Modern day false idols
What are the false idols of today that take the place of the Baals, Molochs, Astartes?
It's tempting to say money, sex, fame. But they aren't really idols. They are staple temptations of the devil's kingdom, worldly honor, worldly pleasure, worldly gain.
But an idol is something that a human being in rebellion to their Creator puts in the place of their Creator; and is something they go to to ease their troubled conscience. Something they sacrifice things to as well.
There are more subtle false idols than merely money, sex, and fame.
Left-wing politics is a false idol. Worship of the state. Marxism, communism, socialism. Environmentalism is a false idol. Worship of the earth. Nature. Multiculturalism is a false idol. Worship of the 'noble savage.' Typically unaware of their condescension of course.
The left-wing 'liberal' (and you just have to be born to be a left-wing 'liberal') comes to these false idols with their troubled consciences ready to make sacrifices.
They will sacrifice their individuality (and everyone else's) to the state. Their freedom. Their labor. Their money. Of course not realizing it will actually take 'all' of those things, eventually. They will then, in the extreme tyrannies they set up, sacrifice millions of their fellow human beings in state-approved acts of genocide. Human sacrifice. Abortion as well.
They will sacrifice their freedom to nature and environmentalism. Sacrifice their money, their economy, free markets.
They will sacrifice their culture and civilization and the safety of their neighborhoods to the worship of the 'noble savage' under the dogma of multiculturalism.
They sacrifice their time, money, words, concern. This salves their uneasy conscience.
The false idol replaces God. Replaces their Creator. Yet they still need to be made to feel ease for their uneasy conscience, so the false idol takes care of that as well.
Their vanity, worldly pride, and rebellious self-will, their rebellion to their Creator in general won't allow them to approach God. They switch the creation for the Creator and engage in practices as wicked and dumb as anything that went on among the Israelites and surrounding nations of Israel in their worship of their Baals and Molochs et al.
I make the point that modern day Reformed academics have forgotten about the subject of spiritual warfare (I use Reformed academics as an example because for whatever it's worth they do carry on the tradition of the most on-the-mark - biblical - school of doctrine). They don't include it in their modern systematic theologies and other books like the first and second and third generation reformers did. They don't value it as something a Christian needs to know about and be able to practice. The same with the teaching on false idols. They don't go near the subject. And they are, as a class of human beings, pretty much monolithically left-wing in their political understanding (or lack thereof). If they are not passionate left-wing 'liberals' they are certainly quicker to mock conservatives and foundational elements of classical liberal society (classical liberalism being true conservatism). You don't have to be around them in their environments very long to see this. It is deemed 'ok' in their environments. Their fear of man is not threatened when they mock such things. It's safe in the eyes of the world to be left-wing 'liberal.' I.e. they don't talk about false idols or spiritual warfare because they would have to face up to their own false idols and current state of being happy prisoners to the devil's kingdom. Or happy denizens of Bunyan's Village of Morality.
5 Comments:
Your insanity has again been exposed to the light of day. You really need to keep taking your meds on regular basis. This is a bad witness. You just show yourself to be superstitious and unstable and you ought to stop.
Nothing will cause a hardened soul to repent. Or even be self-reflective for a moment. Jesus could appear before you critical text priests and disabuse you of your Romanist industry, and you'd say: "Holy Jesus, we follow you, but you are wrong on this one..."
An aside, in White's post he puts in quotes words I didn't write:
>with a "womanishly tone" (wha?)
I wrote:
"As White in his liberal, academic tone womanishly pooh-poohs the man for being so ignorant..."
Small little acts of false witness like this are common with White. They expose his buried conscience (something a regenerated believer doesn't have, a regenerated believer has a tender conscience that wouldn't allow such false witness to be put forward by his act).
White of course is doing the usual 'mocking' of true believers that all false teachers engage in. White is a false teacher concerning the Word of God. Anything else he teaches is nothing in comparison to his desire to destroy the foundation of faith, the authority of the Word of God itself.
BELOW IS FROM A THEAD ON THIS SUBJECT OF IDOLS FROM ANOTHER BLOG:
ct says:
October 29, 2009 at 10:01 pm
Money (or worldly gain), power (or worldly honor), and sex (or worldly pleasure) are not idols they are temptations.
A false idol is something like left-wing politics (Marxism, communism, socialism), or worship of the state; or environmentalism, or worship of mother earth; or multiculturalism, or worship of the ‘noble savage.’
These things don’t just replace God, they are sacrificed to (including human sacrifice) and they make the worshipers conscience feel easy. These false idols forgive their worshipers.
It’s difficult for modern day Christians to see real false idols because most modern day Christians are completely in the power of the false idols they can’t see.
Again, money, sex, power: these are staple *temptations* in the devil’s kingdom, they are not false idols.
+ + +
ct says:
October 29, 2009 at 10:13 pm
Unbelievers have a consciousness of guilt – of sin – that they need to have expiated. They refuse to approach God or the only Mediator between man and God, so they set up a false god.
Molech and Baal were not temptations.
Worship of the state is not a temptation. It is a god that is sacrificed to and that gives expiation to a sense of guilt and sin.
The Hollywood ‘liberal’ who makes a ton of money then gets involved in left-wing politics and issues is looking for expiation and is seeking a god to perform that for him/her.
They will sacrifice their freedom to these false gods. Their individuality. Regarding multiculturalism they will sacrifice their culture and civilization and the very safety of the neighborhoods (the ‘noble savage’ can do no wrong, in fact the more the ingratitude, the more the violence, the more the hatred and contempt directed to the false idol worshipers' culture the more the false idol worshiper will feel expiated for their ’sacrifice.’
People will sacrifce humans to the state. Genocide. In some cases when abortion is a dogma in a person’s mind it becomes human sacrifice.
Money, power, and sex doesn’t expiate the innate sense of guilt and sin in a person. They are not false idols, they are temptations.
Interesting a modern Reformed author would write a whole book on idols and get it so wrong. This is because Reformed Christians have forgotten about subjects like false idols (spiritual warfare would be another).
Read John Owen’s Biblical Theology to learn about false idols and the worship of false idols.
+ + +
Chris Donato says:
October 30, 2009 at 7:25 am
“Money, power, and sex doesn’t expiate the innate sense of guilt and sin in a person.”
Spoken by a true pietist. Not trying to start anything here, just thinking that maybe this could only be said by someone who hasn’t wantonly pursued money, power, or sex with any seriousness.
Money, power, and sex are in themselves neutral; they are not inherently temptations. I think what needs to be said here is that the self—the narcissistic self—becomes divinized, and things like money, power, and sex are pursued precisely because the self must be satiated at all costs. But then these things end up ruling the self. And so the once-bloated, narcissistic self finds itself serving those things—incessantly, darkly, chaotically. Thus money, power, and sex have become little gods themselves, doling out expiation but for a moment. And the cycle continues.
+ + +
- continued below -
- continued from above -
ct says:
October 30, 2009 at 9:44 am
Chris Donato, calling me a pietist (however one hazily defines that) might make you feel good, but Christians used to know what false idols are and they are not temptations. Left-wing politics is not a temptation for a Hollywood actor, it’s a false idol that expiates their innate sense of sin and guilt. Talk about pious, see how the false idol worshiper piously goes about making their sacrifices to their idol.
What will confuse the modern day Christian is the mention of politics. Modern day Christians operate from the Soviet-Nazi myth that there is a left-right in politics. No, there is tyranny and there is liberty. Liberty is from God.
+ + +
ct says:
October 30, 2009 at 10:09 am
>Thus money, power, and sex have become little gods themselves, doling out expiation but for a moment.
Money, power, sex, to whatever degree you are satyriconing it, or Wall Streeting it, or local bar-ing it, or Mafia-ing it, gang land-ing it, bud, does not expiate the innate sense of sin and guilt an unbeliever has. And nothing is sacrificed to it. A hang-over is not a sacrifice.
False idol worship is *religion.* False religion, but religion. *It exists to balance the activities that go on in the devil’s kingdom.* Because people know, innately, they need God, but they don’t want God. So little ‘g’ gods take His place.
Reducing false idols to a divinized self will make you unconscious for life to the false idols you are actually setting up for yourself in the place of God.
I know, you’re used to thinking of money, sex, and power as false idols, and nobody likes to be told they are wrong, or have been wrong. It’s a subject that makes people think they have wisdom when they expound on it, and that is being threatened in you. The world-weary tone you adopt when expounding on it (”been there, done that, people, listen to me”) the knee-jerk accusation that I’m all wet on the subject because I’ve never been Julius Caesar toppling a city while knocking off each of my powerful friends wives.
>Money, power, and sex are in themselves neutral; they are not inherently temptations.
This is a needless distinction and meaningless in the context of this subject. To a person in a vegetative state a smartly attractive woman in a bikini is not a temptation. OK. And notice I added ‘worldly’ before those three temptations.
Post a Comment
<< Home