What danger is there in worshipping Idols?
Modern man has glorified many sorts of IDOLS (persons or things we raise up to follow and pursue).
— However, to bring it down to basics, let’s follow God’s Word from the account of the Babylonians in the Book of Daniel 5:1-6…
(1) King Belshazzar made a great feast for a thousand of his lords and drank wine in front of the thousand. (2) Belshazzar, when he tasted the wine, commanded that the vessels of gold and of silver that Nebuchadnezzar his father had taken out of the temple in Jerusalem be brought, that the king and his lords, his wives, and his concubines might drink from them. (3) Then they brought in the golden vessels that had been taken out of the temple, the house of God in Jerusalem, and the king and his lords, his wives, and his concubines drank from them. (4) They drank wine and praised the gods of gold and silver, bronze, iron, wood, and stone. (5) Immediately the fingers of a human hand appeared and wrote on the plaster of the wall of the king’s palace, opposite the lampstand. And the king saw the hand as it wrote. (6) Then the king’s color changed, and his thoughts alarmed him; his limbs gave way, and his knees knocked together.
— This is a record of how God punished King Belshazzar and his whole empire for the way they disrespected God and flaunted the worship of their idols of “gold and silver, bronze, iron, wood, and stone”.
— God took away not only the kingdom from King Belshazzar, but He also took away his life. (SEE Daniel 5:1-31)
When I was reading again this account, I was struck with a question…
— Why is God so against people making statues to represent their gods?
Since I know that God is the Creator who loves all His creation, there must be a reason beyond jealous punishment for such an error.
— As I write this I am reminded of Exodus 20:3-6 “You shall have no other gods before me. (4) “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. (5) 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, (6) but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.
The breaking of His commandment is enough of a reason for God’s anger here. As He is rightly offended when we give His rightful glory as God to some false invented diety.
— However, I still sense that all God’s commandments were for OUR BENEFIT, not just to keep us under God’s rule.
So, I wonder, might there be a measure of protection for us in this command?
— For in my experiences with super-natural spiritual forces, I know the dangers that giving worship to false idols can bring. (I will have to recount some of these encounters at another time, for now, I want to stay on subject.)
To dig deeper into the subject of idols, we need to step into thinking in spiritual terms which extend much farther than simply admiring an object of worship.
— In the spiritual realm, which is much more far-reaching than anything of our temporal earthly existence, we find TWO MASTERS. And you cannot escape serving and living for either one, or the other…
These MASTERS are God your Creator, or Lucifer the fallen angel, whom we know better as Satan.
— The difference between the two is terribly remarkable, for God loves you, SEE John 3:16-17 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. (17) For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
— And Satan in a rage against God wants to destroy you. SEE 1st Peter 5:8 Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.
It follows that if worshipping idols is not allowed by a loving God, and encouraged by a hateful enemy, there must be a danger to us in the act of such worship.
— And therein we find the deadly trap Satan has laid out to capture and destroy us…
For in the spiritual realm the spirits of the fallen angels (demons) can use your belief in a false god (any sort of idol), to capture your faith and trap you into a destructive downward spiral. PLEASE BELIEVE ME, they seek to have you enter into communication with them, so as to lead you away from your loving creator, toward a future of pain and destruction.
— I am not OUT OF MY MIND, for if you do any research into the testimonies of people who have stepped away from such destroying spirits, you must come to the conclusion that there is something to this whole business of ‘spiritual warfare’. (Warfare involving attacks on us.)
In conclusion, I ask you understand that this offense of the Babylonians was not just about angering God.
— It was about stepping into a process of destroying themselves by turning away from His loving guidance, protection, and blessings (as had been given to Belshazzar’s father).
— If you know someone who is involved in the occult, or if you are there, please reach out to a Bible-believing church body, and ask them to help you break that bondage.
— If you are a part of a Bible-believing church, do not deny the spiritual warfare that exists within those caught up in drug addictions, occultic worship, or even the making of idols of popular men and women that some choose to follow. ~ Pray for them. Seek God’s scriptural promise that, “he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.”
1st John 4:2-4 By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, (3) and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already. (4) Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.
If you want to discuss this further, please drop me a note using the e-mail forms provided. Praying to our God and Saviour will move those mountains, and our Good Shepherd’s rod and staff is always ready to protect us… So May God be with you and continue to lead, protect, and bless you. …KK