“Neither be ye idolaters” (1 Corinthians 10: 7 KJV).
An idolater is someone with something or someone that has come before God. This something or someone is an idol.
When we think about idols, we think about graven images of stone, wood, gold, silver, iron, and brass (Is. 2:8; Dan. 5:23), porcelain, glass, clay, or plastic. These idols are insensible and insentient (lacking perception, consciousness, and animation). They have eyes but can’t see, ears but can’t hear, mouths but can’t speak, noses but can’t smell, hands but can’t handle, feet but can’t walk (Psalm 115: 4-7). They can’t help themselves or anyone else.
But these idols originated in the imagination with an idea of a god in an attempt at the ideal. The image on the ground represented the idea in the imagination (Ezek. 14: 3, 4). The idolater submitted to subjective truth at the expense of objective truth: God’s Word.
Though we don’t see idols or physical images of would-be gods around as there once were, idolatry is still widely practiced today. Ancient civilizations had their idols on the ground, but our idols are much closer than that; our idols are in our mind. And “An idol on the mind is just as offensive to God as an idol on the ground.” — A.W. Tozer
The words “Neither be ye idolaters” and “Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen.” (1 Jn. 5: 21) and “Flee from idolatry” (1 Cor. 10: 14) were given to Christians.
The idols we as Christians have are not on the ground, but in the mind. And they are just as real, and distracting, and destructive as those on the ground. One idol many have is “another Jesus” that they imagined in their likeness when they refused to follow the biblical Jesus (2 Cor. 11: 4) and His will.
We know we have idols and are idolaters when, before we do God’s revealed will, we first check to make sure His will doesn’t disrupt our will and the plans we have for our family, career, money, or anything else. These things, and many others unnamed, become idols when we put them before God and His will. “Lord, I will follow thee; but . . .” (Lk. 9: 61).
To see if you have any idols, don’t look on the ground; look inside your heart. How many did you find?
