The issue of Idolatry

  

Exodus 20:1-5a And God spoke all these words, saying: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. “You shall have no other gods before Me. “You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God.”

 

D. James Kennedy Ministries devotional on idolatry states that there are more denunciations of idolatry than any other sin in the Bible. Though this sin runs deep in the human psyche, and there is a great tendency to idolatry in the human heart, and though this dark stream seems to flow dangerously in the cold subterranean caverns of the fallen soul, it is something that has been followed by a continual stream of condemnation and denunciation by poets and prophets, by preachers and apostles, down through the centuries.

 

There is a story of two sailors squirmed in church as they heard the reading of the Ten Commandments. One of them whispered to the other, “Well, at least we didn’t worship any idols.” Do you also feel certain you’ve kept this commandment? We often seem to think we don’t have to worry about this one, but if this is true, why do the Scriptures often warn against idolatry? God knew that we are religious beings who need to worship something. And when we cease to worship the one true God, we replace Him with idolatry.

 

God knows our weak nature, our need to follow and worship something that transcends ourselves. In fact, even before the words of the Ten Commandments had settled in stone, the people of Israel had broken them, committing spiritual adultery in Horeb by worshiping a golden calf beneath the Lord’s presence while Moses was on Mount Sinai. Jeroboam doubled the sin in Bethel and in Dan, creating two calves for the people to worship. Throughout the Old Testament, from Solomon to Zedekiah, the people of Israel pursued their idols to the high places and brought God’s wrath upon themselves, until  Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonian hordes came, tore down the walls of Jerusalem, and carried the people captive into Babylon. In the furnace of Babylon, the last debris of idolatry was burned away.

 

Idolatry is an illegitimate way to fill a legitimate need. People have quested after a tangible God—one who can be felt, seen, and heard. Within the human heart exists the desire to see and know God personally. That need does not have to remain unmet. Jesus, who was fully God and fully man, satisfies that need, revealing God’s nature to us. Have you set something or someone above God? Make sure you give God His proper place in your life as your Lord who deserves all your praise.