Welcome back to Part 2 of my current series, looking at idolatry in the life of modern Believers.
In the last post, we looked at a definition of idolatry, and today I'd like to explore that a little further ...
When we crave something more than we desire God or want to serve God, it becomes an idol and it gains the power to enslave us while never providing the fulfillment we had hoped for. Paul warns Believers in 1 Corinthians 10: 14 to “flee from idolatry”. God is rightly angered when His creation wants other created things more than they want to know Him as their Creator.
If we continue in the Exodus story, we see that God takes the worshiping of the golden calf very seriously indeed, and there are severe consequences for the people of Israel.
When Moses approached the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, his anger burned and he threw the tablets out of his hands, breaking them to pieces at the foot of the mountain. 20 And he took the calf the people had made and burned it in the fire; then he ground it to powder, scattered it on the water and made the Israelites drink it.
25 Moses saw that the people were running wild and that Aaron had let them get out of control and so become a laughingstock to their enemies. 26 So he stood at the entrance to the camp and said, “Whoever is for the Lord, come to me.” And all the Levites rallied to him.
27 Then he said to them, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Each man strap a sword to his side. Go back and forth through the camp from one end to the other, each killing his brother and friend and neighbor.’” 28 The Levites did as Moses commanded, and that day about three thousand of the people died. 29 Then Moses said, “You have been set apart to the Lord today, for you were against your own sons and brothers, and he has blessed you this day.”
30 The next day Moses said to the people, “You have committed a great sin. But now I will go up to the Lord; perhaps I can make atonement for your sin.”
31 So Moses went back to the Lord and said, “Oh, what a great sin these people have committed! They have made themselves gods of gold. 32 But now, please forgive their sin—but if not, then blot me out of the book you have written.”
33 The Lord replied to Moses, “Whoever has sinned against me I will blot out of my book. 34 Now go, lead the people to the place I spoke of, and my angel will go before you. However, when the time comes for me to punish, I will punish them for their sin.”
35 And the Lord struck the people with a plague because of what they did with the calf Aaron had made.
The Scriptures make it very clear that God detests idolatry:
In Jonah 2: 8 we read: “Those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope of steadfast love.”
And Matthew 6: 24 says: “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.”
In this verse, Jesus was talking about the idol of wealth, but the concept conveyed in this teaching is open-ended. “You cannot serve both God and ______ (fill in the blank).”
Are there things that we’re trusting in emotionally or physically, rather than waiting on the Lord for His help and direction?
When life feels uncertain or our longings go unmet, it’s easy and comforting, momentarily, to grab on to temporary fillers. If only we had more money, more friends, more experiences, or more stuff, then we’d be happy and content, we think.
But this type of mentality leads to idolatry by shifting our focus off of Jesus and placing it instead on the temporary and insufficient pleasures of today.
Please join me again on Wednesday, as I start to look at some common idols we see claiming "thrones" in the lives of Believers today ...