Idolatry

Psalm 135:15-18: "The idols of the nations are silver and gold, made by the hands of men. They have mouths, but cannot speak, eyes, but they cannot see; they have ears, but cannot hear, nor is there breath in their mouths. Those who make them will be like them, and so will all who trust in them."


Idolatry has been a persistent problem with humanity since the beginning of time. In history past, cultures would craft idols, many times out of ornate elements like gold or bronze; and they would worship the things that they had created. Many believed that their gods would inhabit such inanimate objects once they were crafted; thus, the people would pay homage to these supposed deities and petition these deities for their needs.

Conveniently, these inanimate objects were never able to communicate their divine will to the people worshipping them; thus, people were given license to interpret what their lifeless gods wanted them to do. I use the term "conveniently" because the people ended up serving their own selfish interests in the process. There was no deity to express consternation at the people's licentious behavior; for this reason, they were able to indulge in all kinds of immoral behaviors without apparent consequence. In fact, they would proclaim that their god(s) encouraged such libertine behavior.

Whereas in the modern world we may look with skepticism at societies that would craft inanimate objects into things worshipped, we nonetheless are apt to follow similar pursuits. Anything that displaces the worship of the true God of Heaven is idolatry, be it money, careers, relationships, substances, education, etc. And just like these people who would rationalize their antinomian behavior, we too can fall prey to the entrapment that our behavior is justified or even expected because of the benefits that we experience.

The foundation of all sin in the world is the quest of humanity to be divine itself! This first occurred with Adam and Eve desiring to be gods (Genesis 3:5); they wanted to be the center of the universe and not have to pay homage to the True Lord. So too with idol worship, we find that those who respond to such practices are attempting to secure license to do whatever they desire to do and be the center of their own universe. Irrespective of how we practice our idolatry, we nonetheless reveal that we are attempting to serve ourselves in order that we might assert our feigned claim to divinity.

Since our first priority in life is to glorify God, we fail to accomplish our purpose in life when we follow such paths of rebellion. We must repent of the "idols" that are in our lives that are mere smoke screens to our own quest for lordship. Our purpose in life is not to satisfy our own desires; the universe does not revolve around us. We would do well to submit ourselves to the True Lord. It is only through submission to the King of Kings that we will find His blessing. We can start by searching for Him through His Word, the Bible. Our God is not a lifeless deity who cannot communicate with us. His Word tells us exactly what we should do to acknowledge Him as the Lord.