Idolatry.
Thus it was three thousand years ago. Thus, to an extent as astounding as melancholy, it is today. Population of globe estimated at fourteen hundred millions; if so, one thousand millions heathen. Considering the prevalence, permanence, antiquity, of idolatry, that these words and many like these should have been written when and where they were, is no unsubstantial proof of the superhuman authorship, Divine inspiration, of Old Testament Scriptures. History presents no more impressive and significant sight than that of the little nation of Israel, holding a tiny corner of earth not twice the size of Yorkshire, hemmed in by mighty empires and ancient civilizations, often crushed by their irresistible weight; with absolutely no advantage over other peoples in the struggle for life, save their religion; yet maintaining for fifteen centuries their single-handed witness to the foundation-truth of religion, and protest against the perverted faiths of the world.
I. THE CAUSES OF IDOLATRY. How to account for this terrible and amazing fact—the widespread, long continued prevalence of idolatry? No single origin can be historically verified. Worship of forces and forms of nature, of ancestors, of deified heroes, of symbols or personified attributes, of partial and degraded conceptions of the one living God, or fading traditions of his worship,—all these have their place in the labyrinth of the history of national faiths. The theory propounded with immense assurance and eclat a generation ago, that fetishism was the parent of polytheism, and the worship of many gods crystallized into the worship of One, has shared the fate of theories which facts are forced or invented to fit, in place of theory being fitted to fact. Degraded superstitions of barbarous nations have the clear marks of being dust and dregs of ruined faiths (most striking illustration in the history of Madagascar, where proverbs still bore witness to God, while idols were bundles of sticks and rags). American Indians (types, according to Sir W. Dawson, of pre-historic men), among remnants of decayed civilization, have preserved the ancient faith in "the Great Spirit." Greece and India bear witness to the fact that the worship of nature preceded that of deities in human shape. In China, where the emperor once a year publicly worships "the God of heaven," and where worship of ancestors is the strongest form of religion, Buddhism, dating only some five centuries B.C.—at first a system of atheistic morality—has been transformed into idolatry. The two most amazing proofs of the all but irresistible tendency of human nature are found in the history of Israel and the history of Christianity. From the time of Joshua's successors to the Babylonian Captivity, the incurable propensity of rulers and people to idolatry is scarcely a less striking feature of Israel's history than the steadfast witness of the prophets and of the faithful remnant against it and on behalf of the truth. Christianity itself, whose glorious message to the heathen was—to turn from dumb idols to the living God, became in five centuries so encrusted with the worship of saints, the Virgin, the Host, relics, images, that when Mohammed drew the sword against idolatry, he reckoned Christians among idolaters. What is, then, the explanation? We find in it
II. THE EVIL OF IDOLATRY. People ask—Is not this greatly overrated? Does there not lie in the heart of idolatry a craving after God? Is it not better to worship an idol than not to worship at all—blind reverence better than none? Answer: Granting this, it does not change the fact that idolatry has death at its root, and death as its fruit (Jeremiah 2:13). Blind reverence brings no fruit of blessing into life, pardon, love of goodness, strength for duty, comfort in trouble, moral renewal, or spiritual life. To be Godless is to be Christless, hopeless (Ephesians 2:12). False substitutes for God do not prepare the heart to know and love him, but harden and close it against his voice. And for the most part idolatry brings the grossest immorality in its train.
III. THE DUTY, therefore, of delivering from the curse of blind, false, degrading worship a thousand millions of mankind, and spreading in its place the true knowledge of the ever-living Creator, the Father of spirits, and the glad tidings of reconciliation to him, and life eternal, as his children by faith in Christ Jesus, is one of the noblest, happiest, most imperative, to which Christians are called.