Through a sort of intellectual snobbery, many today believe that idolatry is a sort of sin that only primitive, barbaric, unenlightened people in third-world countries actually commit. Such idolatry nobody in America commits, do they? Fact of the matter is that idolatry is still something that many commit. In Colossians 3:5, the apostle Paul reminds us that greed itself amounts to idolatry.There is nothing wrong with wanting something. We all have various desires which are perfectly good and healthy. There is nothing wrong with desiring to have a nice home, have a nice job, have a nice car, have a wife, have a couple kids, and even have a little dog named "Spot." Greed, however, is more than just simply desiring to have something. When simple desire manifests itself in a manner that dominates, controls and dictates your life, then one has entered into greed and idolatry. Is such not the case? Is that not what happens with those who commit the more flagrant idolatry of bowing down to idols and offering a sacrifice to it? Has that lifeless idol which the person is bowing down to as if it were alive not come under it's dominion, and their behavior is dictated accordingly?Do we need drugs to numb the pain of life? Do we get caught up into sexual immorality and relationships that God would not have us to be in when we are seeking some sort of "fulfillment" in having that relationship to somehow "complete" us? Oh, it sounded romantic when in a movie once an actor looked deeply into another woman's eyes and said, "You complete me." But if we need another person besides the Lord to complete us, and to fulfill us, do we not commit idolatry? Often in our own country the American Dream is promoted as such a wonderful ideal that it often becomes an idol. People spend their entire lives from very early on seeking to live out this "dream." Yet with all dreams, once one wakes up, they vanish.It's amazing the idolatry that prevails our society. When terrorists slammed two planes into the sides of the twin towers on 9-11, they rallying cry of our nation was to turn to the government to bullet-proof our country so as to make it impossible for such to ever happen again. I can think of no more flagrant idolatry than what we find in the wake of hurricane's Katrina and Rita, how now the cry is to build up bigger and bigger barriers on our coasts, better levies, better leadership, and to have better evacuation plans in place. There is nothing wrong with seeking to better protect ourselves and learning from our past mistakes. I'm all for such things. However, the solution to doing such, and to doing about anything these days, is simply to toss billions of dollars at the problem and hope it goes away. Instead of trusting in the Almighty God, who alone can bullet-proof our nation from terrorists, and turn away hurricanes and weaken their strength, we trust in the almighty dollar to solve our problems.But such is foolishness. Think of the foolishness of idolatry. Isaiah exposed it quite well in Isaiah 44:9-20. He notes how people cut down a tree and shape it and form it into an idol. They end up worshipping the very thing they created with their hands. But out of the same tree that a man makes an idol from, he takes the same wood and makes a fire to keep himself warm and to make his food. But the rest of it "he falls down before it, and worships it; he also prays to it and says, 'Deliver me, for you are my god.' They do not know, nor do they understand, for He (God) has smeared over their eyes so that they cannot see and their hearts so that they cannot comprehend. No one recalls, nor is there any knowledge or understanding to say, 'I have burned half of it in the fire and also have baked bread over its coals. I roast meat and eat it. Then I make the rest of it into an abomination, I fall down before a block of wood!"Is that not what we have done in America? We take some paper, take some ink, put it on a printing press, and roll out some $20, $50, and $100 bills. Then we take these bills that we printed off, and simply toss them at all our problems as if somehow they will make everything better. Yet these very bills get gum stuck on them, rip, tare, or are destroyed in our washing machine, and have to be replaced... yet we turn to it time and time again for salvation. However, it is to the Lord that we should turn to for salvation. There is nothing wrong with building stronger and to be more prepared and desiring to have money, but when we put our trusts in these things in place of God, we enter into idolatry. And if we enter into such, even should we make an all encompassing wall that is a mile thick and a mile high, God is capable and willing to display His strength and might, and that there is no other besides Him, and bring that wall tumbling down.Such was the case with the nation of Moab in Isaiah 25:12, where they thought they were secure and safe because they built unassailable walls to protect their cities from invading armies. Yet, God promised to take the walls down, and did. But, God is not wanting to simply cast idols down to embarrass us and expose our folly and exalt His might. Rather, God takes down those walls so that we might know Him. For the walls we put up and place trust in are the very things that keep us from God. The thicker the walls, the more distance there is between us and God. Let us draw near to God!
