Who do you worship?
It is time to really take the Second Commandment seriously!
“You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the waters under the earth. You shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I the Lord Your God am a jealous God; visiting the iniquity of the fathers to the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me. But showing steadfast love to thousands of generations who love me and keep my commandments.”
(Deuteronomy 5:8-10)
How do these words, written on stone about 3,500 years ago apply to us today? The Bible is actually full of warnings against, and examples of, idolatry – from beginning to end – and speaks directly into our modern lives. It strikes at the very root of our problems, whether as individuals, our families, across society or right across our world. We are often told, in spiritual terms, that we need to “slay the giants” in our lives, and yes, we do have giants, we do have problems. But can I suggest that the giants in our lives are very often the children of the idols that we treasure in our hearts?
In his book “You are the Treasure that I Seek: But There’s a Lot of Cool Stuff Out There Lord”, Greg Dutcher1 deals with this whole topic. He imagines a situation, and I would like you to imagine it: we have started a new organisation called Idolaters Anonymous. It’s our first meeting and I come in and introduce myself to you, ‘Hello, I’m David, and I’m a recovering idolater.’ And maybe, you would like to say that yourself, out loud if nobody’s listening. Because essentially we all are, and dealing with the innate idolatry of our hearts is part of the process of sanctification and being re-created in the image of the Son of God.
God basically lays the axe to the root of our idols. And as we look around our world at this present time, we see the coronavirus has done exactly that. In Isaiah chapter 2, he is looking forward (in time, that is, not in joyful anticipation!) to the Day of the Lord, it may just be that the coronavirus crisis, and the financial crisis that is almost certainly following it, is a precursor of the things which we are told will happen in the Day of the Lord. Is it suggesting that maybe the Day of the Lord is perhaps a bit closer than we think?
The Day of the Lord?
As we read Isaiah 2:11, we might be struck how the coronavirus has done this, ‘The lofty looks of man shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of man shall be bowed down.’ The next part hasn’t happened yet – ‘The Lord alone shall be exalted in that day.’ What day? ‘The Day of the Lord shall come upon everyone who is proud and lofty, everyone who is lifted up, And they shall be brought low.’
And in the next four verses he goes through four major categories of humanity. He deals with, in verse 11, the rulers, ‘the cedars of Lebanon, high and lifted up. The oaks of Bashan’, these represent the rulers of the nations. And then in verse 14, ‘the high mountains and the hills,’ that represents the nations. And verse 15, the military might – ‘every high tower, every fortified wall.’ And in verse 16, ‘the ships of Tarshish’ – this is commerce. Has God not effectively pulled the rug out from under the feet of the rulers, of the nations, of the military? We have got enough nuclear weapons to blow ourselves to smithereens many times over. What good are they against the coronavirus, that we can hardly even see? And commerce! The whole of the western world is in lockdown. Has God done that? Notice, it is all the cedars, all the oaks, all the mountains, all the hills, every high tower, every fortified wall, all the ships, and all the beautiful vessels; verse 17 – ‘and the loftiness of man shall be bowed down and the haughtiness of man shall be made low. And the Lord, alone, shall be exalted in that Day. And the idols he shall utterly abolish.’
Obviously, we are not there yet. So what I want us to really think about is, what’s this doing to the church? What’s this doing to us as His children? What about the idols in our lives? What is God doing with His children? He is striking our idols. He is calling us to Himself, He is calling us to repentance. And I feel particularly burdened that He is calling us to repentance for what we have allowed on our watch, what we’ve allowed to happen in the last forty years or so. Most of us would recognize how things have changed in forty years when my generation has been the adult Christian generation. What have we allowed to take place in our society?
What is Idolatry?
Firstly, what’s an idol? John Bevere puts it this way, “an idol is something you give your strength to or you derive your strength from.” 2 While Daniel Strange has put it this way: “Idols are counterfeit God-substitutes that have captured our hearts when our hearts should be captured by Jesus.” 3
So, if that is an idol, what’s idolatry? Well, idolatry is simply love lavished and wasted on the wrong things, which is why God says it is like adultery. Energy that is focused on objects that achieve nothing of lasting value. It is like trying to take a long journey on an exercise bike. It doesn’t matter how fast you pedal, and how much effort you put in, you ain’t going to get anywhere. You’ll end up exactly where you started.
Why is it important?
Why does the Bible say so much about it and warn against it? The Bible does say in many places that idols are nothing. Paul says, in 1 Corinthians 8:4, in the context of eating food offered to idols; the idols are nothing. Psalm 135:16-17:
‘The idols of the nations are silver and gold, the work of men’s hands. They have mouths, but they speak not. They have eyes, but they see not. They have ears, but they hear not. Neither is there any breath in their mouths.’
Psalm 115 tells us that they have feet but can’t walk. And then the Psalmist goes on to say in Psa. 135, verse 18, ‘They that make them are like unto them and so is every one that trusts in them.’ And if you want to see some real irony, turn to Isaiah 44 and see what Isaiah says about those who make and worship idols – the whole of the chapter is about someone cutting down the tree and making his lunch over part of it and carving an idol out of the rest. In verse 18, Isaiah says, ‘They have not known nor understood for He has shut their eyes that they cannot see, and their hearts that they cannot understand and none considers in his heart, neither is there knowledge nor understanding to say, I have burnt part of it in the fire, baked bread upon its coals. I’ve roasted flesh and eaten of it. Shall I make the rest of it an abomination? Shall I bow down to a block of wood?’
He points out the absolute futility of idols and idol worship.
But again the Bible testifies in many places that these idols that we worship have the power to end up controlling the worshipper. Psalm 135, verse 18 again,
‘They that make them are like unto them.’ As it says in Isaiah 44:19, ‘No-one considers in his heart.’ As the ESV puts it, ‘No-one stops to think.’ Greg Beale says, ‘What we revere, we resemble, either for ruin or restoration. We become like what we worship.’ 4
How important?
And this commandment is so important, it is the second commandment. The first commandment is, ‘You shall have no other gods before Me.’ So, the second commandment is, if you like, the other side of the coin. The corollary of the first commandment is that you shan’t worship anything else. Alexander McLaren puts it this way on the first commandment, ‘After all, our God is that which we think most precious, for which we are ready to make the greatest sacrifices, which draws our warmest love; which, if lost, would leave us desolate; [but] which possessed makes us blessed. If we search our heart with this ‘candle of the Lord, we shall find many an idol set up in their dark corners…’
It is so important that it is repeated in one form or another throughout the Old and New Testaments. Steve Maltz has done us a service in writing the book
The Sinner’s Charter5 showing us how the Ten Commandments are so applicable in the New Testament.
People say, ‘Oh, we are New Testament Christians not the Old Testament.’ If
you go to the Sermon on the Mount,
you will find all the commandments there. Jesus speaks a lot about covetousness in the Sermon on the Mount and Paul tells us that “covetousness … is idolatry”. The last verse of John’s first epistle – and sometimes we treat it as a throwaway verse, the last verse – 1 John 5:21 ‘Little children, keep yourself from idols.’
And when we get into Revelation we find that people don’t repent, even in the face of God’s judgment on the earth – they don’t repent and they don’t get rid of their idols. John Piper prayed recently, ‘Lord, let it not be said of this generation that they didn’t repent of their idolatry; they didn’t listen.’
It is important because it strikes at the root of all sin. The root of all sin basically is preferring something or someone other than God. And God said, ‘You shall NOT …’ because we are naturally inclined to do it. We are naturally inclined in the opposite direction. As Steve Maltz puts it in The Sinner’s Charter, chapter 3 page 45, “We follow our own inclinations and say, ‘Feel free to place your affections anywhere you like, as long as you don’t hurt or disrespect anyone. Whatever decision you make is yours and yours only and it is not up to anyone else to pass judgment on your choices.”
And there are consequences …
The next point that we notice about idolatry is that it brings the wrath of God.
God will judge the nations for their idolatry; He will judge our generation for its idolatry. He will judge His church for its idolatry. And He is looking to see, are there idols in our hearts? Thinking about the world around us, Romans chapter 1:18-25.
‘For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which may be known of God is manifest in them. For God has shown it unto them. For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen; being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and deity, so that they are without excuse. Because when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing themselves to be wise they became fools and became changed, [or better, exchanged] the glory of the incorruptible God into the image made like corruptible man or birds, four- footed things and creeping things. Therefore, God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lust of their own hearts to dishonour their own bodies between themselves. Who changed [or exchanged] the truth of God into a lie and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.’
Note the twice emphasized phrase in verse 23 and 25, ‘they exchanged’ – short-changed would be much more accurate! The devil has short-changed the entire human race on the basis of what happened in the Garden of Eden. We have been short-changed, we’ve been taken from being in the image of God to creating God in our own image.
And then, idolatry is futile. Again,Isaiah is really scathing about the idols.
Isaiah 40:18 ‘Whom then will you liken God? Or what likeness will you compare unto Him? The workman melts a graven image, the goldsmith spreads it over with gold and casts silver chains for it. He is so impoverished he has no offering, chooses a tree that will not rot, he seeks unto the skilful image to prepare a graven image that shall not move. Have you not known? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth, it is He that sits upon the circle of the earth, and its inhabiters as grasshoppers.’
Serious business!
Don’t you just love the story of Dagon in 1 Samuel 5, when they bring the Ark of the Covenant into the temple of Dagon and they leave it. And, in the morning, they open the doors and there is Dagon fallen prostrate on his face towards the Ark of God, representing the God of Israel. And then – it’s enough to make you laugh – the people stand it up again ! What are they thinking? They stand him up again. On day two he is toppled over again, but this time his head and his hands are broken off. So, do they turn and worship the God who is obviously superior to their god? Not on your life! They get rid of the more powerful God.
We mock! But how many times have we done the same thing? Preferred our idols over the Living God?
Idolatry demeans God and he will not give his glory to another, nor will He allow you to do it. Isaiah 42:8-9: ‘I am the Lord, that is My name, and My glory I will not give to another; neither My praise to graven images.’ He will not give His glory to another.
And note in our text, in the second commandment, ‘I the Lord your God am a jealous God.’ Now, we have a bad impression about jealousy, thinking it is a bad thing. But jealousy is actually a good thing. Jealousy will accept no rival. God will accept no rival in our lives, not because He is some petulant deity concerned with his own pleasure, but because He has made us to find our all in Him. Augustine famously said, ‘Thou hast formed us for Thyself and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee.’ And anything less than God promoted in His place in our hearts and lives demeans not just Him but us as well.
We were created to bear His image. Not to create our own image. And, again, as we were reminded earlier, the goal of our salvation is to become like Jesus.
‘He predestined us to be conformed to the image of His Son,’ Romans 8:29. Jealousy stems from love: love that values the object of the love and wants the best for the loved one. I am jealous for my wife: her blessing, her purity, her well- being. Woe betide anyone or anything who threatens her blessing, purity and well-being. I am jealous for her; jealous about her. And we see in the Old Testament over and over again, God is jealous over His people and sees idolatry as equivalent to adultery. You have only got to read the prophets Jeremiah, Hosea, Micah, Amos. Idolatry kept pulling the people away from their God, and brought consequences. The consequence was discipline, over and over again trying to bring them back to Himself, calling them back to Himself.
Taking responsibility
Even in the midst of judgment in Jeremiah 31 the Lord says, ‘I have loved you with an everlasting love.’ And Isaiah 63 says, ‘In all of their affliction, He was afflicted and the angel of His presence went with them.’ Hosea 11:3-8, ‘I taught Ephraim to walk, taking him by the hand … I drew them with cords of compassion, with bands of love … How can I give you up, O Ephraim?’
And yet, in verse 7, He has just said, ‘My people are bent to backsliding.’ There’s a trend, a trait, a familial trait, a family trait because it runs in families. And now we are coming back to the text of the commandment ‘ … visiting the iniquity of the fathers to the children to the third and fourth generation,’
There are the instances where things do run in families. We have examples in the Bible. Abraham idolized his life and well- being, and lied twice to save his own skin. Isaac, who wasn’t even born at that time, did exactly the same thing, he had the same idol, looking after his life. Jacob idolized the inheritance and lied to get the blessing. And Judah, his son, idolized his family, because he didn’t want his last son to die, and he lied to Tamar. You see these things running through generations. But you can’t blame your family history – Ezekiel 18:1-4 says, ‘the soul who sins is the one that will die. No longer will the children be judged for the sins of the fathers.’
God brings it down to the individual.
How does it apply to me?
We need to answer the question, ‘Who is number one in my life?’ When Paul Freed, who started Trans World Radio, was first married, God called him to go from America across to Switzerland. Later on, his wife confessed that, while nominally God was number one and she agreed that they had to fulfil the call of God, they had only been married a short while, and she didn’t want to see her new husband disappearing to the other side of the world as she saw it. She examined herself, and as she says, ‘I suppose actually the difficulty arises from the realization that I was not first in his life’.
Who is number one? If you remember the TV series The Prisoner, the cult series with Patrick McGoohan, from the late sixties (if any of you haven’t watched it and you want to watch it, this is a spoiler !), when he gets to the last episode he discovers who Number One is. And he had spent the entire 17 episodes fighting against Number One, and Number Two, who was the second-in-command, his nemesis. He brought down every Number Two and they failed to break him. When he finally meets Number One, he comes face to face with … himself.
The atheist has made a god of himself. To say, ‘There is no god,’ you have to be god. You have to have explored every corner of the universe. You have to have all knowledge, you have to have all power to say, ‘There is no god.’ The atheist has made a god out of himself. It’s a danger we can all suffer from.
Remember, an idol is something you give your time to, you give your money to it, you give your strength to it, you get your strength from it. Counterfeit God substitutes that have captured our hearts, when our hearts should be captured by Jesus.
Over to you …
Here’s some questions to test that in our lives:
■ In a typical week (we might wonder what a typical week looks like right now!) how much time and effort do you give to different activities?
■ In a typical month, how much money do you spend on what?
■ Where do you go, or what do you do, when you want to recharge spiritually? Mentally? Emotionally?
■ What’s the first thing you pick up in the morning? Mobile phone? Newspaper?
■ What’s your choice of television viewing?
■ What about your response to television adverts, that are continually telling us ‘you’re worth it !’? Because the advertiser’s job, as someone once said, is to rob you of your self-esteem and sell it back to you for the price of the product, by telling you that ‘you’re worth it !’ And is this just a trap, to bind us in our consumption-driven economy? It plays on our idolatry when you think, ‘I’m worth it!’
■ And having done that do you then respond with a nice bit of soul-satisfying retail therapy? It makes you feel better about yourself whether you nip out to buy a Snickers bar or a Gucci handbag.
■ What do your thoughts turn to, what occupies you when you have got no pressing commitments or tasks to focus on?
■ And then ask, ‘Well, actually, is there any time when you don’t have pressing commitments or tasks?’ You see, there’s another idol, being busy, needing to feel wanted.
■ What do you spend your time talking about? What’s bursting out of your heart? Remember what we said earlier about idolatry being love being lavished and wasted on the wrong thing. Love loves to talk about the object of their love. C.S. Lewis describes this as ‘the essence of worship,’ and in thinking “why does God want to be worshipped?”, he realized that when you love something, maybe golf, or another sport, or a person, that’s all you want to talk about. A person, a job, a hobby, a sport, a sports team. What do you spend your time talking about? What’s bursting out of your heart?
■ What about our worship, what do we sing about? Do we sing me-focused songs? I counted the songs in one songbookand about 25% of the songs begin with ‘I’, ‘My’ or ‘We’. Is our worship, our singing, purely about what God does for us? It’s a source of thanksgiving, certainly, but wrong when we just see the Lord as a useful add-on to our lives, enabling us to live a life that pleases ourselves.
All about image
In Philippians 2:5-8, we can see how the Lord Jesus’ actions in the steps He took down strike at many an idol in our hearts:
‘Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God, thought it not a thing to be grasped, to be equal with God. But made Himself of no reputation and took upon him the form of a servant, was made in the likeness of men. And being found in the fashion of man, He humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.’
Jesus was in the form of God but didn’t think that was something to be grasped at. The word ‘form’ there is the word ‘image’, that which strikes the eye. And isn’t image the big idol today? It is a big issue with the Instagram generation! Think about people being photoshopped and having all their wrinkles and blemishes removed electronically. But do we spend time and effort trying to create an image of ourselves in the minds of other people? ‘Photoshopping’ ourselves with half-truths to create a false image?
Jesus made himself of no reputation. Reputation is another idol that we worship. Am I more concerned about my reputation than the glory of God? Jesus willingly took the form of a servant.
Success! That’s the big thing, isn’t it? Success in the kingdom, of course, is to be the servant of all. But is my bank balance, be it large or non-existent, an issue that dominates my time?
Jesus was made in the likeness of men: identity. Again, identity is a big, big issue today. But do we, as believers, place our identity in anything, apart from our status as a child of God? Are we looking to get our identity in what we do, or what we say, or what we wear, or the clubs we belong to, or whatever? Is it not that we are children of God?
He humbled himself … Dignity is another big idol that can loom large in our lives. Do I get offended when I am asked to do something I consider below my dignity? Or perhaps have to do something that’s not in line with my gifting, or what I consider the gifting that the Lord has given me? When someone asks you to do something which is the opposite of it, or takes you away from it, do we then we get upset about it because it has offended our dignity. The dignity of the Lord Jesus – He was and is God and yet He humbled himself. ‘Having become man’ – He humbled himself. He became obedient unto death.
We value our independence. We bring our children up to be independent; to go away and to leave home and become independent adults. But we value our independence. And we want things our way. Do I want things my way? Do I get upset when other people want things their way, and it happens to cut across my plans? Jesus’ plan was always to do those things which pleased the Father. Total dependence upon the Father. Do we make an idolatry of independence? ‘He became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.’
Avoidance of suffering. Do we actually try our best to avoid suffering? Do we look for any way out of taking up our cross and denying ourselves? Jesus didn’t. And, of course, as disciples He challenges us and He calls us, to take up our cross and deny ourselves. That is the ultimate remedy for idolatry. In Genesis chapter 6, God says ‘The end of all flesh has come before Me.’ That is God’s verdict on the flesh. The only place for the flesh is on the cross. And He said it in Genesis chapter 6 and the millennia since then have not changed His judgment.
John Piper writing in God is the Gospel: Meditations on God’s Love as the Gift of Himself says this:
‘[Jesus] did not die to forgive sinners so that they can go on treasuring anything above seeing and savouring God. And people who would be happy in heaven if Christ were not there, will not be there. The gospel is not a way to get people to heaven, it is a way to get people to God. It’s a way of overcoming every obstacle to everlasting joy in God. If we don’t want God above all things, we have not been converted by the gospel.’ 7
Every obstacle to everlasting joy – these idols in our lives are obstacles to our having our everlasting joy in God. And what God wants is to be Number One in our lives. ‘You will have no other gods before Me. You will not make idols’. You will not make visible representations of the invisible God.
What can I do about it?
Identifying idols is relatively easy compared to removing them, to root them out. Gideon (‘that mighty man of valour,’ threshing wheat in the winepress for fear of the Midianites!) in response to the word of God, tore down the altar of Ba’al … but he did it by night. It was the precursor to a great victory. But he was in an idolatrous situation and understandably he was afraid. What we learn from Gideon is, that it will be hard and you will be afraid, because sometimes our idols act as comfort blankets, or perhaps our comfort blankets act as idols. And it can be very hard and it can be a fearful thing to give up this thing that has comforted me, that has given me an identity apart from God. It will be hard and you will be afraid, but do it afraid!
And then we look through the Old Testament and we find good kings of Judah. They removed the idols in an attempt to bring people back to God. They took them down from the temple, they took them down from the high places, cut the Ashtoreth poles down and burnt them. But what we learn from that is, they couldn’t remove them from the people’s hearts. It was a very short-term thing. So, what we learn from this is, it is a heart issue.
And then, Hezekiah, in one particular example, took the bronze snake that Moses had put on the pole – when the people were bitten by the snakes they had to look at the serpent on the pole to be healed. And that thing had become an idol. He called it Nehushtan. He broke it up and ground it to pieces. And what we learn from that is that sometimes a good thing, something that God has blessed, becomes an idol. It might be your gifting. It might be a ministry God has given you, or a ministry God has led you to support. But if you look down on others who don’t have your particular gift, or don’t value your particular favourite ministry, then perhaps it has become an idol.
William Cowper wrote many years ago in his hymn, O For a Closer Walk with God:
The dearest idol I have known, Whate’er that idol be
Help me to tear it from Thy throne, And worship only Thee.
In those words at the beginning of that third line, ‘help me,’ Cowper has got it nailed. We have to tear the idol from the throne, but we can only do it with God’s help. We have to set our minds on things above. We have to put off the old. But we are to be renewed in the spirit of our mind, and then we can put on the new (Eph.4:22-24). We need the operation of the Holy Spirit in all these things as we focus on the Lord and we ask for His help. Firstly, to identify, which, as I say, is the easy bit, but then the harder bit – tearing it from the throne of your life.
The bottom line
The bottom line is, that you and I will only be able to do that … In fact, we will only really want to do it when our heart is enamoured, occupied, consumed, with the Lord Jesus Himself.
The apostle John’s command mentioned earlier to ‘keep yourself from idols,’ is not a last throwaway afterthought, it’s a theme that runs right the way through his epistle. In chapter 2 verses 15 to 17, he shows us the root of idolatry:
‘Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man loves the world the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, is not of the Father but of the world. And the world passes away, and the lust thereof. But he that does the will of God abides forever.’
In those three things in verse 16, ‘the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life’, John takes us right back to Genesis chapter 3. The woman saw the fruit of the tree, that it was good for food, that it was pleasing to the eyes, and that it was desirable for gaining wisdom. The lust of the flesh – ‘it was good for food.’ The lust of the eyes – ‘it was pleasing to the eyes.’ The pride of life – ‘desirable for gaining wisdom.’
But Jesus deals with the same three temptations. The devil comes to him in Matthew 4 and Luke 4. Jesus is hungry – ‘tell this stone to become bread’ – the fruit of the tree ‘was good for food.’ He showed Jesus all the kingdoms of the world and the glory – ‘pleasing to the eyes.’ And he took him to the pinnacle of the temple saying, ‘Throw yourself down’ – the ‘pride of life’? And Jesus answers him, of course, with Scripture, ‘Man does not live by bread alone’, ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve Him only’, and ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’
Love and health
And then John goes on in his epistle to talk about love. The epistle is full of discussions on love. What is he saying with this? I believe he is naming the impact on our lives when he talks about our love. Where is our love focused? He brings that message home over and over again. We are to love, to value, to cherish the Lord Jesus for Who He is, not just for what He can do for us, as great and wonderful as that is. That is rightly a subject for exuberant praise. We should be swinging from the chandeliers when we think of the glories of salvation and what we have been brought into. We have been called to be sons of God and we are seated in the heavenly places with Christ Jesus with all spiritual blessings! Wonderful!! The blessings are a subject for praise, but … we need to value the Lord Jesus for Who He is.
When we celebrate Jesus as our healer, are we idolising health? When we pray for healing, are we idolising long life?
I was challenged by this recently: do we spend as much time praying to keep sinners out of hell as we do to keep saints out of heaven?
As another old hymn says:
The bride eyes not her garment, but her dear Bridegroom’s face.
I will not gaze at glory, but on my
King of grace.
Not at the crown He giveth, but on His pierced hand.
The Lamb is all the glory,
Of Immanuel’s land.
When we see Him we shall be like Him. The battle with idolatry will be gone forever, it will be over forever as we see the surpassing glory and beauty of the Son of God, but Paul wants us to see that now. In 2 Corinthians 3:18, he says as we meditate on that glory, as we reflect that glory, we are being changed into the same image by the Lord, the Spirit. Let’s pursue that vision. Let our eyes be focused on and draw others to the beauty of Christ. As Greg Dutcher puts it in his book, ‘that His glory and beauty, worth, wisdom, majesty, love, power, gentleness, humility, joy, simplicity – there just aren’t enough words! – the more I immerse myself in contemplating just how beautiful, strong, precious and awesome my Saviour is, the less and less appealing my idols look.’
On the offence …
How do we go on the offence against idolatry? Turn your eyes upon Jesus. The first commandment, ‘You shall have no other gods before Me. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength.’ And then the second commandment follows on, and I think it should be understood this way – it’s a promise, not a prohibition ! If our heart is really focused on the Lord and we have no other gods, He promises that we won’t make any idols for ourselves.
How do we go on the offence against idolatry? Greg Dutcher again, ‘We tell everything that competes for our trust, fear and affections, that Jesus is greater. When we don’t feel that He is greater in our hearts, we flee from idols and ask God to show us the surpassing beauty of His Son. What will strike the final death blow at idolatry’s presence? Seeing the face of Christ when we behold Him face to face.’
I can’t wait, can you? ‘Until that day, we can pray this prayer of Anselm:
O, Lord our God, grant us grace to desire Thee with all our heart,
That, so desiring, we may seek, and seeking find Thee;
and so finding Thee, may love Thee, and loving Thee,
may hate those sins from which Thou hast redeemed us. Amen’ 8
‘You will have no other gods before Me. You will not make an image or likeness.’ You will not worship them … because God is your all in all. Amen.