Imagine seeing the world the wrong way round! George Malcolm Stratton (1865 – 1957) was an American psychologist who wanted to know what would happen to the brain’s perception if he could turn normal vision upside down. Wearing special glasses called ‘invertoscopes’ for 8 days that did this, he discovered that his brain could adjust to the upside world and make it seem normal! When he later took the ‘invertoscopes’ off, after a short time of adjustment, he was able to view the world ‘the right way up’. A baby sees the physical world coming into focus the right way up as God intended, but until that child makes the all-important connection with God, he or she will have an upside-down spiritual view of the world. That is a world where ‘idols’ take the place of God so people worship what is made rather than the One Who made it – how crazy is that?
- ‘Man’s mind is like a store of idolatry and superstition; so much so that if a man believes his own mind it is certain that he will forsake God and forge some idol in his own brain’ – John Calvin
- ‘A god who let us prove his existence would be an idol’ – Dietrich Bonhoeffer
- ‘I’m not a universalist, and the way I talk about final loss is this: People worship idols – money, whatever. Their humanness gets reshaped around the idol – you become like what you worship. That’s one of the basic spiritual laws’ – N T Wright
- ‘We call an obsession with having someone’s approval ‘co-dependency;’ the Bible’s word for it is idolatry. A country can be an idol. A family can be an idol’ – John Ortberg
We have all had idols in our lives at some time, things that take the place of God. For some, it might literally be an object of stone or wood which may or may not be shaped into the image of something. For others, it could be something or someone that fills your thoughts – money, sex, power, hobbies, sport, status or even work. Popular TV programmes have been made around the theme of idols – it seems the default for our attention is anything apart from God. We do this despite the sorrows that fame and money bring – witness Amy Winehouse, Kurt Cobain and so many more.
You may have had a clear sense of connection with God but have found that other things have got in the way and now feel somewhat disconnected. It’s hard to believe that when Moses left the Israelites to be with God for a short while, they made a golden calf and began to worship it – these were the same people who had been delivered from slavery in Egypt and seen amazing miracles. This resulted in painful disconnection from God and the loss of blessings. By contrast, Daniel refused to worship a King and was thrown to the lions but was delivered from them. Likewise, his three friends (Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego) refused to worship a magnificent golden image 27 metres high and they were thrown by King Nebuchadnezzar into a fiery furnace – they too were unscathed. The mighty warrior Gideon was incensed by altars and poles set up to worship Baal, such that he cut them down. In God’s eyes, those who chose not to worship other ‘gods’ did right.
- ‘Dear children, keep yourselves from idols’ – 1 John 5:21
- ‘“Do not make idols or set up an image or a sacred stone for yourselves, and do not place a carved stone in your land to bow down before it. I am the Lord your God”’ – Leviticus 26:1
- ‘You know how you lived before you came to know God. You let idols lead you in many wrong ways. And those idols cannot even speak’ – 1 Corinthians 12:2
- ‘So then, my dear friends, run away from the worship of false gods’ – 1 Corinthians 10:14
Would you agree that it would be crazy for a puppet to think itself on a par with the woodworker who made it? True, a miracle if it could think! Or supposing a clay pot were to criticize the potter, if it could – equally potty! That is what Isaiah said. Yet oftentimes we think we know better than the Maker, we the ‘created’ thinking that we are smarter than the Creator. You could say it is defiant, proud or just plain bonkers – so why on earth do we do it? The end result of such dysfunctional thinking is emptiness and sorrow as we try to find something else to worship. We begin to see the world and everything else the right way up when we rediscover that most beautiful relationship we actually crave, that of a child with his or her heavenly Father, the ‘created’ at one with God – now that is fulfilment you’ll never find in worshipping an idol of any kind. We have a deep-seated need to admire and worship – seek the Maker and you will find Him.
Matt Redman comes up yet again with a helpful song for worship:
For more reading: https://connect4life.org.uk/c4l-boosters/portals/