I WILL DESTROY ALL YOUR IDOLS

By Akin Ojumu

Those who know me know that my favorite Christian album of all time is Live Worship With Bob Fitts. Released in 1991 under the Maranatha Music Label, this live performance is a collection of worship songs which are, in my estimation, some of the best, if not the best, Christian songs ever composed. While I love every single one of the fifteen-song compilation in the album, if I have to pick a favorite, though, it’ll be the song titled, “To Keep Your Lovely Face.” 

The lyrics of “To Keep Your Lovely Face,” which was originally written by Graham Kendricks back in 1983, are a powerful reminder to me of the essence of my faith. Every time I hear the song played, there’s an urge to lift up my hands to heaven to worship the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction.

To keep Your lovely face

Ever before my eyes

This is my prayer

Make it my strong desire

That in my secret heart

No other love competes

No rival throne survives

And I serve only You

Even now as I sit here ruminating on the right words to use to express the thoughts I want to convey in this commentary, I can hear these lyrics reverberating at the back of mind.

“To Keep Your Lovely Face” is not only a prayer of supplication, but it’s also a sincere admission of the reality of the Christian life. This song acknowledges the fact that within every believer is a raging warfare between the desires of the flesh, the forces of Satan, and the pull of the Holy Spirit. The song is a recognition that the hidden sanctuary of the heart of man is a battleground for a fierce battle for control. Whichever side wins the war will ultimately become the Master and Ruler of our soul.

Very often, the flesh and the forces aligned with Satan prevail in the battle. As a result, love for self trumps love for God and a rival throne is erected deep within the soul. When this happens, the heart becomes a factory of idols where sacrifices are offered to self-glory and a place where other gods compete with worship of the one true God. 

Unfortunately, it’s this sort of outcome that constitutes the greatest impediment to our devotion to God. In our hearts are rival thrones competing with a sole devotion to God. This reality manifests in a variety of ways, such as when certain persons become the objects of our devotion and not God, as well as when there are things we worship more than God. 

Jared Wilson said it best in his commentary titled, “The Church and Idolatry”:

“Every weekend in churches everywhere, music is performed to the glory of human skill and artistry. Likewise, every weekend men and women file into church buildings in order to exult in the rhetorical skill of their preacher, to admire him and think of their church as his church, not Christ’s church. We worship the worship experience; we tithe with expectation of return from heaven’s slot machine; we dress to impress; and we serve and lead to compensate for the inadequacies in our hearts that only Christ can fill. Every weekend, hundreds of preachers extol a therapeutic gospel from the pages of the same Bible where the real Gospel lies.”

The Church is full of people who take the works they do in the name of Christ and turn them into idols. There are those who have more faith in their faith than in the God who is the Giver of faith. For some, prayer has become an idol that has replaced God to whom they claim to pray. Then there are still others who have elevated the gifts the Holy Spirit graciously gives far above the Giver of the gifts. 

Church pulpits everywhere are full of preachers who boast about their spiritual powers. Ruling over the various church denominations are self-idolizing narcissists who brag about their ability to cure all kinds of diseases. Such people never stop talking about the countless nonexistent lame people who have walked, phantom blind people who have received their sights, and imaginary dead people raised to life, all by their awesome power. 

Using manufactured miracles as evidence of their vaunted supernatural power, these folks turn themselves into idols to be worshiped by their followers. They point to the things that God, by His mercy, grace, and divine prerogative, is doing in the lives of church members as attestation of their great anointing and validation of the grace of God upon their lives. 

Rather than ascribing all the glory to God for the good things He is doing, church members give their “daddy in the Lord” all the glory. Convinced that the hand of God is on their pastor, they rush to touch his garment to tap into his anointing. Many even go to the extent of groveling at the feet of the anointed man of God begging him to lay his hand on them in hope of partaking in his oil of grace.

In a blatant act of idolatry, church folks exalt the man of God above the throne of God and make him a god of man who is infallible and inerrant. Obstinately believing their pastor can do no wrong, church folks frown at anyone who has the effrontery to criticize him. Having been brainwashed to see their pastor as an oracle of God who receives instructions directly from God, those who have the temerity to refute what he says are deemed anathema, i.e., accursed by God.

Sadly, this is what the landscape of Christianity looks like today. Church denominations all over have become pagan shrines dressed up in Christian ornaments where people go to offer oblations to the golden calf, i.e., the man of God who scratches their itchy ears.

Alas, even this shall not last. There are three things that cannot stay hidden for long: the sun, the moon, and the truth. Soon enough, the truth of God will prevail, and all the idols of modern-day church folks will be destroyed.

Micah 5:13

“I will cut off your carved images and your pillars from among you, and you shall bow down no more to the work of your hands.”