Subtle Idolatry: The Danger of Idolizing Spiritual Things

What comes to mind when you hear the word idolatry?

Baal, ashtoreth, chemosh, mammon, and other gods that are mentioned in the Bible?

A primitive guy in some indigenous part of the world bowing down to a wooden or stone statue?

Or perhaps worshipping Allah, Buddha, or any of the other deities which people of other religions venerate?

Well, any of these could stand as a good description of idolatry. Idols take many forms. These are the more overt kinds that are easy to spot.

Other forms of idolatry are not that obvious.

For instance, if you look around you will realize people in their numbers bow to the gods money, power, sex, pleasure, self-exaltation, fame, intellect, you name them, every day.

The fact they come packaged as your ordinary day-to-day things makes them a little subtle.

What’s even more subtle is a form of idolatry that goes on in believers’ hearts and Christian circles. Now that it’s hard to spot in self let alone in another person, many well-meaning Christians may be caught up in it without knowing.   

With the risk of coming off as one on a hair-splitting mission, let me explain.

I think some Christians idolize spiritual things.

That is, they unconsciously put their faith in objects of worship, Christian ordinances, spiritual disciplines, servants of God, and so on, and not necessarily in God whom these things are meant to lead us to or anchor us in.   

They esteem the things of God more highly than God.

I hope you are getting it. Perhaps this Biblical account will bring it out better.

Biblical illustration

In 1 Samuel 4:1-11, Israel and their perennial enemies the Philistines are once again at war. The war was not going their way. Some quick-thinking elders do an audit and think they found the problem.

God. God didn’t go with them.

Acting quickly, they fetch the Ark of the Covenant from Shiloh and send it to the frontline.

Excitement is palpable in the Israeli camp. With the missing link in place, they were confident of victory.

Shock on them! The Philistines served them a resounding defeat. The lucky few sheepishly fled back home while about 30,000 soldiers were killed in action, and the Ark was captured.  

So, what went wrong?

Merits and demerits of the audit aside, why did they face defeat with the Ark present? Did it stop being a symbol of God’s presence?

Not at all.

The Ark had not stopped being a physical symbol of God’s presence.

You just need to read on and see what happened in the Philistine cities the Ark was taken to. The miraculous happenings confirm Yahweh was very much present with it.  

What’s going on then?

I think vs 3 sums up their problem. Hear what they say: ‘… Let us bring the ark of the LORD’s covenant from Shiloh, so that it may go with us and save us from the hand of our enemies’.   

If you look at the language, it is evident their faith was in the Ark, not the God it was supposed to symbolize. They trusted in the object and not the God the object represented.

Little wonder God let them loose to force them to realign their faith. 

Theirs was a problem of idolatry, subtle idolatry.  

Modern-day examples

I am afraid many Christians are caught up in similar acts of subtle idolatry.

Like the Israelites idolized the Ark, we may easily find ourselves idolizing spiritual things and not the God they are supposed to point us to.

Let me highlight some of the ways I think we do so.

Some believers pray but unconsciously trust in the prayer and not necessarily the God they are praying to.

Faith is good and commended, but it’s also possible to have misplaced faith in your faith, not God.

The all-important devotion could easily become an idol if you think it earns you the right standing with God, not a time to commune with Him. As in, it becomes an end in itself.

Studying the Bible is honorable. Yet the magic is not in the mechanical reading of the Scripture but in seeing Jesus whom the Bible talks about in the texts (John 5:39/ Hebrews 10:7).

Some good Christians sleep with Bibles under the pillow to protect them. Now the question is, is it God who protects or the His book the Bible?

Moreover, personality worship has not spared the church. Some believers stretch the principle of honor and elevate their spiritual leaders to demigod status. I dare say, some even worship them.

This misguided honor is dangerous. If you find yourself ready to disobey God’s word to please your spiritual leader, you are on the slippery path of idolatry.  

The sad bit is that some of the so-called spiritual leaders enjoy and even encourage it. Instead of taking care of the sheep, shepherds are actively trying to dethrone the Chief Shepherd (1 Peter 5:1-4)! What a time to live.

Yet others emphasize church doctrines and traditions while relegating the Bible to the periphery. If you are willing to forfeit God’s word to keep some traditions, those traditions are an idol.

A healthy church pledges allegiance to its head –Jesus (Ephesians 1:22; 5:23/ Colossians 1:18).  

Self-worship is also a thing. It manifests in a believer thinking they sustain their salvation through their hard work, diligent service, or even faithful service.

Well, God saves and sustains. If you think you sustain your salvation, then what you are essentially saying is that you are God. Rather, a god.

If after you have repented of your sins you don’t believe God Has forgiven you, perhaps you are trusting in your own works, not God who promises to forgive a sinner believes who repents.

Some Christian groups still use holy water to symbolize purification. Though they claim it is a symbol of purification, how they view and apply it shows that they see it as the agent cleanses or sanctifies, revealing deep-seated idolatry.   

We could go on and on but I hope you get the drift.

You know you are slipping into idolatry when anything or anyone takes prominence over God in your life.

An idol is anyone or anything that takes prominence over God in your life

However good, never let these disciplines, ordinances, things, or people of God be an end in and of themselves.

See them for what they are: helps meant to lead you to God and ground you in Him. God’s providential gifts to allow you connect with Him on a deeper level.

Put your trust in God. Hinge your faith in God alone, not anything or anyone even if it bears His name.

That’s how God designed salvation to work, and it works best God’s way. Idolizing spiritual things will affect the quality of your Christian life and life in general.

The danger

Like any other form of idolatry, idolizing spiritual things is dangerous. For a couple of reasons.

Firstly, idolatry, however subtle, will rob you of the joy of salvation.

Just like you cannot keep all the laws, no matter how diligent or committed you are, you cannot fully keep spiritual disciplines like devotion, prayer, fasting, etc. You will fail at some point.

Woe unto you if you had trusted your keeping of these spiritual things. The world will crash in your face. This will leave you feeling like a failure and the joy of salvation will unnecessarily be eroded.

Not only will you let yourself down, but secondly, the spiritual things themselves will let you down.

Idolizing spiritual things leads to disillusionment.

Trusting the things of God and not the God of the things will result in emptiness. At first, it might feel good as you may feel more spiritual but the high will be short-lived. It will leave you yearning for more.

Like trying to quench your thirst with salty water, it will only leave you feeling dissatisfied and thirstier.

Only God can satisfy fully. You will only experience the fullness of God when you trust in Him and not His symbols.

Thirdly, some forms of idolatry subtly void the finished work of the cross. If anything else is fronted as an alternative means of cleansing and sanctification, it is tantamount to trashing Jesus’ atoning death.

Now that’s perilous.

Moreover, idolizing spiritual leaders opens you up to abuse. If you regard them higher than God, then it becomes difficult to say no even if they are asking you to do what is not in line with the Word of God.

That leaves you without protection. Spiritual abuse is rampant in churches. Don’t become a statistic.

Additionally, if you esteem church doctrines, traditions, and other extra-Biblical writings more than the Bible, you also become vulnerable to hearsay and wrong doctrines.

God primarily speaks to His people through the Bible. Unless the Bible is central in your life, the standard against which you judge every other voice, you can easily be swayed by new winds of doctrine and worse, you may end up believing wrong things.

If any other material replaces the Bible as God’s primary voice in your life, you are trading on dangerous grounds.

Finally, like the Israelites, if you insist on trusting the objects of faith and not God, He may lovingly just let you lose some battles in life to show you the impotence of the idols you are trusting in and hopefully get your attention and draw you back to Himself.

Apart from God, a believer has no path to victory. Join the victorious team by believing in Yahweh, not anything that symbolizes or represents Him. 

It’s said that experience is the best teacher. But this is the thing, it doesn’t have to be your experience. Learn from the Israelites’ error.

These spiritual things are not meant to be an end in and of themselves. They are but pointers pointing us to God. Graces and blessings God gives us to help us grow in Him. 

Exercise and appropriate them as God graces you but don’t idolize them. Look beyond them and see the God they point to. Trust in God alone.

Avoid the other extreme

After such an exhortation, it is easy to swing the pendulum to the other extreme.

To despise and neglect the disciplines and spiritual things altogether. However, if you do so, you will equally be in error.

These disciplines, ordinances, and objects of faith are not impotent or useless.    

As alluded to earlier, the Philistines took the captured Ark to one of their cities called Ashdod. They couldn’t keep it for long though. From the humiliation of their god dagon to the outbreak of disease, it proved too hot to handle. Alarmed, they sent it to Ekron. Well aware of what transpired in Ashdod, the people of Ekron didn’t want anything to do with the Ark and sent it back to Israel.

The Ark did not lose its power. God’s presence was very much present with the Ark, even in enemy territory.

Likewise, people and things of God including spiritual disciplines and objects of faith are potent and powerful.

If applied with the right perspective and within Biblical limits, they are critical tools God uses to ground us in Him and help us in our journey of sanctification.

Only avoid the pitfall of idolizing them. Power is not in the disciplines, ordinances, or objects of faith but in Yahweh whom they point to or represent.

Therefore, don’t get lost in activities or people that you lose sight of God.

Christ Alone

The hymn goes ‘…on Christ the solid Rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand…’

Trust in the solid Rock Christ is. He is a firm, immovable, secure ground.

Trusting in any other thing or person including spiritual things is akin to standing on sinking sand. Sooner than later, it will give way and let you down.

Build your hope on Jesus Christ.

Keep the main thing the main thing.

Focus on Christ. Nothing less. Nothing more. Nothing else.