From Pastor Douglas Wilson, 10.6.2021
Each form of idolatry must be repudiated, of course, but these two kinds of idolatry must be dealt with differently. If you have a Baal set up in your back yard, then the only appropriate thing to do is pull it down. But if you have the god of mammon enshrined in your heart, treating that heart as mammon’s holy of holies, then you must re-prioritize everything in your heart and life—but you will still be handling money this time next week. True repentance will affect how you handle that money, not whether you do. In one instance the idol itself must go away, and in the second instance, the idol remains, but is dethroned. And when that kind of idol is dethroned—get this—it is made stronger.
Say that a man has made an idol out of the traditional family. It is some kind of fetish with him. If he gets things right with God, and dethrones that idol, his traditional family is going to have a much better chance at thriving.
But this next point is crucial. There is a vast difference between dethroning these false gods, and restoring them to health, over against toppling them all in order to make room for the savage gods. We have been exhorted to do the latter as though we were doing to the former, and we are paying for it now. This is why the cold water that Spurgeon spoke of is getting splashed in our faces now.
There is a vast difference between a Christian community where Christ is everything, and the families are consequently vibrant and strong, and a place where nobody is quite sure what a family even is exactly, so why not two lesbians and a tranny? Now if you have a case where the families are vibrant and strong, precisely because the family is not an idol, and yet there are other folks admonishing them about their idolizing of the family, then what is happening—on purpose or not—is preparation for the grotesque forms of idolatry.
If you doubt what I say, just look at what has happened to American culture over the last few decades. While monstrous idols are being erected in the public square, Christians are being told not to “idolize” their customs, nation, suburban life, family and so on. We are being told to beware the petty idols that might not even be idols, and also told to leave the monstrous idols alone because the gospel is “apolitical.”
Read the full article here.
Covenant Presbyterian Church 