An article written to teenagers about the dangers of idolatry is just as much an article written to the parents of teenagers. This is the case for two reasons. First, parents are the primary disciplers of their children (Deut 6; Psalm 78:1-11; Eph. 6:3). Secondly, every Christian household, particularly the head of the house should, like Joshua, order his home around the worship and service of God. Joshua declared to assembled tribes of Israel:
"And if it seems evil to you to serve the LORD, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD" (Josh. 24:15).
If parents of teenagers serve the idols predominant in contemporary American culture, then it is hard to see how children can be brought up in the instruction and discipline of the Lord.
It may also be naïve to think we can have our kids read an article about idolatry and then assume they will apply it. For some youth this may happen, but for many, probably not. Parents are going to have to work with them to apply biblical teaching about idolatry to their own hearts. So, yes, give this article to your teenager, but ask questions and engage in discussion with him or her.
Look to Your Heart
Yet this is an article directed to covenant youth who are maturing into adulthood. So let's start with a question to teenagers or those youth-transitioning-to-adulthood, "Do you have a heart for God?" I am not asking whether you go to church, sing hymns, read your Bible, memorize the catechism, or do what your mom and dad tell you. You know as well as any that you can be holding a hymnal during a song in worship, but you wish you were holding your phone and texting. We can ask the question another way: "what do you have a heart for?"
It is important that we make a distinction between doing religious things and having a heart for God, because our walk with God proceeds from our hearts. In fact, everything we think, say, or do flows from our hearts. To be honest, even the most mature and godly Christians forget this, but youth tend to forget or be oblivious to the reality nearly always. This is why Proverbs, written to covenant youth coming into adulthood, calls upon teenagers to look to their hearts: "My son, give attention to my words; Incline your ear to my sayings. Do not let them depart from your eyes; Keep them in the midst of your heart; for they are life to those who find them, and health to all their flesh." He is saying that his words are very important, so pay very close attention. Don't blow these words off. Then he says, "Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life" (Prov. 4:20-23).
Our heart is our "control center." Our heart is our inner person; from it flow our emotions, thoughts, words, and deeds. If we love God, it is because our heart treasures him; if we hate God, such antagonism is from the heart as well. Whatever controls our heart controls us. And what controls our hearts is what we prize and treasure and trust. Jesus declared "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also" (Matt. 6:21). Now Proverbs calls us to keep our hearts and to do so diligently. Heart care is not to be a passing exercise, but constant battle.
If you are a teen, this focus on the heart may have special relevance to you. Paul David Tripp in his book Age of Opportunity: A Biblical Guide to Parenting Teens, says that characteristically teens have a lack of heart awareness.1 He writes, "it seems as if teenagers particularly struggle with [a lack of heart awareness] because they tend to think of life in such behavioral, physical, and present terms. They don't tend to spend much time searching their hearts¼ They tend to stay focused on the external, present moment."2 Whether this describes you or not, it is clear from Scripture we all need to look to our hearts. Do you have a heart for God?
Keep Yourselves from Idols
We should keep our heart and lives from idolatry. The Apostle John concludes his letter to the churches by exhorting us to keep ourselves from idols (1 John 5:21). The word John uses, here translated as "keep," is a military term carrying the sense of guard or protect. Idolatry is something that we need to keep vigilant about. This guarding is the responsibility of each Christian individually. It is the responsibility of parents toward their children. Have our boys, for instance, made an idol of video games? There is the communal responsibility for Christians: are you praying for a brother or sister who is showing too much adoration for the contemporary idol of materialism? And the church officers are called to keep watch over the flock, which includes knowing the idols of our age and looking to see whether God's people are flirting with them. The church or the Christian has never been beyond the temptation to idolatry, as John's command assumes. Both biblical history and precept and church history confirm that God's people still have a corrupt inclination to the spiritual adultery that is idolatry. Our hearts still find the world's idols alluring. So we should keep close tabs on our heart and life lest we follow after idols.
To do this we need to have an idea of what idolatry is. "Idolatry," say the Heidelberg Catechism, "is to conceive or have something else in which to place our trust instead of, or besides, the one true God who has revealed Himself in His Word." Notice that on this definition an idol is "something else" beside the one true God of the Bible. Idols, then, are "God-replacements" according Paul (Rom. 1:18-25). A reason that idols exist is because man is a worshiper by nature. It is not the case that he sinfully turns from God to become a non-worshiper. The God-denying atheist worships something-perhaps his atheism or some form of immorality or the apparent freedom that it gives him from God. An idol is a false god, then, that has replaced the true God in the idolater's hearts and lives. Idolatry is a function of our corrupt nature and intrinsic to the very heart of sin. Idolatry, therefore, is not something they do. It's what we all do or are tempted to do. We must keep ourselves from idols.
Idols rob God of His glory. Men ascribe to their idols characteristics which are not inherent in them, but actually belong to God. For instance, the Canaanite idol Baal, was thought to have the power to give rain and withhold it. But the scripture says that God is Lord, maker of heaven and earth and guides nature according to his will (Psalm 104). Same goes for the contemporary idols of sex, sports, materialism, and the like. When we worship money, for instance, we are treating it like it can satisfy the deep longing of our hearts to be happy. When we invest ourselves in our careers in order to get meaning and fulfillment through the praise and power it brings, we worship the idol of success. In all this, however, we are crediting to created things a potency and honor that belongs to God alone. In the end we are only worshiping ourselves, through the medium of an idol. Yet, it is all a sham. Men may glory in their idols, but their glory is really their shame. Paul says of idolaters their "end is destruction, whose god is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame-who set their mind on earthly things" (Phil. 3:19).
So look to your heart; I would encourage you to think about what your heart really treasures. To what are you really devoted? This does not mean that you cannot be devoted, in a sense to the good things and outcomes of this world. A man can be devoted to his family. But to what belongs your primary love and devotion? Here are some questions to help detect idols in your own heart and life:
What do I not have in my life that, if I only had it, I believe it would make me happy?
What do I now have, that, if taken away, would leave me unhappy or devastated?
What do I have now that I spend a lot of time maintaining and would struggle to keep?
What is it that I now have in my life that I can't live without?3
The One True God
A significant part of the solution to idolatry is to worship God. God and the idols simply do not compare. He is the living and true God, the maker of heaven and earth. We need to continuously fight against the temptation to see glory and happiness in our idol, for those are false promises. Conversely, we must see in the true God life, glory, joy, and blessedness in this life and especially in the next. In short, our heart must treasure Him and for this to happen we must see Him by faith.
In the book of Isaiah God repeatedly asks, "To whom then will you liken God, or what likeness compare with him?" (Is. 40:18, 25; 46:5). In Isaiah 46, He says of the Babylonian gods Bel and Nebo, how they are carried in a procession on the backs of beasts (v. 1). Then in striking contrast, He says to Israel that "Even to your old age, I am He, and even to gray hairs I will carry you! I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry, and will deliver you." God cannot be compared to a dead piece of word, layered with gold that cannot see, hear, or speak. To show the Israelites their folly for making such idols which were meant to depict Him, God puts questions to the idols themselves, "Do you not know? Do you not hear? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?" (Isaiah 40:21). The idols just sit there in dumb silence like the block of wood, which, of course, is what they are. In contrast to the idols, God knows all, hears all, and understands all from before the foundations of the earth. God exposes the idols to us that we can see them for what they are and will repent of our foolish idolatry.
As Christians we are called to take our joy in God. Habakkuk said "I will take joy in the God of my salvation" (Hab. 3:18). The gospel of salvation also displays the glory of Christ (2 Cor. 4:4). Through his once-for-all-death we may draw near to God with confidence, which is a delight to the believer's soul, for in His presence is fullness of joy and at His right hand are pleasures forever more (Psalm 16:11). Paul says that when the Lord comes, in that Day, to be glorified in His saints, all those who believe will marvel at him (2 Thess. 1:10). In short, in the gospel of Christ, God gives us Himself. And knowing Him of is of surpassing excellence (Phil 3:8). He in all His glory is our God, and clothed in the righteousness of Christ, we are His people.
If you are a teenager, what I am saying is that the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is worthy of your devotion and adoration. He is worthy of your heart and life. Idols are unworthy at best. They compete for your heart's affection. They promise but do not satisfy. They corrupt those who worship them. Their end is not glory, but shame and wrath. But the good news is that God has saved us from idolatry through his Son so that we will worship him (1 Thess. 1:9). And our exalted Lord has given His Holy Spirit, by whom we are able to see the salvation of God, this exceedingly rich out-pouring of His grace, and we marvel and are amazed. Seeing, knowing, and glorying in our Covenant God is the death of idolatry.
Thus let us pray with the Apostle Paul:
"[I] do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers: that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe" (Eph. 1:16-19).
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1 Tripp, Paul David, Age of Opportunity: A Biblical Guide to Parenting Teens, 73-94. The Bible does not have a specific category called teenager. But it does give us "wonderful descriptions of the tendencies of youth. Many of these are found in the book of Proverbs."
2 Ibid., 90.
3 Lou Going, "Modern Idolatry: Understanding and Overcoming the Attraction of Your Broken Cisterns," in The Journal of Biblical Counseling; 52.
