Idols

For when I have brought them into the land which I sware unto their fathers, that floweth with milk and honey, and they shall have eaten and filled themselves, and waxen fat, then will they turn unto other gods, and serve them, and provoke me, and break My covenant. (Deuteronomy 3: 20)

We love talking about idolatry as the worship of Baal, Ashtaroth and Molech and many others.

Today I want us to look at how it happens as well as demonstrate that many times it has nothing to do with real or imaginary inanimate gods.

God does not call us idolators because we have images in our bedrooms.

God calls us idolators because our passion for Him has waned.

Remember the Ephesian church in Revelation?

He calls us idolators because we have shifted our focus from His worship to our own things. In other words, our things have increased in prominence compared to the way they were before we got them.

That is why I have chosen a verse dealing with our good times.

Have you realised that very few people sink into sin when things are hard? Ever noticed that very few will go the way of sin when they are searching for their breakthrough? Ever realised that very few people neglect prayer during their hard times?

What happens when that job comes? What happens when that spouse arrives? What happens when that business explodes? What happens when that house is completed? What happens when your security is guaranteed?

That is what God is speaking about here.

We will gorge ourselves with the plenty that our faith was able to access for us.

Sadly, for even the best of us, it becomes very easy for us to forget the spiritual connection that opened that largesse for us.

Initially it is simply our preoccupation with that bounty as we are getting fat as that verse says.

Then we realise that we have drifted from the faith we valued so much.

Sadly, again for the majority of us, we realise that getting back into that faith we have drifted from requires a little too much from us, things that may require us to lose some of that fat we have accumulated.

What fat am I talking about?

There are those late evening meetings where clean deals are cut that we would need to cut from our programs so that we can attend the once very key fellowship or prayer meeting that opened that door for us.

There is that golf club membership where government contract deals are cut over coffee that you will have to cut to be able to go for those outreaches that were a very fundamental part of your church experience.

There are those salons with the best hairdressers you must cut because of the gossip, gossip that makes your effort at sharing your faith trash because they are so juicy.

There is that neighborhood you moved to when you ‘arrived’ that you must cut because of their requirement for membership to fund questionable projects.

There is that friend you met on your way up whose innovativeness accelerated that climb you must shed because he always leads you to do things that compromise your faith.

Some of these are monumental, especially because they are rubbing your new status very roughly. Yet these come toward the end of your lostness.

The shift occurs subtly, many times in very small unnoticeable ways.

When you were a junior, you preferred a disciplinary letter to leaving the office late for that prayer meeting.

But as the boss, it becomes difficult to hurry a junior who pleads a few more minutes to finalise a report you may need in the next few days.

When you were searching, nothing could get you to the office on Sunday. But as the overall boss, some investors or partners tell you that they are only available on Sunday for that essential meeting. Pleading with you to allow them just that one time.

You hated what you knew about golf membership. But then you were offered that membership without requesting. Then they pleaded you to go just one time before deciding to shove it aside and you found the abundance of opportunities and networks that were in that club.

I am sure someone is wondering why I am talking about those high fliers.

But I will also reach out to you who is not that up there.

How did you start sampling alcohol? I am sure you did not decide that from this time I want to become a drunkard, or even take a sip.

Yet you are now imbibing.

It started subtly. You were probably invited by a friend or workmate for an innocent party just next to the office and then, somehow, you were softly but forcefully drawn to sample what now obsesses you.

How did you become a sex maniac? Again, nothing was black and white. One thing led to another so slowly that you did not notice anything wrong.

What am I saying? Nobody stops being on fire for God in one swell swoop. And nobody consciously chooses to turn his heart from God.

But we do it. We have been doing it since Adam.

Let us start with Adam.

Adam has a very good relationship with God.

Then the blessing comes. And with this blessing comes choices.

The blessing became more important for Adam than his relationship with God.

It becomes very hard, nay impossible, to disappoint the wife God gave him and he gets into sin.

Then he discovers his nakedness and has to hide from God, the giver of that wife.

His wife had thus become an idol.

I hope you are getting my drift so far.

I will be building on this in a later post