IDOLATRY
As Christians we constantly read in the Old Testament about the idolatry that the Israelites so
often fell into and often wonder how they could have done such a thing, holding inanimate
statues in reverence and praying to them rather than praying to God who had performed such
miracles in their lives.
Yet unfortunately all we need to do is look in some of our homes and churches and we can see
the very same thing. Idols abound in the form of crucifixes, statues and pictures of Mary, Joseph,
Jesus, medals with images of ‘saints’, etc. All of these are revered as religious objects, and are
therefore idols.
How are these thing idols? God was quite explicit in what He considered to be an idol. As He told the nation of Israel;
EXODUS 20:4-6
4 “You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the Earth beneath, or that is in the water under the Earth;
5 you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me,
6 but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.
LEVITICUS 26:1
1 ‘You shall not make idols for yourselves; neither a carved image nor a sacred pillar shall you rear up for yourselves; nor shall you set up an engraved stone in your land, to bow down to it; for I am the Lord your God.
DEUTERONOMY 4:15-19
15 “Take careful heed to yourselves, for you saw no form when the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire,
16 lest you act corruptly and make for yourselves a carved image in the form of any figure: the likeness of male or female,
17 the likeness of any animal that is on the Earth or the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the air,
18 the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground or the likeness of any fish that is in the water beneath the Earth.
19 And take heed, lest you lift your eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun, the moon, and the stars, all the host of heaven, you feel driven to worship them and serve them, which the Lord your God has given to all the peoples under the whole heaven as a heritage.
Unfortunately Man seems to have a deep-rooted need to be able to have a visible image of something that he can worship. Buddhists have statues of Buddha; Hindus have statues of Shiva, Hanuman, Vishnu and the like; many of the Eastern Orthodox religions have icons and relics that they revere such as bones and statues of ‘saints’; Catholics have statues, pictures, relics and such.
In the Vatican’s Saint Peter’s Basilica, a brass statue of Peter (supposedly erected over his
tomb) has had its feet worn smooth over the centuries by pilgrims touching and kissing the
feet of the statue, a practice that continues even today. Pure idolatry.
Israel fell into the idolatry trap early on right after God had brought them out of Egypt to Mount Sinai despite the astounding miracles that He had wrought on the Egyptians in bringing them out of slavery. As the book of Exodus records, Moses had gone up to the top of Mount Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments from the Lord, and had been gone for forty days.
The top of the mountain was shrouded in darkness so that the people could not see the Lord and they quickly became indifferent to the fact that the Lord was with them. Even Aaron, Moses' brother was caught up in the trap. As Moses stated when he wrote the book of Exodus;
EXODUS 32:1-6
1 Now when the people saw that Moses delayed coming down from the mountain, the people gathered together to Aaron, and said to him, “Come, make us gods that shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.”
2 And Aaron said to them, “Break off the golden earrings which are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.”
3 So all the people broke off the golden earrings which were in their ears, and brought them to Aaron.
4 And he received the gold from their hand, and he fashioned it with an engraving tool, and made a molded calf. Then they said, “This is your god, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt!”
5 So when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it. And Aaron made a proclamation and said, “Tomorrow is a feast to the Lord.”
6 Then they rose early on the next day, offered burnt offerings, and brought peace
offerings; and the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.
Note several things here. Instead of giving credit to God for bringing them up from Egypt, the people said "as for this Moses, the man that brought us up from Egypt", which means that they had focused on a man rather than God as being the one who had performed these miracles.
Also, after Aaron had created the golden calf, the people proclaimed it to be their God and
even Aaron proclaimed that the calf was an image of God. The people had made a visible
image that they could see and worship rather than have faith and trust in a God that they
couldn't see.
God, knowing this, explicitly states that we are not to create any image of any thing that we
venerate as a religious item, be it a statue (standing image, image of stone) or any image of any
religious figure of any sort. If we have any of these things in our houses and churches, then
we are as guilty of idol worship as any of the Canaanites or ancient Israelites.
How many people wear medals of "Saint Christopher" around their necks? How many
people keep crucifixes around the house to ward off evil? How many statues and pictures
do we find in our churches?
If you attribute some kind of religious power to these items, then they have become
venerated religious objects. And if you are depending on them for spiritual protection that
is pure idolatry, no different than the people who kept family idols of Baal and others in
their houses for protection.
Webster's 21st Century Dictionary defines "veneration" as "respect deeply; worship;
revere." You can call it what you want, respect, revere, whatever; it is still worship, and
therefore idolatry.
When invading the land of Canaan, God specifically commanded the Israelites to destroy the idols that they found;
EXODUS 23:24
24 You shall not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor do according to their works;
but you shall utterly overthrow them and completely break down their sacred pillars.
God ordered this to break the hold that demons had over the lives of people through these
statues. Every idol had one or more demons controlling it and by worshiping the idols the
people were worshiping the demons that the idols represented. Smashing the idols showed
Israel that God had triumphed over the demonic hordes that were inhabiting the land and
had broken their power.
People seem to have a need to worship a god whose image they can see even today. Another example of Israel's idolatry must be expressed here to make a point which I will expound on later.
In this case, Israel had been wandering in the wilderness after leaving Egypt, and were
once again complaining, even though God had been taking care of them and had provided
them with water and food as they traveled through the barren land.
God, tired of their constant complaining and unbelief punished them by sending poisonous vipers among them and providing a choice between life and death, belief and unbelief. And even in His wrath he showed mercy to them. As the book of Numbers records;
NUMBERS 21:4-9
4 Then they journeyed from Mount Hor by the Way of the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; and the soul of the people became very discouraged on the way.
5 And the people spoke against God and against Moses: “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and our soul loathes this worthless bread.”
6 So the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and many of the people of Israel died.
7 Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, “We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against you; pray to the Lord that He take away the serpents from us.” So Moses prayed for the people.
8 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole; and it shall be that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, shall live.”
9 So Moses made a bronze serpent, and put it on a pole; and so it was, if a serpent had bitten anyone, when he looked at the bronze serpent, he lived.
The vipers spoken of here were more than likely “carpet vipers” spoken of in Roman records. These deadly vipers were nearly indistinguishable from their surroundings and when approached would suddenly leap to waist height and attack.
God spoke of these as “fiery flying serpents”when he told the prophet Isaiah;
ISAIAH 30:6
6 The burden against the beasts of the South. Through a land of trouble and anguish, from which came the lioness and lion, the viper and fiery flying serpent, they will carry their riches on the backs of young donkeys, and their treasures on the humps of camels, to a people who shall not profit;
God saved those who were willing to repent and turn from their sin. However after entering Canaan the people quickly fell into idolatry again as a disgusted king Hezekiah of Judah found out several hundred years later.
2 KINGS 18:1-4
1 Now it came to pass in the third year of Hoshea the son of Elah, king of Israel, that Hezekiah the son of Ahaz, king of Judah, began to reign.
2 He was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Abi the daughter of Zechariah.
3 And he did what was right in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his father David had done.
4 He removed the high places and broke the sacred pillars, cut down the wooden image and
broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made; for until those days the children
of Israel burned incense to it, and called it Nehushtan.
Note first that Judah worshiped the bronze serpent that Moses had made, believing that it had
some kind of power, based on the Scriptural account of what had happened to their fathers in the
wilderness. Israel called it "Nehushtan" which in Hebrew means "a thing of bronze". Apparently
they had forgotten its original purpose.
In other words, Hezekiah understood that the serpent was nothing more than a piece of
bronze, a symbol of the sin of Israel in the wilderness and a reminder of the punishment of
continued unbelief. And yet, just like today it became an idol to Judah and the people
began worshiping it. He also destroyed the idols that Judah worshiped and cut down their
sacred groves in accordance to God's commandment to Israel concerning these things.
Strangely and frighteningly enough, archaeologists in the Middle East are finding these
smashed images and are reconstructing them, and putting them on display in museums! I
have seen some of these images in various Biblical archaeological magazines, and I was
astounded that these people are actually reconstructing these demon gods!
I have had many people tell me that they do not worship the statues that they have in their
churches nor do they worship the pictures, etc. It doesn't matter. Any place that has those items
is in direct violation of God's commandments in Exodus 20:4-6, and Leviticus 1:26 as
previously quoted.
God plainly states that we are not to make any image of any thing that has religious significance.
Ever wonder why there are no physical descriptions given of Jesus, Mary, Moses, or the
apostles? Yet we use our imaginations and create statues and pictures of them anyway!
And for those who say they do not worship these images, granted, maybe you don't, but
others do! I have seen people bowing and praying before these images, especially in
Catholic churches. The very fact that these images exist is in violation of God's
commandments even if you don't worship them.
And for those who say that they are to remind us of people and events, we have the
Scriptures to do that. We don't need statues and images to remind us of Jesus' atoning
death as the Holy Spirit constantly reminds us of that.
Let's look at an example of a modern-day idol, in this case the crucifix.
The crucifix invariably shows Jesus crucified and dead on the cross. Why show Him as dead? Is He not living? Was He not resurrected from the dead?
Read this next part carefully.
Paul says that Jesus became a curse for us when He hung on the cross. As Scripture states;
GALATIANS 3:13-14
13 Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”),
14 that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.
2 CORINTHIANS 5:21
21 For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
By definition, a crucifix would be a graven image, made by man's hands. Therefore by
having a crucifix you have a created image of a cursed thing, a literal image of sin in your
presence. (For those who might take offense at that, remember, Paul states that Jesus
became the very image of sin on the cross.)
Having a such created image of sin in your presence, you would do well to heed God's warning to Moses when he said of idols;
DEUTERONOMY 7:25-26
25 You shall burn the carved images of their gods with fire; you shall not covet the silver or gold that is on them, nor take it for yourselves, lest you be snared by it; for it is an abomination to the Lord your God.
26 Nor shall you bring an abomination into your house, lest you be doomed to destruction like it. You shall utterly detest it and utterly abhor it, for it is an accursed thing.
Scripture plainly records that Jesus became a curse, a visible image of sin on the cross. And
we have these graven images of sin all about us and in our churches and we treat these objects
with reverence! Will we not become a cursed thing like it? Will God spare us from His
punishment for idolatry? Did He spare Israel for their idolatry?
Paul reminds us of an important point concerning fallen Israel and the fact that the Gentiles have received eternal life through grace. He compares Israel to a fruitful cultivated olive tree with Israelites as the natural branches and the Gentiles as branches of a wild olive tree;
ROMANS 11:16-21
16 For if the firstfruit is holy, the lump is also holy; and if the root is holy, so are the branches.
17 And if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive tree, were grafted in among them, and with them became a partaker of the root and fatness of the olive tree,
18 do not boast against the branches. But if you do boast, remember that you do not support the root, but the root supports you.
19 You will say then, “Branches were broken off that I might be grafted in.”
20 Well said. Because of unbelief they were broken off, and you stand by faith. Do not be haughty, but fear.
21 For if God did not spare the natural branches, He may not spare you either.
God plainly states that idols are an abomination to Him, and a snare to Man. And we are no
better than the ancient Israelites whom God destroyed because of their idolatry. Paul said God
didn't spare the natural branches of the cultivated tree (the Jews) and neither will he spare the
wild branches (the Gentiles) if we follow in their practices.
ROMANS 2:21-22
21 You, therefore, who teach another, do you not teach yourself? You who preach that a man should not steal, do you steal?
22 You who say, “Do not commit adultery,” do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols,
do you rob temples?
For those who might say that the above laws are for the Old Testament and do not apply to us
today, take a look at the above verse. We teach that men shouldn't worship idols even while we
have them in our homes and churches, and hanging about our necks.
Shouldn't we practice what we preach?
Now, something that critics are going to ask: What about crosses”?
First we need to differentiate between crosses and crucifixes. As discussed earlier in this study a crucifix is definitely an idol. We celebrate Jesus’ resurrection yet wear objects that show Him as helpless and dead on the cross? Talk about “mixed messages”!!!
What about empty crosses?
This is a tricky one. First of all, the cross in ancient times was an abhorrent, hated and feared object of torture, terror and grisly death. Even today we read about Christians being crucified by pagans and brutal men in the Middle East and Africa. Yet many Christians wear crosses and churches display them on steeples and on their walls. In ancient times such displays would have been considered ghoulish.
But are they idols?
That depends on your definition of what constitutes an idol. We tend to think of idols as images of gods such as Ba’al, Molech, Shiva, etc. Others were (and are) of animals both real and mythical - Fenris (wolf), Hanuman (monkey), Set (serpent).
But idols aren’t only restricted to mythical or living things. Two of the biggest idols today are money and power. The mega-rich are worshipers of money, it consumes their lives and they work tirelessly and ruthlessly in seeking more. As one mega-rich man quoted, “No matter how rich you are it’s never enough.”
And hand-in-hand with money is its close cousin, power. Some people have a pathological need
to be recognized and admired, others need to control and dominate those around them. I have
seen many descriptions of popular party spots being labeled as “the place to see and be seen”.
Politicians, ‘celebrities’, dictators, egotists and the like are possessed by this obsession.
Such obsessions corrupt the lives of those who pursue them and cause misery to others around them. They fail to realize that while they may love money and power, these things won’t love them back. And money hasn’t been labeled ‘cold cash’ for nothing. Money and power can be good servants, but bad masters.
Many Christians today wear a cross to remind them of Jesus’ sacrifice and to publicly display that they are Christians. The apostles and early church members never wore one. They realized that the cross was only an instrument used by God for a purpose, was discarded after use and had no further significance after that.
The wearing of the cross was started some 300 years after Jesus’ death by Roman Emperor Constantine after his conversion to Christianity.
As for using crosses to identify ourselves as Christians, Jesus told us;
MATTHEW 5:14-16
14 “You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden.
15 Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house.
16 Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.
The apostle Paul said of the church at Rome;
ROMANS 1:8
8 First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, that your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world.
Our conduct should show the world that we are Christians. Anyone can wear a cross, but still not be a Christian.
If you attach special powers to a cross such as for protection against evil spirits or revere the cross as more than an instrument which served a purpose in God’s plan, then it has become an idol.
Satan could care less whether you wear a cross or not, he’s not afraid of them. But he does fear what the cross accomplished.
Should you wear one? I have received no clear answer from the Lord concerning this. My ‘gut feeling’ is ‘no’ as I want my actions and lifestyle to show that I’m a Christian.
Years ago I had a friend come up and tell me he wanted to accept Jesus. Sometime later I asked him what had reached him. He said, “I watched you. You had something I wanted.”
Wearing a cross is a decision you must make for yourself. Consult with God and listen to what He tells you.
Something that is often overlooked are objects created by pagan cultures that have religious significance such as “dream-catchers”, fetishes, icons, statues of pagan deities, totems and the like. These are idols even if we do not think of them as such.
BOTTOM LINE:
Any object that is an image of a person and has religious significance or is revered as having
special powers is an idol, a created image, forbidden by God and an abomination in His sight.
God is invisible, and there have purposely been no descriptions ever given of Him or the
apostles, as God knew that man would try to create idols of them to worship.
Something that needs to be made clear.
Statues, crucifixes, medals, icons, relics and pictures of Jesus, Mary, Joseph, the apostles, and "saints" all fall into the same category of being idols, and are under the same ban by God.
Mary and the "saints" can't save you anyway so why have images of them? They can’t see or hear us nor can they communicate with us. Any such communication is necromancy (communication with the dead), forbidden by God.
DEUTERONOMY18:9-12
9 “When you come into the land which the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominations of those nations.
10 There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, or one who practices witchcraft, or a soothsayer, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer,
11 or one who conjures spells, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead.
12 For all who do these things are an abomination to the Lord, and because of these abominations the Lord your God drives them out from before you.
We have heard stories of Mary and others appearing to individuals, but these are demons posing as a departed individual. Some may point to the appearance of the spirit of the dead prophet Samuel who appeared to king Saul when called up by the witch (medium) of En Dor (1 Samuel, chapter 28). “Samuel” foretold that Saul would soon join with him in death, which happened when he fought the Philistines (1 Samuel, chapter 31)
However the author of Chronicles recorded;
1 CHRONICLES 10:13-14
13 So Saul died for his unfaithfulness which he had committed against the Lord, because he did not keep the word of the Lord, and also because he consulted a medium for guidance.
14 But he did not inquire of the Lord; therefore He killed him, and turned the kingdom over to David the son of Jesse.
The dead have no knowledge of what is happening on Earth. Their works are finished and they now dwell in peace and rest, awaiting their return with Jesus at the Second Coming. As such they cannot see or hear us, intercede for us, protect us, bless us or anything else.
HEBREWS 4:9-10
9 There remains therefore a rest for the people of God.
10 For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His.
If you have any idols in your possession, PLEASE, get rid of them! Break them up as God commands, repent of your sin and worship God only! Worship Him in faith, not by sight, believing that He exists and is a rewarder of those who seek him, and a punisher of those who rebel against Him.
Such objects cannot be cleansed or made harmless as they are cursed by God.
Concerning religious objects God had commanded;
DEUTERONOMY 7:25
25 You shall burn the carved images of their gods with fire; you shall not covet the silver or
gold that is on them, nor take it for yourselves, lest you be snared by it; for it is an
abomination to the Lord your God.
And you who have read this are now responsible for this knowledge. What you do with it is between you and God. However I pray in Jesus' name that God will open your eyes to the truth of what I have written here and you will pass it on to others, so that they may turn away from this insidious sin.
Questions? Comments? E-mail: watchmen_777@yahoo.com