Idols

Reading in the Old Testament, particularly the accounts of the kings and the prophets, we see over and over how Israel, God’s chosen and favored people, could not sustain their faithfulness to God. It did not matter all He had done for them, including visible, amazing miracles the likes of which modern-day believers have never seen. Regardless of warnings, chastisement, and severe judgment, they repeatedly did not turn from idol worship.

“The Lord said to me in the days of King Josiah: ‘Have you seen what she did, that faithless one, Israel, how she went up on every high hill and under every green tree, and there played the whore? And I thought, ‘After she has done all this she will return to me,’ but she did not return, and her treacherous sister Judah saw it.

She saw that for all the adulteries of that faithless one, Israel, I had sent her away with a decree of divorce. Yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear, but she too went and played the whore. Because she took her whoredom lightly, she polluted the land, committing adultery with stone and tree. Yet for all this her treacherous sister Judah did not return to me with her whole heart, but in pretense’, declares the Lord.” Jeremiah 3:6-10 ESV

As we read the accounts of God’s chosen people in the Old Testament, we see a continual pattern of disobedience and rebellion. Though warned against this, they continued to follow after the gods of the nations, influenced by the culture around them. God did not accept a pretense of serving Him when their whole heart was not in it. God’s chosen ones continued in faithless ways regardless of past discipline, warnings, and punishment from God.

It might be easy to think we would never do such a thing as create works from our own hands, pronouncing inanimate objects worthy of worship. in place of the living God. How ridiculous to create a golden calf and then worship it, right? It seems so obviously stupid, so foolish to do this when the Living God had shown Himself so miraculously faithful to these people?

What is an idol? It is an image or reproduction of a god for worship, made by the hand of humans rather than spiritually and supernaturally accessed. Looking further into the writings of Israel’s history of kings, after asking God for a king like the other nations around them,” it did not go well for them. God granted them Saul, who was only outwardly fit to be a ruler. He was big in stature and good at war, but he did not have a heart for God. When the kingdom was taken from Saul due to disobedience, David was chosen as a man after God’s own heart.

“…Samuel declared: ‘Does the LORD delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obedience to His voice? Behold, obedience is better than sacrifice, and attentiveness is better than the fat of rams.

For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and arrogance is like the wickedness of idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, He has rejected you as king.’” 1 Samuel 15:22-23 BSB

Saul’s rebellion in disobeying God’s direct commands cost Saul his kingdom and his life. Rebellion and arrogance are wickedness, with our own ways becoming the idols that replace the Lord.

Reading about David’s life, one can see that King David did stay faithful to God, even after the sin of adultery and murder. David knew he had sinned against God, petitioning the Lord for forgiveness. He was granted this, though there were severe consequences. Solomon, his son who became king in David’s place, started so well!

“Solomon offered sacrifices there before the LORD on the bronze altar at the Tent of Meeting, where he offered a thousand burnt offerings. That night God appeared to Solomon and said, ‘Ask, and I will give it to you!’

Solomon replied to God: “You have shown much loving devotion to my father David, and You have made me king in his place. Now, O LORD God, let Your promise to my father David be fulfilled. For You have made me king over a people as numerous as the dust of the earth. Now grant me wisdom and knowledge, so that I may lead this people.For who is able to govern this great people of Yours?” 2 Chronicles 1:6-10 BSB

This pleased the Lord greatly and was granted to him, along with many other riches and blessings for which Solomon did not ask. Yet as the years of rulership and wealth continued, Solomon turned from the Almighty and worshipped idols, influenced by the foreign women he married. He also heavily taxed the people while having a grand palace, the best of everything, and having built the most beautiful temple of that era.

Solomon was granted wisdom and understanding such that even a wealthy ruler from a foreign land, the Queen of Sheba, traveled many miles because she had heard of His wisdom and had questions he was able to answer. Yet the seeds of eventual rebellion are always in the heart long before they erupt into disobedience. When Moses was on Mount Sinai talking to God and receiving the ten commandments, the people got impatient. He was taking so long, they could not wait.

The Israelites convinced Aaron, their priest, to melt down their gold jewelry and other items to make a golden calf to worship. In some ways, it was like out of sight, out of mind. They did not keep God ever before them, got weary of waiting, and turned to their own creation. You see, people are made to worship.

Humans need to worship, and when the God-place in each of us is not filled with Him, we, like the Israelites, will find something or someone else to worship. When prophets like Jeremiah and Isaiah warned the people of their idolatry, it stemmed from being influenced by the people around them. Gradually, the heathen women around Israel were taken as wives by Israelites men, who drew them away from the One and Only God to join in their worship and ways of living.

The lust of the flesh drew many a ruler from setting an example to God’s people. David lusted after Bathsheba, Solomon eventually had 700 wives and 300 concubines (imagine that!), and every pleasure that his heart desired. His wives were all princesses, married to establish political alliances, and the cost to Solomon and his kingdom was eventually seen.

“These [heathen] women were from the nations about which the LORD had told the Israelites, ‘You must not intermarry with them, for surely they will turn your hearts after their gods.’ Yet Solomon clung to these women in love. He had seven hundred wives of royal birth and three hundred concubines— and his wives turned his heart away.

For when Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and he was not wholeheartedly devoted to the LORD his God, as his father David had been.” 1 Kings 11: 2-4 BSB

The pride of life led many a king to do what was right in his own eyes rather than listen to the counsel of the prophets sent to guide them. The lust of the eyes works in many a heart, causing us want more and more of what the world has to offer until we are replacing earthly pleasures for the joy of the Lord.

These are all matters of the heart, where sin is first conceived.

“When tempted, no one should say, ‘God is tempting me.’ For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed.

Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.” James 1:13-15 NIV

Is it not so today? We, the people of God, called by His name, go after many things to satisfy what only God can fulfill. We also get impatient for God to act, taking matters into our own hands. We disagree with God, elevating our own ideas and thoughts above His guidance and direction. We substitute works for a relationship with God, even creating laws that cannot change the heart.

We want more and more of the things in this life that give pleasure and ease. We place good things, such as other adored people, above the Lord. We satisfy our lust for pleasure with entertainment, food, and substances for momentary pleasure. We love to be superior and rule over others in self-righteousness rather than loving God’s righteousness and being a servant to all. We take pride in being in the best church with the most programs, the top choir and musicians, and having leaders who hold stature in our communities.

We, too, want to be like those around us. We fear rejection or even ridicule when we are too different from the cultural norms established around us. There are many, including other believers, who will say we have gone too far, that such deep change is not necessary. But is this not what conversion is, to really, truly be changed from within? Is this not the purpose for which Jesus Christ was resurrected, so that we would have the Lord within us to bring about such radical change that the world will know we are like Him?

So, while being baffled by the Israelites’ continued disobedience, despite God’s judgments, which all came to pass, we must look to ourselves and our own hearts. Oh, it may not be gross sins like adultery and murder, but it surely is going down that same path of looking for fulfillment and satisfaction in external things rather than the living God. Even the subtlety of good things like working for the church or denying ourselves the indulgences that non-believers access, when taking God’s place in our hearts, is the very same error.

God always knew that we humans were incapable of purifying our hearts by our own efforts. That’s why He sent a Savior, Jesus Christ. That’s why He promised long ago to write His word and His ways on our hearts so that we could obey and be blessed. When we realize that only God can cleanse our hearts from sin, we look to Him to clean out the evil thoughts that so easily beset us so that we can be His people in spirit and in truth. God is always faithful to reveal what we are worshiping and adoring in place of Him.

Even when walking with the Lord Jesus Christ for many years, He still can reveal those things we turn to when we have a need, when we desire distraction, when we want to dull the pain. It is not about those things; it is about the motives in our hearts when we do so. For example, I have loved reading since I was a child. I escape through fiction, visiting other places by what is written, absorbed in the stories the writers are telling.

So what is the big deal about that? Well, it has become the one thing I would hate to do without. As long as I have a book to turn to, I can make it. But the Lord has shown me that it is the place in my heart that He is concerned about with me. There should be nothing but God that I have to have. There are times when reading replaces being with God, running to God when life gets challenging. That is an idol.

Do not misunderstand. There are many pleasures that God enjoys watching His children enjoy. He is a loving Father who, just like earthly parents, delights in seeing His children happy as we experience all that He has created and provided for us. It is how some things become out of balance, eating up time and attention that takes our focus from Him. These become substitutes for the love, peace, and joy in His kingdom, the spiritual gifts of His life within us that give everlasting life.

The holy spirit gradually reveals those things we cannot live without, including pleasures that have grown too large in our hearts. We love a certain sport, watching it avidly and becoming upset if we miss a game or sports event. We love wonderful food, eating to excess because it wipes out other dissatisfactions in our lives. We may harshly judge the addict while being addicted ourselves! After all, there remain only a few things left that the Christian can overindulge in without condemnation from fellow believers as well as the Lord.

The first question to ponder before the Lord is how far we want to go in Him. Many believers are satisfied where they are. They are not interested in inner heart change, the deeper dealings of God that are required of His servants. They are waiting for the rapture to take them to heaven and resist spiritual messages that would require change. They have settled into being good enough with an outward worship of the Lord without continually presenting their hearts to Him for cleansing.

For those of us who desire to go all the way with God, joining St. Paul in the pursuit of the high calling of Christ, to be made like Him, it is not enough. As we walk with the Lord and seek His ways, as we yield to His calling to come up higher, He shows us all the impediments in our hearts that must go. It is not because He is a mean God who delights in depriving us, as we may have thought in our youth, particularly when raised in a Christian home where we could not do what others around us were doing without getting into trouble.

How can we have perfect peace without keeping our focus upon Him? How can we say we worship the Lord while worshiping and adoring other things? Sometimes it is our children that God has blessed us with. I have one precious son for whom I waited many years, and God has had to repeatedly pry my hands from him, telling me he belongs to God, not to me. If I had had my way, he would have never suffered a thing.

Each time adversity came his way, I wanted it to be eliminated, but of course, the character that is now visible in my son came from the very things I would have prayed away if God had allowed me to do so. Heart wisdom came from my older sister, who pointed this out:

“Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoiced in hope of the glory of God.

Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” Romans 5:1-5 ESV

God’s love pursues us until we want His way more than anything else. He brings those things in our hearts that have become idols into a balance. Some things are easy to recognize and eliminated first. But He goes deeper, revealing even those good things that are out of balance in our hearts, leading to actions that deny God as supreme. These can be more difficult to recognize as idols to be purged because they seem so benign, yet they continue to rob us of God’s best gifts, which are spiritual rather than carnal.

When we are in our right mind, the mind of Christ, we know that the only thing we cannot live without is God. When we have Him ruling and reigning in our hearts above all, everything else is taken care of. With His peace, His love, and His joy, we have all we need. Here is where we dwell in His promised land and begin to access our inheritance. We enjoy our allotment more and more as the Lord makes more and more room in our hearts for just Him. He does it within us:

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper,f to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will beg in you.

I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.” John 14:15-21 ESV

We can make our plans, but the outcome is in God’s hands. We can learn to trust that the spirit within us will truly cleanse us from all unrighteousness. When my son was growing up and beginning to rebel, we taught him to ask for forgiveness and make amends when his behavior harmed others, including friends, teammates, and coaches, as well as us, his parents. A relative, who was undisciplined himself, felt this was excessive. He was unable to understand this because it was God’s way, not man’s thinking.

Yet the principles involved in the forgiveness of self and others that God lays out have been one of the best gifts God gave Him through us. Every family, every parent, every couple, will have things that require forgiveness that only God can genuinely work in the hearts of each person. Many families, multiple relationships end because one or more of those involved is unable to move past the behavior to true forgiveness. That forgiveness may also include the consequences of an ending of relationships, but the heart of the forgiver is free in God, regardless.

There is one last abominable practice of idol worship that the Israelites, even well-known ones, participated in: child sacrifice to the idol Molech. What a horror to even consider, but even the great King Solomon, swayed by his foreign wives accumulated to gain political allies, built altars to Molech and could even see the burning of children from his palace. Could we even consider that we have anything paralleling this most grievous, sinful action from idol worship?

Well, yes, we do. There are ways we sacrifice our children through other activities and where our focus and attention are at. We can neglect our children as we prioritize professional success, status, and other riches of this world. I am not talking about the couple who must both work, including split shifts, to feed and clothe their children. I am not referencing the single parents who must work much more than they’d prefer. Nor am I noting the hours spent, which vary from household to household.

I suggest instead that God is dealing with us when we pursue success and wealth to the neglect of our families. Sadly, even ministries do this, seeking a bigger congregation, a more well-known status. We may have all we need, but continue to pursue more, devoting our time and energy to things the world and culture around us value more than to our children, our very best gifts from God. It is when our focus, even our choices of entertainment, excludes more than includes our children.

It can be most tempting when our children are too needy, too much, lacking in reward or thanks, in the ways that work and callings may give to us. Anything that we are too busy with that swallows up our children’s needs is something that God reveals to us. No, we do not burn our children at the stake, but we may be sacrificing them on many altars that we worship. It happens to most of us, and God is so gracious to reveal, rebuke, and then heal.

God can change our hearts’ desires so that we are putting our children where God would have us place them. Just as Father God’s children have different needs as well as different gifts, so do our children. We cannot successfully parent them all the same. He reveals these out-of-balance areas, the idols in our hearts, to cleanse and remove them.

“Thou shalt have no other gods before Me.” Deuteronomy 5:7 NIV

Idols. What do we worship and adore? What are the things, the activities, the people we think we cannot live without? Everything that God does is good—eventually. He makes no mistakes, never has to do things over again, even when we do not understand His ways. Let Him show us, reveal our own hearts to us, because no one knows their own hearts, but He knows all.

Just like Israel, we can repent and turn to the Lord repeatedly if necessary. Unlike Israel, we have Jesus, the Author and the Finisher of our faith. He lives within and, through His holy spirit, we are empowered to overcome, to be different. to truly change, not with lip service or an outward show of obedience, but humbling our hearts to be truly submissive and yielded to Him.

Idols. The world will always provide us with things to worship. We are made to worship, with hearts that will fill this need with other things if not fully settled and satisfied in Him. We cannot purify our own hearts, other than by submitting to His will. We are in the days when He is writing His laws on our hearts. He knows we cannot do it, but He can, is, and will do it until we are fully like our Lord and Master.

“Father God, this is too marvelous for us to comprehend. May we hallow your Name more and more each day.”