Beloved, Flee from Idolatry

“Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry. I speak as to sensible people; judge for yourselves what I say. The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread. Consider the people of Israel: are not those who eat the sacrifices participants in the altar? What do I imply then? That food offered to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything? No, I imply that what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be participants with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons. Shall we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he?” 1 Corinthians 10:14-22 ESV

What is idolatry? It is the worship of a god that is not God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And that god may be how some people perceive God but what they worship is not God but a false concept of God. For many people today are distorting and altering God’s image to make him more acceptable and appealing to human flesh. So some paint him as all loving toward everyone, all forgiving, tolerant, permissive, and as one who does everything for us but requires nothing of us other than a profession of faith in Jesus Christ.

Well, if you read the entire chapter of 1 Corinthians 10 (including Hebrews 3-4) you will learn that God, although he certainly is love, and he is forgiving to those who truly repent of their sins, and he is patient, to a point, he does not forgive deliberate and habitual sin and open rebellion against him. For those who rebelled and sinned against him continually in the wilderness he put to death, and they did not enter the Promised Land, and they did not enter into his eternal rest. For God is also a God of righteousness and justice. And he requires obedience and the doing away with sin.

In Colossians 3:5 we read: “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.” And in 1 Peter 4:3 we read: “For the time that is past suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry.” And we read in Galatians 5:19-21: “Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these.”

So, idolatry is the worship of a false concept of God, which then is a false god. And idolatry is living in sin and rejecting the Lord and his New Covenant commandments. And idolatry is lawlessness, which is what habitual and deliberate sin entails. So idolatry is a refusal to obey our Lord. And it is a refusal to make him our only God to be worshipped above and in place of all other gods. And it is a refusal to listen to the truth of God’s word if his word teaches against those who some might want to idolize and worship.

For idolatry is also the worship of people and things which are not God, giving them our undivided and unquestionable loyalty and devotion. For worship is reverence, devotion, exaltation, loyalty, commitments, faithfulness, fidelity, allegiance, submission, conformity, and obedience. So, this worship could be of a people group or of an individual person or of a concept or of a government of man. But it is anything that we venerate above God and above his commandments and that we obey above God.

And God demands that our worship be of only him, and that only he should receive our undivided loyalty, devotion, and obedience. He alone is to be what we worship and give our hearts and lives to in order that we might walk in his ways and in his truth and not in sin, and not in the ways of the flesh. For when we believe in Jesus Christ with God-persuaded faith, we enter into a marriage covenant with Christ, and he is now our Lord and Master, and we now belong to him, and our lives are to be lived for him.

And there seems to be here a reference to the taking of communion which is a remembrance of what Jesus did for us in dying on that cross for our sins. But this is so much more than just a drink from the grape vine and a piece of bread or wafer or cracker. But this is us uniting with Christ in his death and burial and resurrection, by us dying to sin and living to righteousness. And this is what our baptism symbolizes, this being crucified and buried with Christ in death to sin and us being raised with him to walk in newness of life in him, no longer as slaves to sin but as slaves to God and to righteousness.

So, we are not to be those who participate in the worship of idols. For we are not to be participants with demons and all that is evil and of the sinful flesh. So we are not to be giving our undivided loyalty, devotion, obedience, and commitment to those who are not God, and especially not to those who are not of God but who are serving the devil, instead. For we cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. We cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons. For we cannot die with Christ to sin and live to his righteousness if our lives are committed to what is not of God.

So, I pray you will take this to heart and that you will make God – Father, Son Jesus Christ, and Holy Spirit – your God above all other gods, and that your worship will be to him and to him alone, and not to any other gods.

Here I Am To Worship 

Songwriter: Tim Hughes

Light of the world

You stepped down into darkness.

Opened my eyes, let me see.

Beauty that made this heart adore You

Hope of a life spent with You

I'll never know how much it cost

To see my sin upon that cross

Here I am to worship,

Here I am to bow down,

Here I am to say that You're my God

You're altogether lovely

Altogether worthy,

Altogether wonderful to me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaUTv1pXRyU 

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