Idolatry is not spoken of much today, nor is it viewed as a large problem in society. In general, many think idolatry is something of the past — something relevant only to primitive cultures that worshiped statues of wood, clay, or metal. Yet biblically, we could argue that the primary problem facing any nation — and any church — is idolatry.
When we think about Israel under the Mosaic Law, what do we deem as its greatest problem? It wasn’t the Philistines, Assyrians, or Babylonians. It wasn’t theft, immorality, sabbath-breaking, poverty, inflation, or injustice. Rather, the greatest problem in the nation of Israel was idolatry.
The Old Testament prophets repeatedly came back to the reason the people of Israel were under God’s judgment, which was because of serial idolatry. As Isaiah denounced Israel for her sins, he condemned them for not knowing the Lord. Jeremiah follows similarly — only much more trenchantly; and Ezekiel continues to make the same point. In the book of Hosea, we see God’s graphic illustration of the horrors of idolatry and His faithfulness to save His people despite their idolatrous ways. Additionally, Amos, Jonah, and Micah all explicitly denounce idolatry.
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Israel, then, under the Mosaic Law, certainly had innumerable sins against the Lord, but the greatest problem in the nation was idolatry, which became its undoing.
However, it’s not just Israel that was rife with idolatry. The Bible makes clear that idolatry is the greatest problem in pagan nations as well. In Romans 1:25, we see God’s judgment against Gentiles is primarily the result of their idolatry. Because people’s hearts love idols, God gives them over to a depraved mind to defile themselves.
So, what is the greatest problem in America today? Why has much of our nation been given over to a depraved mind? Why do people seem so bent on doing what is not proper to themselves and others? The reason is because people have hearts full of idolatry. All of the problems in our nation that preoccupy the attention of the masses are symptoms, not causes — symptoms of a people whose hearts love false gods.
Most shocking of all is that the problem of idolatry is not just found in unbelievers among God’s covenant people Israel in the Old Testament, or among pagan nations then and now, but among religious people who appear to denounce idolatry and fancy themselves as virtuous. Paul, in Romans 2, denounces these people who overtly reject idolatry and the worship of false gods. The New Testament highlights to all believers that idolatry is a clear and present danger in the Church (1 John 5:21).
Because idolatry is at the core of every problem, we should understand what the Bible says about it so we might flee from and guard ourselves from idols. To that end, we must first look at various aspects of idolatry to impress upon our hearts the sinister nature of idolatry and to seek the Spirit’s help in identifying the idols of our hearts.
Let’s begin with the meaning of idolatry.
We start here because it’s easy to define idolatry in a way that is too narrow. The biblical definition of idolatry is much broader than simply worshiping a statue or participating in a false religious system.
Here’s a definition that is short enough to be useful but comprehensive enough to be thorough: Idolatry is loving, trusting, or desiring something or someone more than or in place of God.
Love speaks to our commitment to someone or something. Trust speaks to reliance on something or something. And desire speaks of the affections or inclinations of our hearts.
The word or is important in that definition, because doing any one of these things toward someone or something other than God amounts to idolatry. We might say we love and trust Christ more than anything and anyone else, but if we really desire something Christ forbids more than we desire to please Him, then that is idolatry.
Furthermore, we must add that idolatry is to love, trust, and desire someone or something more than or in place of Christ. Our supreme loyalty in love should be Jesus Christ. Our supreme trust should be relying on Christ and His cross. And our supreme desire should be to glorify God. If our supreme love, trust, and desire are not toward God, then that is idolatry.
Idolatry can take many forms. It might look like worshiping a false god in the form of a statue or indulging in a secret sin. All idolatry, though, is forbidden by God regardless of its form, which brings us to the second aspect of idolatry: the command against idolatry.
We find many commands in Scripture that forbid idolatry. The foundational statements on this matter are found in the Ten Commandments, where the first two prohibit idolatry. In the first commandment, God forbids any other gods before Him.
Some might think this command means we are allowed to have other gods, but we just can’t have any other gods equal to the true and living God. That, however, is not what “before Me” means in this context. The idea of “before Me” in Exodus 20 means “in My presence.”
The reason this phrase prohibits all other gods at all times is because of the unique nature of God’s presence. We are always in the presence of God, living before His face in our lives. Since God is always present, there is never an acceptable time to worship a false god, because all idolatry happens in the Lord’s presence.
The second commandment follows upon the first, where God prohibits making any images, either of Himself, or of other gods, or of anything in all creation that we might worship. Worship of the true and living God must take place without images. This is a major problem for Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, which both rely on images in worship, even if they claim they are not worshipping those images.
We see, then, how God’s command fits well with our definition of idolatry. We are not to have any other gods at all — nothing that rivals the Lord in any way. Additionally, we must guard against the tendency to use something man creates to represent God or to receive our love, trust, and desire. We cannot truly call something we create God, because all human inventions and creations fall short of the Lord and His glory. If we worship something created, we fall prey to idolatry, even if our intention is to worship the true God.
We should all examine our hearts, asking, “Where do we find ourselves most frequently sinning?” In what way does that temptation or sin manifest that we are loving, trusting, or desiring something or someone more than or in place of God?
If the root sin behind all our sins is idolatry — failing to love God with all we are, failing to trust Him with everything in our lives — then somehow our struggles with lust, pride, gossip, envy, anger, or whatever else, are not merely struggles with those things, but with idols in our hearts. We must identify those idols, and discover how the sin of idolatry deceptively opens us up to the works of the flesh.
God’s command is that we have no other gods before Him. May He grant us to see when and where we place idols in our hearts, and to destroy them so we might serve Him alone as God.
Dr. Robb Brunansky is the Pastor-Teacher of Desert Hills Bible Church in Glendale, Arizona. Follow him on Twitter at @RobbBrunansky.
