Idols: Part Five – Hidden Treason
By Matt Watson
In this series we have looked at how good things turned into ultimate things become bad things. Anything we put our hope in and elevate above God is an idol. This takes the form of things like money, success, power, and glory. Yet there are other more subtle idols that may be hidden. Left ignored they will turn our hearts to treason and hopelessness.
Idols may take individual shape, but they also may include corporate and systemic forms. Government systems, racial superiority, economic models and business plans, even doctrinal truth and denominational dogma are idolatrous when put above God. Tim Keller says, “When an idol gets a grip on your heart, it spins out a whole set of false definitions of success and failure and happiness and sadness. It redefines reality in terms of self."
While some of these things are good, when it grips out heart it turns our focus away from God and on us.
Religious Idols
When we rely on the rightness of our doctrine for how God approves of us, rather than on God himself who approves us through Jesus, then we have made an idol of religion. Make no mistake, what we believe and think matters because it informs what we do, but we cannot elevate the doctrines themselves above the person they are about: Jesus.
When we make doctrinal and denominational traditions into the ultimate measure of faithfulness, we become like the Pharisees. Jesus said, “The teachers of religious law and the Pharisees are the official interpreters of the law of Moses. So practice and obey whatever they tell you, but don’t follow their example. For they don’t practice what they teach. They crush people with unbearable religious demands and never lift a finger to ease the burden. … What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you shut the door of the Kingdom of Heaven in people’s faces. You won’t go in yourselves, and you don’t let others enter either” (Matt 23:2-4, 13-14; NLT).
Guard, protect, and teach sound doctrine, but do not mistake it for your salvation.
Moral High Ground
Similarly, we commit idolatry when we rely on our moral superiority over others as our source of value and rightness. Both Christians and non-Christians do this with various pet issues. Yes, abortions are evil, but so is ignoring a person in need and refusing to help them with the weight of parenthood (1 John 3:17). Ignoring racism is evil and should end, as is looting businesses and destroying private and public property.
In these things we tend to believe the maxim that the ends justify the means. But none of us have the moral high ground. We are all on equal footing as sinners before a righteous God. We are only justified by the blood of Jesus on the cross, and his victorious resurrection. Romans 3:37-31 says, “Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since God is one—who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.”
Stand up for what is right, certainly. But if our morality is not centered on and relies on Christ, then our morality is false no matter how right the cause (Rom 14:23).
Nationalistic Pride
Thankfully we have come to an end of a tumultuous election season. Every celebrity encouraged the public to vote (and sometimes specified who they should vote for). Whether you believe you are making America great again, or that you are battling for the soul of the nation, anytime you make nationalistic zeal your identity, rather than remembering you are a citizen of another nation and kingdom, then you have crafted and worshipped and idol.
We see this most clearly with Jonah. God called this patriotic Jew to preach mercy to the biggest enemy of his people. It would be like if Israel today had diplomatic relations with Iran. At risk with this mission is that Jonah would have been mocked and suffered ministry failure with his people, killed by the enemy, or worse, that they would repent and not be destroyed by God, which is what he wanted. Jonah put his nation before his devotion to God, and made it an idol that he was willing to die for.
Yes, be thankful God has placed you in America or wherever else you live. But do not confuse a national identity for identity in Christ.
Gospel Response
The issue with these hidden idols is not only do none of them bring true hope or satisfaction, but they also do not redeem us from our sins. One race is not better than the other, the moralist is not better than the relativist, the religious person is not better than the irreligious, and the capitalist is not better than the socialist. “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Rom 3:23-24).
Charles Spurgeon said, “Whatever a man depends upon, whatever rules his mind, whatever governs his affections, whatever is the chief object of his delight, is his god,” and, “Man is such an idolater that, if he cannot idolize anything else, he will idolize himself, and set himself up, and bow down and worship himself.”
None of these idols have ever endured the cross for you. Neither money, success, power, glory, morality, doctrinal fidelity, nor nationalism have earned your righteousness and died in your place for your just punishment. They have not conquered sin and death, and then shared with you their victory. And they do not stand before our just Judge and Father advocating for us for all eternity. Only Jesus is worthy of our worship.
Tear down the idols of your heart. Seek out what is hidden and destroy it through faith in Christ. He alone is the way, the truth, our life, our joy, and our satisfaction. Nothing else brings us back to God.