Destroying Counterfeit Gods
Lenten Devotional Series Day 7. Today’s meditation comes from Exodus 20:4-6.
The first commandment establishes the priority of the Lord over everything else. It teaches that we are to give him our primary allegiance. In prohibiting idolatry, the second commandment is a further application of the first. We keep the Lord first by fleeing from idolatry.
While Moses was up on the mountain receiving God’s Word in the form of the Ten Commandments, the rest of the Israelites were busy fashioning an idol for themselves to worship—the very thing the second commandment forbids. Thus begins the long, sordid history of Israel’s love affair with idols.
The Old Testament is full of stories in which we find Israel reverting to idol worship, adopting the pagan practices of nations around them. The Lord’s response is all out war: idols must be completely eradicated from the family of God. Consequently, when Moses descended from Mt. Sinai, instead of celebrating the gracious gift of God’s Word, he had to lead in the destruction of the golden calf and the purification of God’s people. Or think of the prophet Elijah, who called down fire from heaven in order to defeat and humiliate Baal and his false prophets among the Israelites. Or Jehu, who wiped out the house of Baal and left it as a latrine. The point of all these stories is this: The Lord has declared war on all of our idols.
I don’t suspect anyone reading this post feels tempted to make and worship a golden calf, but we are all prone to idolatry just the same. Anything in life we worship instead of the Lord is an idol, i.e. what Tim Keller describes as a “counterfeit god.” Think of an idol, Keller writes, as “anything more important to you than God, anything that absorbs your heart and imagination more than God, anything you seek to give what only God can give you.” In other words, idols can be and often are those good things in our lives–such as jobs, relationships, children, social causes, and so on–which claim God’s rightful place of primacy in our hearts.
Lent is a time for us to declare war on our idols, whatever they may be. Since we are often completely unaware of the idols in our lives, we should pray with the psalmist: “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me and lead me in the way everlasting!” May God destroy our counterfeit gods, and reclaim primacy in our hearts this Lenten season.
In prayer today, begin with the Collect of the Day (below). Then ask God to search you and reveal your sin, especially the counterfeit gods vying for primacy in your heart. Confess your sins to him, and invite the Lord to empower you for war against your idols. Then conclude with the Lord’s Prayer.
The Collect of the Day. O Lord, for our sake you fasted forty days and forty nights: give us grace so to deny ourselves that our flesh may become subdued to your Spirit, and that we may always obey your divine will in righteousness and true holiness, to your honor and glory; for you live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.