Everything is Idolatry

Well, this is post #599. Tomorrow will be the BIG 600! I am looking forward to that one since I already know what I will be talking about and am really looking forward to studying out the subject matter. Well, onto today's QT, which is just as interesting.
I haven't ever studied out idolatry before and that is what makes is so very interesting to me. I know a lot of what God says on it, but I haven't ever put it into a QT, or at least that I can recollect.
Now, I put idolatry behind everything else so that it encompasses all the sins in Galatians. I did that because every sin is a form of idolatry, or at least I believe it is. With drunkenness, it is either the "bottle" that is the idol (the addiction), or it is a form of self before God and that my comfort is more important than anything God can provide. Fits of rage would be more of I can handle this and God can't. Each thing is a self-righteous action that ends back to idoling myself or a lack of trust in God and more trust in something other than God. Witchcraft is putting more trust in tarot cards and the answers they provide than the answers God can provide. But enough of what my observations, let's see what the Bible says on idolatry.

Jesus spoke a lot from Deuteronomy... here is a passage on Idolatry from Deuteronomy.

Deuteronomy 4:15-31

You saw no form of any kind the day the LORD spoke to you at Horeb out of the fire. Therefore watch yourselves very carefully, so that you do not become corrupt and make for yourselves an idol, an image of any shape, whether formed like a man or a woman, or like any animal on earth or any bird that flies in the air, or like any creature that moves along the ground or any fish in the waters below. And when you look up to the sky and see the sun, the moon and the stars—all the heavenly array—do not be enticed into bowing down to them and worshiping things the LORD your God has apportioned to all the nations under heaven. But as for you, the LORD took you and brought you out of the iron-smelting furnace, out of Egypt, to be the people of his inheritance, as you now are.

The LORD was angry with me because of you, and he solemnly swore that I would not cross the Jordan and enter the good land the LORD your God is giving you as your inheritance. I will die in this land; I will not cross the Jordan; but you are about to cross over and take possession of that good land. Be careful not to forget the covenant of the LORD your God that he made with you; do not make for yourselves an idol in the form of anything the LORD your God has forbidden. For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.

After you have had children and grandchildren and have lived in the land a long time—if you then become corrupt and make any kind of idol, doing evil in the eyes of the LORD your God and provoking him to anger, I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you this day that you will quickly perish from the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess. You will not live there long but will certainly be destroyed. The LORD will scatter you among the peoples, and only a few of you will survive among the nations to which the LORD will drive you. There you will worship man-made gods of wood and stone, which cannot see or hear or eat or smell. But if from there you seek the LORD your God, you will find him if you look for him with all your heart and with all your soul. When you are in distress and all these things have happened to you, then in later days you will return to the LORD your God and obey him. For the LORD your God is a merciful God; he will not abandon or destroy you or forget the covenant with your forefathers, which he confirmed to them by oath.

The definition for what God calls an idol is anything other than God. If I turn to worship an image, whether it be money, women, or a car, than I am idolizing. It is that simple. If I put more trust in a brother or sister in the church instead of God, then that is idolatry.

Idol: Pecel (pronounced: peh'-sel):

• idol, image

1st Corinthians 10:1-22

For I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact, brothers, that our forefathers were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea. They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. They all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ. Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them; their bodies were scattered over the desert.

Now these things occurred as examples to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things as they did. Do not be idolaters, as some of them were; as it is written: "The people sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in pagan revelry." We should not commit sexual immorality, as some of them did—and in one day twenty-three thousand of them died. We should not test the Lord, as some of them did—and were killed by snakes. And do not grumble, as some of them did—and were killed by the destroying angel.

These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come. So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don't fall! No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.

Therefore, my dear friends, flee from idolatry. I speak to sensible people; judge for yourselves what I say. Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf.

Consider the people of Israel: Do not those who eat the sacrifices participate in the altar? Do I mean then that a sacrifice offered to an idol is anything, or that an idol is anything? No, but the sacrifices of pagans are offered to demons, not to God, and I do not want you to be participants with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons too; you cannot have a part in both the Lord's table and the table of demons. Are we trying to arouse the Lord's jealousy? Are we stronger than he?

Now, just thinking about this is convicting... participating with demons.

Demons: Daimonion (pronounced: dahee-mon'-ee-on):

• The divine power, deity, divinity (A spirit, a being inferior to God, superior to men)
• Evil spirits or the messengers and ministers of the devil.

Demons are real. The Bible says it is so. I, however, want no part in them. These creatures can do surprising and powerful things. God can do so much more than they. Why would I want to dabble in such dark arts only to condemn myself? Why? It would be foolishness.

Idol: Eidolon (pronounced: i'-do-lon):

• An image, likeness (i.e. whatever represents the form of an object, either real or imaginary).
• Used of the shades of the departed, apparitions, spectres, phantoms of the mind, etc.
• The image of an heathen god.
• A false god.

The Greek "idol" encompasses quite a bit more. So who or what is my God? I have used a number of these scriptures already in this series and here is another one that was recently used.

Colossians 3:5-10

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. You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.

An evil desire is idolatry. Impurity is idolatry. Lust is idolatry. Greed is idolatry. And it is because of these idolatrous sins that the wrath of God comes. It really brings it home to think that an evil desire is idolatry. Everything on the sin list in Galatians is an evil desire and thus idolatry. Convicting. Johnny Out.

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