These men have set up their idols in their heart.
Heart idols
The Lord is now going to search the heart, to turn out the corners of the inmost recesses of the mind, the idol and favourite sin. He will proceed to do a spiritual work; He will lay aside His hammer with which He has broken the wall, and no more will He tear and rend the garments which cover falsehood: He will enter the heart, He will name the idols one by one which occupy that secret sanctuary; He will name them, He will bring them forth to judgment, and He will conduct that most penetrating of all criticism, the judgment of the thought and motive and purpose of man. “Then came certain of the elders of Israel unto me,”--came to be looked through, weighed, measured, and adjudged. No office can save men from Divine criticism. How comforting is this thought, though terrible in some aspects! It were well that our judges should be judged, else who can tell to what extremes of folly they might go, hounded on by ambition, or stung to further issues by envy and malice? The higher the office, the greater the responsibility; the larger the privileges, the greater the sin if they are outraged; the more brilliant the genius, the more infamous the mischief if that genius be perverted. The able man, the man of faculty and education, can do more sin in one moment than a poor uneducated soul can do in a lifetime. Elevation aggravates sin. The place of the disease indicates its fatal character--“in their heart.” This is heart disease. Men almost whisper when they indicate that some friend is suffering from disease of the heart; there is hopelessness in the tone: great allowance should be made, they say, for a man who is suffering from heart disease; be must not be startled, or excited, or suddenly pounced upon; his wishes must be gratified, they must as far as possible even be anticipated; and any little impatience he may show must be looked at charitably. The talk is humane, the considerateness is full of affection, the conditions imposed are suggested by reason. Is there not a higher disease of the heart? What is the meaning of this disease of the heart, this idolatry in the inmost soul? When a moral disease is of the heart it means that the disease is liked, enjoyed; it is wine drunk behind the door, it is a feast of fat things eaten in secrecy; every mouthful so sweet, so good, so rich. When a disease is of the heart in a moral and spiritual sense it means that it is consented to; it is voluntary, it is personal, it is desired; there would be a sense of loss without it. Disease of this kind, too, is most difficult of eradication. It is not in the skin, or it might be cut out; it is not in the limb, or it might be amputated, and the knife might anticipate mortification: the evil is in the heart; no knife can touch it, no persuasion can get at it; nothing can be done with it but one thing--only a miracle of the Holy Ghost can overcome that difficulty and turn that disease into health. “Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.” Are we chargeable with heart idolatry? We have no idols of a visible kind, it may be, yet we may be the veriest pagans in our hearts. We say, How distressing that poor human nature should fall down before stock and stone and worship it! and we, inflated pagans, worship a golden calf, a tinsel crown, a sounding name, a crafty policy. Are we chargeable with heart idolatry? Certainly we are. No man can escape this accusation. It is subtle, far reaching, all but ineradicable. If we do not face such difficulties our piety is a stucco that will peel off in the wet weather, and leave the ghastly moral ugliness exposed to public scorn. Doubt may be an idol used to diminish responsibility. Others, again, may have in the heart an idol called Ignorance, kept there for the purpose of diminishing service: we will not go into the dark places of the city, then we need not attend to the cries which are said to be arising there from overborne and hopeless humanity; we will keep on the broad thoroughfare, where the gaslight is plentiful; we shall see the surface and outer shape of things, and then retire to rest, saying that, say what fanatics may, there is really a good deal of solid happiness in the city. Have we not an idol in the heart we call Orthodoxy, which We keep there in order to enlarge moral licence? Is there not an intellectual orthodoxy and a spiritual heterodoxy often united in the same man? “Therefore say unto the house of Israel, Thus Saith the Lord God: Repent.” When did the Lord ever conclude a discourse without some evangelical tone in it? The Bible is terrific in denunciation, awful beyond all other books in its denunciation of sin and its threatening of perdition; yet through it, and through it again, and ruling it, is a spirit of clemency and pity and mercy and hope, yea, across hell’s burning mouth there lies the shadow of the Cross. (J. Parker, D. D.)
Mental idolatry
The father of modern philosophy and science has shown us that there are in the mind of man, as man, natural idols which act as impediments to his acquisition of knowledge and his search after truth. Till these idols are overthrown and broken in pieces and taken away it is simply useless for man to pursue knowledge. His efforts will be neutralised and their results vitiated. Now, if this is so in the matter of human science, it is none the less worthy of our regard in the matter of Divine truth and of the knowledge of God. We cannot know God, whom to know is eternal life, as long as these natural obstacles are not taken out of the way. We cannot serve Him acceptably as long as, instead of being dethroned, they are still set up in our hearts. What, then, is the practical bearing of this truth? First, there must be a single eye to the knowledge of God. If we have not determined with ourselves that God, and the knowledge of God, and the fear of God, is more to be desired, and if we personally do not desire it more than wealth, or ease, or success, or the applause of men, or position in life, or influence, or comfort, or anything else, then we may be never so punctual in our religious duties, never so zealous for the outward honour of God, never so eager for the triumph of particular principles, or a particular party, or a particular cause, but for all that there is still enshrined in some inner recess, some secret corner of our hearts, an idol which disputes with the Most High God the possession and sovereignty of them. Again, not only must there be a clear and undimmed perception of God as the one sole object of our services, but there must also be a readiness to sacrifice anything in order to know and to serve Him. How many there are in the present day, not, thank God, who cannot afford to be religious--for that brings with it no slur in our times, but rather the reverse--but how many there are who dare not follow Truth whithersoever she may lead, who cannot afford to obey their own convictions, and therefore stifle them with the excuses of propriety or usage or convenience. This is a hard thing, and it is so because the claims of truth and the idol in the heart cannot both be acknowledged. And there is no condition of life where this does not apply. It is hard for the man of science, whose name has been identified with certain theories and principles, to sacrifice his name and fair renown to the growing conviction of counter theories and principles which will make the past a blank, or show it to have been a mistake. It is hard for the religious partisan, whose life has been east in a particular mould, and whose sympathies are linked to one form of opinion and practice, to yield to the force of truth when it comes with the authority of conviction to the mind and compels the acknowledgment of previous error and misunderstanding. But more than this, it is hard not to approach the consideration of religious truth with a distinct bias; but it is certain that the existence of any such bias must damage our appreciation of the truth. Unless we can see all round a thing, we can have no true apprehension of the thing. We may view it partially, but shall have no conception of it as a whole. The idol in possession of the mind will prevent the entrance of the true idea. But if this is true, and in proportion as it is, there are certain general principles to which it behoves us all to give heed when we come to the worship of God. First of all, we must empty ourselves of ourselves. We must come as though our present knowledge of God were as nothing, and as if God were still to be known and learnt. The whole of what we have must be sacrificed for the sake of what we are to have and to gain. As long as sin, in one of its innumerable forms, lurks in the heart or on the conscience, the service of God will be a vain thing, because the pursuit of truth is a lie. It is that practised dishonesty, it is that cherished lust, it is that pampered self-love, it is that incurable indolence, it is that willingly defiled imagination, it is that malice and envy which vitiates all your worship and renders all your religion a lie. There is One who searches the heart, and who cleanses it because He searches it. There is One whose blood cleanses us from all sin, if we are willing to walk in the light, as He is in the light. It is in direct personal communion with this heart-searcher, with this sin-bearer, but only so, that we become sinless. But if anything is suffered to interfere with that direct personal intercourse and communion, no matter what it is, even though it should be some sacred word or ordinance of His own, that is an idol which interferes with our worship and service of Him, and therefore an idol which must be broken down. (S. Leathes, D. D.)
Idolaters inquiring of God
I. What is meant by the setting up of idols?
1. It is oppressive to men in their natural state to think of the spiritual, omnipresent, heart-searching God. Accordingly they have brought down their conception of God to something that can be apprehended by sense. They have thus tried to satisfy the religious instinct within them, while at the same time pleasing themselves. It is much easier to have an object of worship that we can see, or touch, or taste. An idol, too, is not so exacting as the incorruptible and sin-hating God. Being material, it cannot require heart worship.
2. We are in no danger of worshipping idols of wood and stone. But the tendency of human nature is always the same, and where there is not renewing grace there is something creaturely that is idolised--it may be some place of power, or wealth, or some sensual pleasure, or child, or creation of the mind.
(1) There is this idolatry when we are intent upon a sin or a course of sinning.
(2) There is this idolatry when we set up particular ideas in our heart from which we do not mean to turn.
II. The inquiring. These Israelites did not mean by setting up their idols utterly to east off Jehovah. They meant still to connect Him with their past history as their national deity. And so we can understand their going to inquire of one of the Lord’s prophets. There were cross-currents in their life. There was the idolatrous current which led them to do what was forbidden by God, and yet there was the old current which led them to inquire of God. We may find an analogy to this still.
1. There is this inquiring when we ask for light and help in prayer, while at the same time we are determined to follow what pleases ourselves.
2. There is this inquiry when we search the Bible while yet we are resolved to see in it only certain things.
III. The divine treatment.
1. Why it must be futile to inquire of God while bent on our own way.
(1) God requires submission.
(2) God requires sincerity.
2. How God shows the futility of inquiring of Him while we are bent on our own way. “I the Lord will answer him.”
(1) He allows our dispositions to work out some terrible result to bring us to shame. We are ruined in our estate, or in our health. Some child whom we idolise may prove a grief to us.
(2) He allows us to get into despondency and despair. No one who puts an idol in the place of God is above being unhinged. Especially is the devotee who has his darling sin the likely victim of despondency.
(3) Or He allows us to be hardened so as to be unable to see the difference between right and wrong. (R. Einlayson, B. A.)
Idols in the heart
I. The principle laid down. As a magnet attracts out of rubbish only the bits of iron for which it has an affinity, so the idol-idea in a man’s mind will make him fix on whatever will minister to it, and neglect everything else. The very Word of God will be but a mirror in which he sees reflected the thought which possesses his soul.
II. The working of this principle.
1. The apostles, like the rest of the Jews, had a settled conviction that the Messiah would be a great temporal Prince.
2. Another instance is found in those who seek a system of Church government in the New Testament.
3. The controversy as to the ultimate doom of the unbelieving. Restorationist, annihilist, and believer in endless torment--all appeal to same Word, and often to same texts.
III. Practical use. Three common idols--
1. The thought that to repent of sin and turn to Jesus at last hour will be enough.
2. The thought that good works are not essential to salvation.
3. The thought that the new life of faith must be ushered in with some great and overwhelming spasm of feeling. (J. Ogle.)
The idols in the heart a barrier to the truth
I. The idols that are in the heart and the stumbling blocks that are before the face, are the sins with which God’s people are sometimes chargeable.
II. Men professing to inquire after God while their idols are in their hearts, and their stumbling blocks before their faces; or, the gross inconsistency of seeking to mingle the service of God with the pursuit of sin.
1. Men may pray from the influence of custom.
2. From the promptings of conscience.
3. From the desire to stand, well with their fellow men.
4. From a yam desire to set themselves right with God.
III. God taking notice of the idols that are in men’s hearts, and the stumbling-blocks that are before their faces, or the faithful warnings which God addresses to those who follow sin while they profess to serve Him.
1. He intimates that He is perfectly acquainted with us.
2. He tells us that He cannot answer the requests of those who indulge in sin.
3. He shows us how unreasonable it is to expect that He will be inquired of by us. (Evangelical Preacher.)
Heart disease the worst disease
Manton says, “What would we think of a man who complained of the toothache, or of a cut finger, when all the while he was wounded at the heart? Would it not seem very strange?” Yet men will lament anything sooner than the depravity of their hearts. Many will confess their wandering thoughts in prayer, but will not acknowledge the estrangement of their hearts from God. They will be sorry for having spoken angrily, but not for having a passionate heart. They will own to Sabbath breaking, but never lament their want of love to Jesus, which is a heart matter. The evil of their hearts seems nothing to them: their tongues, hands, feet, are all that they notice. What! will they cry over a cut finger, and feel no fear when they have a dagger thrust into their bowels? Oh, madness of sinners, that they trifle most with that disease which is the most dangerous, and lies at the bottom of all other ills. God’s great complaint of men is that they set up in their hearts idols which they themselves think nothing of. Certain in our day are so far gone that they even deny that the human heart is diseased. What then? It does but prove the intimate connection between the heart and the eyes. A perverted heart soon creates a blinded eye. Of course, a depraved heart does not see its own depravity. Oh that we could lead men to think and feel aright about their hearts; but this is the last point to which we can bring them! They beat about the bush, and mourn over any and every evil except the source and fountain of it all. Lord, teach me to look within. May I attend even more to myself than to my acts. Purge Thou the spring, that the stream may no longer be defiled. I would begin where Thou dost begin, and beseech Thee to give me a new heart. Thou sayest, “My son, give Me thine heart.” Lord, I do give it to Thee, but at the same time I pray, “Lord, give me a new heart”; for without this my heart is not worth Thy having. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Idolatry in the heart
Travellers tell us that there is a tribe in Africa so given to superstition that they fill their huts and hovels with so many idols that they do not even leave room for their families. How many men there are who fill their hearts with the idols of sin, so that there is no room for the Living God, or for any of His holy principles! (John Bate.)