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'Will I Ever Be Free From Idolatry?'

By Dr. Paul M. Elliott
A reader asks, "If a person is saved and being sanctified, will the Lord remove idolatry from that person's life?"

From the TeachingtheWord Bible Knowledgebase

A reader asks, "If a person is saved and being sanctified, will the Lord remove idolatry from that person's life?"

When we think of idolatry, we often think of pagans who worship an idol on a shelf, or people in the industrialized world who make an idol of a car, a house, or a sports figure. But idols and idolatry come in many forms.

God's first commandment is, "Thou shalt have no other gods before Me" (Exodus 20:3). When a Pharisee asked Jesus, "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?" our Lord answered without hesitation: " 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets" (Matthew 22:37-40).

The moral law of God leaves no room for idols in our relationships with God or man. An idol is anything that usurps the place of God in the life of the Christian. Nothing else in the law of God covers so much territory as this!

I have known people who made an idol of their vocation, or their children, or education. A person can make an idol of food. I have known people who made an idol of their own pastor, or a popular radio or television preacher. Churches can make an idol of tradition. I have known people who have made an idol of their church's confession of faith, effectively placing it above the Bible. The fact is, there is not anything, either physical or intellectual, that cannot become an idol if we are not careful.

Today much of the religious world worships idols. Some time ago I saw a picture in a news magazine of hundreds of thousands of people, standing in a river in India to worship a Hindu sun god. In late 2013, this news report came from Moscow:

Braving freezing cold temperatures and ice-covered sidewalks, tens of thousands of Russians stood in line Wednesday to see and kiss a newly arrived relic of the Virgin Mary in Russia's largest Orthodox cathedral.

The Virgin Mary's Cincture, a belt that [Catholics and Orthodox] believe was worn by Jesus' mother, was brought to Russia last month from Mount Athos, a monastic community in Greece.

Kissing the relic, which is encased in an ornamental box, is believed to help barren women conceive and heal other ailments. [This act also allegedly reduces time in purgatory for Roman Catholics.]

The line of people, mostly women, waiting to enter the golden-domed Christ the Savior Cathedral stretched for 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) along the Moscow River despite temperatures that dropped to below minus 5 Celsius (23 Fahrenheit).

Police officers announced through bullhorns that it will take worshippers 24 hours to get to the relic as the line swelled to tens of thousands.

Hundreds of buses brought pilgrims from other Russian cities. Some 150 buses were parked along the embankment with their engines running so the faithful could get warm as they waited. The city provided free tea and food and put up portable toilets.
Some 1,500 police officers were deployed to prevent people from cutting in line.

Traffic in central Moscow has been snarled since the relic first went on display Saturday. By Wednesday afternoon, as many as 300,000 people had seen the relic, which will remain on display through Sunday.

The St. Andrew's Foundation, which brought the relic to Russia, said it was viewed by 2 million people in 14 other cities before arriving in Moscow.1

Idolatry is truly everywhere and takes every imaginable form. This is why Scripture speaks of the Christian's warfare against idolatry as ongoing and never-ending. First Corinthians 10 tells us that idolatry is a constant temptation, and Paul says, "Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry" - in the original language, "be fleeing" - continually, whenever the temptation arises. At the end of his first epistle, John says to believers, "Little children, keep (literally, keep on keeping) yourselves from idols" (1 John 5:21).

Yes, God will ultimately, completely, and forever remove idolatry from the life of the believer, when we see Christ face to face and we are fully like Him (1 John 3:2). But we can never claim that we have complete and final victory over any sin, including idolatry, while we are still in this present evil world. We dwell in the presence of sin to the very end of our days, and Satan will never stop trying to cause us to stumble as long as we live in this world. We must be ever on our guard against idolatry.

But while we are in this world we can be confident that Christ's Spirit is at work, sanctifying and cleansing true believers with the washing of water by the Word (Ephesians 5:26). Christ will, without a shadow of a doubt, present us to Himself spotless and faultless - free from idolatry, free from every sin - on that great day when we are with Him forever.

References:

  1. "Tens of Thousands of Russians Brave Cold, Line Up to See Newly Arrived Virgin Mary's Belt," Associated Press, 11/23/2011, as viewed at the Washington Post online at http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/tens-of-thousands-of-russians-brave-cold-line-up-to-see-newly-arrived-virgin-marys-belt/2011/11/23/gIQA1CjgoN_story.html

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