Idolatry in the 21st Century Part III: Consecration and the 'selfie generation'

Idolatry in the 21^st Century: Part III

(* 2017 article is timely Idolatry on the rise )

Consecration and the “selfie generation”

Diana Washington Valdez/Faith Today Ministries

Wikipedia offered the best, most succinct definition of narcissism: “The pursuit of gratification from vanity or egotistic admiration of one's own attributes.” 

Taking a selfie photo. [Courtesy]

Narcissism is another form of idolatry, one that can linger on when we fail to consecrate ourselves to the Lord.

Consecration is not just for people who have a calling to full time ministry; it is the lifestyle of a committed Christian.

Attributes that humans most admire about themselves include physical beauty, athletic prowess, artistic abilities and a high intellectual capacity. All of these in themselves are not bad; they are gifts, and God intended for us to use one or more of these gifts to serve Him and others. They can open doors to professions that bless those who possess these attributes.

Another way to describe narcissism is that it is an exorbitant self-love that stems from a delusion about one’s self-worth. This is what happened to lucifer, an angel before he became known as Satan. The Books of Ezekiel and Isaiah narrate his fall.

Ezekiel 14:12-14 (NLT) 

¹² “How you are fallen from heaven,
    O shining star, son of the morning!
You have been thrown down to the earth,
    you who destroyed the nations of the world.
¹³ For you said to yourself,
    ‘I will ascend to heaven and set my throne above God’s stars.
I will preside on the mountain of the gods
    far away in the north.
¹⁴ I will climb to the highest heavens
    and be like the Most High.’”

Ezekiel 28: 17 (KJV)

17 Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty;

 you corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor;

 I cast you to the ground,

I laid you before kings, that they might gaze at you. (KJV)

Satan’s self-idolatry led to a revolt against God, a rebellion that caused him to be expelled from heaven, along with the other angels that followed a lie. 

Jesus Christ Luke 10:17-18 (NIV)

^“17 The seventy-two returned with joy and said,

 “Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name.”

¹⁸ He replied, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.”

When Satan, in the form of a serpent, tempted Eve in the Garden of Eden, he suggested that she could become “like God” if she ate the fruit of the tree that God had forbidden to her and Adam. 

We can infer from the passage that Satan likely appealed to or provoked spiritual pride in Eve – to be like God – and thus, tempted her to sin. He also knew, from studying and observing the coupe - that he could probably get Adam to fall by causing Eve to sin first. 

Genesis 3:1-5 (NIV)

“Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

² The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden,

³ but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”

⁴ “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman.

⁵ “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

This is why we must walk in humility, always. (Proverbs 16:18 (NLT) “Pride goes before destruction, and haughtiness before a fall.”)

Narcissism also can infect entire cultures and even Christian ministries. * The ancient Greeks, who self-absorbed with their intellect and bodies, serve to illustrate an example of pervasive narcissism. 

In fact, the legend about Narcissus, with its symptoms and consequences, came to us from Greek mythology. He was a character who fell in love with himself after gazing his reflection in a pool of water.

Eventually, as the story goes, he was transformed into the flower known as narcissus. The Greeks were astute enough to recognize that excessive self-adulation was a real weakness but did not know how to apply the remedy: humility. For this, we need God’s help.

The “selfie” age

In our digital era, social media pushes people to promote themselves, sometimes as a way to compete with others for jobs or other kinds of positions.

For narcissists, social media platforms are tools to exploit. Digital audiences not knowing any better encourage them with constant flattery. (At the opposite end are people suffering from low-esteem who come to depend on digital “likes” from “followers” to boost their egos.)

Developing a healthy sense of self-worth is necessary for maturity. Our identity, however, must be based on what God says about our relationship to Him. It must be based on Biblical truth.

Genesis 1:27 (NIV)

“So God created mankind in his own image,
    in the image of God he created them;
    male and female he created them.”

We have to remember that in our fallen nature, we cannot love others correctly. The corruption that is inherent in our sinful natures renders us incapable of loving God and others as we ought to.

Salvation comes first, along with the ongoing renewal of our minds, which is the work of the Holy Spirt as we yield to the Lord in this process.

We can cooperate with the Lord to develop the fruit of the Spirit in our lives.

Galatians 5: 22-23 (NKJV)  

²² But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,

²³ gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.

²⁴ And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

Romans 8:13 (NIV)

³ For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.

The Lord’s call on our lives is absolute

Abraham, the father of the Jewish nation, lived in Ur and his father was an idol-maker when God called him to leave his father’s home and follow Him.

Genesis 12: 1-2 (NIV)

“The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country,

your people and your father’s household

 to the land I will show you.

² “I will make you into a great nation,
    and I will bless you;
I will make your name great,
    and you will be a blessing.^”

 

God calls us to a life of separation from the world.

II Corinthians 6:17 (NKJV)

“Therefore

Come out from among them
And be separate, says the Lord.
Do not touch what is unclean,
And I will receive you.”

Luke 14:26 (NKJV)

“If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple.”

Obviously, Jesus Christ did not call us to detest our friends and family. He made the point that He must come before all others. We cannot use our friends and families to avoid His call to salvation or discipleship.

e must b

God must occupy the throne of our hearts. As we learn more about God and His wonderful character, we will naturally want to do this. God is God, and there is no other like Him. To do otherwise, is to settle for mediocrity in our Christian walk.

If this is an area you are struggling with, and all of us to some extent have or are, then turn to the Lord: Repent and ask for healing. Ask other believers who are mature in the faith to pray with you.

John 8:36 (NIV)

 "So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed."

May your journey in the Lord be truly blessed and joyful. To God be the glory!

[Diana Washington Valdez, president of Faith Today Ministries,*** is an independent ordained Christian minister with Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry, based in the United States.]

 

* This is a link to an article in The Telegraph about concerns over narcissistic Christian ministers Narcissist ministers

Look up Bible passages online @ Online Bible

Idolatry in the 21st Century Part II: Idolatrous practices

Series: Idolatry in the 21^st Century

Part II: Idolatrous practices

Christian Bible (KJV)

Diana Washington Valdez/Faith Today Ministries

Part II - Idolatrous practices

“I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.” - Revelation 1:18 (KJV)

Some overt forms of idolatry that people today engage in include pagan ceremonies or rituals stemming from ancient Greek, Roman and Egyptian cultures that deified entities they considered to be gods. The worship of nature and ancestors are other forms of idolatry.

In the North American continent, Mexico is witnessing an uptick in indigenous religions among young people who revere the Maya and Aztec deities. Some “deity” examples for the Aztecs include Huitzilopochtli, the god of war and sun; Tlaloc, the rain god, and Mictlantecuhtli (male and female versions), the god(s) of death and of the underworld.

According to Aztec mythology, the Aztecs had literally dozens if not hundreds of deities that oversaw many aspects of their lives. The Ayahuasca tradition found in the shamanism of certain South American regions, and which has spread to Mexico, is also resurging.*

Nearly all pagan cultures honor or worship a god of death. A more modern adaptation of the same idol is la santa muerte (holy death), which became popular among the subculture of drug-traffickers in Mexico and the Southwestern United States.

A recent and eye-opening article by Al Jazeera reported that in Nepal consecrated religious statues and artifacts are considered "living deities." Residents who worship these iconic items are concerned about the steady theft of valuable religious artifacts from their land.  Theft of Nepal's sacred objects

Is this is not much different from the phenomenon of bleeding crucifixes or statues of the Virgin Mary that are widely reported in certain church circles? One of the latest statues "to come to life," in a sense, sits in a Hobbs, New Mexico, church. Statue of Mary cries olive oil

The local priest for that congregation said it cannot be explained.

John 5:24 (NIV)

“Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life.”

Jesus Christ destroyed death at the cross:

Hebrews 2:14 (NIV)

^14 “Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil,”

The tradition of adopting spirit guides, often in the shape of animals some people claim to see during drug-induced rituals, is another form of idolatry that also puts practitioners in perilous proximity to supernatural beings.

Blood sports

Bullfighting, which is prevalent as a sport in parts of Spain and Mexico, has as its objective the “sacrificial death” of a bull. Bullfighting could be done without killing the bull, but then it wouldn’t be a blood sport. According to Bible History Online [2], the bull as a symbol has been associated with idolatry for centuries.

For further details, read the account of the golden calf worship that angered the Lord in Exodus 32: 1-9. He also forbade in Leviticus 18:21 the worship of Moloch, an idol symbolized by a bull-like creature and which involved child sacrifice [2]. Most people who attend bullfights do so ignorant of the pagan symbolism attached to bulls and sacrifices in ancient cultures. [3].

Fights between people, without gloves and body protections, and sometimes held in cage-like structures to add to the drama, have grown in popularity. Except for the clandestine bouts with more serious violence, these bouts are televised or videotaped.

The brutality exhibited – and required – for these matches are ungodly. Paying people to beat up on another human being cannot be considered a Christian sport, including cockfights and dogfights. Boxing as we know it today, skirts the line between what is right and wrong. 

Promoting death and violence for entertainment is totally contrary to the Gospel of Jesus Christ:

John 10:10 (NKJV)

“The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.”

The “thief” in this verse is an obvious reference to the devil.

 1 Peter 5:8 (NKJV)

“Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.”

Isaiah 25:8 (ESV)

 “He will swallow up death for all time, And the Lord GOD will wipe tears away from all faces, And He will remove the reproach of His people from all the earth; For the LORD has spoken.”

In certain cultures, spiritual leaders permit indigenous groups to substitute pagan deities with the names of “Christian” saints. In other words, the indigenous practitioners are not asked to repent and abandon their pagan gods, only to exchange their names for Christian-sounding ones. 

Children born in such cultures are dedicated allegedly to “saints” of their birth dates, depending on the calendar used. In China, children are dedicated at birth to the “dragon.” According to the Bible, the “dragon” is associated with the devil, although people who invoke the dragon generally are ignorant of this fact.

Revelation 12:9 (KJV)

“And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.”

From the Book of Exodus (KJV).

Christian ministers and parents can pray over their children to remove these dedications and the spiritual influences they could have incurred. Christian missionaries that work in idolatrous regions must be aware of the need for spiritual warfare before they can be effective in their mission fields. They can ask for help from those who are experienced in these matters.

Other dedications that could hinder a Christian’s work for the Gospel include places were occult secret societies operated, and where they dedicated special cornerstones for buildings (including churches), and communities where pagan rituals were conducted, often long before more extensive urban development occurred.

If Christians read and closely followed what the Bible teaches, then they would understand how to avoid idolatrous practices that seem innocent. This includes the idea of praying to angels. Remember that idolatry, in its simplest definition, is the worship of created beings or images.

God created the angels. He is the Creator, and as such, we are to worship Him only. From the Bible, we also know that some angels sinned and rebelled against God, some sought intimate relations with women, and Satan himself is a fallen angel. God, in turn, by His very nature is incapable of sinning.

Revelation 22:8-9 (ESV)

^{8 “}I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. And when I heard and saw them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who showed them to me, ⁹ but he said to me, “You must not do that! I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers the prophets, and with those who keep the words of this book. Worship God.”

Luke 10:17-18 (NIV) -

¹⁷ The seventy-two returned with joy and said, “Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name.”

¹⁸ He replied, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.

Matthew 25:41 (NIV)

⁴¹ “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.”

At times, the Lord sent angels to execute divine judgment (Isaiah 37:36), as helpers, including the ministering angels sent to Jesus after he completed His 40-day fast in the desert (Matthew 4:11), or as messengers (Luke 2:10-11).

See more references in Genesis 16:7; 21:17; Genesis 18:2; 19:16; I Kings 19:5-7; Matthew 25:41 (Mary and the angel Gabriel).

To reiterate what the Lord says to us in the Bible, the worship of any other god is idolatry.

Deuteronomy 5:6-9 (ESV)

⁶ “‘I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

⁷ “‘You shall have no other gods before me.

⁸ “‘You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. ⁹ You shall not bow down to them or serve them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me[.]”

 The Old Testament contains several references to angels appearing to people, and in every case, none of the angels ever encouraged or accepted worship. Jesus Christ never taught that we should pray to angels or anyone else. When His disciples asked Him to teach them to pray, He gave them the “Our Father,” which connotes that we have direct access to the throne room of God, once we become believers.

There is only one mediator

We are not to seek out mediators (middle persons or supernatural beings) between us and God. Jesus Christ (who is God the son) should be our sole mediator with God the Father.

1 Timothy 2:5 (NKJV)

“For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus…”

World regions that are steeped in idolatry also seem to experience greater degrees of political oppression, poverty, violence and fear. Extensive idolatry can lead to curses on lands that last for generations. These too can be overcome, with guidance from the Holy Spirit on how to proceed, and with prayer until a breakthrough is reached.

Adopting patron saints at birth or for other events is another form of idolatry that can affect a person’s spiritual life.

Idolatry in modern times also is practiced by white-collar professionals and prominent politicians who make idols of their worldly pursuits, social and professional relationships. Obsessive pursuits of worldly success have led some to look for help from idols.

According to a book by Mexican journalist Jose Gil Olmos, numerous prominent politicians in Mexico who wanted power allegedly sought out witches and shamans to conduct rituals for them, including in Africa. Some of the rituals he described in the book are intended to invoke idols [4].

1 John 2:15-17 (NKJV) 

^15 “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. ¹⁶ For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world. ¹⁷ And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.”

Idolatry in the United States, if it continues to spread, will lead to divine punishment. It is inevitable. (Of course, idolatry is not the only national sin, but it is a root one.). The history of the Israelites in the Old Testament teaches us that God will not overlook idolatry. Christians, like the Israelites of the past, must stand up against this pernicious practice in all its forms. Idolatry leads to spiritual blindness and defilement, and damages societies.

Zechariah 13:2 (ESV)

² “And on that day, declares the Lord of hosts, I will cut off the names of the idols from the land, so that they shall be remembered no more. And also I will remove from the land the prophets* and the spirit of uncleanness.” [*False prophets]

To be continued.

Part III: A consecrated heart and the “selfie generation”

Recommended reading: The Book of Jeremiah 

[Diana Washington Valdez, president of Faith Today Ministries,*** is an independent ordained Christian minister with Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry, based in the United States.]

*** At times, may recommend books and DVD's by other authors that are sold by online stores. Faith Today, however, is a free ministry. All the information provided here is free of charge. To God be the glory Who makes this possible. Other ministries rely on donations to survive; fortunately, this ministry does not. Your prayers are welcome, though!

Matthew 10:5:7-8 (NIV)

"7 As you go, proclaim this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ 8 Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy,[a] drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give."

Bible references

The scriptures quoted here can be looked up in Bible Gateway tool featuring different languages and versions at  Online Bible .

Other references

[1] Cindy Jacobs, a Christian prophet, addressed the need to renounce the birth dedication to the dragon during a conference in California. Cindy Jacobs

[2] “Ancient Bull Worship” Bible-History

[3] Bullfighting in ancient cultures How bullfights began

[4] José Gil Olmos, “Los brujos del poder: el ocultismo en la política mexicana,” (Grijalbo; 2012.) Book link 

* Secular literature: Essay in Aeon on the return of the psychedelic experience Psychedelic revival