Idolatry

We know idolatry. We've seen the movies. We've seen the images. We've seen the gods of the Greeks and the Romans and the Norse gods. We've read about Ba'al and the Asherim and even what they referred to as "household idols." Humans have been a superstitious lot from the beginning. We're smarter. We know better. Whether we know better because we know science or we know better because we know the true God, we know better. That is, unless you take into account the other kind of idols. Biblically -- basically -- an idol is anything that we supply in the place of God for some blessing, or help, or guidance. It is any substitute for God. It doesn't have to be a wooden image or a marble statue. Paul argued that greed was idolatry (Col 3:5). We have lots of those kinds of idols, but I would suggest that the most common idol we worship is ... self.

There are many ways to demonstrate this, but the one that seems most obvious to me is the simple reality that it is our common experience to pass judgment ... on God. On an ongoing basis. I cannot tell you how many times I've heard people tell me, "I couldn't worship a God like that" where "that" is something straight from the pages of Scripture -- God's own self-revelation. They can't tolerate a God of wrath (e.g., Rom 1:18-20) or a God who is actually sovereign (e.g., Psa 115:3; Psa 135:6) or a God who judges (e.g., Psa 7:11). According to God's Word, He seems to be in the business of regularly offending our sense of propriety. God chooses whom He will save (Rom 9:16)? God made the wicked (Prov 16:4)? God causes calamity (Isa 45:7)? "No, no, this can't be. This is not the God we signed up for. We know better." So humans are in the practice of measuring God against their own sense of right and wrong and, often, finding the God of the Bible wanting. So they change the Bible or they reject the God revealed there. You see, of course, who is substituted. They are. Their sense of right and wrong, their moral and rational evaluations, their judgment prevails when God fails.

The truth is all of us do this at times. Some more than others. Some without end. But we routinely apply our version of "God" to the God we see in Scripture and see if He is wanting. When a loved one dies or a catastrophe occurs, we're not there with Job declaring, "The Lord gives and the Lord takes away; blessed be the name of the Lord" (Job 1:21). Oh, no. We're wondering why God let us down. Why? Because we are little idol factories making, first and foremost, ourselves into idols that we substitute for God. And we wonder why God hates sin.