What are some modern forms of idolatry?

Even to Christians it was necessary that the apostle should write, "Little children keep yourselves from idols!" In general we may say that any person, or thing, or theory — such as I call "principle" when I hold it myself, and "fad" when somebody else holds it — that we allow to take that position in relation to us, to exercise that authority over us, and exact that devotion from us which rightly belongs to our Creator, is a false god that we are serving, no matter by what euphemistic name soever it may be called. As in a benign sense, so in a malign sense, the outward forms and physical symbols pass away, but the spiritual and essential meanings abide and become more developed. In the worship of the true God the types of outward form have passed away with the childhood of the race; and they that worship do so "in spirit and in truth." So the gross outward forms of idolatry pass also; but they that worship the false gods still worship in spirit and in fact. Men do not, it is true, worship a physical Apollo, or a visible Aphrodite, or a material Bacchus, but they are often devoting their most precious possessions to the principles represented by these names, whether it be the refined dissipations typified by the first, or the grosser license and debaucheries of the others. They do not offer Apollo a hawk, but will devote years of valuable time to some phase of artificial culture that, beyond a slight and questionable service as a recreation, is of no real use to anyone in the world, where people's bodies are starving and their souls dying. They do not offer Aphrodite a dove or Bacchus a pig; but to the principles that these names suggest there are thousands every day sacrificing health, strength, reputation, home, family, body, soul and spirit. There are those more innocent deities too that receive the service due to Jehovah, Hercules for instance, or Fame, "the sister of the giants." We don't worship beetles now; but we hear it commended as a virtue to pass a lifetime dissecting the antenna) of some minute insect with no object on earth except to be able to state that the Melitta is or is not the larva of the Melöe. [ All this is a question of object. Another man spends years examining animalculae, but in order that he may cure or prevent disease. Of course this is different.]

Let us not think only of those who were so far away from the light, and so far removed in character from the persons amongst whom we are. We are in a highly-favoured land, where the knowledge of God is spread abroad by means such as were never known in apostolic days; and the "knowledge of God," as the Bible declares it, is made known thereby in an outward way, so that one can hardly pass through life without receiving most of the facts of divine history. But, how terrible when, in the face of this privilege, the allegiance of the heart is still given to something inferior to God, which is, after all, only an idol, since it takes the place of the Supreme One. What is it, beloved friends, that men and women, in our country, are bowing down to? They are giving all that is best in them to themselves, worshipping self, worshipping the world, desiring only success and ease and pleasure here in the world, and God, thus, shut out of their lives.

The contrast exists around us today. It is still a pertinent question — Do you go your way, carrying the things that you idolize, or does your God carry you? The idols of the modern English-speaking world are not images but more subtle things, such as money, pleasures, lusts; yet as life draws to its end they let you down. The God, whom we know, revealed in our Lord Jesus Christ, carries us through to the finish, for we are in the embrace of the love that will never let us go.

Does this bear no very distant analogy to something nearer our own time? Do christians now in this day join themselves to idols? Certainly not to Jeroboam's calves; but every thing which takes precedence of the Person of Christ is an idol. Even the church of God, beloved as it is, if its blessedness, if the "one body and one Spirit," become a shibboleth and displace in ever so small a measure and occupy in our heart that supreme place which belongs only to the Lord Jesus Christ, then the church becomes an idol. If an evangelist thinks and aims more at popularity, i.e. preaching himself and not the Lord, his preaching, blessed work as that is and God's means for the saving of souls, that too becomes an idol. In fact every soul, believing or not, that has not Christ as the supreme Object of his affections, is to that extent an idolater. So that idolatry is not limited to the bowing to an image of gold, or of wood; the idol may be only, but really, in the imagination. There is constant but pressing need of our remembering the apostle's words "Little children, keep yourselves from idols."

And let us remember that the same tendency is operative with us today. Hence the first epistle of John ends with the words, "keep yourselves from idols." Now for us an idol is anything that ensnares, and usurps in our hearts the place that belongs to God alone.

How sad, to find in our home things which do not please God. Perhaps we, or our wife, or children may have them. "Little children, keep yourselves from idols." (1 John 5:21). Besides the idols of gold, silver, wood, stone or paper, there may be idols inside our hearts, — money or knowledge, or the idols of drinking, eating, and pleasures — anything that takes the place of God in our eyes. God wants us always to put Him first.

Do not idolise your business, or your children; let nothing grip you and hold you and dominate you until your mind and thoughts are subject to it. There is only one Son of God; He is made known to us, we know Him, we are in Him: He has set before us the true God and eternal life. If you want life, go in for the things that centre in Jesus. "Children, keep yourselves from idols."

The characteristic snares of idolatry seen in the history of Israel also illustrate these three moral principles that are in the world and of the world. We see the worship of Astarte (whose images are translated 'Asherahs' in the Darby translation, and `groves' in the KJV) - giving religious licence to sexual promiscuity or 'fertility', the worship of Baal - as a means to increased material prosperity; the worship of Moloch - as a means to ascendancy over one's fellow. Pleasure, possessions and power.

Another apostle warns of idols still more engrossing and prevalent than those which shocked Paul at Athens. Invisible though they be, they govern the heart, and will quite as much as, or more than, those of gold, silver, or stone, graven by man's art and imagination. What are ease, pleasure, power, honour to all sorts and conditions of men, high or low? What is Mammon but the basest of false gods? Riches, more eagerly worshipped by man universally than any one or all idols together of the heathen world, as the means of gratifying every other passion and desire? Forget not the Lord's solemn word, "Ye cannot serve God and Mammon." Who can deliver you from this innate evil but the same One Whom God raised from among the dead, Jesus the Deliverer from the wrath to come? He is equally the Deliverer from present sins and lusts to serve a living and true God, and to await Himself from the heavens.

Unfortunately, men have bowed down before all sorts of things, from planets to carved wood or stone, whatever people thought might influence their lives, completely against God's will (see Q.16). How did it come to this? We find the answer in Romans 1: when people refused to honour God their hearts and minds were darkened, they became fools and bowed before man-made images (verses 21-23). When man refuses to bow before God he will end up bowing before all manner of things. In our post-Christian society, particularly in Western countries, people may profess to be non-religious but they demonstrate in practice that they still feel the need to look up to, to revere, and to bow before, something or someone, be it football, athletes, singers, or all manner of celebrities.