“Among the sins to which the human heart is prone, hardly any other is more hateful to God than idolatry, for idolatry is at bottom a libel on His character. The idolatrous heart assumes that God is other than He is-in itself a monstrous sin-and substitutes for the true God one made after its own likeness. Always this God will conform to the image of the one who created it and will be base or pure, cruel or kind, according to the moral state of the mind from which it emerges.” (A.W. Tozer)
We have been discussing the concept of idolatry and how man makes his concept of God after his own likeness. The last sentence in the above quote by Tozer is very interesting and very true. Out concept of God does seem to always follow after the person we either are or want to be. People who want to be nice and kind have a god in their imagination that is just like that. Those who are cruel can imagine a god that wants them to kill other people for religious or political reasons. “Kill the infidels” comes from a distorted view of God. It is truly frightening to think that within each church building there are many different concepts of God and those are most likely based on how each person truly is in the depths of his of her heart.
The mean and intolerant god of many staunch conservative sorts is really a reflection of the god that they have in their hearts. They don’t like to hear of how the loving kindnesses of God are new every morning. The tolerant and indulgent god of liberalism is based on the concepts that come from the hearts of the liberals. All in all, it appears that at some point we develop some concept that we like and want to be like and so we conform our concept of God according to that principle and as we become like that concept we think that we are becoming like Him.
The only real cure for idolatry is to know God in truth. We must come to know God in truth because knowledge of a god that comes from our sinful imaginations and hearts is not God at all. Eternal life is defined in John 17:3 as knowing God and His Son. If people are wrong about God, then they do not have eternal life. This is not to say that people have to have a perfect knowledge of God, but it is to say that one cannot know God apart from knowing true things about Him. I John 4:7-8 tells us that all those who love have been born of God and know God. To know God in an intimate knowledge enough to love Him requires us to know Him in truth.
What does God command His people? They are to love Him with all of their heart, mind, soul, and strength. He loves it when His people know Him and hates it when they distort who He is. The Israelites were commanded over and over to know their God. They were not to boast in their learning or their strength, they were to boast in the Lord. There will never be any obedience to God without knowing God and a knowledge of God. It does not matter how moral or religious a person is, that person is an idolater if he or she does not know God in truth. What a job preachers have in trying to stir people up beyond their morality and outwardly good actions. People must see the idolatry that is latent in each heart apart from the Spirit opening a person’s eyes to see the glory of God.
Jesus Christ is the only way to know God. Christ is the perfect image of God and the very outshining of the glory of God. He came and was the temple of the glory of God and as such He revealed the truth of God to all who will turn from their idolatrous ways and turn to Him by grace. Our churches are flooded with people with idolatrous concepts of God and of Jesus Christ. Preachers and teachers must preach and teach with the stated goal of getting people to see their own hearts in the light of His glory. There will be no true revival or true reformation in our land or any other apart from the truth of the glory of God dwelling the hearts through Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit. The idols in the hearts of people now must be torn down and crushed into dust so that the reign and rule of God will be restored.
A church that wants Christ to reign there needs to be as serious about casting out idols from the hearts of the people as King Josiah was about getting rid of idols in the land in his day. Two things never go together and in fact one always grows to the degree that the other falls. Those two are idolatrous hearts and the knowledge of God in truth. Idolatrous hearts must see its idols in false ideas about God and be turned from those in order to have the true knowledge of God living in hearts. We live in a day where the knowledge of God is low and idolatrous hearts are given over to sin. There will have to be a lot of teaching on the glory of God and of true repentance for this to change. We should also be careful not to teach just an academic view of God but to preach and teach the glory of God as that alone sets out the truth of who God is. God will not be mocked.
God Loves... Himself 
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