What is the god of self?

Their worship was a deification really, however, — as all heathen worship is, — of their own lusts and passions; and these are what every where naturally control man. The bait in Eden was, "Ye shall be as God;" and man has found that true in an awful way. He is become his own god; as the apostle says of some, even professing Christians, Their "god is their belly." The craving in man's heart for satisfaction not being met in God, lust and care devour him; he worships himself in a way which tends evermore to what is brutalizing and degrading.

Their worship was a deification — as all heathen worship is — of their own lusts and passions. That is everywhere what controls man naturally. In the garden of Eden, Satan said to the woman, "Ye shall be as gods." It was the bait he presented to her: and man has sought after this ever since. There is a craving in man's heart for what will satisfy; and not being able to find satisfaction in God, not able to trust God's love and care, lust and care devour him. He worships himself, in a way continually more and more brutalizing and degrading.

But still "Ye shall be as gods" deceives him, and thus he will judge every thing, and God also, rather than himself. And so, being his own god, he becomes the victim of his own pride, — his god is his belly, as Scripture expresses it; insufficient to himself, and unable to satisfy the cravings of a nature which thus, even in its degradation, bears witness of having been created for something more, he falls under the power of his own lust, the easy dupe of any bait that Satan can prepare for him.

I think we have now the materials which will enable us to answer the question, What then is the idolatry that we have before us here? If it is not the absolute setting up of a false god in the place of the true; if it is not serving Baal and Ashtaroth, what is it then? It is simply, as to its root, allowing the activities of divine life in the soul to alienate one from the truth of God, and thus service brings in pride, pride brings in self-will, and self-will in its turn fashions its god to answer to its own desires, instead of fashioning itself to answer to the desire of God.

The root thought of all idolatry is the same, and I might say in passing, that this idolatry in Israel is really idolatry in the human race. Only for that we would go further back. But the root of all idolatry is self-will, it is making a god of our own. It is starting with self and fashioning a god, not necessarily out of silver, nor necessarily with our hands. In this enlightened nineteenth century you would say there is very little danger of people fashioning gods with their hands. Ah, but there is a tool more cunning and skilful than the hands, and that is the intellect of man, and wherever self is substituted for the will of God, you will find the activity of the human mind fashioning a god to please itself, and it does it in the name of the Lord, in the name of the true God.

I think we have now the materials which will enable us to answer the question, What then is the idolatry that we have before us here? If it is not the absolute setting up of a false god in the place of the true; if it is not serving Baal and Ashtaroth, what is it then? It is simply, as to its root, allowing the activities of divine life in the soul to alienate one from the truth of God, and thus service brings in pride, pride brings in self-will, and self-will in its turn fashions its god to answer to its own desires, instead of fashioning itself to answer to the desire of God.

The root thought of all idolatry is the same, and I might say in passing, that this idolatry in Israel is really idolatry in the human race. Only for that we would go further back. But the root of all idolatry is self-will, it is making a god of our own. It is starting with self and fashioning a god, not necessarily out of silver, nor necessarily with our hands. In this enlightened nineteenth century you would say there is very little danger of people fashioning gods with their hands. Ah, but there is a tool more cunning and skilful than the hands, and that is the intellect of man, and wherever self is substituted for the will of God, you will find the activity of the human mind fashioning a god to please itself, and it does it in the name of the Lord, in the name of the true God.

Every man in this world finds something to boast in, some quality in himself that distinguishes him from others, and in this he boasts. If a man has no good quality in which to boast, he will boast in evil. It has been said that a man would rather be the cleverest thief in the city than have nothing to distinguish him. The reason is that God has lost His place before the soul of man, and the poor slave of the devil wants the homage for himself which belongs to God only. He is a fallen creature who is occupied with anything but God. No unfallen being is found contemplating his own excellency. Pride of heart was the cause of the fall of the devil. I suppose we may take Ezekiel 28 as having reference to him. He is spoken of as full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. Every precious stone was his covering; but what is said to him is, that his heart was lifted up because of his beauty, and that he had corrupted his wisdom by reason of his brightness. Whatever he was, he was God's handiwork, and the glory all belonged to God, but he gave the glory to himself. His heart was lifted up with pride, and he drifted away from God and fell headlong. Now there is no brightness or beauty about him, and he is the most foolish being in the universe, for what could be greater folly than to pit himself against his omnipotent Creator? He has also corrupted man, and the means by which he secured the downfall of his victim was the delusion that he might successfully aspire to divinity: "ye shall be as gods." The devil was not satisfied to remain in the position of a creature, and through his subtlety man became corrupted and under condemnation. Man's moral foundations are destroyed. He has usurped the place that belongs to God and to Him only, for he has made himself a centre around which everything is to revolve, and he judges of everything by the way in which it stands in relation to himself and by the way in which it affects him. He calls things evil if they affect him adversely, and good if they seem to be to his advantage. The way in which they stand with relationship to God is of no account to fallen man.

But it is not difficult to discern between the man who has a false god of his own imagination and the one who has had to do with the living and true God; a man who has evolved his own god will be well satisfied with himself and have no sense of his own deep need as a sinner, he really bows down and adores himself, glorified; but the man who has come face to face with the living and true God develops a deep conviction of his own nothingness and sin; self-condemnation is a marked feature of him. He becomes aware of his own sinfulness, for divine and searching light has shone upon him.

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 stakes 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.

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.

Several features of this dreadful picture are very significant. "Self" stands first. "God" comes last, and even then He is only mentioned in order to be excluded. Does not this tell its own tale? The roots of this go back as far as to the garden of Eden. The sin of Adam was virtually this, that he set up self as his object and excluded God by throwing off allegiance to Him.