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 |
Smashing False Idols: Gospel Communication  |
Tim Keller (mp3) |
Smashing False Idols: Gospel Incarnation  |
Tim Keller (mp3) |
Smashing False Idols: Gospel Realisation  |
Tim Keller (mp3) |
Soul Idolatry Excludes Men out of Heaven  |
David Clarkson (1621-1686) |
Talking About Idolatry in a Postmodern Age  |
Tim Keller |
The Idol Factory  |
C.J. Mahaney (pdf) |
X-Ray Questions (.pdf)  |
David Powlison - Taken from Seeing with New Eyes |
A Study on Idolatry  |
J.C. Ryle |
Idols of the Heart and Vanity Fair  |
David Powlison |
The "Great Recession," Idols, and the Gospel of Jesus Christ  |
R. Scott Clark |
The Expulsive Power of a New Affection  |
Thomas Chalmers |
The First Commandment - "No Other Gods Before Me"  |
Martin Luther - from The Large Catechism |
The Idol Factory (.pdf)  |
Tim Keller |
The Killer B’s: Idols of the Minister’s Heart  |
R. Scott Clark, Ph.D. |
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... |
Sane Faith - Part 1  |
David Powlison |
Sane Faith - Part 2  |
David Powlison |
Sane Faith - Part 3  |
David Powlison |
The Idol Factory - Part 1  |
C.J. Mahaney (mp3) |
The Idol Factory - Part 2  |
C.J. Mahaney (mp3) |
The Idol Factory - Part 3  |
C.J. Mahaney (mp3) |
The Concept of Idolatry  |
Brian S. Rosner (pdf) |
3 questions with Tim Keller  |
Garrett E. Wishall |
A Fresh Look at 'Idols of the Heart'  |
David Powlison |
Addictions: New Ways of Seeing, New Ways of Walking Free (.pdf)  |
Edward T. Welch |
American Idols  |
Tim Keller explains why money, sex, and power so easily capture our affections. |
Book Hoarding  |
Jim Elliff |
Book Review - Idols for Destruction by Herbert Schlossberg  |
John Frame |
Colossians 3:5 - Idolatry Without Idols  |
Sam Storms |
Counterfeit Gods (MP3)  |
Tim Keller |
Dealing with Idolatry (MP3)  |
Peter Adam |
Exposition of the First and Second Commandments  |
John Calvin |
Flee from Idolatry (.pdf)  |
J. C. Ryle |
Flee From Idols (MP3)  |
Iain Campbell |
God Only - EXODUS 20:3  |
Phil Newton |
How To Find Your Rival Gods (.pdf)  |
Tim Keller |
Ideas Have Consequences  |
Rev. Paul Michael Raymond |
Idol Factory (PDF)  |
Robert Peterson |
Idolatry  |
Dean & Laura VanDruff - Spiritual Adultery Bible Study Series |
Idolatry  |
Acts 17:11 Bible Study |
Idolatry and Other Bad Habits  |
Dr. Michael Horton |
Idolatry and Silence (MP3)  |
Carl Trueman |
Idolatry, the Lord's Supper and the Body of Christ  |
John Piper |
Idols - Bible Study  |
bibledesk |
Image Worship  |
Dr. Ian R.K. Paisley |
Is Idolatry the New Sin?  |
Carlton Wynne |
Little Children, Keep Yourselves from Idols  |
Tom Steller |
Love and Doctrine  |
John Hendryx |
Motivation and Desire (.pdf)  |
David Powlison |
Musical Idolatry: Non Nobi (MP3)  |
Charles D. King, Reformation & Revival 7.3 (Summer 1998): 121-143. |
Removing Idols of the Heart (MP3)  |
Tim Keller |
Rome's Perversion of the Ten Commandments  |
Professor Arthur Noble |
Self-Love - The Idol of the Self  |
Hannah More (1811) |
Self-Sacrifice as Idolatry  |
Tim Keller |
Soul Idolatry Excludes Men out of Heaven  |
David Clarkson (1621-1686) |
Sounding Out the Idols of Church Growth  |
Os Guinness |
Spiritual Idolatry  |
John Angell James |
The "Great Recession," Idols, and the Gospel of Jesus Christ  |
R. Scott Clark |
The Doctrine of Adoption and its Specific Relevance for Pastoral Counseling in the Area of Addiction (.pdf)  |
Paul Stark |
The Glory of God and Idolatry  |
Bob Deffinbaugh |
The History of an Idol, its Rise, Reign and Progress  |
J. C. Philpot (1855) - 1 John 5:21 |
The Idol of Relevance (MP3)  |
Os Guinness |
The Irony Of Idolatry-Isaiah 6  |
G.K. Beale |
The Nameless One  |
Carl Trueman on Personality Cults of the Reformed variety |
The reformation of the image  |
Joseph Leo Koerner |
The Relics of Romanism  |
Professor Arthur Noble |
The Second Commandment - Idol Worship  |
Thomas Watson - from The Ten Commandments |
Thinking Rightly - An Antidote to Idolatry (MP3)  |
Kent Hughes |
Tim Keller Wants to Save Your Yuppie Soul  |
Joseph Hooper of the New Yorker |
War Against the Idols: The Reformation of Worship from Erasmus to Calvin  |
Carlos M. N. Eire |
What Are False gods (MP3)  |
Christopher Ash |
What Is Your One Thing?  |
Paul David Tripp |
What you revere you resemble (MP3)  |
G.K. Beale |
X-Ray Questions: Discerning Functional Gods (.pdf)  |
David Powlison |