Spiritual Idolatry # 4

Spiritual Idolatry # 4

How offensive this must be to God, who knows, and Who alone knows, the ineffable glories of His own nature! How ungrateful must it appear to Him when He has opened this fountain of living waters for us, to see us turn away from it, to hew out broken cisterns that can hold no water! How insulting to Him to see a relative, a trade, a house, a minister - exalted into a rival claimant for the heart, and receiving that affection, confidence, and devotedness which are due to Him alone! Remember He is a jealous God - and as among men jealousy is inflamed to the highest pitch by seeing an unworthy and insignificant object preferred, so God will, and must, resent our preference, to Him, of such objects as this world at best can present.

Our sin in this matter is our punishment. "They forsake their own mercy," said the prophet, "who observe lying vanities." This is as true of spiritual idolatry as it is of that which is literal. "Those who forsake the Lord shall be ashamed." To turn from God to seek our happiness in, the creature instead of the former, is only to prepare for ourselves the bitterness of disappointment, vexation, and self-reproach! It is to turn from the sun to the dim candle, whose light soon expires in smoke and offensive odor! It is to turn from the full and flowing fountain to the clouds without rain, and the wells without water. The experience of others, as well as our own, demonstrates that, generally speaking, our severest trials, our most painful inflictions, come from those objects which we have loved and served at God's expense. It is just and wise in God, as a salutary warning to us in future, and as a caution to others - that our idols should become our scourges!

Creature love, when excessive and indulgent, to the neglect of God, must draw away the strength of a renewed heart, and impoverish the soul of her spiritual wealth and prosperity. To many it is perfectly evident that their religion, under the weakening and withering influence of this undue regard to some worldly object, has sunk to a mere form; they have a name to live, but are dead; and if they reflect at all, it is in some such strain as the poet's -

What peaceful hours I once enjoyed,
How sweet their memory still!
But they have left an aching void,
The world can never fill.

Through the deceitfulness of the heart, we are very apt to be imposed upon by the pure and lawful objects which, in some cases, are thus idolized. Lawful I mean in themselves, and sinful only in the excessive degree in which they are regarded. As professors of true religion, you do not and cannot love and worship sin. The children of this world may do this, and exalt their vices into gods. But many of your idols are virtues - or objects in themselves quite innocent. You may, and ought to love your relatives; you may and ought to value your business, home, ministers, and ordinances of religion; and these things become sinful, only when loved more than God. Here lies the difficulty - to keep them in due subordination to God. Yet the deceitfulness of the heart takes advantage of this difficulty, to blind us to the distinction between lawful and unlawful love, and to hurry us over the line of demarcation.

Let me, my dear friends, earnestly admonish you to give this subject a deep and due consideration. Examine your hearts. Does not the charge of spiritual idolatry apply to you? Is there not some object, or class of objects, that have come between God and your souls? Have you no idols? Has your heart departed from the Lord? Search the mind, the house, the shop, the sanctuary, the world - and see where it has gone, and what you have exalted into a competitor with God. Be faithful to yourself. Is there not something for which God has a controversy with you? Ask yourself what it is you trust in, look to, depend upon, for happiness. Do you indeed look through and above all - to God? Is God your center, rest, and dwelling place? Is Christ more to you than everything else? Is it He that is precious? Is He the chief among ten thousand, and the altogether lovely one? Is He the sun that makes the day of your prosperity, the moon that enlivens the night of your adversity? Is He your riches, your friend, your home, your pearl of great price? Say, dead brethren, is God really God to you - loved and treated as God should be?

Ask yourselves if while you are praying for the downfall of idols in heathen countries - are there none to be pulled down in your own hearts and houses? If while you are seeking the conversion of the worshipers of the Hindu deities, you have not need to be converted from the worship of self and mammon? Be humbled, deeply humbled - for this your sin!

How low many live, as Christians. Seek for more grace to give your heart, your whole heart to God. he demands it, will take no denial, and allow of no excuse for the refusal. In His sight, it is of little consequence by what object this demand is set aside; there is not so much variety in the shades of criminality as many are let to suppose - the object may be be decent, and more lawful in itself, but the affection with which it is loved is still an illicit one.

In conclusion, I say to you, adopt the language of the poet in another part of the hymn already quoted - 

The dearest idol I have known,
Whatever that idol be,
Help me to tear it from your throne,
And worship only Thee!

So shall my walk be close with God.
Calm and serene my frame,
So purer light shall mark the road
That leads me to the Lamb!

~John Angell James~