Beware of Idols!
~8/17/2007
Lily was sitting in class listening to the droning voice of her history teacher one Wednesday afternoon. He was going on about the people of a certain obscure tribe in Abooboo who worshiped grasshoppers. Lily scoffed at this. How foolish to worship insects. Gross also, not to mention. Lily was a Christian. She believed in the one, true God. And she knew those who worshiped all those idols, especially gross bug insects, were very foolish, indeed.
After class, Lily went straight to her after school job. She had been working at Burger Princess for two months now. She was saving up for college. Even though she had to miss a few Wednesday night bible classes here and there for overtime, but she thought it was an acceptable sacrifice. It wasn't like she was blowing off church for fun things, anyway. Besides, God understood right? And of course it was not forever. Right?
Today in America, we do not see many people worshiping golden calves or giant statues of kings. But idols still exist. Do you think idols come only in the form of carved images? Today, we fight the temptation of idol worship just as they did in the Bible days. Do you think it was really necessary for Lily to work during church hours? God sacrificed His one and only son so our lost, sinful souls might have a chance to go to heaven. Are we too absorbed in making a few extra dollars that we are too busy to give God our time?
Today there are many forms of idols. Is music so important to us that we have become numb to all the bad words and thoughts that fill most of today’s songs? Do we no longer blush when indecency and lewdness are splashed across our television screens? Are we so consumed in emotion and passion that we cannot fight the feelings that God commanded us to control?
It is so easy for us to scoff at the Israelites when they turned away from God to idols. But examine yourself. Are you worshiping and dedicating your time, thoughts, and life to anything else besides God? Think about it: Has God ever cast us off because he couldn’t miss a soccer game? Has he ever not listened to our prayers because he was too busy watching a movie? Idols can come in so many forms, shapes, and sizes. Be careful and don’t be deceived into worshiping one of them!
"You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or 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; 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 on the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.~ EXODUS 20:4-6
