Keep yourselves from idols
By John Earp
In my regular Bible reading, I recently read again through the Old Testament historical books. I was struck by the recurring incidence of God’s people, who had been graciously redeemed by the one true God, resorting to the worship of idols. The Lord God had promised them prosperity and security and His sanctifying presence, if only they would stay true to His covenant. The practice of idolatry was expressly forbidden by God in what we nowadays call the Ten Commandments. The covenantal relationship they had with God was at times compared by the prophets to a marriage, with idolatry being compared to cheating on one’s spouse. God had also promised to give his people over to defeat at the hands of their enemies if they forsook Him, always with the hope that they would see the error of their ways and repent and return to the one true and living God.
Even still, with all the blessings they enjoyed while obedient, the Israelites frequently and quite inexplicably resorted to worshipping idols and participating in the sexually and spiritually immoral cult practices of the nations that lived around them. Often, even after living for years under the influence of a godly and righteous king, the people of Israel would then begin to backslide, turning away from the living God to serve idols. Eventually, God let his people go into Babylonian captivity for 70 years as a means of disciplining and restoring them to faithfulness to the covenant God had made with them.
Near the end of the New Testament, in the latter part of the first century, the Apostle John wrote, “Little children, keep yourselves from idols.” (1 John 5:21). John wrote to Christians under his care, warning them of the danger of idolatry. It would benefit us to consider what is the essential nature of idolatry, so that we might steer as clear from it as possible.
Many might assume one needs to have a carved image of some kind in order to commit idolatry, but in Colossians 3:5, Paul the Apostle says that “covetousness is idolatry.” Jesus also famously said that one cannot serve God and mammon (or money). In 1 John 2:15, the apostle there says that if anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. John goes on in the next verse to define the world as “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.” The Message paraphrases these three vices as, “Wanting your own way, wanting everything for yourself, and wanting to appear important.”
The fact is, one can be an idolater without even thinking of bowing down to a physical idol. Love for the world instead of love for God is what really constitutes idolatry. Paul describes an essential aspect of the universal voluntary sinfulness of mankind in Romans 1 as “Worshipping the creature rather than the Creator.” Virtually anything in the world can become an idol to us. The aged Apostle John’s admonition to us, to keep yourselves from idols, is very much applicable to our lives today. Ask yourself, is there anything in my life which I value more than God and the highest good of all? Am I living to make money above all, to build up my own little kingdom, my own sense of security?
One day, according to Scripture, everything in this earth will be burnt up. One day, everything you own will no longer be yours, for it is appointed unto mankind once to die, and after this, the judgment. Loving the world (idolatry) is essentially to seek pleasure, comfort and security in this life by our own hands. It is to obey the desires of our flesh instead of obeying the desires of the Holy Spirit. We must guard our hearts against idolatry, for it is truly damning sin.
The ultimate antidote and preventative to idolatry is to love the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, and to love our neighbors as ourselves. As the little letter of Jude says to Christians, “Keep yourselves in the love of God.” Keep God first in your life. Be on guard against idolatry in your heart and mind, for that is where temptation begins, and that is where all sin is originates.