word used there for idols in the
Hebrew is “nothings”. All the gods of the peoples are “nothings” (for other passages, see also: Isa.
40:12-26; 45:20; Hab. 2:18, 19; 1 Cor. 8:4).
It is stupid to go after other
gods that obviously cannot deliver what they promise. How many millionaires and
billionaires have died unsatisfied, miserable, discontented men. Either that,
or they committed suicide. Obviously, wealth and riches did not fulfill them,
yet so many are devoting their whole lives to getting rich. It is like the
video “They Lied To Us” (Everybody should
watch that video). So many people have bought into the lie that if you wear
the right clothes, take the right drugs, have sex, have the right personality,
have the right profession, have a beautiful body, or have lots of money, you
will have a fulfilled life. You’ll be somebody.
If you are going to stop having
idols, you have got to realize and be convinced that they are nothing compared
to God. They are not worth the time, commitment, and/or devotion that God
deserves. Meditate on who God really is. Get yourself a book or Bible study on
“The Attributes of God”. Realize that nothing compares to God. “There is no one
like You among the gods, O Lord, nor are there any works like Yours.” (Psa. 86:8).
The next step in avoiding
idolatry is to develop a close, intimate relationship with God so that you
desire nothing but Him and what He offers you. If you are really
satisfied in you relationship with God, then you won’t want anything but Him.
Nothing else will hold much attraction to you anymore. You’ll be able to say
with the psalmist, “Whom have I in heaven but You [God]? And besides You I
desire nothing on earth.” (Psa. 73:25).
How good is your relationship with God? Is it as good as that?
Once you have the real thing,
you don’t ever want to go back to the imitations. If you grew up eating melorine and never tasted Blue Bell, then you wouldn’t know
how much better Blue Bell was. You would be satisfied with the melorine. But, once you taste Blue Bell, you don’t want to
go back to melorine. If someone offered you some ice
cream and gave you a choice - a bowl of melorine, or
a bowl of Blue Bell, you’d take the Blue Bell every time. Why choose the
imitation when you can have the real thing?
If someone offered to give you
some money for free and you had a choice of $1,000 authentic American currency
or $1,000 in Monopoly money, which would you take? Why, you would take the
$1,000 in real money. The Monopoly money is useless. It’s valueless. It’s not
worth anything. God is like the real money, and idols are like the monopoly
money. Actually, God is much better than that. There is really nothing to
compare Him with. I just used the ice cream and the money as illustrations to
help you understand since you can’t really visualize God. So, when you have a
good relationship with God and experience how good and satisfying He is, you
won’t be looking for anything to take His place. There is nothing to compare.
So, how can a Christian develop
an intimate relationship with God? The following points are taken from the
article “Developing An Intimate Relationship With God That Keeps You God
Centered and Doing His Will Forever (David
– A Man After God’s Own Heart)”. These points are abbreviated, so if you
want more information on this, I suggest you read the article. [See also: “The
Key To Staying In The Ministry For A Lifetime Of Service (Abraham)”]
1. Get to know God intimately, personally, in
your experience. I’ve already discussed this to some degree in the previous
section, but I want to expand on this point a little because it is such an
important part of developing a close relationship with God.
What do I mean when I talk
about knowing God? In this context, I mean to recognize, to believe in, to
appreciate, to honor, and to experience God in an intimate, personal way. It’s
not enough just to recognize that God exists or that there is only one true
God. A Christian needs to get to know God personally. You can know about God,
but not really know Him. There is a difference between knowing about God and
knowing Him personally. I can know about George Washington, but I don’t know
him personally. I can read about him in the history books and find out
information about him, but that is not the kind of knowledge I’m talking about.
You come to know a person, not just by knowing facts about that person, such as
height, weight, anatomical features, talents, abilities, accomplishments, and
failures. You get to know him by talking with him, listening to him, spending
time with him, doing things with him, observing him, through your experiences
with him. You get to know whether this person is loving and caring or selfish
and hateful, indifferent or apathetic. You get to know if you can trust him,
and what kind of things you can trust him with. You get to know whether he is a
chameleon, whether he is always changing, or whether he is faithful and
consistent in his character.
So, how does a person come to
know God? The first thing a person can do to know God is to read the Bible,
read about God, who He is and what He’s done. It is important to know facts and information about Him. As you read
about what an awesome person God is, you will want to know Him in your
experience. Also, you can automatically know God in some respects from reading
and studying about Him. For example, you can already know that God is faithful
and trustworthy to keep His word just from reading about Him and studying
history. You can look at the many prophecies in the Bible, the many things God
said He would do and that would take place. Then you can read history and see
that all these things took place as God said they would. God has already proven
Himself faithful and trustworthy. So, Bible reading, studying, meditation, and
teaching is part of knowing God, but how does a person get to know Him in his
experience. Spending time with Him is one way – talk to Him, express your
desire to know Him. Seek Him. The next thing a person can do to really
experience God is to reach out in trust and obedience. As you trust and obey
God, you will see and confirm through your experience that He is the same
Person you read about. He will reveal more of Himself to you. For example, when
I trusted God and stepped out in obedience by sharing my faith with others,
telling them the gospel, I experienced God’s power and love personally. God
empowered me, gave me boldness, and put in my heart a love for people which I
never had before. Also, I experienced God’s power by watching how He changed
other people. The more you obey God, the more of Himself He will reveal to you.
Jesus said in John 14:21, “He who has my
commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me
will be loved by My Father, and I will
love him and disclose Myself to him.”
The more a person knows and
experiences God in his life, the more he will love God. The more he will trust
God. The more he will obey God. And, the more he will want to know and
experience Him. There is always more of God to know and experience because He
is infinite, so you never get bored or tired of Him. If you really know God,
you will see that idols are nothing. There is no attraction to have any idols.
You will see that they are a waste of time and that they are not worthy of your
worship or adoration or devotion. The psalmist said, “Taste and see that the
Lord is good.” Once you get a taste of God, you’ll see how good He is and want
more of Him.
2. Want a close relationship with God. Desire
it. Seek it. David said in Psa. 63:1, 8, “O God, You are my God; I shall seek
You earnestly; my soul thirsts for You, my flesh yearns for You…my soul clings
to You.”
3. Meditate on God. Spend time thinking about
Him, about His majesty, attributes, and wonderful works. (see Psa.63:6; 145:5)
4. Share/communicate your thoughts, feelings,
and questions with Him. Share your praise. Be open and honest with God about
your sins. Share with God your burdens, struggles, your trust in Him, your joys
and happy times, fears, worries, and desires. David says in Psa. 62:8, “…Pour
out your heart before Him…”
5. Have a Spirit-controlled or influenced life.
6. Another factor which will help establish a
close relationship with God is through pleasing actions done in love.
a. By trusting God for your future,
provisions, necessities, protection, etc.
b. By obeying God.
c. By being humble.
d. By seeking God’s advice.
As you get to know God more,
you’ll see how great He is, and you’ll love Him more. The more you love Him,
the more you’ll want what He wants, and you’ll obey Him more. The more you love
God, the less you will want to do anything that grieves or displeases Him.
Since you love Him and know that idolatry is displeasing to Him, you will avoid
it.
The next thing you can do in
order to avoid idolatry is to learn to hate what God hates, and God hates
idolatry. If you hate idolatry, then you will avoid it. If you hate brussel
sprouts, you won’t eat them. Think about something you hate that is totally
disgusting to you. Now, every time you are tempted to think about your idol,
think of that thing you really hate. This basically ties in and is related to
the previous point. If you have a really good, growing relationship with God,
then you’ll begin to love what He loves more and more. You’ll also begin to
hate what He hates. It is like friendship with another person. The more time
you spend with a person, the more that person’s personality, attitudes,
behaviors, and values influence you and rub off on you. You begin to pick up
some of his ways. So, the more you spend time with God, the more He will rub
off on you. You start to see things the way He does, and you start to feel the
way He does about things. You start to see the wickedness and evil of idolatry.
You begin to hate it as God hates it, to the point where you want nothing to do
with it.
Hatred for what is evil comes
from a fear of the Lord (Prov.
Another thing you can do to
help guard yourself against idols is to associate with godly people who are
God-centered and can encourage you to be wholly devoted to God. 2
Tim.
Can you say with the psalmist,
“Whom have I in heaven but You[God]?
And besides you I desire nothing on earth.”? Is there anything which is
competing with your devotion to the Lord? Let me end as John did in his first
epistle. “And we know that the Son of God has come, and has given us
understanding so that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is
true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life. Little
children, guard yourselves from idols.” (1
Jn. 5:20, 21).
Bibliography
1. Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary. p. 564.
2. Webster’s New World Dictionary. p. 697.
3. Webster’s International Dictionary Unabridged. ed. in chief Philip Babcock Grove, p. 1124.
4. The
5. The Illustrated Bible Dictionary. vol. 2, p. 680, ed. J.D. Douglas.
6. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language. p. 897.
7. The New Unger’s Bible Dictionary. p. 280, Merrill F. Unger.
8. Vine’s Complete Expository Dictionary of OT and NT Words. p. 525, Vine, Unger, & White.
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