Inter-Varsity Press

CONTENTS

Introduction: God’s battle for our hearts

Part One: Who has idols anyway?

1. Idol diagnosis

2. Needs or preferences?

3. More and more and more

4. Lust

5. Beauty and body image

6. People idols

7. Religious and church idols

8. Political, intellectual and cultural idols

Part Two: What’s the big problem?

9. Strange worship, glory swapping

10. What idols do to God

11. What idols do to us

Part Three: Idol busting

12. Repentance and forgiveness

13. Adoption and the Spirit

14. A supreme and satisfying love

15. Rest instead of restlessness

16. Spiritual Facebook

17. Submission to God’s will and word

18. Looking forward to the glory of God

19. You’re so vain, you probably think this book is about you

(From the) INTRODUCTION: GOD’S BATTLE FOR OUR HEARTS

When my girlfriend and I had been going out for a few months we hit a rough patch. She was taking her dentistry finals and needed to focus on toothy exams. I was unsympathetic. When

I wasn’t the centre of her attention every weekend, I got angry and depressed in rotation. She seemed more interested in molars than me: my mood dived.

It reached the point where we were almost splitting up. Things came to a head one weekend when I had to fly off to Amsterdam on business. I remember wandering round the Van Gogh museum (not the most cheerful of settings) on the verge of tears. From the hotel, I rang an older Christian friend and arranged to go round to see him when I got back from the Netherlands. I warned him why I was coming.

In Jesus’ place

When I arrived at his house, we sat down with a cup of tea (the British approach to pastoral care) and I began to open up. He listened carefully and asked a few questions. Then he said, ‘Julian, I wonder if She has become more important to you than Jesus.’

I instantly realized it was true. I had made Her more important to myself than Him. I had started to invest in Her all my hopes for happiness and security, rather than in my Lord. I realized that this was the reason why I was so depressed and angry.

Afterwards my friend shared that he had been planning to say the usual comforting words, but that as I came through the door of his house, the Lord seemed to prompt the words which – rather nervously – he spoke. That was my first real insight into what I would now call idolatry: putting anything else in the place that is rightfully God’s and his alone – and then suffering the consequences. Now this may seem very remote from your life: after all, an idol is like a garden gnome and you don’t have any garden gnomes, let alone worship them, do you?

It’s not just me

Since then, as I have read and preached the Bible and listened to people describe their lives, I have seen again and again how idolatry explains us and our problems. I have also found that God is deeply committed to turning us from our idols, at conversion and then progressively throughout our Christian lives, so we will worship him alone. God takes this so seriously that he has committed himself to fight a war to make it happen. That is what this book is about.

A tale of a city

Imagine a walled town in Tuscany, Italy, in, say, the fifteenth century. It belongs to the Duke of Florence. Normally it is a quiet, peaceful place. The market place is bustling with stalls selling olive oil, huge whole dried hams, pungent (but delicious) cheeses, ruby red wine and crusty bread. On most days children run through the streets chasing puppies and bowling hoops. Today is different. The place is full of soldiers and the townspeople are indoors. The Duke’s arch-enemy, the Duke of Pisa, has marched up unexpectedly over the mountains, breached the walls with the help of traitors, and captured the town. Like many Italian towns of the day, it has many towers.

The Pisan troops have taken up defensive positions in each and every one. Their flag is now flying from the highest tower. They are in control.

Under siege

What does the Duke of Florence do? He summons his soldiers and marches to lay siege in his turn until he has recaptured his beloved town and repossessed it. Even after the Florentine troops have got through the city walls and secured the market square, they still have to take back each of the towers one by one. It is a gradual process, but they know they will succeed in the end.

God wants your heart back

Your heart is that town. It has been captured, but God wants it back. He is engaged in a war to recapture your heart, tower by tower, from the idols you have invited in to rule it.

I don’t have idols!

In Ezekiel 14 people come to God for help, but he tells them that they have idols in their hearts.

These men have set up idols in their hearts and put wicked stumbling-blocks before their faces.

(Ezekiel 14:3)

It’s like when you go out and buy a new TV and carefully set it in the right position in your lounge. That’s what they’ve done with the idols: they’ve set them up in their hearts.

What idols?

When we hear the word ‘idol’ we tend to think of football players or pop stars. Pop Idol on TV is all about trying to find new singers or groups to become ‘idols’. Celebrity culture is a bit tacky, but surely that can’t be the problem with our lives.

We may even remember that some people’s religion meant worshipping idols: little or large statues that represented a god (and may even have been thought to be the god by some). And at that point we may think, ‘Well, I like music and football, but I don’t idolize Wayne Rooney or the Sugarbabes; I certainly don’t worship the gnomes in my garden. 1 So what’s the problem?

Beatle idols

When George Harrison, the Beatles’ guitarist, died in 2001 many of his friends paid tributes to him. One described Harrison’s kindness to him when he had been ill. He said that Harrison came to his hospital bed carrying a present. It was a small brown Hindu statue. ‘He’ll look after you,’ said

Harrison and left it on the window sill. It was an odd reminder of what idolatry looked like: investing hope in a carved image.

Idols of many kinds

Very few of us would invest our hopes in little statues. So are we idol free? Not at all. The Bible used the picture of idolatry as a way of describing anything that takes the place of the true God in our lives. Not depictions of the Greek goddess of love Aphrodite, but mental images of naked bodies. Not literal temples where we go to worship real statues, but inner urges for more and more. Not stone altars to sacrifice on, but bragging about the money in the bank and the turnover of the market stall. It’s all idolatry: putting something else in God’s place.

That’s why John finishes his first letter with this terse reminder: ‘Dear children, keep yourselves from idols’ (1 John 5:21).

Idolatry today

In Bible times (as in some cultures today) idol worshippers took offerings of food and drink to the temple. They presented them to their idols, thinking they would please them with choice things. Idolatry today isn’t going to the British Museum and putting a Mars Bar in front of a little clay statuette that an archaeologist dug up in Syria. Idols are not just on pagan altars, but in well-educated hearts. Idols are not just in ruined temples, but in modern homes and offices. The question is not whether you have idols or not. The question is whether you recognize them. …