What is idolatry?
Idolatry is trusting in created things rather than the Creator for our hope and happiness, significance, and security.
For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened…They exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator.
Romans 1:21,25
The prophet Isaiah once wrote a colorful commentary on the whole industry of idol production. If you want a chuckle, read it for yourself in Isaiah 44:9-20 — but the gist is this: Isaiah chides the ridiculous idea of someone taking a chunk of wood and cutting it in half, using one chunk to burn in a fire and the other chunk to carve into an image and bow down to worship. Most modern readers would agree – it is a rather silly activity, bending our knee and worshipping a block of wood carved into an image. Despite this modern consensus, the ongoing industry of idolatry remains as active today as it did in Isaiah’s day.
A few years back, my children wanted for a PS4 for Christmas. They were old enough to know how expensive those systems were, and I don’t think actually believed that their mother and I were going to splurge and buy it for them. However, partly due to a ‘door-crasher’ deal, we decided to do just that: splurge, and give them the console they wanted so badly for Christmas. Now, I would be lying if I didn’t say that their mother and I took great pleasure in watching them unwrap that gift and jump around with joy, a surprising joy, that they had actually received the gift they wanted most. There is truly something in a father’s heart that wells up with satisfaction in watching his children be overwhelmed with such joy. However, I felt I had capitalize on that moment and talk to them about something so important before they completed the unwrapping and started playing. That morning I sat them down and told them: this present, however much joy they feel right now, it is temporary. It is fleeting. It is but a foreshadowing of a greater joy, the joy that we were made to experience in relationship with our Maker. When they got sick of playing the PS4, or when the new platform came out and made them think that the PS4 isn’t enough, I needed them to remember this moment and this conversation: the type of joy that these material things provide us is fleeting. Temporary. Vanishing.
Tim Keller tells us that idolatry is when we take good things and make them ultimate things. The catechism question above tells us that idolatry is not merely the process of bowing down to something created, but it is trusting in created things for our fulfillment, rather than our Maker. It is so easy to do, as created things all around us provide us with a measure of comfort. And yet, in God’s grace, that comfort is fleeting.
Augustine prayed: ‘our hearts were made for You, O Lord, and they are restless until they rest in you’. If, as Q16 indicated, sin is a rejection and rebellion against God’s original design in our purpose, then idolatry is replacing what our hearts were made to adore with cheap counterfeits. I pray that God would expose in our hearts and minds where we have replaced Him as our ultimate satisfaction and joy, and, as we are being sanctified, shut down the idol-factory that remains in our hearts.