Gods on Display

The Threat of Idolatry

The heart of a man is a very subtle organ. It can deceive its owner. It is also very sensitive. Long before a man manifests anything, his heart already bore that configuration. 

Therefore, God – in dealing with a man – is quite unassuming about his heart. For avoidance of doubt and misunderstanding, He often instructs a man, so that in turn that man has coordinates he can use to set his heart aright and aligned to God.

Ye shall not make with me gods of silver, neither shall ye make unto you gods of gold.

Exodus 20:23 (KJV)

I have seen in scriptures and in the corporate christian experience that the people of God are prone to idolatry. We are aware of the overt idolatry, in which an attempt is made to replace God with something else. For the Jews, it was foreign gods, each representing different things. In modern times, however, the Christian doesn’t abandon the worship of God and go after the gods of secularism, humanism, intellectualism etc. He knows better.

What the Christian does more subtle. It is what God warned the children of Israel about in the book of Exodus. 

There are two major streams of warnings about Idolatry in Exodus Chapter 20. The first stream is captured in verses 2 to 5. This deals with overt idolatry; the replacement of God.

[2] I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.

[3] Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

[4] Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:

[5] Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;

Exodus 20:2-5 (KJV)

It’s the second stream I intend to bring to your attention. It is covert Idolatry, wherein a man attempts to have another god besides God. 

In this case, he is not replacing, but rather he is doing a combined mode. This is the risk that the Christian runs the risk of. And it so happens to be that there is one kind of god that is the common partner in this arrangement.

Jesus referred to it as Mammon. Moses called it the gods of gold and gods of silver. It’s worthy of note that both warnings were captured in ‘mount’ deliveries. These warnings that were delivered on a ‘mount’ (e.g., Mount Sinai) are first rank warnings.

No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.

Matthew 6:24 (KJV)

The appeal of this god is that it seems unobstrusive, it’s not loud or conspicuous. It seems quite compatible with our worship and service to the one true God. Hence, God called it out in the Old Testament and Jesus called it out in the New Testament. God did not leave it to our discretion. He knows our hearts can be fickle, hence He clears our doubt.

We are experiencing the emergence of new gods – or perhaps, old gods with new names. I intend to write about them some day. However for now, I will content myself with stirring our hearts to the threat of the ‘gods of gold and silver’.

This kind of Idolatry can often parcelled as a desire for prosperity and can even be given religious names. While it is true that God desires and enables us to productive, He doesn’t want our devotion and affection to be directed at them.

It is not uncommon that  subtly but surely our quest for financial and material prosperity morphs into a god, a deity that commands and demands our love and devotion. We become its servant. How can we be certain that we have not elevated mammon to god status in our heart?

A critical test we can carry out to guage this is the test of Love. Our hearts always go in the direction of our love. We sometimes think our hearts go in the direction of our speech, but that’s not true. God, speaking about the Israelites, said they were a people who draw near with their lips but their hearts were far from him. Imagine that!

The test of Love involves, amongst others, two touch points: Our service and our obedience.

Whatever/whoever holds sway in our service and obedience is the object of our love. And in our context, let’s sift our relationship with God and with money through the sieve of service (servitude) and obedience (submission). Whichever comes out on top is our God. It won’t be both. It can’t be both.

May God help us.