Follow Your Emotions and You’ll Find Your Idols | The Log College

Follow Your Emotions and You’ll Find Your Idols

October 29, 2025by: J. Alasdair Groves

Idols of the Heart

Two grease-dripping, foot-long, melt-in-the-mouth tender cheesesteaks. This, I learned, had been dinner the past three straight nights for the man now fidgeting in the soft, wingbacked chair in my counseling office. While a caloric catastrophe, his over-indulgence in Philly’s finest fare (and I do recommend you try the authentic item if you are ever in the greater Philadelphia area—just one per day though) was actually a victory for our work together. You see, my friend was talking to me as a counselor in the first place because his appetites had ruined his life and marriage. He was faking overnight business trips so he could douse his bloodstream with liquor and marijuana while binge-watching pornography. Our conversation occurred on the first day he’d been clean for more than twenty-four hours, and he found himself ravenous for something to tickle his taste buds, something to give him a physical rush. Hence the cheesesteaks. 

While we celebrated his fledgling progress, my friend was also brought up short. He saw that his desperation for stimulation was not gone; it had simply latched onto another object. The evidence was inescapable that he was swapping out one set of lusts (booze, weed, porn) for another (food). Neither the “idols” in his heart (e.g., pleasure, comfort, escape) nor their grip on him had changed essentially. 

Engaging Emotions Helps Us Combat Idolatry

One of the most powerful ways we can take up arms against the idols that vie to rule over each of us is to seek the Spirit’s help in engaging our emotions. Our emotions are like a map showing our deepest desires. Follow your emotions, and you will learn a great deal about what you truly worship, for “where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matt. 6:21).

Emotions help us diagnose idolatry.

The first and most obvious way that our emotions help us fight back against idolatry is by highlighting what our idols actually are. Whatever your anxieties, your anger, your joy, and your grief swirl around is going to be something significant to you. “Important“ does not automatically mean idolatrous (more on this below), but you certainly won’t have any idols in your life that don’t register as important on the Richter scale of your emotions. 

Untangling Emotions

J. Alasdair Groves, Winston T. Smith

This book sets forth a holistic view of emotions rooted in the Bible, offering a practical approach to engaging with both positive and negative emotions in a God-honoring way.

Scripture gives numerous examples of emotions betraying underlying idolatries. Take Simon the Sorcerer in Acts 8. Luke reiterates six times in three verses (Acts 8:9–11) that Simon is “amazing” or “great” in the eyes of the local populace. Thus, when the apostles come with miracles accompanying their preaching, Simon is severely upstaged. To his credit and in God’s mercy, he believes in Christ. However, he still yearns to be at the center of the action and, with a naively pathetic foolishness, sidles up to Peter to see if he can buy some of this miracle-producing power for himself. He demonstrates that his core loyalty is still dedicated to being “great” and people being “amazed” by him. His nascent faith has not yet undone his obsession with the praise of his fellow man. This is idolatry of the heart in its simplest form. 

Here is where emotions come in. In Peter’s rebuke of Simon’s lust to harness the fire of Pentecost for the swelling of his own reputation, he descries in Simon “the gall of bitterness.” This emotion, this “bitterness” at being displaced, reveals his idolatrous craving for the spotlight. Our emotions always point toward the true objects of our worship.

Now the revelation of our deep loyalties can just as easily show the glorious work of God in us, as it can reveal warped worship. When the apostles are beaten for preaching the gospel, their response is “rejoicing” (Acts 5:40–41). Why? Because their love for and worship of Jesus led them to see the shame and pain as a sign of honor and blessing; they were being “counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name [of Christ]” (Acts 5:41). 

In fact, sometimes it is actually our dark, unpleasant emotions that express lovely, righteous faith in God, and upbeat emotions that actually flow from our idolatry. When Jesus weeps (John 11:33–35), when Paul shares his anxiety on behalf of the churches (2 Cor. 11:28–29), when the psalmists and prophets grieve sin and suffering among God’s people, they feel it as a direct result of their godly worship. In the same way, “positive” feelings of elation when we indulge in or get away with sin or schadenfreude betray a worship of our own glory rather than a worshipful trust in the Lord.

Emotions can fuel worship of God.

Not only can our emotions point to where idols may lurk in our lives, but they can also enliven worship where we do want it directed: toward the Lord of heaven. This is because our emotions were built into humanity in the first place to connect our hearts to the Lord himself. We were made to love what he loves and hate what he hates. We were made to “rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn.” And what greater relationship in which to exercise that than our friendship with God himself? Indeed, the very invitation to pray, to “pour out [our] heart at all times” (Ps. 62:8b), presupposes that God wants to hear and engage our emotions with us and wants us to share his joys and sorrows¹ as he watches the beautiful, broken world on this side of Glory. 

The more we perceive and come to share his heart, the more we will see God for who he is. The more we see him, the more we will worship in awe, and the more the idols cannot help but all fall away (Isa. 2:17–18).

A Word of Caution: Beware “Idol Hunting”

As the saying goes, to a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail. I’ve also observed that to a Christian enamored with the helpfulness of identifying idolatry, there is a danger that every emotion can look like the mask of an idol just waiting for someone perceptive enough to yank it off. I love how “idols” language helps identify areas of needed transformation, and I can personally testify how battling “idols” with clear eyes has been helpful. 

My concern is that, once you get the hang of it, it’s easy to overdo it. All grief, all anger, all frustration, all anxiety, and even simply all strong feelings can become evidence that there is something you are loving too much. Sadly, I’ve seen well-intended helpers function as if the goal of the Christian life is Stoicism, the pursuit of an emotional zen-like state where no negative emotion is ever felt. Such thinking excises much of the Psalter, numerous lines from the Epistles, and vital moments in the life of our Lord. Indeed, I suspect the urgency to hunt idols sometimes reflects our inordinate obsession with being right, being helpful, being the one with the answer. 

There is not an idol under every outburst of displeasure. Our goal is to listen for what emotions are saying, hear what loves lie beneath them, and affirm what is Spirit-wrought as much or more than condemn what is idolatrous. This requires patience, wisdom, and humility.

He Will Help You

Awareness that you may be letting something usurp God’s place on the throne of your heart is sobering, and rightly so. And, if you’ve spent any time honestly examining your own feelings and desires, or those of others, you know how difficult it is to be utterly certain where the lines run. What is godly love of preaching, serving, loving, community, and where is idolatry creeping into even some of your purest motives and gospel-joyful sentiments? 

Thanks be to our kind Father that, in his mercy, our hope is not in perfectly or exhaustively identifying our idols! Instead, the Spirit patiently invites us to see disorientations and false worship in our souls, little by little. He gives us as much as we can handle and invites us to repent, to grow, to rest in his patience, and to delight more deeply in his sanctifying work. He knows where our hearts stand even when we are blind, and he is merciful. So he kindly convicts us as we mature of places our hearts praise other objects than him, freeing us step by step, round after round against the same seemingly inexhaustible opponent from gods who will only ever leave us parched and broken in the end. Our hope is not our ability to drive out ungodly affections, but his ability to grow our love for him more and more, keeping us until the day when all our feelings will make idolatry impossible forever.

Notes:

1. I am not here denying the doctrine of God’s impassibility. For a discussion of my view of God’s unchanging, “passionless” nature, see the Appendix to Untangling Emotions (Crossway, 2019).

J. Alisdair Groves is the author of Untangling Emotions.

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J. Alasdair Groves (MDiv, Westminster Theological Seminary) formerly served as the executive director for the New England branch of the Christian Counseling & Educational Foundation (CCEF). He is the host of the podcast Where Life and Scripture Meet and the coauthor of Untangling Emotions.

The Idol of Popularity | Christian Heritage News

 By Tim Challies – Posted at @Challies:One of the realities of being a writer is that much of what a writer does is easily quantified. If your writing is online, you can get minute-by-minute reports and updates to see exactly how many people have read it or engaged with it. If you write books, you can get royalty reports to tell you exactly how many books have been sold with your name on the cover. It’s a very numbers-driven field, and necessarily so.

It’s easy, then, for writers to make popularity into a kind of idol. How can you know that you’ve made popularity into an idol? Perhaps you find yourself thinking that happiness or validation is just a few thousand clicks away. Or perhaps you are battling feelings of worthlessness and believe that value is in some way tied to book sales. Or perhaps you think God’s favor is necessarily displayed in more books sold rather than fewer. In these ways and others, you can make an idol out of popularity.

I can speak with first-hand experience to this because it is an idol I once had to fight. I had to take radical action against it. I had to take radical action because this idol was leading to jealousy and envy. I realized that I didn’t just want to be popular, I wanted to be more popular —more popular than someone else. I compared myself with others and somehow saw their success as challenging or invalidating my own. I realized the sin of envy had begun to root in my heart. When I spotted it, I was alarmed by it, disgusted by it, and realized I needed to put it to death.

For those tempted by the idol of popularity, whether in writing or any other field, here are a few matters to consider.

Continue here…

https://www.christian-heritage-news.com/2025/06/the-idol-of-popularity.html

Why All the Lies, Falsehoods and Deception? | CultureWatch

Why All the Lies, Falsehoods and Deception?

There is a very good reason why unreason and unreality reign today:

One of the better descriptions of the West today is this: truth has disappeared, and people are living by lies. We are wallowing in deception and deceit. We are rejecting truth and embracing falsehoods. We are turning our backs of reality and embracing unreality. And the West is dying as a result.

Simply consider the tsunami of lies that have swept throughout the West concerning the issue of human sexuality. Now a man can decide he is a woman, and expect others to fully believe and accept his delusion. If others do not go along with the deception, they are treated as haters and bigots.

But in a sense people have always lived this way. The Christian knows that the truth of God is rejected by most people, so they end up believing lies and welcoming falsehoods. The Bible speaks to this often. Consider just these passages:

They take pleasure in falsehood. (Psalm 62:4)

We have made a lie our refuge and falsehood our hiding place. (Isaiah 28:15)

Truth is nowhere to be found. (Isaiah 59:15)

Falsehood and not truth has grown strong in the land. (Jeremiah 9:3) 

Everyone deceives his neighbor, and no one speaks the truth; they have taught their tongue to speak lies; they weary themselves committing iniquity. (Jeremiah 9:5)

You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. (John 8:44)

The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness.” (Romans 1:18)

They exchanged the truth about God for a lie. (Romans 1:25)

Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor. (Ephesians 4:25)

Outside are the dogs and sorcerers and the sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood. (Revelation 22:15)

The importance of truth is everywhere affirmed in the Bible, and warnings against falsehoods, deception and lies are repeatedly given. But here I want to look at just one more text. It is short but powerful:

They went after false idols and became false. (2 Kings 17:15)

The context has to do with Israel (the northern kingdom) going into exile because of idolatry. Here is the fuller passage (2 Kings 17:14-18):

But they would not listen, but were stubborn, as their fathers had been, who did not believe in the Lord their God. They despised his statutes and his covenant that he made with their fathers and the warnings that he gave them. They went after false idols and became false, and they followed the nations that were around them, concerning whom the Lord had commanded them that they should not do like them. And they abandoned all the commandments of the Lord their God, and made for themselves metal images of two calves; and they made an Asherah and worshiped all the host of heaven and served Baal. And they burned their sons and their daughters as offerings and used divination and omens and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking him to anger. Therefore the Lord was very angry with Israel and removed them out of his sight.

By going after false idols, the people became false themselves. When people go after idols, they become like their idols. Many have spoken to this sad reality. For example, back in 2008 the American New Testament scholar G. K.  Beale penned We Become What We Worship (IVP). He said this:

The thesis of the book is not that people become the idols they worship or become the God they worship, but they become like the idols or like God. The point of figuratively omitting the word like is to emphasize that the worshiper reflects some of the important qualities or attributes of the object of worship….

What do you and I reflect? One presupposition of this book is that God has made humans to reflect him, but if they do not commit themselves to him, they will not reflect him but something else in creation. At the core of our beings we are imaging creatures. It is not possible to be neutral on this issue: we either reflect the Creator or something in creation….

All of us are imitators, and there is no neutrality. We should disabuse ourselves of the notion that we can be spiritually neutral. We are either being conformed to an idol of the world or to God.

The 2 Kings passage is another case in point. Let me draw upon a few commentators here. Dale Ralph Davis makes these helpful remarks:

Note the statement in verse 15b: ‘They went after worthlessness and became worthless’ (see also Jer. 2:5). There is a word play on the root hbl, the noun hebel referring to what is worthless, useless, or futile. Here it refers to the nature of false gods – they are nothing, zero, worthless. The ‘worthlessness’ of these cipher-gods, however, does not simply lie in state. There is a sad transformation that takes place in their worshippers – ‘they went after worthlessness and became worthless.’ We become like what we worship. There was a clip in Credenda Agenda several years ago about a four-year-old girl in North Wales whose complexion had turned orangy. Her doctor discovered she had been consuming 1.5 litres of Sunny Delight every day. According to the report the manufacturers did admit that their product would turn people yellow or orange but only when slurped up in such nearly limitless amounts. This little girl had something of a hebel experience: she became what she drank. This is why worship is different from getting a haircut or wearing green socks – it really changes you. You will become like what – or Whom – you worship.

2 Kings: The Power and the Fury (Focus on the Bible) by Davis, Dale Ralph (Author)

Philip Graham Ryken looks at the broader issue of the iniquity of idolatry, and what believers today must learn:

Several features of Israel’s iniquity can help us understand the shape of idolatry in our own lives. Second Kings 17:9 tells us that at first the unrighteousness of the Israelites was done secretly. But by the time they had built high places in every town and set up Asherim under every tree, they were singing openly. Sin has a way of becoming more obvious overtime. Little iniquities that begin in secret will not stay secret for long. If we are wise, therefore, we will strive to be as godly in private as we try to be in public. Godly character is forged by the decisions we make when no one else is watching. We should also be as vigilant to avoid misdemeanours as we are to avoid felonies. Most people do not intend to become moral failures, but when they end up that way, it is because of a lot of bad little decisions they made along the way.

We should also notice how imitative idolatry is. The little phrase “as the nations did” speaks volumes. Israel’s idolatry was directly influenced by the gods and goddesses that the Canaanites and other people groups worshiped. We are not immune from this kind of outside influence. If we are wise, therefore, we will think critically (not judgmentally) about the goals and ambitions of our friends and acquaintances in secular society. Their greed is not good for us. Their lusts will not give us life. The pleasures they pursue will not bring peace to our souls. What these sins will bring instead is the judgement of God.

But perhaps the most noticeable feature of Israel’s idolatry was how widespread it was. The people worshipped idols everywhere. They did it high and they did it low – in the city and in the countryside. They worshipped as many idols as they could. Not content to worship a deity or two, they bowed down before an entire pantheon.

When we refuse to worship the one true God, we are not likely to put a single deity in his place but to worship many gods and goddesses. Human beings are endlessly creative, and when we turn this gift in the direction of idolatry, our idols proliferate. John Calvin famously described human nature as “a perpetual factory of idols.” In other words, people are busy inventing new things to worship all the time. The heart’s R&D department is always coming up with new things to love, which then get mass-produced as objects of worship. Calvin went on to explain: “Man’s mind, full as it is of pride and boldness, dares to imagine a god according to its own capacity; as it sluggishly plods, indeed is overwhelmed with the crassest ignorance, it conceives an unreality and an empty appearance as God.”

This is exactly what the Israelites did, alongside their ancient neighbours: they constantly invented new objects to worship. We are attempted to do the same thing. There is always something new for us to see or purchase – a new star to emulate, a new fashion for us to adopt, or a new toy to show to our friends. The idol factory of the heart will not stop production until the factory closes. In the meantime, every false and empty thing we worship leads to one and the same result: the righteous judgement of God.

There it is: untruth, unreason and unreality. That is the world we live in and have become when we reject God and his truth. We start to live a lie, we become a lie, and we spread falsehood and deception to all those around us. That seems to be a good take on the trans delusions and all the other falsehoods of our age.

They went after false idols and became false.

[1654 words]

The post Why All the Lies, Falsehoods and Deception? appeared first on CultureWatch.

February 2 | THE ESSENCE OF IDOLATRY

  “You thought that I was just like you; I will reprove you, and state the case in order before your eyes.”

PSALM 50:21

✧✧✧

 Idolatry is more than worshiping some inanimate object; it is having an unworthy conception of God.

Western society, with all its culture and scientific knowledge, is in the same satanic trap that governs the life of an aborigine bowing down to a rock. We all have our gods. Many worship the god of materialism—getting more stuff is their highest pursuit. Others worship the gods of sex or entertainment. Of course, behind all of this is the worship of self.
However, the essence of idolatry is possessing thoughts about God that are unworthy of Him. It may be creating a god, but it also may be making the true God into something He isn’t, or thinking something about God that is untrue.
God said to the wicked in Psalm 50:21, “You thought that I was just like you.” That’s precisely what some have imagined about God. They have portrayed God after their own sinful mental image of Him. Careless Christians can do this also.
In The Knowledge of the Holy A. W. Tozer writes, “The history of mankind will probably show that no people has ever risen above its religion, and man’s spiritual history will positively demonstrate that no religion has ever been greater than its idea of God. Worship is pure or base as the worshiper entertains high or low thoughts of God. For this reason, the gravest question before the church is always God Himself, and the most portentous fact about any man is not what he at a given time may say or do, but what he in his deep heart conceives God to be like.”
As we learn about God this month, ask Him to remove misconceptions you may have about Him. Be diligent to learn what God says about Himself and not what you or others think He is like.

✧✧✧

Suggestions for Prayer: Praise God that He is the only God. ✧ Pray for forgiveness if you have been more committed to any other god or if you think thoughts about God that are unworthy of Him.

For Further Study: The ancient Greeks had hundreds of gods. Just for good measure the Athenians built an altar to the unknown god. Read Acts 17:16–34. How did Paul approach those who worshiped false gods? ✧ How can you use Paul’s example as you witness to unbelievers today?

MacArthur, J. (1997). Strength for today. Crossway Books.

No Other Gods: The Sinister Nature of Idolatry, Part 2 | The Cripplegate

People don’t give much thought to the problem of idolatry, but since Scripture spends so much time addressing this issue, we should understand what the Bible says about it and how to obey God’s command to have no other gods.

Idolatry is loving, trusting, or desiring something or someone more than or in place of God. All people, whether they claim to be religious or not, are by nature idolaters because everyone puts someone or something in the place of God.

As the command against idolatry informs us (Exodus 20:2-5), God forbids us to have any other gods before Him. Additionally, since our idols almost always take some kind of physical shape, whether in another human being or in some physical object, God highlights the importance of eliminating all images that represent God from our worship.

We now consider the case against idolatry. God had reasons for commanding Israel not to have other gods before Him and not to make and worship idols (Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 4). We see four reasons in these two passages why we must not worship idols.

The first reason God forbids idolatry is because He is invisible.

In Deuteronomy 4, Moses states that the reason Israel must avoid making graven images or worshiping visible things in the created universe is because they did not see any form of God when they encountered Him at Sinai. G.K. Beale writes, “God had not revealed Himself in any form to Israel, and to portray Him in any degree in the form of any part of creation is to misrepresent Him and thus to commit idolatry.” Israel was not to make any image of God because they would grotesquely distort the nature and beauty of the true and living God.

What’s fascinating about this passage is that God did reveal Himself to Israel, even if He did not do so through their eyes. The emphasis at Mount Sinai instead fell on something invisible, but still understandable – namely, God’s Word. True revelation of God is not accomplished through visible, created things but through the proclamation of the Word of God.

The Lord’s revelation of Himself to Israel at Sinai was meant to be normative for how people should expect God to reveal Himself. Sinai was not the exception to God’s self-disclosure, but the rule. God always manifests Himself to men through the Word. His word is central to worship, and images therefore should not represent God or aid in our worship of Him.

Yet, this all raises an interesting question when we consider the Incarnation of God’s Son because the apostles are quite clear that they saw Jesus with their eyes. Did this event change the meaning of idolatry, such that we could now have images of God or pictures of divine things to aid us in our worship?

The answer is still no. First, the New Testament is clear that Jesus is most certainly the image of the invisible God, the Word made flesh, and a visible manifestation of the revelation of the Father; but the New Testament places the emphasis of the Incarnation squarely on Jesus as the Word of God, not on Jesus’ physical appearance. We must, therefore, continue to focus on what God revealed about Himself and His plan of salvation in Christ through His Word.

Second, the New Testament is clear that the normative situation for Christians is not having seen Jesus during this present age (1 Peter 1:8, John 20:29). While Christ is the image of the invisible God, and God did manifest Himself visibly in the person of His Son, the Lord did not change His normal emphasis in how He speaks to His people through His Word, and no record has been left of the physical appearance of our Lord.

The invisibility of God, then, is the first reason why we must not make or worship idols or make things in creation our gods.

There’s a second reason given, namely that God is jealous.

The second of the Ten Commandments declares that God is a jealous God (Exodus 20:3-5). This attribute is difficult to understand, so we must ask what it means that God is a jealous God, and why that is something demanding of worship.

One reason this attribute is difficult to understand is because jealousy is predominately a negative trait. Scripture often shows that jealousy can be a work of the flesh, which would not be from the Holy Spirit in that context. Jealousy of the flesh is being jealous over something that is not rightfully ours.

The Lord’s jealousy is better defined as God’s zeal for His own glory, which rightfully belongs to Him and is a manifestation of His holy love. God forbid Israel to worship other gods because they were His covenant people under the Law, and their idolatry would provoke His holy, loving jealousy. That jealousy also stands today under the new covenant. We are God’s people by covenant because we have been bought with the blood of Christ. When we are unfaithful to God, we provoke Him to jealousy because we are in violation of our covenant bonds in Christ.

There is a third reason we must not worship idols, and that is because God is Creator.

The passage in Deuteronomy 4:15-19 not only emphasizes God’s invisibility, but His transcendence over all creation. Moses makes the argument here that we must not worship idols because God is Creator, and nothing else is equal with Him in all creation. Everything on earth, in outer space, and in our universe, has been created by God. We cannot, therefore, make gods out of things God made.

God wants us to maintain a clear distinction between Him as the Creator and everything else as creation. When we set up and worship idols, whether silver and gold or invisible in our hearts, we declare that creation is greater than the Creator. This prohibition against idolatry reminds us there is nothing in all creation even remotely close to God’s glory, majesty, and power.

Lastly, God must be God alone with no rivals, because He is Redeemer.

Although God created everything good, Adam sinned and introduced idolatry into God’s good creation– and all creation fell under the Lord’s divine, just curse. God could have condemned the world and humanity and been perfectly just and deserving of worship all the same. However, God, in His grace, mercy, love, did not respond this way to our sin. When His image-bearers aligned themselves with the serpent, God intervened, beginning His great work of redemption.

Because God was Israel’s redeemer, He had a rightful claim on their total and complete allegiance (Exodus 20:2-3). The same is true for new covenant Christians on a much grander scale. Believers should oppose every false god and lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God because our Lord has freed us from Satan’s tyranny, redeemed us from our sins, made us a people for His own possession, and set His love on us.

As Christians, our hearts’ greatest desire should be to live for God’s glory. We should want to smash everything that rises up to be God’s rival. We should hate the idols that seek our allegiance, or that seek to cause us to love, trust, or desire them in the place of God. The Lord is worthy of our worship because of who He is, and how our hearts should thrill to see that His love and grace moved Him to redeem wretched sinners like us. May we, by God’s grace, tear every idol in our hearts from God’s throne, and worship Him alone.

Source: No Other Gods: The Sinister Nature of Idolatry, Part 2

Living as Dual Citizens | CultureWatch

Living as Dual Citizens

Learning to live in two worlds:

When I first moved permanently to Australia long ago (having an Australian wife was my excuse), I could not get Australian citizenship unless I gave up my American citizenship. I chose to stay as I was. Later on, however that requirement was dropped, and I can now hold two passports simultaneously if I want. But being a bit lazy, hating forms and spending money, I have not yet become an Aussie citizen!

The Christian knows about such dual citizenship issues. We became citizens of heaven after being adopted into God’s family through Christ. But we still live in this world, which in so many ways is enemy territory, a place at war against God. But we also understand that God made this world, and even though the Fall has tarnished everything under the sun, it is still part of his original good creation.

So we can appreciate so much of what is found in this world, be it a good day’s work, appreciation of beauty, close relationships, eating a nice meal, engaging in sports, cultivating strong friendships, and a million other things. But the world system as such is at enmity with God, so we are not to be friends with the world in that sense.

In some ways we are to affirm the world, and in other ways we are to deny the world. It can be a bit tricky at times, but that is part of how it is to be a Christ-follower in a fallen world. See much more detail on this matter here: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2022/08/16/world-affirming-or-world-denying/

Again, while we do not want to get overly attached to this world and everything in it, we can still enjoy it, appreciate it, and use it for God and his glory. What we do, we can do with thanksgiving, giving glory to God. This can include so many things, whether taking pride in a bookcase you just constructed, enjoying a beautiful sunset, or having a terrific weekend together with close friends.

All the things that we can rightly and properly enjoy in this life are but foretastes of that which is to come. There will be after all a new heaven and a new earth. So it seems that much of the good stuff we enjoy in this life will be with us in the next.

But at the same time we must be on guard: there is of course so much that is evil, ungodly, sinful and diabolical in this world. We need to have the same attitude to this as did Christ and the early believers. They were well aware of how much this world is at odds with the world to come.

They knew that the Kingdom of God was at variance with the kingdoms of this world. As such, they were deeply grieved and bothered by sin and evil and idolatry. We especially see this being played out in the book of Acts. What we read about Paul as he went to Athens to share the gospel is a clear case in point.

This is what we find in Acts 17:16: “Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols.” This great city was clearly at odds with God and his values, as idolatry was rife and false beliefs prevailed.

A few scholarly remarks are worth sharing here before continuing. I. Howard Marshall says this in his 1980 commentary:

Although Athens had once been the intellectual centre of the ancient world, it was now in a period of decline. It was a free city and had a famous university, but it tended to live on its reputation. When Paul arrived, he was not so much impressed by the culture as irritated by the evidences of idolatry. ‘He found himself confronted by a veritable forest of idols’, with vast numbers of images of Hermes all over the city and especially at the entrance to the agora (RSV market place) through which he probably walked.

John Stott says this about the passage:

Paul was no uncultured philistine. In our terms he was a graduate of the universities of Tarsus and Jerusalem, and God had endowed him with a massive intellect. So he might have been spellbound by the sheer splendour of the city’s architecture, history and wisdom. Yet it was none of these things which struck him. First and foremost what he saw was neither the beauty nor the brilliance of the city, but its idolatry. The adjective Luke uses (kateidolos) occurs nowhere else in the New Testament, and has not been found in any other Greek literature. Although most English versions render it ‘full of idols’, the idea conveyed seems to be that the city was ‘under’ them. We might say that it was ‘smothered with idols’ or ‘swamped’ by them.

The Message of Acts (The Bible Speaks Today Series) by Stott, John (Author)

And these remarks from R. Kent Hughes are also worth running with:

No doubt Paul appreciated much of the city’s beauty, being a man of culture. Nevertheless, “his spirit was provoked.” The Greek literally means this was a paroxysm. He was angry about a lie. As a Jewish monotheist, he would have been disturbed, and as a Christian apostle he was even more enraged! Every idol demonstrated the Athenians’ hunger for God, but it also testified to their spiritual emptiness. Ignorant of the true God, the Athenians were lost! Paul felt desperate concern for the spiritual need before his eyes. As had happened with Jeremiah (Jeremiah 20:9), an urge to speak came like a burning fire, and the apostle could not hold it in. As believers, our hearts should ache and our eyes blur at what we see around us—ignorant souls denying the one God and giving allegiance to false deities. If we experience no inner paroxysms, we either have not truly been redeemed by Jesus Christ or we have become apathetic to the things of God. Paul could not be indifferent or detached. So he jumped right in, raging heart and all….

Now I have been to Greece – and to Italy, and other amazing European locations that are thousands of years old. They are certainly incredible places to visit. There is so much rich history, culture, architecture and artwork to admire there and to be amazed at. Simply walking through the Pantheon or Colosseum in Rome or visiting the Acropolis and Parthenon in Athens is a mind-boggling experience.

We believers today can enjoy being tourists at such places, and soaking in the amazing heritage of such cities, marvelling at some of the great achievements of mankind over the centuries. Yet we also need to be like the Apostle Paul.

Whether we are just visiting or actually living in great contemporary cities such as Sydney, Auckland, Tokyo, Singapore, London, Amsterdam, Paris, Los Angeles, Chicago, or Toronto, we ought to emulate Paul in being stirred in the spirit and grieving over the idolatry, the sinfulness, and the anti-god ethos and worldview that pervades them all.

What breaks the heart of God, in other words, should break our hearts. We should also care deeply about how our great and powerful cities are in so many ways simply dens of iniquity. Yes, we will usually find a mixture there: acts of kindness, merciful actions, great people, wonderful places to visit, great beauty and art, much to be thrilled and blessed with, and so on.

But as we know, all the great works of architecture and the like will one day be no more. One is reminded of what is recorded in Matthew 24:1-2:

Jesus left the temple and was going away, when his disciples came to point out to him the buildings of the temple. But he answered them, “You see all these, do you not? Truly, I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.”

Now bear in mind that the temple was a good thing – it was God’s house! But even that would not continue forever. All that is in this world will one day come to an end. If you love great art, that might be a real cause of concern. The thought of losing the Acropolis or the Pantheon is somewhat overwhelming. I feel it too.

But as I have written elsewhere, what will be in the next life will be even bigger and better. I believe artwork and other things will continue, and we will be amazed at the creativity and beauty that we can be involved in then. See more on this here: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2022/07/20/will-there-be-art-galleries-in-heaven-christianity-culture-and-eschatology/

So to live in this age will always be a mixed bag. We will always be dual citizens. We can appreciate and celebrate all that is true and good and beautiful in this world. But we also know that there is so much that is evil and horrible and ugly and demonic.

We have to live with both passports in hand: enjoying the goodness of God’s creation while mourning all that sin and selfishness has done to mar everything. Living with such tension is not always easy, but we must try to get the balance right.

And BTW, when I was in Athens so long ago as a missionary, I certainly did appreciate all the history and culture and beauty to be found there. But I also preached the gospel on Mars Hill where Paul had done the same two millennia earlier – so it can be done!

[1575 words]

The post Living as Dual Citizens appeared first on CultureWatch.

NOVEMBER 20 | SAVED FROM IDOLATRY

Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God. 

Exodus 20:5

It has been proven often in history that whoever entertains an unworthy conception of God is throwing his or her being wide open to the sin of idolatry, which is in essence a defamation of the divine character.

It is vitally important that we think soundly about God. Because He is the foundation of all our religious belief, it follows that if we err in our ideas of God, we will go astray in everything else.

We would like to believe that there are no longer false gods in the world, but actually we recognize some of them in our own society. What about the glorified “Chairman of the Board” of the modern businessman? Or the storytelling, backslapping god of some of the service clubs? Think of the dreamy-eyed god of the unregenerate poet—cozy, aesthetic and willing to fellowship with anybody who thinks high thoughts and believes in moral equality. We often encounter the tricky, unscrupulous god of the superstitious; and the list goes on!

Thankfully, we have found that to know and follow Christ is to be saved from all forms of idolatry!

Lord, it is definitely a challenge not to be swept up by the latest media craze or the hot-selling electronic gadget or the most recent fitness or diet program. I pray, Lord, that none of these “things” will ever supplant You as the focus and purpose of my life.¹

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¹  Tozer, A. W. (2015). Mornings with tozer: daily devotional readings. Moody Publishers.

Did the Idols of the Old Testament Actually Have Power? | Cross Examined

One of the questions that people ask when they read through the Old Testament is “did those little statues that people worshipped actually have any power behind them?” Many scholars agree that people believed that the idols themselves did not hold power but instead represented the pagan gods. The Old Testament itself has two major views on idolatry, one located in the prophets and another located in Deuteronomy.

Idolatry in the Prophets

The prophets identify idolatry as a major issue within both Israel and Judah during their time and argue that idolatry is worthless.[i] For example, in Isaiah 41, Isaiah 44, and Jeremiah 10, the prophets make it clear that idolatry is useless and meaningless. It holds no power because the idols themselves are created and the gods that they represent were also created by mankind. The gods cannot deliver the nations, cannot create, cannot predict the future, and therefore, should not be worshipped. Thus, if you only had the prophets, one would probably assume that there was no actual spiritual or supernatural power behind the idols or their gods.

Idolatry in Deuteronomy

The Book of Deuteronomy, however, lays out a different argument when it comes to idolatry. Deuteronomy 32:17 states, “They sacrificed to demons, not to God, to gods they did not know, to new gods, new arrivals that your fathers did not fear.” (NKJV) Paul similarly made this argument in 1 Corinthians 10:20 when he wrote, “Rather, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice they sacrifice to demons and not to God, and I do not want you to have fellowship with demons.” (NKJV) From this perspective it seems that the idols and their gods were not simply worthless creations of mankind but were instead powered by demons and Satanic forces.

How Do We Reconcile These Two Views?

The question then becomes “Were the idols and their gods worthless creations of mankind or supernatural beings empowered by Satan and his demonic horde?” The answer seems to lie somewhere in the middle. It is true that the idols, at least to some extent, did have some type of supernatural force behind them. The people of the ancient world called these supernatural powers gods, whereas the Bible calls them instead demons. Indeed, it is unlikely that the ancients would have worshipped idols for generations if there was not some kind of supernatural power behind them, probably coming from the demonic realm to trick people into worshipping these gods as divine. A possible example of this can be seen in the story of the Exodus, when Pharaoh’s magicians can replicate some of the supernatural abilities of Moses and Aaron, at least with the first few plagues, even if their power was limited and they could not duplicate any of the plagues after the plague of frogs.

The prophets, however, were also correct in their arguments that these false gods were not equal to YHWH.[ii] Demons are created beings that are fallen angels. They are not co-equal to YHWH and therefore are inferior to Him. While the prophets may have downplayed the supernatural elements that the idols could have exhibited, they were correct in arguing that these pagan gods were not comparable to YHWH. Michael Heiser said it well when he wrote, “No. These ‘denial statements’ do not deny that other elohim exist. Rather, they deny that any elohim compares to Yahweh.” [iii]

Therefore, the answer to the question did the Old Testament gods have power is yes, they did seem to have some type of supernatural power through the power of Satan and his demons. Nonetheless, this does not mean that they were equal to YHWH and deserved to be worshipped and trusted as true gods. Only YHWH is the one true God, incomparable within creation. Isaiah 44:8 clarifies this well, “Do not fear, nor be afraid; Have I not told you from that time, and declared it? You are My witnesses. Is there a God besides Me? Indeed there is no other Rock; I know not one.”

References:

[i] [Editor’s Note: He’s referring to the divided Kingdom, when Israel split into two kingdoms – the 10 tribes of the Northern Kingdom (Israel). versus the 2 Tribes of the Southern Kingdom (Judah). This split began with Solomon’s successor Rehoboam.]

[ii] [Editor’s Note: Yahweh is infinitely superior to the false gods, of course. But, more than that, the idolatrous statues and superstitutious icons of those false religious are also totally impotent. So, as the Prophets say in Isaiah 41, Isaiah 44, and Jeremiah 10, those idols have no power to harm or help people, just like any other lump of wood, stone or metal would be a helpless and harmless inanimate object.]

[iii] Michael S. Heiser, “Does Divine Plurality in the Hebrew Bible Demonstrate an Evolution from Polytheism to Monotheism in Israelite Religion?,” Journal for the Evangelical Study of the Old Testament 1, no. 1 (2012): 8-9.

Recommended Resources: 

Counter Culture Christian: Is the Bible True? by Frank Turek (Mp3), (Mp4), and (DVD)        

Jesus, You and the Essentials of Christianity by Frank Turek (INSTRUCTOR Study Guide), (STUDENT Study Guide), and (DVD)     

Jesus vs. The Culture by Dr. Frank Turek DVD, Mp4 Download, and Mp3

Can All Religions Be True? mp3 by Frank Turek

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Daniel Sloan is an Assistant Professor at Liberty University. He was mentored by the late Dr. Ed Hindson. After Dr. Hindson’s untimely passing, Dr. Sloan was allowed to teach some of Dr. Hindson’s classes. In addition to his teaching duties, Dr. Sloan serves as an Associate Pastor at Safe Harbor Community Church in Lynchburg, Virginia. Daniel graduated with his PhD in Theology and Apologetics from Liberty University. His research and expertise is in Old Testament studies. He and his wife, Natalie, live in Lynchburg, Virginia. Along with his extensive knowledge of the Bible, Daniel is an avid sports fan.

Originally posted at: https://bit.ly/3Aw0l9a

The post Did the Idols of the Old Testament Actually Have Power? appeared first on Cross Examined.

https://crossexamined.org/did-the-idols-of-the-old-testament-actually-have-power/

Two Ways to Worship a Golden Calf | Midwest Christian Outreach, Inc

Two Ways to Worship a Golden Calf

Golden Calf on a Rock iStock

I’ve been thinking about idolatry lately. The question that prompted this was, “What is the difference between idolatry and mere distraction.”  I know my cell phone is a distraction, but when John Mark Comer or Darren Whitehead makes me feel like I might be worshipping an idol, my discernment hackles get raised, and I start being skeptical. So, I decided to settle this for myself by doing some deep thinking about idolatry and just what it amounts to. For me, the best way to do that was to do a sermon series on Idolatry to figure out what the scripture says it means to worship an idol. I won’t talk about the difference between idols and distractions in this post. I still haven’t quite worked it out, but I discovered two ways to engage in idolatry.

I was helped in this by G.K. Beale’s book We Become What We Worship: A Biblical Theology of Idolatry (IVP). It is a great book that traces the concept of idolatry from Genesis to Revelation. It’s one of those books that gives you a bird’ s-eye view of the scholarship while providing invaluable footnotes if you want to get into the weeds.

So, let’s look at one of the most important scenes in the long, long history of Israel’s foray into idol worship. Exodus 32

When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, “Up, make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” ² So Aaron said to them, “Take off the rings of gold that are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.” ³ So all the people took off the rings of gold that were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. ⁴ And he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden calf. And they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!” ⁵ When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it. And Aaron made a proclamation and said, “Tomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord.” ⁶ And they rose up early the next day and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings. And the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.

A couple of observations:

First, notice that the trigger for idolatry was uncertainty. Moses delayed. The last the people had seen Moses, their fearless leader, had disappeared in a cloud of smoke and fire. They don’t know what happened to him. God could have consumed him. They would then be all alone without a leader.

Second, notice that it was the “They,” the Israelites, who said, “These are your gods,” when they were ready to worship the golden calf. Aaron, however, is the one person who makes a proclamation about a feast to Yahweh. Aaron makes a graven image of a calf. The image is associated with the Canaanite god El and also with the Apis bull in Egypt. So the crowd associates the calf with the gods who brought them out of Egypt, but Aaron associates it with the God of Moses up on the mountain. Both of them are guilty of idolatry. They are just different kinds.

For the Israelites, the golden calf was a rival god to the LORD. For Aaron, the golden calf was an image of the LORD that wasn’t supposed ever to be made. In other words, the people were guilty of breaking the first commandment, “You shall have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3), but Aaron was guilty of the second commandment, “You shall make no graven image . . .” (Exodus 20:4)

When we think of Hebrew idolatry, we tend to think of worshipping another god. However, another form of idolatry is making a version of the Lord and then substituting that image for the true Lord. We do this when we form an image of the Lord in our minds, a god who winks at our sin, or isn’t jealous, or fits into our box. We do this with bad theology, making God into something he’s not. I think of old Screwtape, the demon in the Screwtape letters telling his apprentice Wormwood that he had a patient whose “god” was on a wall two feet from the ceiling in the corner of his bedroom.

Don’t get me started on T.D. Jake’s or Joyce Meyer’s image of God. Norm Geisler, when I was in his classes, used to say that we may not worship metal images, but we still have mental images of God that are just as bad.

The fact that should bang against our chest every time we enter into worship is that God simply will not tolerate any rivals for the worship and love of his people. Whether those rivals are another god or your own graven images of what we think or hope God is.Ω

Jonathan Miles is husband to Stacie, dad to Wesley, Gloria, and Caroline, professor of philosophy and ethics to his students, and teaching elder/pastor to the wonderful folks at Faith Journey Church. He lives in Quincy, Illinois

Calvin’s Defining Passion in the Protestant Reformation | Ligonier Ministries

It’s been said that the overarching passion of Martin Luther that provoked the Reformation was sola fide, the doctrine of justification; that’s what provoked the firestorm initially. As the Reformation developed and moved beyond Germany into England, Scotland, and the Netherlands, the great Swiss Reformer John Calvin began to exert tremendous influence. Calvin is credited with formulating the doctrines that define historic Reformed theology, yet he was indebted for many of his contributions to Luther.

Calvin was Luther’s junior, and he had enormous admiration for Luther. Usually Calvin is linked with the doctrine of predestination, but there was nothing about that doctrine in Calvin that wasn’t first in Luther and nothing in Luther that wasn’t first in Augustine.

Yet predestination was not Calvin’s defining passion. His role in the Reformation was centrally concerned with worship, and he was concerned with applying the principle of soli Deo gloria to worship. Calvin sought to reform the church’s worship and to purify corruptions that had crept in by the time of the sixteenth century, particularly patterns that developed during the Middle Ages.

In the medieval Roman Catholic Church, the use of icons and statuary became very important. Church authorities said that it is not proper to give worship to an icon or to a statue but that it is proper to give service to these items. They distinguished between latreia, or “worship,” and* doulia*, or “devotion.” On the topic of Mary, Roman Catholic authorities said that she was to receive not latreia but hyperdoulia, extreme service to honor her as Theotokos, the mother of God. Calvin stated that this distinction between latreia and doulia of idols was a distinction with-out a difference. He wanted to get rid of idols in any form and said that we ought not to serve them because to serve them is in fact to worship them.

Calvin noted that the fundamental sin of fallen humanity is idolatry, pointing out that the human heart is an idol factory. Paul teaches in Romans 1 that this is the case. In this chapter, Paul is introducing his explanation of the gospel, and he talks about God’s revelation of His wrath against the whole world. God’s wrath is revealed because the whole world is guilty of unrighteousness and ungodliness. The Apostle identifies the particular type of unrighteousness and ungodliness in view as mankind’s stifling the knowledge that God reveals to all of us. God has made Himself known in nature and conscience, and yet sinful humanity suppresses or represses that knowledge and refuses to acknowledge God or to honor Him as God.

People sometimes object that it’s not fair for God to condemn people who have never heard of Christ. Yet the truth is that God will not punish people for not believing in someone they’ve never heard of; He will punish them for rejecting the God who has revealed Himself clearly. All people know God; they simply suppress that knowledge in unrighteousness. That is the sin that they will be punished for.

Paul declares in Romans 1:20, “For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world.” That sounds like a contradiction. How can you see that which is invisible? If it’s able to be seen, then it’s visible, not invisible. But Paul is telling us that the attributes of the invisible God are made manifest through and in the creation, which is visible. By observing the creation, we see and confront the revelation of the invisible attributes of God. Paul goes on to say that “they are without excuse.” People sometimes think that if they were born in a non-Christian culture or if they’ve never heard of Christ, somehow they have an excuse. That won’t work. There is no excuse for rejecting the Father—you can’t plead ignorance, since the Father has manifested Himself clearly. Paul says next, “For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him” (Rom. 1:21).

The last sola to be embraced by fallen creatures is soli Deo gloria because our corruption means that we refuse to honor or glorify God in an appropriate and proper way. We often describe God in such a way that it’s not the true God that we’re talking about. If your god is not sovereign, your god is not God. If you don’t acknowledge the sovereignty of God, if you don’t acknowledge the justice of God, if you don’t acknowledge the omniscience of God, the immutability of God, then whatever god it is that you are acknowledging is not God. You’re not glorifying God as God; you’re glorifying something less than God as if it were God. And to glorify something other than God or less than God as if it were God is the very essence of idolatry. The Apostle explains:

For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator. (Rom. 1:21–25)

This is our most basic sin: an exchange is made. God reveals Himself, but we trade in the truth and walk out with the lie. We exchange the glory of God for the glory of the creature. That can be done in a crass way of worshiping a tree, a totem pole, or some kind of statue or icon that we craft with our hands. Yet there’s another more sophisticated form of idolatry in which we set up idols intellectually. When we reconstruct our doctrine of God in such a way that we strip Him of those attributes with which we are uncomfortable, we reconstruct a god who is not holy, a god who is not wrathful, a god who is not just, a god who is not sovereign. Then we say, “Well, our god is a god of love, and he has no place for justice or judgment or any of those things; he is pure love and mercy and grace.” We take the attributes of God that we like and reject the attributes of God that we don’t like, and when we do that, we are just as guilty of idolatry as a person who is worshiping a totem pole.

One of the great pernicious lies about the character of God is that we all worship the same god. It doesn’t matter what we call him—Allah or Yahweh or Tao or Buddha—we all worship the same thing. This is false. Notions of this kind are forms of man-made religion, and man-made religion is an idolatrous substitute for true worship. We can be religious and be idolaters at the same time if we are withholding the glory that belongs to God and to God alone. Calvin understood this; he understood how deeply rooted in our souls the penchant for idolatry is and how easily we turn aside from true worship to idolatrous worship. As a result, we must strive to be certain that our worship is appropriate and God-glorifying. Does it honor God the way that God seeks to be honored? Jesus tells the woman at the well that “true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him” (John 4:23). We need to take that seriously.

In 1996, the Cambridge Declaration was drafted in response to certain worrying trends in the evangelical world. Here’s what it says about soli Deo gloria:

soli Deo gloria: the erosion of God-centered worship, wherein in the church, biblical authority has been lost, Christ has been displaced, the gospel has been distorted or faith has been perverted, it has always been for one reason: our interest had displaced God’s, and we are doing His work in our way. The loss of God’s centrality in the life of today’s church is common and lamentable. It is this loss that allows us to transform worship into entertainment, gospel preaching into marketing, believing into technique or methodology, being good into feeling good about ourselves and faithfulness into being successful. As a result, God, Christ, and the Bible have come to mean too little to us and to rest too inconsequentially upon us. God does not exist to satisfy human ambitions or cravings, or the appetite for consumption or our own private spiritual interests. We must focus on God in our worship rather than in the satisfaction of our personal needs.

People sometimes claim that they don’t enjoy going to church because they don’t get anything out of it. It must be understood, however, that the purpose of the Sunday morning gathering of the saints is not personal enjoyment or entertainment. It’s not evangelism or fellowship either. It is the worship of God. In fact, the whole goal of salvation is to bring people to a place where they worship God and honor Him as God.

The Cambridge Declaration goes on to state, “We reaffirm that because salvation is of God, has been accomplished by God, is for God’s glory that we must glorify Him always, we must live our entire lives before the face of God, under the authority of God, and for the glory of God alone.” In everything we do, we are to give honor and ascribe glory to Him. The declaration goes on, “We deny that we can properly glorify God if our worship is confused with entertainment; if we neglect God’s law or the gospel in our preaching; or if self-improvement, self-esteem, or self-fulfillment are allowed to become alternatives to the gospel.”

Our worship services must be carefully constructed because we do not worship alone. When we come to worship on Sunday morning, we are entering the heavenly sanctuary; we’re involved in the communion of saints where God is present, Christ is present, and the spirits of the righteous made perfect are present. Our worship services are not just for us, and the great danger in our day is that we make ourselves the center of concern and we steal the glory of God. In salvation, in worship, in all that we do, the driving passion of the Christian must always be soli Deo gloria, to God alone be the glory.

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OCTOBER 26 | IDOLATRY

Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.

—Exodus 20:4

Idolatry is of all sins the most hateful to God because it is in essence a defamation of the divine character. It holds a low opinion of God, and when it advertises that opinion, it is guilty of circulating an evil rumor about the Majesty in the heavens. Thus it slanders the Deity. No wonder God hates it.

We should beware of the comfortable habit of assuming that idolatry is found only in heathen lands and that civilized people are free from it. This is an error and results from pride and superficial thinking. The truth is that idolatry is found wherever mankind is found. Whoever entertains an unworthy conception of God is throwing his or her heart wide open to the sin of idolatry. Let that person go on to personalize his or her low mental image of the Deity and pray to it, and he or she has become an idolater—and this is regardless of his or her nominal profession of Christianity.

It is vitally important that we think soundly about God. Since He is the foundation of all our religious beliefs, it follows that if we err in our ideas of God, we will go astray on everything else. TWP104

Lord, forgive me for insidious idolatry that portrays You as anything less than You are. Even to try to picture You in my mind tends to distort Your image. I fall on my knees to worship the incomprehensible God. Amen. ¹

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¹  Tozer, A. W., & Eggert, R. (2015). Tozer on the almighty god: a 365-day devotional. Moody Publishers.

October 11 | Idols

I will personally deal with anyone … who worships idols … and then comes to me for help.
(Ezekiel 14:4, TLB)

Is there anything you’re putting ahead of God? Sometimes it’s hard to tell. One of the ways to know is to ask yourself, “Would I be willing to give this thing up if God asked me to?” When God asked Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac, He wasn’t asking for a “human sacrifice” from Abraham, especially when he condemned it in the surrounding heathen nations. No, He just wanted to know, “Is there anything you love so much, that you would put it before Me? Is there anything I could ever ask that you wouldn’t give?”

My experience has taught me that anything—absolutely anything—that I put before God I inevitably lose. Sports can be an idol if it keeps you away from God’s house. Money and success can be idols if they absorb so much of your time, that there’s no time left for God. A relationship can be an idol if that person has caused our heart to grow cold. Jesus said, “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you” (Matthew 6:33). He wants first place in your life and your affections. When He gets it, His Word says, “No good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly” (Psalms 84:11). The songwriter said, “The dearest idol I have known, what e’er that idol be, I gladly tear it from my heart, and worship only Thee!”

Child of God, is He number one in your life today?¹

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¹  Gass, B. (1998). A Fresh Word For Today : 365 Insights For Daily Living (p. 284). Bridge-Logos Publishers.

October 9 | Is There a Flaw in Your Faith?

scripture reading:	Psalm 100
key verse:	Matthew 6:33

Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.

A flaw in a product can go unnoticed for long periods of time before the defect finally emerges. Likewise, many believers can grow quite rapidly in their faith before a dormant spiritual fault is revealed in a time of testing. It is then that the most common defect is discovered—operating on personal agendas.

The goal of the Christian life is to exalt and worship the person of Jesus Christ. Faith in anything but His will is idolatry. Substituting your plans for His purposes is idolatry. Faith practiced solely for achieving your personal objectives, as noble as they may seem, is idolatry.

Paul’s overwhelming ambition was to know and please Christ, to do everything to His glory. Is that your passion? Do you enter His presence with gratefulness, excitement, and reverence for Him?

It is all right to pray for personal needs and guidance, but all such requests are secondary to faith’s primary aim—experiencing God’s will for your life and personal communion with the Father. If God is accomplishing that purpose in your life, your faith will not be shaken even when the going gets rough. You will depend on God not to grant your every desire but to fulfill His purposes, whatever they may be.

Dear Father, I do not want any flaws in my faith. Create in me a pure faith so that when the going gets rough, my faith will not be shaken. Make the focus of my faith a passion to know and please You.¹

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¹  Stanley, C. F. (1998). Enter His gates: a daily devotional. Thomas Nelson Publishers.

October 3: It Will Eat You Alive

Ezekiel 6:1–8:18; Revelation 2:12–29; Job 33:1–7

Idolatry eats at our souls. And God puts up with it for only so long.

“And the word of Yahweh came to me, saying, ‘Son of man, set your face to the mountains of Israel and prophesy against them, and you must say, “Mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord Yahweh, thus says the Lord Yahweh to the mountains and to the hills, to the ravines and to the valleys: ‘Look, I am bringing upon you the sword, and I will destroy your high places, and your altars will be desolate, and your incense altars will be broken, and I will throw down your slain ones before your idols, and I will place the corpses of the children of Israel before their idols, and I will scatter your bones around your altars’ ” (Ezek 6:1–6).

Ezekiel portrays God’s view of the true nature of idolatry and the ramifications of living an idolatrous life. When people put wood and stone, or gadgets and entertainment, before their relationship with Yahweh, they are giving up the most valuable part of themselves.

Today, most people place entertainment above God. We value celebrity more than Jesus. We may deny this, but if we closely examine how we spend our time and money, we find that we love our idols as much as the ancients did.

How can we as Christians be instruments for the changes God wants to bring to the world if we conform ourselves to the expectations of our culture? Where we invest our time, assets, and attention reveals what we care about most. If we give ourselves over to worldly priorities instead of God’s, we deserve the same fate that Yahweh prophesied for the children of Israel in Ezek 6:1–6.

But our good and gracious God wants to redeem us, and we should commit ourselves to seeking His blessing instead of His judgment (John 3:16–17; Rom 8). If we follow Him with our entire being—setting aside all that stands between us and Him—the world will look different. Idolatry will be revealed for what it is: a thief and a glutton, stealing the very lives God has in store for us. If we seek God with all our being, idolatry will hold no power over us. It will die from neglect while our lives take on new vitality as we boldly proclaim the glory of our life-giving God.

What idols stand between you and the life God has for you?

John D. Barry¹

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¹  Barry, J. D., & Kruyswijk, R. (2012). Connect the Testaments: A One-Year Daily Devotional with Bible Reading Plan. Lexham Press.