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 dont feel much temptation to worship
anything in nature, and we certainly wouldnt make a graven
image. If were concerned about idols at all, were
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 dont
see it as a serious problem because we are people who know that
God should be our highest concern.
(1) But suppose weve 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 wont 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 weve
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 dont 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
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