Choosing Idolatry

Author: Spencer Lloyd

When Yahweh addressed idolatry to the Israelites in the fourth of the Ten Commandments, He did so with very strong language:
     “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.” Exodus 20:4-6 emphasis added
Yahweh says to His chosen people that to carve an image and bow down to it was the same as hating Him. With each individual or family that made that choice came serious consequences—the iniquity being visited on the third and fourth generations. God further drives home the point through the juxtaposition of what happens to those who do not practice idolatry; showing steadfast love to thousands (of generations) of those who love Him and keep his commandments. It seems that the choice would be easy to make; four generations of curses or one-thousand generations of blessing. Yet somehow, generation after generation the Israelites chose idolatry.

Let us fast-forward through many generations of Israelites—some following God, some not—and we find Luke recounting the words of Jesus after the death of the latter. Jesus says, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26 emphasis added). For clarity sake, Jesus was not saying that a person needed to actually hate father and mother. He was using hyperbole to illustrate that the amount of love one was required to have to follow Him compared to the amount of love one had for a family member would have to feel like hate for the person to be successful. Suffice it to say, Jesus was aware of the Ten Commandments—He lived by them; He wrote them.

I believe there is a connection between these two passages. Both the Old and New Testament passages are addressing idolatry. To hold idolatry in the heart, the OT says, is hate toward God. In the NT, Jesus says it will require a love for Him so strong, it will feel like hate for one’s family in order to overcome idolatry. This is a hard truth. The feeling I get when I read this reminds me of the passage when Jesus started telling his followers to eat His flesh and drink His blood. His disciples replied with, “this is a hard saying.” Yet the faithful among them understood that Christ alone spoke the words of Truth. For many, the love of family has become idolatry—holding them in place when the Lord is beckoning them forward. But God accounted for this, too.

In the final verses of the book of Malachi, the Spirit speaks through the prophet:
     “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction.” Malachi 4:5-6
God made provision for the reconciliation of families. The final prophetic word from Heaven before God went silent for 400 years was about reconciling families. This must mean God takes it very seriously if it is last thing He says before sealing up the Heavens until Zechariah’s encounter. God knew the pain of leaving a family member to see His purposing accomplished on the Earth—remember John 3:16? God knew the agony of a turning of the heart for the advancement of all Creation. We must be willing to accept the rending of Luke 14 to walk in the reconciliation of Malachi 4. When we refuse to do so, we are simply endeavoring to finish in the flesh what was begun in the Spirit. Perhaps the great prayer need of the hour is for each called person to be willing to walk away from idolatry in order to walk fully in what God has purposed over their respective lives. In doing so, each of these people will also begin to answer the prayer of all creation for the revealing of the sons of God and position themselves for the greatest reconciliation that will ever be.