Idolatry Is Serious Business

Again a message came to me from the LORD: “Son of man, turn and face the mountains of Israel and prophesy against them. Proclaim this message from the Sovereign LORD against the mountains of Israel. This is what the Sovereign LORD says to the mountains and hills and to the ravines and valleys: I am about to bring war upon you, and I will smash your pagan shrines. All your altars will be demolished, and your places of worship will be destroyed. I will kill your people in front of your idols. I will lay your corpses in front of your idols and scatter your bones around your altars. Wherever you live there will be desolation, and I will destroy your pagan shrines. Your altars will be demolished, your idols will be smashed, your places of worship will be torn down, and all the religious objects you have made will be destroyed. [Ezekiel 6.1-6]

What a devastating message! In fact, all of today's OYCB reading speaks of Israel's idolatry and the judgment upon it. Idolatry is serious business.

I want to focus on a couple sentences from the passage above:  

I will kill your people in front of your idols. I will lay your corpses in front of your idols and scatter your bones around your altars. 

I believe the world has seen this actually happen recently but few have taken notice of it for what it is.

For all I have written in this blog regarding modern idols, including both indirect and blatantly direct implications upon modern medicine in particular, I believe we have seen a mirror image of the same idolatry Ezekiel spoke of. Man has made such a god of medicine, idolatrously trusting it instead of God (or pacifying an adulterous religious spirit to say, "God uses it"), to the point that in spite of all medicine's efforts against COVID-19, nearly seven million people died (according to the World Health Organization as of 8/2023).

 I will kill your people in front of your idols. I will lay your corpses in front of your idols and scatter your bones around your altars.

Hello. The same idol of medicine is the same entity responsible for COVID-19.

Our idols today are far more complex and advanced than the metal, wood, or stone idols of the Bible, making them exponentially more dangerous. And, in the prevailing abundance of contemporary knowledge, the idol of medicine is undetectable to all but those intently sensitive to God's attitude towards anything or anyone man trusts along with or besides Him.

God demands undivided trust in Him alone!

You must not have any other god but me. [Exodus 20.3]

What do we do?

He said to him, “Walk through the streets of Jerusalem and put a mark on the foreheads of all who weep and sigh because of the detestable sins being committed in their city.” [Ezekiel 9.4]

Until we recognize our unfaithful hearts and lustful eyes that long for their idols (Ezekiel 6.9), and weep and sign because of the detestable sins being committed, there is little hope except for more of the same judgment upon our society (even upon the unrepentant Church).

Faith pleases God, but God will not share that trust with any other. God hates adultery. To say we trust in Jesus and in the same breath say, "But God uses medicine," is likened to a man saying, "I love my wife, but I get sex from a stranger." Uh.... NO!

May God help us see. May our sight lead to repentance. May our repentance unlock faith. May our faith reveal the glory of God! (May God's name be kept holy, may His Kingdom come, and may His will be done on earth as it is in heaven!)

Father, help us to take idolatry seriously, even today in our present time!