Idolatry

Idolatry Defined:

Miriam-Webster – the worship of a physical object as a god – immoderate attachment or devotion to something.

DesiringGod – What is an idol?  It is the thing loved or the person loved more than God, wanted more than God, desired more than God, treasured more than God, enjoyed more than God. 

compellingtruth.org – idolatry is religious worship of physical idols/things or excessive reverence or devotion to something. 

Genesis 28:16, Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.” 17 And he was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven!” 18 Then Jacob rose early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put at his head, set it up as a pillar, and poured oil on top of it. 19 And he called the name of that place Bethel.

Then twenty years later…

Genesis 35:6-7, So Jacob came to Luz (that is, Bethel), which is in the land of Canaan, he and all the people who were with him. And he built an altar there and called the place El Bethel, because there God appeared to him when he fled from the face of his brother.

The place where Jacob had a first encounter with God he called the “house of God” or Bethel.  When he returned there 20 years later he declared it as El Bethel – “the God of the House of God”.

He had a very special, even spectacular encounter with the God of glory at Luz and renamed it Bethel.  Sins, failures and a personal encounter along the Brook Jabbok (Gen 32:24) sent him back to Bethel but not to God’s house this time, but to God – El Bethel.

There is a huge lesson here for us.  We can be all about the ways, encounters, and Word of God as was Jacob at Bethel the first time, but not be about God.  When we promote, exalt, and glorify the ways or words or attributes of God over God, we are practicing idolatry.  Some examples:

Not angels – but the God of angels

Not Christmas – but the God of Christmas

Not music – but the God of music

Not Jack Hibbs – but the God of Jack Hibbs

Not John MacArthur – but the God of John MacArthur

Not J. Vernon McGee – but the God of J. Vernon McGee

Not John Calvin – but the God of John Calvin

Not Martin Luther – but the God of Martin Luther

Not the denomination/association – but the God of Christian groups

Not Grandma’s faith – but the God of Grandma

Not SSB church – but the God of SSB

Not our country’s forefathers – but the God of our forefathers

Not the United States – but the God of the United States

Not miracles – but the God of miracles

Not prayer – but the God of prayer (God changes things – NOT prayer!)

Not communion – but the God of communion

Not the blood (like the blood is magical) – but the God of the blood

Not the love of God – but the God who is love (we might be exalting love over God)

We are to be about the God of good, the God of things, and the God of good people – be about God!