Fear, Idolatry’s Gateway

For so it was, that the children of Israel had sinned against the LORD their God, which had brought them up out of the land of Egypt, from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and had feared other gods, (2Kings 17:7)

This word fear stood out in my Bible reading.

And it was so stark that I stopped and went into the study mode to understand the force at which God had opened it up for me.

What does fear evoke?

How does terrorism operate?

We will most times submit to what we fear.

We know the common maxim, if you can’t beat them, join them.

Fear leads one to submit to the object of that fear.

Many bullies are cowards who use the bullying to cover for their feelings of inferiority. That is their response to fear.

That is why it is very difficult to speak sense to them; unless you are willing to deal with their insecurities.

Allow me therefore to get back to our topic.

Israel was unwilling to completely wipe out the Canaanites, probably because they thought it was too demanding or dangerous. But in time they thought that they had been unable to deal with them as God had ordered.

And why were they to be destroyed?

It was their worship and what it produced.

It is very possible that they thought that they had been unable to wipe them out because they had the protection of those gods.

As a result, they thought those gods were powerful, probably too powerful for their God.

Surely gods able to stop the God who dried the Red Sea and the Jordan must be very powerful. This is what they may have thought.

That then led them to slowly by slowly, not only refuse to deal with their enemies as they had been commanded, but to even express hostility to them. Because they feared those gods.

As days went by, the few people who had the experience of the God of Israel died, leaving generations who had only heard of His dealings with His people.

But those gods were ever present, showing off at any and every opportunity.

Testimonies slowly became folk tales and the scriptures, even when they were read, became stories.

Or you do not remember Gideon’s questions to the angel who had been sent to him?

Eventually, those gods became more real than their ‘fictitious and absent’ deity.

Do you remember the response of his community to his destruction of those idolatrous shrines to build God an altar?

Are you getting me thus far?

My main point is that nobody just jumps into idolatry. They are groomed into it.

Look at witchcraft.

From my upbringing and culture, I trashed witchcraft because I knew it did not exist.

It is when I started to read the Bible that I realised its reality before I had ever had any encounter with it.

That education introduced me to witchcraft positively because I knew that the God I serve is incomparable to it in any way. I therefore do not fear witchcraft though I know and have even seen (probably heard) of its potency.

Now take this person who is a cultural Christian (if that is an acceptable term) who sees someone eating grass because he stole something and the owner took him to a witch.

He will not look at witchcraft with my eyes at all.

It will arouse intense dread in him because he has had no real relationship with God and so has never encountered or even seen God in action.

Do you think he will go to a prayer meeting when something of his gets lost? Do you think he will go to church when someone threatens him with witchcraft?

His default settings will easily lean towards the power he can see as opposed to the one he has only heard about.

That is what happened to Israel.

You see, the devil is the master of advertisement and publicity.

He loves to show off at all times because he knows that is the only way he is able to access followers.

But God never shows off though He is omnipotent.

That is why Jesus was always fighting with the people around Him.

They wanted Him to display His power. He used His power to minister to His people, even telling them never to report the same.

But allow me to set this right.

At the back of that fear is disobedience and/ or rebellion.

Nobody fears who is walking aright with God.

And I will use the Bible to demonstrate it.

Saul has sinned and been rejected. And you can see fear in him from that point.

But Jonathan, his son, is rightly connected to God.

At the time Israel is more or less hiding from the Philistines we see him visiting them

And Jonathan said to the young man that bare his armour, Come, and let us go over unto the garrison of these uncircumcised: it may be that the LORD will work for us: for there is no restraint to the LORD to save by many or by few. (1Samuel 14:6)

He does not doubt God’s power because he has a right relationship with Him.

And he is able to deal them a very hard blow, even turning the battle on its head.

The other person is Caleb.

And Caleb stilled the people before Moses, and said, Let us go up at once, and possess it; for we are well able to overcome it. (Numbers 13:30)

He confidently votes against the unanimous decision of his colleagues and community, even when they want to stone him for that daring.

And we have the young David when he faced Goliath.

What I am saying is that at the back of that fear there must be sin. Fear is introduced by someone doing what God has forbidden or refusing to do what He has ordered or said.

What this means is that when one is walking with God, ultimate power will be backing him.

I will give a story I was told that might speak for probably the success of most missions’ endeavours.

Missionaries approached a tribe and were received well by the elders.

But the elders had no interest at all with the religion they were introducing because they had their own.

However, as we know of Africans, their hospitality is on another level.

It means that though they were opposed to the new religion, they could not reject their offer or refuse their request to spread it.

They therefore came out with an ingenious solution when the missionaries requested for a piece of land to set up their mission station, giving them the most dangerous place, a place where devils were said to roam at will, a place no sane person except the greatest wizards would dare visit or even pass through. Their decision guided by the reality that the demons will hound them out in no time from their domain.

interestingly, the missionaries thrived in that place.

The result was that even the elders were converted to Christianity, reasoning that a God who could protect those fools was way stronger than the one they served. And the mission still thrives, to date.

That is what happened to Daniel and his three young friends in captivity.

I am writing this to let us know that this message is not negative. It only becomes negative when we depart from the straight and narrow.

Fear is therefore an indicator that all is not well in our relationship with God.

For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. (2Timothy 1:7)

Yet that fear is all pervading.

I have been to places where people dare not eat even their relatives’ cooking because they fear being bewitched or poisoned, which is more or less the same thing.

Yet they still profess faith in God, the same God who promises that we will eat poison and it will not harm us.

Yet in those same communities you will find radicals (called fools) who will trash all that fear and thrive in their faith.

As I was writing this I heard of an incident where I stay.

Some people were going to work when they encountered a huge snake.

When they picked stones to kill it raised its head and looked at them before speaking, declaring its owner.

They fled like lunatics.

I have heard of hippos walking through crowds harmlessly, people saying that probably its owner overslept and forgot to order it back to the river or dam.

But this is the place God has sent me to.

The reality of witchcraft has no capacity to dull or weaken the assignment God brought me here to perform. Because it might be the reason God brought me here.

I am therefore not afraid or even threatened by it.

There are spiritual battles I am fighting that I know require my opponents to visit those places to seek power to deal with me. There are even times God wakes me to pray and I can sense some spiritual activity in the atmosphere.

But I know nothing can touch me when God has covered me.

But the dynamic of sin will alter that reality immediately since I cannot count on God’s protection when I am not walking with Him. It will change if I for one reason or the other look for a plan B on God’s orders.

That is what happened to Saul.

And the woman said unto him, Behold, thou knowest what Saul hath done, how he hath cut off those that have familiar spirits, and the wizards, out of the land: wherefore then layest thou a snare for my life, to cause me to die? And Saul sware to her by the LORD, saying, As the LORD liveth, there shall no punishment happen to thee for this thing. (1Samuel 28: 9, 10)

Before his sin, he ruthlessly sought to clear witchcraft out of Israel. After his sin, he earnestly promised protection to a witch in desperation to hear from God.

What I am saying in this post is that we will veer into idolatry and in many other sins and perversions when we lower our obedience quotient, not by deciding to be so.

It is a journey whose first step is disobedience that leads to sin that, if not repented of, will lead to rebellion.

Then, idolatry, witchcraft, homosexuality, and any other abomination will be almost automatic because of our fear of facing the God we know we have offended.

The wicked flee when no man pursueth: but the righteous are bold as a lion. (Proverbs 28:1)

Are we together?

Or do you think there is another reason for the fear that plagues believers?