“Now then, as soon as you hear the sound of the trumpets, oboes, lyres, zithers, harps, and all the other instruments, bow down and worship the statue. If you do not, you will immediately be thrown into a blazing furnace. Do you think there is any god who can save you?” Daniel 3:15
The graphic above depicts the huge statue of King Nebuchadnezzar had erected on the Plain of Dura. He erected this very visible 90-foot-tall image of himself so that the residents of Babylon would worship him.
King Nebuchadnezzar was both egotistically proud and vain. He ordered that on the day of its dedication, everybody had to kneel down the statue and worship it. The penalty fo failing to do so was death in a firey furnace.
The account of these events is recorded in the Bible in the Book of Daniel Chapter 3:
Daniel 3:1-7
1 King Nebuchadnezzar made a gold statue, 90 feet high and nine feet wide. He set it up on the plain of Dura in the province of Babylon.
2 King Nebuchadnezzar sent word to assemble the satraps, prefects, governors, advisers, treasurers, judges, magistrates, and all the rulers of the provinces to attend the dedication of the statue King Nebuchadnezzar had set up.
3 So the satraps, prefects, governors, advisers, treasurers, judges, magistrates, and all the rulers of the provinces assembled for the dedication of the statue the king had set up. Then they stood before the statue Nebuchadnezzar had set up.
4 A herald loudly proclaimed, “People of every nation and language, you are commanded:
5 When you hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, drum, and every kind of music, you are to fall down and worship the gold statue that King Nebuchadnezzar has set up.
6 But whoever does not fall down and worship will immediately be thrown into a furnace of blazing fire.”
7 Therefore, when all the people heard the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, and every kind of music, people of every nation and language fell down and worshiped the gold statue that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up. (HCSB)
Nebuchadnezzar wasn’t simply attempting to be a role model for his people. It was his desire to be worshiped as a human god. One must be able to appreciate the difference between looking up to a role model and elevating a person, the nation they live in, or a group to the point of worship.
It is important for us to have good people to look up to, but our attitude towards them is also important. Do we treat them like fellow human beings with valuable wisdom to learn from, and who make mistakes? Or do we see them as faultless, hold them to incredibly high standards, and worship them?
Babylon was a land in which life was overshadowed by a vast idolatry. What about idolatry today in the 21st century?
People make role models out of their parents, teachers, sports figures, actors, politicians, religious leaders, and scientist, and even human ideologies. But when they are treated as faultless super-humans and when they are raised up and put on pedestals, we are idolizing them beyond being a simple role models.
This is not a good or healthy thing to do, since all human beings are imperfect having flaws and all sin. They are no god and to liken them to God is an act of blasphemy against the true God.
If a person continues to trust them and believe they never sin, they can be drawn into their sin and not even realize it because they trust they can do no wrong.
Let’s examine three main sources of idolatry today: Celebrities, Nationalism, and Religious Affiliation.
Celebrity Worship
A celebrity is simply a famous, well-known person. Celebrity worship—is it more than just being a casual fan.
To explore this question, a number of scales have been developed to assess celebrity adulation. The most prevalent scale of this type in the literature is the Celebrity Attitudes Scale. Using these types of scales, investigators have examined various college-student and community samples. Findings reveal that individuals with high scores on celebrity-worship scales tend to display a number of psychosocial characteristics.
For example, these individuals may harbor concerns about body image (particularly young adolescents), be more prone to cosmetic surgery, and have a personality style characterized by sensation-seeking, cognitive rigidity, identity diffusion, and poor interpersonal boundaries.
Likewise, celebrity worshippers may exhibit narcissistic features, dissociation, addictive tendencies, stalking behavior, and compulsive buying. Studies also indicate that individuals with high levels of celebrity worship are more likely to have poorer mental health as well as clinical symptoms of depression, anxiety, and social dysfunction.
Of note, no study to date has examined celebrity worshippers for bona fide Axis I and II psychiatric disorders. However, given that celebrity worship exists along a continuum, it appears that being on the high end of this continuum is likely to be associated with a number of potential psychological maladies.
(Reference: see https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3960781/
Idolizing Celebrities
It’s amazing how casually this term has infiltrated our culture—and even our hearts. Entertainment stars are now literally dubbed “idols”, and not many give a second thought to the usage of the term so light-heartedly. Do you ever wonder why producers chose the name “American Idol”?
A great deal of how we think and conduct ourselves is learned through observation. Not only do children learn from role models, but adults as well imitate behaviors of those they admire. Researchers suggest that as much as 95% of all human behaviors are learnt through looking up to others as role models. However, even if it were only partially true it is a very good reason to choose positive role models, for ourselves and our children and in doing so, resist the inclination to idolize that role model.
In today’s around-the-clock media saturated environment, many are likely to be choosing their role models from the field of sports, entertainment figures, politicians, or those successful in business without trying to differentiate between seeing them as a role model and seeing them as a super-hero. They find themselves putting these figures on a pedestal and worshiping their every behavior.
The most powerful biblical example of that of Satan. His pride and hubris led him to forget that it was God who had endowed him with everything he possessed.
Note what God said concerning Satan through his prophet Ezekiel: (referring to Satan as the King of Tyrus or Tyre)
Ezekiel 28:2-5, 13-18
2 Son of man, say unto the prince of Tyrus, Thus saith the Lord God; Because thine heart is lifted up, and thou hast said, I am a God, I sit in the seat of God, in the midst of the seas; yet thou art a man, and not God, though thou set thine heart as the heart of God:
3 Behold, thou art wiser than Daniel; there is no secret that they can hide from thee:
4 With thy wisdom and with thine understanding thou hast gotten thee riches, and hast gotten gold and silver into thy treasures:
5 By thy great wisdom and by thy traffick hast thou increased thy riches, and thine heart is lifted up because of thy riches:
13 Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created.
14 Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire.
15 Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee.
16 By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire.
17 Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness: I will cast thee to the ground, I will lay thee before kings, that they may behold thee.
18 Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by the multitude of thine iniquities, by the iniquity of thy traffick; therefore, will I bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, it shall devour thee, and I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee. (KJV)
Rather than honoring and worshiping the God who created him and gave him beauty, Satan became proud, essentially worshiping himself. Self-pride can have the same effect on a human and cause them to seek the worship of others.
There is no shortage of negative role models in today’s society. Western media has had a greatly impacted on people’s minds in a negative way around the globe. The media often calls people towards the doing of evil. This is not a new phenomenon. Nebuchadnezzar was doing just this when he erected the golden statue of himself on the Plain of Dura.
Worship of the State
The cult of State worship is a real thing. This is when a society worships the government over all else. The people are called statists, they have a love of State.
State worship is contrary to the will of God. Nothing in the teachings of either Christ or the apostles calls for love or loyalty to one nation above others. While Christian disciples are urged in Scripture to honor governing leaders and obey laws that are not contrary to God’s will, there is no command to love or have allegiance for any earthly realm or earthly leader.
Paul, in the Book of Romans, tells us what a disciple of Christ duties to the State are and why.
Romans 13:1-
1 Everyone must submit to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except from God, and those that exist are instituted by God.
2 So then, the one who resists the authority is opposing God’s command, and those who oppose it will bring judgment on themselves.
3 For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Do you want to be unafraid of the authority? Do what is good, and you will have its approval.
4 For government is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, because it does not carry the sword for no reason. For government is God’s servant, an avenger that brings wrath on the one who does wrong.
5 Therefore, you must submit, not only because of wrath, but also because of your conscience.
6 And for this reason you pay taxes, since the authorities are God’s public servants, continually attending to these tasks.
7 Pay your obligations to everyone: taxes to those you owe taxes, tolls to those you owe tolls, respect to those you owe respect, and honor to those you owe honor.
Since these human institutions act as God’s servants in maintaining civil order and because they exist according to God’s will, we should be obedient to the extent their will is not in conflict with the expressed will of God. But this is a far cry from deifying a government, state, or nation.
Worship of State has been described as “the most destructive, dangerous, bloody and virulent mind disease in history”. In the 20th century alone, 200 million people were sacrificed at its altar.
Even more shocking is the fact that in both World War I and World War II, the professed Christian churches of Christendom readily aligned its goals of nationalistic ideals. Their thoughts of ‘Christian brotherhood’ became non-existent. Catholics, Protestants, and members of other professed Christian denominations on one side of the war, saw it as their duty to fight and kill members of the same faith denomination on the other side of the war. Catholic priest blessed enemy combatants on both sides of the war!
For these nationalistic combatants, their allegiance was first to Country and lesser to God. During World War I, Christendom’s religious leaders married nationalism and their faith.
“One of the things which stands out prominently in the picture of the First World War is the uncritical identification of the cause of Christianity with the cause of the Allied Nations. “The flag and the Cross,” a trusted Christian leader declared in 1917, “are now both working for the same ends.”
[[https://providencemag.com/2017/09/church-wwi-wwii-christian-realism/]]
This idea is totally out of harmony with the teachings of Jesus Christ. What did Jesus say concerning his kingdom when speaking to Pontius Pilate?
John 18:33-36
33 Then Pilate went back into the headquarters, summoned Jesus, and said to Him, “Are You the King of the Jews?”
34 Jesus answered, “Are you asking this on your own, or have others told you about Me?”
35 “I’m not a Jew, am I?” Pilate replied. “Your own nation and the chief priests handed You over to me. What have You done?”
36 “My kingdom is not of this world,” said Jesus. “If My kingdom were of this world, my servants would fight, so that I wouldn’t be handed over to the Jews. As it is, my kingdom does not have its origin here.”
Jesus himself resisted attempts of others to make him a political ruler.
John 6:14-15
14 When the people saw the sign He had done, they said, “This really is the Prophet who was to come into the world!”
15 Therefore, when Jesus knew that they were about to come and take Him by force to make Him king, He withdrew again to the mountain by Himself.
Jesus is the Master of the Kingdom of Heaven. Those who have allegiance to earthly nations, bow to other masters. Jesus said:
Matthew 6:24a
“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”.
So, it is hard to imagine how these leaders of Christendom could earnestly believe that they were being obedient followers of Jesus Christ. More likely, they were opportunist who used the name of Christ to further their nationalist ambitions.
Their hypocrisy mirrors that of the Pharisees Jesus condemned harkening back to the words of the prophet Isaiah:
Matthew 15:7-9
7 Hypocrites! Isaiah prophesied correctly about you when he said:
8 These people honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me.
9 They worship Me in vain, teaching as doctrines the commands of men.”
They worshiped the State and that is idolatry. State worship still abounds in the 21st century,
Idolizing A Religious Group
A big mistake when it comes to spotting idolatry, is thinking that we cannot idolize something that intuitively seem that it has to be a ‘good’ thing by nature. The truth is that everything that man idolizes is something that he/she perceives to be a ‘good’ thing. A person can easily think that if it’s an attempt to worship God, it has to be good. But this is a wrong and dangerous assumption to make. Let’s examine this idea.
The religion a person practices often falls into a blind spot when it comes to being careful to avoid idolatry.
But the Bible is full of examples of people who either intentionally or unintentionally allowed themselves to fall into the practice of idolatry. We will examine two of these. The first notable example is what occurred at the base of Mount Sinai shortly after God had saved the Hebrew seed of Abraham from the cruel slavery of their Egyptian captors. It is the well-known story of the golden calf Aaron made. The second is when the Israelites fell into the worship of the copper/bronze serpent.
The Golden Calf
The story of the golden calf is widely regarded as one of the most disgraceful moments in Jewish history. In Exodus, chapters 31-32, just a mere 40 days after receiving the Torah, the Hebrew people created an idol.
The Bible tells us about how three months after leaving Egypt, and only 40 days after receiving the Commandments from God at Mount Sinai, the Hebrew people created an idol and began to worship it.
Having miscalculated the date of Moses’ promised return from the mountain, the people thought that Moses had died. They decided to replace him, and with the help of Aaron, formed a golden calf and worshiped it.
Jewish historian state that along with those Hebrews who exited Egypt there were a group of non-Hebrews outcast who accompanied them. So, it was a mixed group.
Because things weren’t happening as they presumed the way they were supposed to, they did not remain faithful to God’s commandments. In their desperation, they sought the aid of the gods they had worshiped previously, and this led to the creation of the golden calf image.
It is also notable that Aaron who acted as the nation’s priest, failed in his role to ensure pure worship of Jehovah and allowed himself to become part to the idolatry.
Similarly in modern times, when things did not happen within the time frame that Watchtower Society teachers had predicted they occur, the leaders and group in desperation deviated from the commandments of God. They rejected the Greater Moses, Jesus Christ, and appointed earthling men as their mediator with God. Their teachings have effectively removed Jesus Christ from his exclusive role as High Priest before God.
In place of Jesus, they have made the Watchtower Organization, Charles T. Russell, J.F. Rutherford, and its Governing Body the objects of their devotion.
We often think of idols as objects of wood or stone, silver or gold. But an idol is actually defined as an object of extreme devotion… a false god. In other words, an idol can be anything to which we are devoted to the point of enshrining it on the throne of our hearts, giving it the role of our supplier or provider.
The Watchtower Organization has become the ‘golden calf’ that they formed with their own hands and now worship. And in their desire to grow in numbers over the decades, many insincere and even godless people have entered among them just as what happened to the Israelites exiting Egypt.
The Copper Serpent
Numbers 21:4-9:
Then the Lord said to Moses, “Make a snake image and mount it on a pole. When anyone who is bitten looks at it, he will recover.” So Moses made a bronze snake and mounted it on a pole. Whenever someone was bitten, and he looked at the bronze snake, he recovered.
4 Then they set out from Mount Hor by way of the Red Sea to bypass the land of Edom, but the people became impatient because of the journey.
5 The people spoke against God and Moses: “Why have you led us up from Egypt to die in the wilderness? There is no bread or water, and we detest this wretched food!”
6 Then the Lord sent poisonous snakes among the people, and they bit them so that many Israelites died.
7 The people then came to Moses and said, “We have sinned by speaking against the Lord and against you. Intercede with the Lord so that he will take the snakes away from us.” And Moses interceded for the people.
8 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Make a snake image and mount it on a pole. When anyone who is bitten looks at it, he will recover.”
9 So Moses made a bronze snake and mounted it on a pole. Whenever someone was bitten, and he looked at the bronze snake, he recovered.
But, by the time of the reign of King Hezekiah, some of the Israelites had begun worshiping the copper serpent.
2 Kings 18:1-4
1 In the third year of the reign of Hoshea son of Elah as king of Israel, Hezekiah son of Ahaz became king of Judah
2 at the age of twenty-five, and he ruled in Jerusalem for twenty-nine years. His mother was Abijah, the daughter of Zechariah.
3 Following the example of his ancestor King David, he did what was pleasing to the Lord. 4 He destroyed the pagan places of worship, broke the stone pillars, and cut down the images of the goddess Asherah. He also broke in pieces the bronze snake that Moses had made, which was called Nehushtan. Up to that time the people of Israel had burned incense in its honor.
It was God by His power who sent the poisonous snakes amongst the disobedient people. And it was by God’s power they were healed. It was not by some inner power of the copper snake God had Moses make. It was faith and belief that led to their being healed from their from snake bites.
Jesus alluded to this fact when he spoke to the man Nicodemus:
John 3:14-15
As Moses lifted up the bronze snake on a pole in the desert, in the same way the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15 so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.
History proves that the Israelites did not put their trust in God but rather into ‘things’. It was the tendency of the Israelites to latch onto physical things as demonstrated in their claim to possessing the “Law,” the holy writings (of the prophets), and God’s temple. Putting emphasis on these things made them prideful. It also made them feel superior as opposed to non-Jews. And having these things gave them a false sense of security, thinking that God would always approve of and protect them, even when they were flagrantly disobedient. Time and again, they were sent into captivity for their disobedience, proving that their false reasoning meant nothing to God. Those feelings still are prevalent today among many Jewish people.
When most people think of idolatry, they imagine the images carved to look like animals out of gold, silver, and jewels, because this is how the Bible described how it happened a few thousand years ago. But what they fail to realize is that we can make literally anything an idol including a religious group. Worshiping something, anything, besides God, is idolatry.
This type of idolatry is common and it begins with the leaders of religious groups setting themselves up to be an idol for people, rather than reserving their worship for God.
When so-called Christian denominations create a culture and an environment in their group that demands it’s members be devoted and in service to them, idolatry is the result.
The denomination becomes a clique and a social club. A group with its own culture, membership standards, and activities, makes for easy idolatry to materialize within it. Membership requires that they be so consumed in group activities that it leads to a disconnect with having a relationship with God. Members out of reverence for their religious group soon find themselves spending all of their time serving group requirements that they lose sight of reverence for God and meeting His requirements.
Your religious denomination/group is not equal to or synonymous with God, no matter what your leaders tell you, and no matter how much you love the group. If you believe so, you are idolizing your religious group.
Celebrity worship, whether it is an entertainment figure, a politician, a commercial success, or a well known religious leader—is more than just being a casual fan. It is being a party to a cult of personality.
It is easy to take on their mannerisms and qualities without being aware of it. They never ask themselves: “Does this individual lead the kind of life that I really want to and should emulate?”
Do we treat them like fellow human beings with possibly valuable wisdom to learn from, and who make mistakes? Or do we see them as faultless, put them on a pedestal, and worship them?
If a person continues to trust them and believe they never sin, they can be drawn into their sin and not even realize it because they trust they can do no wrong.
State worship is real and State worship is contrary to the will of God. While Christian disciples are urged in Scripture to honor governing leaders and obey laws that are not contrary to God’s will, there is no command to love or have allegiance for any earthly realm or earthly leader. No man can serve two masters.
The religion a person practices often falls into a blind spot when it comes to being careful to avoid idolatry. When so-called Christian denominations create a culture and an environment in their group that demands it’s members be devoted and in service to them, idolatry is the result. Your religious denomination/group is not equal to or synonymous with God, no matter what your leaders tell you.
We often think of idols as objects of wood or stone, silver or gold. But an idol is actually defined as an object of extreme devotion… a false god. In other words, an idol can be anything to which we are devoted to the point of enshrining it on the throne of our hearts, giving it the role of our supplier or provider.
Worshiping something, anything, besides God, is idolatry.
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