Men attempting to attribute to themselves the things of God! Idolatry is said to be more ancient than the Jewish religion. Abraham came from the city of Ur or the Chaldees where Nanna, the moon-god was worshiped. Men have always desired their god’s to go before them, and to go among them.
Idolatry favors the human passions, and requires no morality. Its religious rituals consist of splendid ceremonies, reveling, dancing, nocturnal assemblies, impure, and scandalous mysteries, with extreme indulgences prevailing in the leadership, and priesthood.
Images molded with the intention of representing divinity, a thing to be adored, and honored. Every culture, every people have the idea of a Supreme being as the cause, and source of all existing things, as well as the origin of all good. But who, and what they interpret that Supreme Being to be, varies from culture to culture, and people to people.
History has show that even in the earliest historical records, the knowledge of one true God, has been corrupted because of ignorance, changing attitudes, and passions.
Romans 1:23, “The glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things.”
To these images of birds, beasts, and creeping things, as well as inanimate objects, such as various powers, forces, the sun, moon, stars, air, water, fire, and any other natural thing, are held up as gods. Men paid honor to them, and each image having their own peculiar symbols. The Nazi Swastika is a recent example of the worship of power, and force, as a symbol.
Idolatry can be broken down into four classes.
1-A. Nature worship, consists of two classes: First there is the inorganic nature, which consists mainly in, “Litholatry,” or the worship of stones, or pillars. These are mentioned in Leviticus 26, and Numbers 33:52, as in, “Pictures, molten images, and high places.” 1 Kings 3:3, King Solomon burning incense in these high places.
1-B. The second is called, “Dendrolatry, things of organic nature, or of the powers of nature. Its the worship of the wind, volcanos, the sea, and trees. Plants, and trees, as well as eggs, whose forms symbolized the productive, and generative powers of nature.
2. There is the worship of animals such as oxen, crocodiles, serpents, as well as birds, beetles, and insects, all having been objects of adoration throughout the centuries.
3. Man reached out for the higher forms of idolatry, forms that prevailed among the Chaldeans. Astrology, the knowledge of the stars, sometimes called Sabaeism. This was the worship of heavenly bodies, or fire. Its the science of predicting future events, especially the fortunes of men. Astrology is one of the most ancient forms of superstitions, and prevailed, and still prevails among the nations of the East. The Egyptians, Chaldeans, Hindus, Chinese practiced this early in human history. The Jews also became addicted to this practice.
Some cultures coupled fire, and heavenly bodies with the use of idolatrous representations such as Tammuz, the Phoenician Adonis, Ezekiel 8:14, also Baal, Numbers 22:41, and Moloch, Acts 7:43.
4. The last form of idolatry is called, “Anthropolatry, this is the representations of the human form. We find this in Greek and Roman mythology, as well as many other cultures, but usually in altered forms, these modified forms symbolizing special attributes.
There is a form of worship prevalent in America today. The bodies of beautiful woman and sculptured male forms are idolized, and sought after in our culture. Billions are spent to enhance, lift, and form individuals to that perfect look, we have become as gods to ourselves.
The Jews had many safeguards built into their religious system concerning the worship of the one true God. Yet they were frequently seduced into the idolatrous worship of Gentile pagan gods. They continually fell into these traps because Jewish men married pagan women, and the religion of the Jews intermingled with pagan ideals. It is one of the more remarkable anomalies of the Jewish history.
The radical purification of their faith in the unity of the one true God dates from their coming out of the Babylonian captivity, from which period of time it was maintained until the time of Jesus Christ, not withstanding the effort of Antichus Epiphanes. The idolatry into which the Jews fell at different periods was chiefly nature worship, and Astrology.
Now we have the veneration of the Virgin Mary, saints, angels, the bread in the sacrament, the cross, relics, and images. These things lay the foundation for many forms of idolatry. There are those who accuse Catholics of worshiping these things, though they deny this charge. They justify the worship, but deny the idolatry of it, distinguishing this as a subordinate form of worship from that of the Supreme God.
In the following I see America slide into idolatry; metaphorical idolatry being the inordinate love of riches, honors, bodily pleasures, whereby the passions and appetites of Americans appear to have been made superior to the will of God. In this, men have made gods of themselves, and their sensual habits.
Phil Laspino www.seekfirstwisdom.com