One of the most fascinating things about the creation account is that God created us in His image. Original readers of this text would have had some understanding of the significance of the image of a god. When ancient people placed an idol somewhere, they essentially declared that place belonged to that god, and that image mirrored the attributes of the god it represented.

In the year 841 BC, the prophet Elisha’s messenger came to Jehu’s house and anointed him the next king of Israel. According to the Lord’s purpose, Jehu was to destroy the house of Ahab so that God might avenge the blood of His prophets.

Jehu executed this divine mandate with unprecedented zeal. His zeal to destroy those the Lord commanded be destroyed, including all the prophets of Baal, was astonishing.

Unfortunately, Jehu was not zealous against all idolatry (2 Kings 10:29). For almost a century, two abominable golden calves had stood in the land to ensure the Israelites did not travel south to worship in the temple and re-unify the kingdom. Rather than completing his eradication of idolatry, Jehu left these two graven images, largely to protect his own political interests.

This lesson from Jehu is a warning that it is possible to have great zeal against idolatry, and even to purge idols from our lives, but still to protect our most cherished ones. 

As we close this series, we consider how Christians can be zealous against idolatry so that, unlike Jehu, we purge all the idols from our hearts and protect our hearts against idolatry.

So, how do believers zealously purge and protect their hearts from idolatry? To destroy the idols that threaten our submission to Christ, we must stand in three critical places.

First, we must stand in the truth of God’s Word.

Christians must be committed to the truth, to stand in and uphold the truth, and to believe and to declare the truth – even if the whole world says the truth of God’s Word is a lie, or is foolish, hateful, nonsensical, or anti-science.

The first act of idolatry in world history took place because the truthfulness of God’s Word was questioned (Genesis 3). Remember the serpent asked Eve, “Has God really said…?” In that moment, Eve, or better Adam, should have responded, “We will not question the Creator’s Word. You must leave the garden now, serpent!” Yet Eve expanded on God’s Word, and the serpent saw his opening and flatly contradicted the Word of God. Idolatry finds its root in soil that refuses to be nourished constantly and exclusively by the truthfulness of God’s Word. 

The most common form of idolatry promulgated by the evil one in the world today is not worshiping statues, but false doctrine. The path to idolatry now is the same as in Genesis 3, which is rejecting the truthfulness of God’s Word. We see that Paul warned Timothy about the doctrines of demons that did not come from the Word of God (1 Timothy 4:1). These doctrines can be things found in Scripture that are twisted, perverted, and misinterpreted by demons and men to mean something different than what God intended, leading to idolatry. 

Second, to purge and protect our hearts from idolatry, we must stand in our trust in God’s care.

Our stand on the truth of God’s Word must translate into a deep trust that His Word is true, that God is true, and that God loves and cares for us.

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