Idolatry
Ex. 20:3

A. Our Creator, is the only being whom we may worship, and we must make it our aim to
worship Him as He truly is. Jno. 4:24, calls it “Worshiping God in spirit and in truth.” God is the only eternal, self?existent Being. Of all the things that exist, only He is uncreated — everything else that exists has been caused to exist by Him. That means, if we worship anything other than God, we are worshiping a created thing, a “ creature,” rather than the Creator, who alone is to be worshiped. Rom. 1:20?25, reminds us of that.
The Scriptures have a good deal to say about the danger of “idolatry.” But is it really the practical problem today that it was in ancient times? We probably don’t feel much temptation to worship anything in nature, and we certainly wouldn’t make a graven image. If we’re concerned about idols at all, we’re probably more tempted by the modern ones like money and material things. Col. 3:5, speaks directly to that problem.
1. But whether the idolatry is ancient or modern, we don’t see it as a serious problem because we are people who know that God should be our highest concern.
(1) But suppose we’ve enthroned God in our hearts and the thing that occupies the
throne is simply a false conception of Him. Think about that. Suppose the “God” we
worship is not God as He has revealed Himself to be in the Bible. Suppose we are worshiping God as we have wrongly conceived Him in our own minds?
(1) In this case, are we not worshiping a “creature” of our own making? And are we
not practicing a form of idolatry, that is all the more dangerous, because
it is so subtle and sophisticated?
(1) These days there seems to be a growing tendency for us to define God in the subjective terms of our own likes and dislikes. We demand that God be the kind of God we think He should be, or else we won’t “believe” in Him.
(2) We dare not let that happen, because a day is coming when our very real Creator will be our very real Judge. If we’ve been unwilling to bow before the awesome truth of His reality which has been revealed in this Book-----And if we have concocted an imaginary “God” that is more agreeable to our own liking-----Then that Reality we found so unacceptable in this life will simply be unavailable to us in eternity.
(1) We need to beware, lest we in our pride, accept the erroneous notion that idolatry consists only in kneeling before visible objects of adoration, and that as civilized peoples we would never do that.
(2) The essence of idolatry is the entertainment of thoughts about God that are unworthy of Him. It begins in the mind and thus worshiped mentally or intellectually even if you don’t do it outwardly. Matt. 5: 27-28, Jesus said, “Not doing it literally while wishing you could, makes you guilty of doing it.” The mental, intellectual idolatry may be present, even though no overt act of worship has taken place.
(3) Acts 20:32.

Spur - 06/30/2002 pm