Sin isn’t only doing bad things, it is more fundamentally making good things into ultimate things. Sin is building your life and meaning on anything, even a very good thing, more than on God. Whatever we build our life on will drive us and enslave us. Sin is primarily idolatry.
Tim Keller
All those who do not at all times trust God and do not in all their works or sufferings, life and death, trust in His favor, grace and good-will, but seek His favor in other things or in themselves, do not keep this [First] Commandment, and practice real idolatry, even if they were to do the works of all the other Commandments, and in addition had all the prayers, obedience, patience, and chastity of all the saints combined. For the chief work is not present, without which all the others are nothing but mere sham, show and pretense, with nothing back of them... If we doubt or do not believe that God is gracious to us and is pleased with us, or if we presumptuously expect to please Him only through and after our works, then it is all pure deception, outwardly honoring God, but inwardly setting up self as a false [savior]...
Martin Luther from "A Treaties on Good Works"
Because we are, each of us, the image of God, we will worship, in fact we must worship, someone or something, either our original, as we should, or, with the illusion that we are the original or our own ultimate point of reference, ourselves. If the latter, we will give ourselves over, with the full, still efficient resources of our imaging capacities, to some figment, some distorted image, focused on ourselves or on some aspect of the world, ultimately seen as an extension of ourselves. What Calvin observed long ago is no less true today: the human heart, our image-bearing and image-fashioning nature, is an idol factory.
Richard Gaffin from "Speech and the Image of God" in The Pattern of Sound Doctrine
| Title |
Notes |
X-Ray Questions  |
David Powlison - Taken from Seeing with New Eyes |
The Idol Factory  |
C.J. Mahaney (pdf) |
Smashing False Idols: Gospel Incarnation  |
Tim Keller (mp3) |
Smashing False Idols: Gospel Communication  |
Tim Keller (mp3) |
Smashing False Idols: Gospel Realisation  |
Tim Keller (mp3) |
Talking About Idolatry in a Postmodern Age  |
Tim Keller |
Soul Idolatry Excludes Men out of Heaven  |
David Clarkson (1621-1686) |
The "Great Recession," Idols, and the Gospel of Jesus Christ  |
R. Scott Clark |
The Killer B’s: Idols of the Minister’s Heart  |
R. Scott Clark, Ph.D. |
Resisting Idolatry Like Jesus  |
Mark Driscoll (mp3) - 1 Corinthians 10:1-14 |
The Expulsive Power of a New Affection  |
Thomas Chalmers |
Idols of the Heart and Vanity Fair  |
David Powlison |
The First Commandment - "No Other Gods Before Me"  |
Martin Luther - from The Large Catechism |
A Study on Idolatry  |
J.C. Ryle |
Sane Faith - Part 3  |
David Powlison |
Sane Faith - Part 2  |
David Powlison |
Sane Faith - Part 1  |
David Powlison |
The Idol Factory - Part 3  |
C.J. Mahaney (mp3) |
The Idol Factory - Part 2  |
C.J. Mahaney (mp3) |
The Idol Factory - Part 1  |
C.J. Mahaney (mp3) |
Getting to the Heart of Conflict - Idolatry  |
Ken Sande - Conflicts arise from unmet desires in our hearts. When we feel we cannot be satisfied unless we have something we want or think we need, the desire turns into a demand. If someone fails to meet that desire, we condemn him in our heart... |
The Concept of Idolatry  |
Brian S. Rosner (pdf) |
Musical Idolatry: Non Nobi (MP3)  |
Charles D. King, Reformation & Revival 7.3 (Summer 1998): 121-143. |
Counterfeit Gods (MP3)  |
Tim Keller |
Is Idolatry the New Sin?  |
Carlton Wynne |
Self-Sacrifice as Idolatry  |
Tim Keller |
American Idols  |
Tim Keller explains why money, sex, and power so easily capture our affections. |
The Glory of God and Idolatry  |
Bob Deffinbaugh |
Thinking Rightly - An Antidote to Idolatry (MP3)  |
Kent Hughes |
Idolatry and Silence (MP3)  |
Carl Trueman |
Flee From Idols (MP3)  |
Iain Campbell |
The Irony Of Idolatry-Isaiah 6  |
G.K. Beale |
What you revere you resemble (MP3)  |
G.K. Beale |
What Are False gods (MP3)  |
Christopher Ash |
Dealing with Idolatry (MP3)  |
Peter Adam |
Idolatry and Other Bad Habits  |
Dr. Michael Horton |
Idolatry  |
Acts 17:11 Bible Study |
Celebrity Culture and Worshipping False Idols  |
By TERRY MORAN interviews Mark Driscoll |
The Nameless One  |
Carl Trueman on Personality Cults of the Reformed variety |
Ideas Have Consequences  |
Rev. Paul Michael Raymond |
3 questions with Tim Keller  |
Garrett E. Wishall |
What Is Your One Thing?  |
Paul David Tripp |
Love and Doctrine  |
John Hendryx |
Colossians 3:5 - Idolatry Without Idols  |
Sam Storms |
Idols - Bible Study  |
bibledesk |
Little Children, Keep Yourselves from Idols  |
Tom Steller |
Exposition of the First and Second Commandments  |
John Calvin |
God Only - EXODUS 20:3  |
Phil Newton |
Soul Idolatry Excludes Men out of Heaven  |
David Clarkson (1621-1686) |
Idol Factory (PDF)  |
Robert Peterson |
The Second Commandment - No Idols  |
Daniel Doriani (pdf) - Exodus 20:2-7 |
The Idol of Relevance (MP3)  |
Os Guinness |
Book Review - Idols for Destruction by Herbert Schlossberg  |
John Frame |
Idolatry  |
Dean & Laura VanDruff - Spiritual Adultery Bible Study Series |
The Second Commandment - Idol Worship  |
Thomas Watson - from The Ten Commandments |
The History of an Idol, its Rise, Reign and Progress  |
J. C. Philpot (1855) - 1 John 5:21 |
Spiritual Idolatry  |
John Angell James |
Idolatry, the Lord's Supper and the Body of Christ  |
John Piper |
Self-Love - The Idol of the Self  |
Hannah More (1811) |
Sounding Out the Idols of Church Growth  |
Os Guinness |