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  • Do You Give Undue Prominence to Creatures?
  • The Watchtower Announcing Jehovah’s Kingdom—1972
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  • WORSHIP OF “DUNGY IDOLS” IN ISRAEL
  • EVOLUTION A DANGER
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  • WATCH YOUR HEART’S ATTITUDE
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    The Watchtower Announcing Jehovah’s Kingdom—1993
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    The Watchtower Announcing Jehovah’s Kingdom—1963
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The Watchtower Announcing Jehovah’s Kingdom—1972
w72 9/1 pp. 537-540

Do You Give Undue Prominence to Creatures?

IN VARIOUS parts of the world we find people giving homage to all kinds of things, including animals and humans. Some of these are openly acknowledged as gods. Some are not called gods, yet the admiration and attention and, often, the obedience or devotion accorded these make them, in effect, gods. In fact, even in Christendom, their devotees often render far more service to such things than to the very God they claim to serve.

Jehovah God, the God of the Bible, is “a God exacting exclusive devotion.” (Ex. 20:5) Any deviation from full allegiance and wholehearted service to the true God tends to make the worshiper drift away from obedience to His laws. The person’s spiritual and moral fiber breaks down and he gradually deteriorates into one disobeying God and an idolater. Finally, he no longer acknowledges Jehovah’s supremacy and becomes an enemy of God.

WORSHIP OF “DUNGY IDOLS” IN ISRAEL

In ancient Israel the priests and religious teachers had drawn progressively farther from the Law to the point that exclusive devotion to God had deteriorated to an alarming degree. In fact, so bad had conditions become shortly before Jerusalem’s destruction by the Babylonians that God had abandoned his temple located in Jerusalem. But he wanted all to know that he was, nevertheless, fully aware of what was going on. Also, God was concerned for the honest ones among the Jews, that they might know why he was bringing punishment on the nation. Therefore he permitted his prophet Ezekiel to see and to expose the shockingly detestable things that their leaders were doing at the temple.

Ezekiel, in a vision, was carried from Babylon to Jerusalem and was being conducted by Jehovah on a tour of the temple there. Ezekiel reports:

“Accordingly he brought me to the entrance of the courtyard, and I began to see, and, look! a certain hole in the wall. He now said to me: ‘Son of man, bore, please, through the wall.’ And I gradually bored through the wall, and, look! there was a certain entrance.”​—Ezek. 8:7, 8.

Either through the enlarged hole or through a “certain entrance” near it, Ezekiel could go in and see what was taking place. He tells us:

“And he further said to me: ‘Go in and see the bad detestable things that they are doing here.’ So I went in and began to see, and, look! there was every representation of creeping things and loathsome beasts, and all the dungy idols of the house of Israel, the carving being upon the wall all round about. And seventy men of the elderly ones of the house of Israel, with Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan standing in among them, were standing before them, each one with his censer in his hand, and the perfume of the cloud of the incense was ascending. And he proceeded to say to me: ‘Have you seen, O son of man, what the elderly ones of the house of Israel are doing in the darkness, each one in the inner rooms of his showpiece? For they are saying, “Jehovah is not seeing us. Jehovah has left the land.”’”​—Ezek. 8:9-12.

Imagine! These supposed leaders of true worship paying homage to loathsome, unclean creeping things and beasts as gods, right in the temple of the living God, who had made them a great nation and had given them laws of cleanness and righteousness! And they had fallen into such a depraved mental state that they thought the Almighty God did not see the detestable things they were doing.

EVOLUTION A DANGER

Could such a thing possibly happen among professed Christians? Yes. In fact, it is one of the major dangers today. How?

Well, consider, for one thing, the theory of evolution, which millions, including many churchgoers, accept. What do they believe? That they originated from a one-celled creature in the primeval ocean. Then, from such single-cell beginning their ancestral lineage gradually evolved through changing stages of development, from simple forms of fish and amphibians to more complex land animals, from which man eventually emerged and stood upright​—so their theory goes.

If you were to tell a man that he was from a family of snakes, he would likely want to fight you. Or if you said that his ancestor was a stupid ape, an opossum or a dog, he would feel greatly degraded. Yet, according to the evolution theory, man owes his existence to such animals as his forefathers. Evolution thereby degrades man to the level of beasts.

Worse than that, the evolution theory denies the existence of a God of supreme intelligence. Or it calls him a liar when his Word the Bible says that man was, from the start, made in the image of God, with far higher intelligence than the animals, with reasoning power and moral and spiritual qualities. Evolutionary belief leads church people to worship as creator, not Jehovah God, but a theoretical, blind, evolutionary force, personified as “Mother Nature.” Degrading and blasphemous in the extreme, and gross idolatry!

NATIONALISM, SPORTS, PUBLIC FIGURES

Another even more subtle thing that can cause professed Christians to be found worshiping creatures and men or other things as idols exists in the matters of nationalism and the world of sports and entertainment. In what way?

Note, first, the wild animals and birds by which the nations of Christendom represent and symbolize their respective countries. Perhaps not much thought is given the symbol of the nation by the individual citizen. And it is not necessarily wrong that names, sometimes of birds or animals, are chosen to describe or stand for a nation. In the Bible Jehovah symbolically likens his care for his people to the eagle’s care for its young, and Jesus Christ is called “the Lion that is of the tribe of Judah,” the lion being a symbol of courageous justice. (Ex. 19:4; Rev. 5:5) The patriarch Jacob also prophesied concerning the twelve tribes of Israel, foretelling certain characteristics they would display by likening them to animals with these qualities.​—Gen. 49:9, 14, 17, 27.

However, in the case of national symbols, the question is: Is there any worship attached to them? It is the effect of such things on the attitude of people that determines whether worship is involved or not. How are your thoughts and emotions affected when you see these symbols? Do you feel that people of your race or nationality are better than others? Or do you instead appreciate the fact that God “made out of one man every nation of men” and that he is not partial to any race or nationality?​—Acts 17:26.

In sports, how do you feel about the local team, or a team you may favor? Today outstanding athletes are celebrated as heroes, their “fans” or devotees being anxious to follow their pattern, eat the same food and wear the same styles of clothing. There is a great clamor for their autographs. Sometimes bitter disputes, even fierce fights are waged over players or teams, and large sums of money are bet on them.

How does this constitute the worship of “dungy idols”? Not that there is necessarily anything wrong about the team or the game. Nor can the “hero” himself be singled out as worse than other men. It is the effect on the “fan” and his attitude that constitutes worship. Merely because such athletes have strong bodies and good coordination, should they be idolized? Aside from these abilities, what kind of persons are they? Are they persons whose pattern of life should be imitated? Do they have the qualities of love, kindness, faith in God, joy, peace, self-control? Does following their way exalt God? Do they themselves exalt God’s name or their own? Moreover, no matter what kind of person he is, no man should be idolized.

So, if a person spends much time and effort, carefully learning all the statistics and averages of the various teams and players, where is his real interest and devotion? How concerned is he about learning more concerning God’s purpose?

The question is: Really what does a person meditate upon? What does he love to do, to watch, to read about? What does he value? Jesus said: “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”​—Matt. 6:21.

In the worship and service of Jehovah God there are no excesses. True, there is joy, there is zeal, there is enthusiasm. But it all results in that which is good, and it is helpful to others. The frenzy and excesses that so many sports devotees and performers indulge in is evidence that they are idolizing the game or its participants. Take, for example, instances of fans throwing bottles at players or umpires, and going wild, tearing up the turf and equipment after a baseball or football game.

Would anyone claiming to be Christian take delight in gladiatorial fights, Roman style? Is there not at least some similarity with many sports, particularly the contact sports today, such as football, boxing and hockey?

In professional football, for example, there is what is known as the “suicide squad,” a group sent specially into a game, as Life magazine put it, “with specific violent jobs to do.” The requirement for suicide squad members, Life explains, is “savage instincts and no fear at all.” Said one player: “I just think about hurting the other person, because every time you get kicked senseless, you can count on knocking two or three other people senseless. That’s a pretty good feeling.”

When, in order to win a game, whether for money, fame, glory or anything else, a person not only risks his own health but also tries to hurt, possibly cripple or kill others, is this not a form of idolatry toward that sport? It certainly is thinking more of one’s own glory than of one’s fellowman, whom God created. It is in direct disobedience to the Creator and is a serving of something else as god, as more worthy of one’s devotion and life’s effort.

Of course, not all sports are so physically rough, but whatever sport he may favor, the Christian should guard himself against letting it capture his heart to the extent that it begins to take time and attention from the study of God’s Word and service to Him.

And we cannot single out sports alone as something that can become an idol. If we view TV or movie stars, musicians, singers or other public figures with awe or devote time excessively to watching or hearing them, we are neglecting the worship of God in favor of them.

WATCH YOUR HEART’S ATTITUDE

Therefore, we can engage in idolatry if we overenthusiastically support these things in which men are glorified, if we give our hearts over to them. Even if we do not openly display such feelings, we need to watch our mental attitude and our heart. For the ancient prophet Job showed that a person can be guilty of idolatry inside the privacy of his own heart. He said:

“If I used to see the light when it would flash forth, or the precious moon walking along, and my heart began to be enticed in secrecy and my hand proceeded to kiss my mouth, that too would be an error for attention by the justices, for I should have denied the true God above.”​—Job 31:26-28.

If we are induced to have an affection in our heart for any creature or thing that takes away from our exclusive devotion to God, it becomes an idol to us and a sin against God. It is good to keep in mind at all times Jesus’ words that point up the great danger of letting our hearts be enticed by anything that may draw us into a course disobedient to God. He warned his disciples: “Out of the heart come wicked reasonings, murders, adulteries, fornications, thieveries, false testimonies, blasphemies.” Also he showed that one’s heart can entrap one into sin against God when he said: “I say to you that everyone that keeps on looking at a woman so as to have a passion for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”​—Matt. 15:19; 5:28.

Entertainment and exercise are fine in their proper place. The apostle Paul put things in their correct order when he said: “Be training yourself with godly devotion as your aim. For bodily training is beneficial for a little; but godly devotion is beneficial for all things, as it holds promise of the life now and that which is to come.”​—1 Tim. 4:7, 8.

So we can see that Ezekiel’s visions apply very strongly today. Just as some Israelites were ensnared, so are many professed Christians. Having been drawn into the worship of animals and other “dungy idols,” those men of Israel thought that ‘Jehovah did not see’ them, that they would not be called to account. Today, although Christians know that Jehovah is “a God exacting exclusive devotion” and that ‘he will not give his glory to another, nor his praise to graven images,’ some let themselves be drawn into idolatrous practices.​—Isa. 42:8.

Consequently, the true Christian needs to be on guard against that very subtle trap, “the proud display of life,” which, the apostle John says, does not come “from the Father, but from the world.” Seeking glory for oneself or glorifying men will take one into idolatry. And it is a passing glory. John goes on to say: “The world with its cravings is passing away, but whoever does God’s will will endure forever.”​—1 John 2:16, 17, An American Translation.

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