Idolatry

Nothing is too small or too insignificant which, at times, may not
be an idol. What is an idol? Something my carnal mind loves. How
may I know whether my carnal mind loves it? When we think of
it, and are very much pleased with it. We pet it, love and fondle it,
dallying and playing with it, like a mother with her babe. See how
she takes the little thing and gazes at it. Her eyes are fixed on it—
she dotes upon it because she loves it. Thus we may know an idol
if we examine our own hearts—by what our imagination, desires
and secret thoughts are going out after. Instead of being
spiritually-minded, having his heart and affections in heaven, he
has something in his mind which it is going out after—something
or other laying hold of the affections.

The child of God has, more or less, all these evil propensities
working within. There is idolatry in every man’s heart. How deep
this idolatry is rooted in a man’s heart! How it steals upon his
soul! Whatever is indulged in—how it creeps over him, until it
gets such power that it becomes master. A man does not know
himself if he does not know what power this idolatry has over
him. None but God can make the man know it—and when the
Lord delivers him, he then turns to God and says, “What a vile
wretch I have been! What a monster to go after these idols, loving
this thing, and that. A wretch—a monster of iniquity, the vilest
wretch that ever crawled on the face of God’s earth—for my
wicked heart to go out after these idols!” When the soul is
brought down to a sense of its vileness and loathsomeness—and
God’s patience and forbearance—it turns to God from idols, to
serve the only living and true God, who pardons the idolater.

J. C. Philpot  (1802 – 1869)