We are now well into the third week of the new year. I cannot speak for you but for me, this year is unlike any other year in the past I can remember. I say this because I have not heard in the news nor on the television about making new year resolutions. No one on our staff has talked about them either. What about you? Year after year around January 1st, I hear people talk excitedly about their determination to eat healthier foods, visit the gym, quit smoking, read the Bible more often, etc. in the new year. But this year? Crickets. It is very strange to me. Are Americans really feeling so tired and unmotivated to even make new year resolutions? Or are we simply too busy to make them? Or is it something else entirely?
If you have not yet made any new year resolutions and would like me to offer you a suggestion, have you considered making the new year resolution to not worship idols in 2024? Worshipping idols? Wait, what? Why, that seems too absurd a suggestion. When was the last time anyone fashioned physical images or icons out of metal or wood, and worship them in the modern world? There was that golden calf incident, but that happened a very long time ago. We are Christians living in the New Testament age, and no one makes and worships idols anymore. And if no one makes and worships idols, it is a pointless new year resolution. While it may be a true statement no one makes idols, and worships them, today, are we confident we are not doing something similar, if not equivalent, to how the Israelites worshipped idols, and sinning against God? The words, “idol” and “idolatry” did not go away from our Bibles when we left the Old Testament. They continued to appear in the New Testament so it means we must keep an eye on it. None of us may be shaping metallic or wooden statues in our garages, but are we positively sure we are not in some way, worshipping idols too?
Please consider with me what you and I already know from the Old Testament what God thinks about idol worship. God made it clear to the Israelites in the wilderness they were not to have anything to do with worshipping idols. The commandment to not make, worship, or serve idols is second place only to the first commandment to not have any gods besides the Lord. It is that important.
Exodus 20.4–5a
You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. You shall not worship them or serve them.
My current devotions in the mornings take me to the Book of 1 Kings. Every time I read through 1 Kings, I brace myself to again read what kings, both of Israel and Judah, had done to provoke God to anger. Some killed their own family members. Others copied what the surrounding nations did and engaged in detestable practices. Others loved the women from the surrounding nations and took them as wives. Still others ignored messages from God’s prophets. Chapter after chapter, the kings did evil in the eyes of the Lord. Of all the places where it says in 1 Kings that the Israelites did to provoke God to anger, it seems to me God hated one thing a little more than all the rest: idols. Ok, God hates all sins. But Israel really knows how to push God’s button when they made, worshipped, and served idols.
1Kings 11.4–6
For when Solomon was old, his wives turned his heart away after other gods; and his heart was not wholly devoted to the LORD his God, as the heart of David his father had been. For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians and after Milcom the detestable idol of the Ammonites. Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, and did not follow the LORD fully, as David his father had done.
1Kings 14.9
you also have done more evil than all who were before you, and have gone and made for yourself other gods and molten images to provoke Me to anger, and have cast Me behind your back —
1Kings 16.26
For he walked in all the way of Jeroboam the son of Nebat and in his sins which he made Israel sin, provoking the LORD God of Israel with their idols.
1Kings 16.32–33
So he erected an altar for Baal in the house of Baal which he built in Samaria. Ahab also made the Asherah. Thus Ahab did more to provoke the LORD God of Israel than all the kings of Israel who were before him.
As I read 1 Kings, one thing I kept noticing again and again was just how much the Israelites felt drawn to having idols in their lives. What is the reason the Israelites kept coming back to idols? More importantly, what is the reason God seems to hate hearing Israel worshipping idols more than the other sins they were doing? What do you think?