40 Days of Prayer 

Idolatry and Coveting

  
"I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. "You shall have no other gods before me." Exodus 20:2-3 NIV

"...the Ten Commandments begin with a commandment against idolatry. Why does this come first? Because, he argued, the fundamental motivation behind law-breaking is idolatry. We never break the other commandments without breaking the first one." Tim Keller, Counterfeit Gods

Yesterday Shaeffer argued that the commandments ended with 'thou shalt not covet' because coveting is the sinful root that motivates all law-breaking. Today Keller argues that the law against idolatry begins the Ten Commandments because it tells us why we break all the other laws. The prophet Jeremiah says it like this, "The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?" (Jeremiah 17:9). Our hearts are beyond cure. Our hearts are idol factories where coveting grows. Jeremiah precedes with these verses: "This is what the Lord says: "Cursed are those who put their trust in mere humans, who rely on human strength and turn their hearts away from the Lord. They are like stunted shrubs in the desert, with no hope for the future. They will live in the barren wilderness, in an uninhabited salty land." Jeremiah 17:5-6 NIV

Idolatry begins our death slide -- 'move over God, I decide what rules me.' Coveting then empowers all sin -- 'I want what I want.' What a horrible pair! No wonder Paul despaired in Romans 7:24-25, "What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God -- through Jesus Christ our Lord!"

Since the dawn of time this has been our constant battle. Idolatry begins our death slide and coveting prospers upon that soil and breeds deep roots into our hearts. Left to ourselves we would surely run headlong into destruction. But, there is hope, one solution - the Living God redeemed us from this death slide by dying on the cross in our place and through His resurrection now fills us with the powerful presence of His Spirit.

600 years before the birth of our Savior, Jeremiah went on to say: "But blessed are those who trust in the Lord and have made the Lord their hope and confidence. They are like trees planted along a riverbank, with roots that reach deep into the water. Such trees are not bothered by the heat or worried by long months of drought. Their leaves stay green, and they never stop producing fruit." Jeremiah 17:7-8 NIV

Pray that the Spirit within us will reveal our idols, teach us to trust in Christ alone and enable His fruit to be produced within our hearts.