The Danger of Idolatry

Meditation on Psalm 16:4

“Those who run after other gods will suffer more and more.  I will not pour out libations of blood to such gods or take up their names on my lips.” 

In comparison to the ‘holy people in the land,’ the author of this Psalm recognizes the danger of idolatry: “Those who run after other gods will suffer more and more.”

Why will they suffer?

In the very beginning God created man and woman in his image and in his likeness.  Humanity is or rather was supposed to reflect and represent God upon this earth.  When a man serves, obeys and worships the Lord, he is a reflected image of God towards all creation including other people.  However, when sin entered into the human race though the disobedience of the one command, the image of God within us was marred and twisted.  It was no longer a clear reflection or image of who God is.   

When a person worships another god and bows down to an idol, it further defiles the image of God within them and will ultimately lead to that person’s destruction.  The first two commandments instruct us not to have any other gods before the Lord or to make any graven images (idols).  The reason the Lord God gives is this: “for I…am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents…but showing love to a thousand generations.”  God is jealous of us.  He created us in his image and likeness.  He fashioned us in our mother’s womb and thus owns us.  When a person bows down to an idol to worship it or bows down to another god such as television, the internet or work or a hobby, or anything else that takes God’s place, God is jealous of us.

How will those who hasten after other gods suffer? 

1) Idolaters become like what they worship.  Perhaps you’ve heard the proverb, ‘You are what you eat.’  This is a metaphorically true statement.  If a man decides to eat fast food for a year, he will most likely begin to look like a hamburger.  He will be a little sluggish and feel sick to his stomach a lot of times.  If a man, however, decides to eat healthy then he will look and feel good. 

On a more important note, a person becomes like what he or she worships.  In comparison to the Lord God, the author of Psalm 115 says, “But their idols are silver and gold, made by human hands…those who make them will be like them, and so will all trust in them” (4-8).   People who make and trust in idols become like them.  In a couple other places in the Bible God says, “They followed worthless idols and themselves became worthless” (2 Kings 17:15; Jeremiah 2:5).  If a man bows down to another god or goddess, he will become like the idol—ignorant and worthless.  All we have to do is consider the influence of television in this generation to see this take place.  Television has portrayed violence, drugs and sexual immorality as cultural norms.  The generation that has grown up ‘in front of’ the television is becoming like what they see.

2) Idolatry defiles a person and land.  The Lord cries out through Ezekiel 20:31 “you continue to defile yourselves with all your idols to this day” (20:31) and also informs them of their judgment: “So I poured out my wrath on them because they had shed blood in the land and because they had defiled it with their idols” (36:18).  The word defiles simply means to make ‘unclean’ or perhaps we could say to make dirty.  Perhaps the reason why idolatry pollutes a man, woman or land is because it further stains and makes unclean the image of God in a person or nation’s life.  The person becomes less and less like the true God and more and more like the vile image he or she worships. 

3) Idol worshipers are put to shame.  The Lord warns the idolaters through Isaiah, “But those who trust in idols, who say to images, ‘You are our gods,’ will be turned back in utter shame” (42:17).  A person who runs after other gods and idols will ultimately be put to shame.  Another god or goddess cannot speak, listen, reason or instruct.  All idols will one day fail.  Compare this with the promise found in Romans 10:11 “Anyone who believes in him (the Lord) will never be put to shame.”

4) Idolaters exchange the glory of God for images, something considerably less then God.  God says through Jeremiah, “Has a nation ever changed its gods? (Yet they are not gods at all.) But my people have exchanged their glorious God for worthless idols” (2:11).  This is what Paul picks up in Romans 1:21-23. “For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.  Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of God for images.”

Let me give an illustration of this: Suppose a husband buys a doll that looks something like his wife.  Instead of spending time with his wife and developing a rich relationship with her, he spends all his time with this doll.  He has exchanged the glory of his wife in all her beauty and love for something that cannot respond to his devotion to her.  Or vice versa, suppose a wife buys a doll that looks like her husband and spends time with it.  The husband would grow jealous and want his wife to spend time with him, not the doll.  In a small way, this is what humans have done to God.  God is so much greater, more glorious and more wonderful then we can possibly imagine and people settle for so much less. 

5) Finally, idolaters are punished.  In just a few verses of the Bible, God warn us of the punishment decreed against idolaters: God says through Ezekiel about idolaters, “I will set my face against them and make them an example and a byword.  I will remove them from my people” (14:8).  Paul warns God’s people in several letters about idolatry: “Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God?  Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters…will inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Corinthians 6:9).  “Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry.  Because of these, the wrath of God is coming” (Colossians 3:5-6). The final book of the Bible condemns all idolaters to the Lake of Fire.  “But the cowardly…the idolaters and all liars—they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur.  This is the second death” (Revelation 21:8).  This is the ultimate doom and suffering for those who seek after other gods.

The author of this Psalm recognized that idolaters suffer; therefore, he refuses to ‘pour out libations of blood’ to another god or goddess.  This was simply a ritual act of worship in the ancient days.  He goes so far as to refuse to mention the names of other gods or goddesses on his lips. He wanted nothing to do them because he recognized those who run after them suffer more and more. 

Let all who read this (including myself) take heed lest we put something else in front of the Lord our God, the Creator of the heavens and the earth!