Guard Yourselves From Idols
“Little children, keep yourselves from idols.” 1 John 5:21
Over the past six months we as a church we have been walking through John’s first epistle. The relative brevity of the letter is in no way an indicator of it’s being lightweight. Indeed, John takes us on a tour through many a great theme introducing us to high doctrine at breakneck speed!
Most of us these days when writing correspondence will begin with a greeting and end with something sentimental; ‘every blessing’, ‘all the best’ etc. John ends with, ‘guard yourselves from idols.’ I can see you all scrambling to adopt this as your new email signature…not.
I actually think the ESV is a little weak here in translating the Greek imperative verb φυλάξατε, which is rendered ‘keep yourself…’ in that translation. The noun form of this verb is actually the word used for a prison guard. I think the NASB translation here is better with guard yourselves from idols.
Furthermore, it is a command; each of you must do this for yourself. We are to take personal responsibility for being ‘on guard’ against idolatry.
The term ‘guard’ indicates that there is a real threat posed by idolatry to our walk with Jesus. Unless we appreciate the true threat idolatry poses to us, we are unlikely to guard ourselves properly against it. For example, if I told you to guard yourself against angry toddlers you’re not likely to really take me seriously are you?!
Do you consider that you are vulnerable to idolatry? If you feel it’s something that would never be a temptation to you, it’s likely that it already is an issue for you, and that the enemy is, so to speak, within the walls.
“The human heart is a perpetual factory of idols.” - John Calvin
We must know the fallibility of our own hearts!
“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” Jeremiah 17:9
Any successful fighter is able to identify his weaknesses as well as his strengths, knowing your weaknesses better than your opponent allows you to play to your strengths. Any fighter unaware of their weaknesses will be overly confident and ultimately exposed.
In understanding my weakness, that my heart is vulnerable, I will compensate by putting up a guard around my heart. I will make sure that I saturate my areas of weakness in prayer, I may find one or two friends with whom I can be accountable.
“Guard your heart, for out of it flow the issues of life.” Proverbs 4:23
What is an Idol?
An idol at the most basic level is a false god. Something that assumes the place of God in our lives.
In the 1st Century there was the practice of idol worship, worshiping graven images and carved statues. If John is talking exclusively about the worship of graven images here then he hasn’t prepared us for it in the prior chapters. I believe along with many commentators that John is referencing the false teachings of the secessionists that he’s been writing about all through the letter. Any false presentation of the true God is an idol!
So, we are to guard ourselves against false teaching. What else could become an idol to us?
Well, C.H. Spurgeon believed that one could make an idol out of almost anything; though he saw the most common and dangerous ones as:
Self - intellect, callings, appetites
Family/Children
Great Ones (Teachers, Philosophers, Leaders)
The Idol of The Hour (Ideologies, personalities and causes that the world says are good)
We are to be particularly on our guard against the ideologies and causes which the world loves. We know that the whole world lies in the power of the evil one (1 John 5:19), this includes all of the world’s systems, governmental, educational, cultural. Therefore we must be on guard against what the world says is good, no matter how appealing and plausible and in accord with Christianity it may appear to be. Many churches have been shipwrecked and are being ruined by pastors attempting to synthesize worldly ideals with Christianity. This is to bring in idols to be worshiped alongside Christ.
Anything that keeps you from worshiping Christ in spirit and in truth is an idol! It must be destroyed.
Christ came and demonstrated every idol to be false, dead and worthless. How? Because every idol that the world worships is either dead or dying! He is alive!
Every generation has it’s ideas, it’s great men and women, it’s philosophies, it’s religions that it prefers above Christ, but only Christ endures, only Christ lives, only He has triumphed over death.
Let us worship Him as He is, not as we or the world would wish Him to be.