Idolatry Unmasked

BY DEFINITION:  IDOLATRY IS NOT JUST THE WORSHIP OF FALSE, WANNABE, OR PSEUDO-GODS, BUT THE WORSHIP OF THE TRUE GOD IN IMAGES, DISTORTION, OR BY DECEPTION. 

"Those who cling to worthless idols lose their chance of mercy," (cf. Jonah 2:8).   

"To whom will you compare [God]?" (cf. Isaiah 40:18).   Religionists and anthropologists believe that man's concept of God evolved from panentheism (God is in everything), pantheism (everything is God), polytheism (many gods--conventional wisdom told them that the more gods the better!), to henotheism (one chief God with lesser gods mostly territorial), and finally to monotheism (one God). Even though there are modern discoveries proving that monotheism came first and mankind spoiled the truth of God that had been revealed in the beginning.   

God is the only true security blanket so to speak and trustworthy hope and anchor for our soul. They believe that the intellectual result should now be naturalism or materialism in which all that exists is nature itself, and all things can be explained by natural causes. Atheism is the natural consequence of this whereby God becomes irrelevant (God is dead) and no longer necessary to understand and explain the world and nature.  

Science has become a religion!  Evolution is merely a way to become intellectually fulfilled with the answers, forgetting that God is the Answerer and the Bible is the Answer  Book.   Academics have come to the view that they can only believe what science can prove!  This is "scientism," not science, or when science is taught dogmatically, it's no longer science but religion.   All false gods are of man's imagination, but the true God is beyond what we could conceive because He's infinite and perfect and the finite cannot grasp the infinite.  We cannot even know God exhaustively, but only truly!  We never could have conceived of the real God! 

But what is idolatry?  Putting anything in the place where God belongs, taking precedence and priority.  J. B. Phillips wrote Your God is too Small.  It can also be having a too-small idea or interpretation of God and putting Him in a box or having "too human" a concept of God as Luther accused Erasmus of Rotterdam of; for instance,  I just like to think of God as a great Mathematician, simply as Jesus, or the Man upstairs!  It's when we worship what should be used and use what we should worship according to St. Augustine.  We use things and relate to persons and therefore we understand God as a Person. God says to us: Who is like Me? To whom will you compare Me? Idols are manmade whether of the kinds in the world of historic antiquity of stone and pottery or of hero-worship and celebrity worship or trusting in man and not God. 

These gods cannot save you!  We must not trust in princes or authority figures but see them as mere servants of God like as we are. Our exclusive loyalty is to God alone: Jesus is Lord, not Caesar is Lord who was a wannabe deity or demigod. Indeed Voltaire was onto something when he said that man has created God in his image! It is true that men are looking for someone bigger than life and some kind of person worthy of admiration and adulation but God alone is our celebrity and hero. 

We cannot invent a God of our own choosing but must recognize and accept the God who is there and does exist or we do not live in reality as Plato said, "If I want to know how to live in reality, I must now what God is really like."  We cannot escape God nor His judgment, He alone is to be feared!  He alone is the one true living God that will not die or go away but sees all. "Thou shalt have no other gods before Me" means that He must have exclusive allegiance, not any man, church, nation, or even family.  When people say, "My party right or wrong or my nation right or wrong" they are misdirecting zeal. If Jesus is on the throne of your heart then it's misdirected and you're deceived. 

But even Israel wanted to be like the other nations and have a king and they were a true theocracy with God in charge but they rejected it. Do we want to be people-pleasers and fit in with the norms of society or do desire to be godly? Don't let anyone or anything rival God's rightful domain in your life.  We must take spiritual inventory and rethink our priorities, commitments, and devotions. Are we seeking man's praise or God's? We must not inadvertently pay homage to false gods that are manmade simply because we want to fit in and be one of the guys and be in the crowd. We must dare to stand alone and stick up for what we believe and declare our Christian colors. Our soul loyalty is to Jesus as Lord denying the Roman oath allegiance of "Caesar is Lord," as blasphemy and idolatry.  

In the final analysis, do we desire the world's delicacies and rewards or what God can offer us eternally?   In summation, A W Tozer said, "What we believe about God [our idea of Him] is the most important thing about us."     CAVEAT:  Worship [pay homage owe allegiance to] the LORD thy God, and Him shalt thou serve."  (Cf. Matt. 4:10)    Soli Deo Gloria! 

Learning A Christian Worldview

"No nation has survived the loss of its gods" (George Bernard Shaw).

A worldview is a way of interpreting your world, such as purpose in living, where you came from, and where you are going--our role in the world-system--questions such as: Is there right and wrong? Is there a God? What is the meaning of life? How do you interpret reality? There is a current war of ideas in the world: Marxism (basically an economic understanding, but also totalitarian, aiming to establish a domination of the proletariat or working class and abolishing the bourgeoisie in class warfare), Secular Humanism (basically that man is the measure of all things, up with man, down with God, or deifying man and dethroning God, and reality starts from man), New Age (the idea of cosmic consciousness or supra-consciousness, being in touch with the inner god), Postmodernism (founded by Nietzsche as the patron saint, saying that "God is dead" or irrelevant and we can live without Him), Islam (believing the future belongs to Islam and being bent on world hegemony), and Christianity (Christ's kingdom is in the hearts of man and not of this world and the church is a power to transform and preserve society) itself--the first five have one thing is common in that they oppose Christianity. Any viewpoint that doesn't start with God is evil!

We are to discern good and evil to be able to handle the meat of the Word (Heb. 5:14). Once we get saved, the battle has just begun and we enter Satan's turf as the god of this age. But the battle is the Lord's and as John said in 1 John 4:4, "Greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world." Paul says in Rom. 8:31, "If God be for us, who can be against us?" We have to know our enemy according to Sun Tzu in The Art of War because he believes in dividing and conquering, and playing mind games, and waging psychological warfare. "For we are not ignorant of his schemes" (cf. 2 Cor. 2:11). Don't give him a beachhead, but arm yourself with a divine viewpoint to understand what he is doing. Do not fight among yourselves as Lord Nelson noticed his troops doing when he said, "Gentlemen, remember, the enemy is over there!" In Walt Kelly's cartoon Pogo, he says, "We have met the enemy, and he is us." We can be our own worst enemy because the three enemies are the world-system itself, the devil and his minions, and our own flesh or sin nature (cf. 1 John 2:15 -16). The government is not the enemy, for all the powers that be are established of God (Rom. 13:1).

We are exhorted to "hate that which is evil and cling to that which is good" in Rom. 12:9 and in 1 Thess. 5:21-22 it says, "...hold fast that which is good. Abstain from all appearance of evil." [which means that when evil appears, resist it.] Only those who have their senses trained to "discern good and evil" can digest the meat of the word and the infants in Christ can only live on the milk of the Word according to Hebrews 5:14. We need to love God with our whole minds and not be indolent or anti-intellectual--we are to use the minds God has given us (Mark 12:30).

We are in the world, but not of it according to Scripture (John 15:19 says, "You are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world"). If we love the world-system or cosmos of Satan, the love of the Father is not in us--indeed he entices us with many delicacies of the world to compete with our spiritual appetites. Beware of the pseudo-philosophies of this age as the admonishment in Col. 2:8 says, "Let no man spoil you through philosophy or vain deceit..." We need to "contend for the faith" like Jude said in Jude 3 and that means taking stands for Jesus and sticking up for what is right in an evil world. We are the salt and light as the children of God.

Paul's swan song was: "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith" (2 Tim. 4:7). We all have a conscience and can tell right from wrong (Rom. 2:15), and we are all responsible and don't have any excuses for knowing God (Rom. 1:18-20). In 1 Chron. 12:32 it says that only a few people were able to interpret the times and knew what to do. Daniel 11:32 says that the "people who knew their God "shall be strong and do exploits." At the time of the end, the wise will understand and the wicked will not (Dan. 12:10). When Nebuchadnezzar realized that God was sovereign he came to his senses (Dan. 4:35).

Today we seem to be doing what's right in our own eyes (similar to the Israelites in Judges 21:25--"They did what was right in their own eyes"). The culture says that there is no standard of right and wrong--it is all relative and you can't force your morality on another person. It isn't that we can't legislate morality, it's whose morality we legislate.

In Allan Bloom's book, The Closing of the American Mind, he says that people now believe "all truth is relative"--if that is true then that statement has no value because it is also relative. They say nothing is always wrong and nothing is always right; what matters is sincerity. This goes back to Satan's lie: "Hath God said?" Gen. 3:1). They seem to believe that the only truths that are relative are those that defend the Christian worldview! One prof was reported as saying, "You can know nothing for certain." One astute student asked, "Are you sure?" "Yes, I am!" Jesus was the Truth itself, the incarnation of Truth with a capital T and came to bear witness of the truth--the Romans, including Pilate, doubted the existence of absolute truth (true no matter who believes it and whether anyone believes it). They thought that "might made right." This was the epitome of cynicism and an insult to Christ's veracity--he didn't even wait for an answer! The secret is to stay away from extremes: "Turn not to the right hand nor to the left: remove thy foot from evil" (cf. Prov. 4:27; Isa. 30:21; Josh. 23:6; 1 Kgs. 21:2)).

As Christians we are to "submit [ourselves] to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake: whether it be to the king, as supreme; or unto governors..." (1 Pet. 2:12-13) Paul says something similar: "Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God" (Rom. 13:1). We are to "render unto Caesar" according to Matthew 22:21 and even be light and salt in the world, trying to make people see the light to get saved according to our gift. With privilege there is the flip side of responsibility; they go hand in hand. There is such a thing as "social justice" not a social gospel, though. Our social commission has not been rescinded. One only need refer to the prophets, Amos and Micah. We assert that God is the only legitimate legislator (legal positivism says that man can make any law he desires) and His character is the law of the universe. Isaiah said, "Woe unto them who decree unjust laws..." (Isa. 10:1-2). It has been said, "If we have contempt for government, we get contemptible government."

God's providence works all things according to His divine decrees and He has no Plan B; He has no other plan, but to use us as His vessels of honor and to bring glory to him (cf. Isa. 43:7). Everything is going according to plan as Isaiah says in Isa 37:26 and He is in control according to Isa. 14:24, 27 and 46:8-11. "Behold, the nations are as a drop of the bucket..." (Isa. 40:15). "He's got the whole world in His hands." Psalm 22:28 says that God is sovereign over the nations and we can be sure even over every molecule in the universe. Eph. 1:11 says that God works out everything according to His will. John Wesley used to read the paper to "see what God is doing in His world." God is even in control of the toss of the die (Prov. 16:33) and in control of the whims of the king (Prov. 21:1). He leaves nothing to chance: Einstein said, "God doesn't play dice with the universe."

Christian worldview sees social injustice: "What do you mean by crushing My people and grinding the face of the poor...?" (Is. 3:15). "Rescue the weak and the needy..." (Ps. 82:4). The believer who knows the Lord is concerned about the plight of the poor (Ps. 41:1) and the evil in the world: he doesn't just see evil and say, "Why?" He also sees good and says, "Why not?" This is what it means to know the Lord according to Jeremiah 22:16--to be concerned about those less fortunate and defending those who can't defend themselves, the weak ("He pled the cause of the afflicted and needy; Then it was well. Is not that what it means to know Me?" declares the LORD [in Jer. 22:16]). Amos and Micah are champions of the underdog and the underprivileged and deplore how "they sell the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals--those who trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth and turn aside the way of the afflicted (cf. Amos 2:6-7). "...Who oppress the poor, who crush the needy..." (Amos 4:1). Malachi is appalled at those "who oppress the hired worker in his wages..." (Mal. 3:5). We are not to be partial to the poor nor to the rich but show justice to all (Deut. 19:15). Charity and welfare were mandated in Israel according to Lev. 19:4, Deut. 15:4, and other passages--they were allowed to "glean the fields" of the landowners. There was to be "no poor in Israel."

Now, what kind of values are Christians supposed to espouse? They should subscribe to the sanctity of the family unit as having preference over the government's authority, because it was established before it; it should believe in the inherent worth of the individual (you have rights, but they end where mine begin--you can swing your fist but not hit my nose!) as being in the image and likeness of God (the imago Dei), and that means having a mind to know and communicate with God, a heart to love Him, and a will to obey Him. These are called unalienable rights and our culture is based on it in the constitutional Bill of Rights. We are merely stewards of God's riches ("The earth is the LORD's and the fullness thereof" says Ps. 24:10) and are responsible to Him to give an account at the judgment. (There is a Protestant work ethic mentioned in 2 Thess. 3:10 that declares that those who are not willing to work shall not eat.


All authority ultimately comes from God and we get our rights and dignity form Him; "unless you assume a God, the question of man's purpose is meaningless," and without God man is a "useless passion." (Bertrand Russell and Jean-Paul Sartre). We believe the government has limited power derived from God--it is not a necessary evil, as Augustine said, but necessary because of evil. We have a duty to this government since we owe them our security and protection of our property and our person from crime--justice and law and order are the primary functions. Marriage is to be held in honor and a "man shall leave his mother and be joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh" and "God made them male and female and said that it was good." No rights are absolute, such as you say it's your religion to be a cannibal or that you can yell fire in an auditorium! Sometimes it may be our duty to disobey, which is termed civil disobedience--God's laws trump the government; shall we obey God or man? ("We must obey God rather than man," according to Acts 5:29).

I believe firmly that the Bible sanctions no certain type of government, as long as human rights are respected. Government was first documented to be divided into three parts in Isa. 33:22 into the legislative, judicial, and executive branches (king, judge, lawgiver). I refer to Lord Acton's adage that is a cliche now: "Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely." We do not believe that our rights (note that the obverse of rights is responsibilities necessitated) are derived from the government, but directly from God, who gives us dignity and worth as man in His image or the ikons of God, as it were.

In the final analysis, it is vital to know Scripture to combat the prevalent secular humanistic viewpoint (deifying man and denying or dethroning God) in the world and not to fall into the devil's trap. Sir Francis Bacon said, "Knowledge is power." And the Bible backs this up in Proverbs 10:14 saying, "The wise lay up knowledge..." And Proverbs 24:5 says, "And a man of knowledge enhances his might." We must not remain silent and concede everything away. C. S. Lewis says, "They are trying to eradicate Christianity from the marketplace of ideas and the public square."

If God doesn't exist, everything is permissible (Dostoevsky). But we believe in transcendent or natural law that everyone is able to know by nature apart from the government. Law is designed for wrongdoers but God confers rights on us. People are in a state of rebellion against our so-called bourgeois values (which really is the Judeo-Christian heritage of Western civilization). As the psalmist says, "What can the righteous do when the foundations are destroyed?" (Ps. 11:3). For one thing, we should pray for our leaders, not condemn them [It is our God who put them there, as Paul said (cf. Acts 23:5), "It is unlawful to speak evil of a ruler of your people"]

Christians are not "utopians" but are waiting for Christ to usher in His Millennial Kingdom at His second coming. A word to the wise is sufficient: Christians have no geopolitical aspirations like the Muslim world bent on dominating the world with their hegemony, and they should not sound the alarm, but "occupy till He comes" (business as usual). As Jesus said, "My kingdom is not of this world." In conclusion, we have read the last page of the Bible and know how it all will turn out and are assured that we are on the winning side and victory is inevitable in the end. NB: Keep the faith! "The LORD frustrates the counsel of the nations; He thwarts the plans of the peoples...Happy is the nation whose God is Yahweh!" (Ps. 33:10-12). A word of encouragement--all is not lost: God is able to heal our land if we confess our corporate sins and humble ourselves in repentance as His people (2 Chron. 7:14). Soli Deo Gloria!

Worshiping Faux Gods

"... You must acknowledge no God but me, for there is no other savior" (Hosea 13:4, NLT).

There are pseudo-gods, because there is a genuine God, who is the real thing, and all other so-called gods are counterfeits, poor excuses for, and a parody of the Real McCoy.  Evil is not the opposite of good, and couldn't exist apart from good.  It's the perversion and parasite of good and the lack or depravity of it.  It is a leech on the goodness of God and thrives by imitation and dependence since Satan is no original, but a copycat or spoiler.  People tend to think that the more gods they have the safer or more secure they are.  This was the case with Israel with Elijah when he asked them which one they will serve, as they halted between the two--Baal or God.  Baal was the god of fertility (family, fields, and flock) and they felt it couldn't hurt to have him on their side.

If we have the Almighty God of All-Sufficient One (El Shaddai) on our side, we need no other gods and have all we need.  God is sufficient to meet all our needs and fulfill our hearts, making us complete in Christ.  That's precisely what the Jehovah texts mean and the great I AM implies--God is everything to us and all we could ever need or want to be fulfilled. If we possess Him, we have all we need! 

The trouble with false gods is that they don't satisfy and leave a desire for more and other gods.  As Augustine said, "You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you."  Pascal described our heart and soul as having a vacuum only God can fill!  You can never get enough fame to be satisfied, nor enough money to feel totally happy and content neither can power fulfill, since power corrupts and only makes you crave for more.  Lust is the unhealthy desire for something, and there can be a righteous acquisition of fame, power, or wealth that has God's blessing, but this only happens when one puts God first:  "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you"  (cf. Matt. 6:33, KJV).  God does promise to meet all our needs per Phil. 4:19, but not necessarily our felt needs or wants, and we must trust that God has our benefit in mind as our Benefactor.  It is unfortunate that some seek the benefits apart from the Benefactor though.

There are several false gods that can overwhelm a Christian and lead him astray:  money or mammon (note that Proverbs says that he who loves money is never satisfied with money and Job objects self-righteously that he has never made gold his security); success or achievements (God doesn't want your achievements--He wants your obedience and most importantly He wants you!); science and technology (this is neutral in itself, but we can get over fascinated and obsessed with it--modern achievements tend to lesson our faith in the power of God); sexual lust or libido gone awry; heroes or people in general (think of how celebrities, politicians, and athletes inspire us and people emulate and idolize them); family or children; (we are to "hate" our mother, father, etc., i.e., compared to Christ, and we never should put our hopes and security in these relationships--too many live vicariously through them and don't find personal fulfillment); glory (we may have our fifteen minutes of fame, and get a fatal taste of it only to seek it lustfully); our time as leisure and pleasure that we think belongs to us, but our times are in His hand (cf. Psalm  31:15).   Remember, God can endure no rival and is a jealous God that demands absolute loyalty and undivided hearts that are fully committed to Him and seek His will and glory (cf. 2 Chron. 16:9).

We must do some soul searching and take a spiritual inventory to determine where our ultimate loyalty lies (cf. 2 Cor. 13:5).  We can only be satisfied with the blessings God gives us when we put Him first and use the blessings for His glory.  Our decision to take up our cross and follow Him is a daily exercise and must be renewed constantly, as the devil will not cease to throw roadblocks in our way.  The question of our ultimate loyalty and allegiance, and which God or god we serve is bound up in whom or what we love--"for where your treasure is, there your heart shall be also."

Sad to say, some are more loyal to their politics than their religion!  One must be willing to die for and lay down one's life for the Lord's sake and that is total commitment.  Some believers are committed to a school of thought or doctrine more than to the Lord and seek to be divisive, contentious, argumentative, and judgmental.  We must ultimately throw down the gauntlet and not waver in unbelief:  "How long will you halt between two opinions?"  (Cf. 1 Kings 18:21).

The modern secular notion is that we are still evolving and are becoming gods and will eventually achieve immortality and utopia on earth.  This is the opposition to the faith and the flip side of believing in God--as Satan told Eve that she "would be as the gods, knowing good and evil."  Note that the greatest commandment is to love God (cf. Matt. 22:37) with all our being and in the Decalogue, the first one is to "have no other gods before" Him--God deserves first place and priority in our lives and we must suppress all ungodly goals, desires, and ambitions.  Only when we worship one God and have total devotion to Him is our heart undivided and totally complete.

Not to be remiss to mention that worshiping the one God in a false or inadequate way (not in the Spirit or in the truth) is also worshiping a false God and is by definition idolatry:  e.g.,  when we make God one-dimensional or put Him in a box, like saying,  "I like to think of God as the Great Spirit, or the man upstairs, as kind Father Time, or the Mean Judge, etc."  We must take all the attributes of God into consideration in our apprehension of God for who He is.

Some people have "thoughts of God that are too human"  (as Martin Luther told Erasmus), and don't realize that it's not how big our faith is, but how big our God.  It's not the faith, but the object of the faith!  Christians ought to be able to say, "My God is bigger than yours!" They may deny there is a supernatural God, but they will inevitably worship someone or something--we're wired that way.  (I refer to J. B. Phillips book, Your God Is Too Small.)  Soli Deo Gloria!