Idolatry of Covid 19

The Israelites repeatedly fell into a pattern of idolatry which led to a pattern of receiving God’s judgement on their nation in the Old Testament. We don’t make idols or offer sacrifices to idols today-or do we? Idolatry is when you exchange something for God. It can also be thought of as elevating something above God. It’s placing your affection or trust in something above God-having disordered affections. 

The emergence of Covid 19 has exposed our many idols and has become a national idol that has penetrated the church itself. Modern Day Idolatry Penetrating The Church

1. Modern medicine and science instead of scripture have become the ultimate authority instead of God’s word on matters of life. The medical community has the unholy power to end your life, stop your life, force a vaccine, remove you from your family, remove you from society, and many other things. Why? Because we have elevated the medical communities faulty beliefs above God’s Word and that is a rejection of God Himself. 

When is a person a person? God answers that countless times in scripture (Psalm 139 and 22 to name a few)-but many in the church reject God’s clear answer in the Bible to justify abortion-which is absolutely modern day child sacrifice. 

It comes down to who do you trust? As hostility towards things of God ramp up in the US it’s becoming more obvious who actually trusts God and who trusts corrupted idols such as science and medicine. 

This is what the LORD says — your Redeemer, the Holy One… “I am the LORD your God, who teaches you what is best for you, who directs you in the way you should go.” (Isaiah 48:17)  

2. The idolatry of 24/7 cradle to the grave global masking is part of that idolatry. Now I’m not saying people don’t have liberty in this matter or that being forced to wear one in school or a job is wrong, but this is not a neutral or benign spiritual issue at all.

There is nothing in all of creation like the human face-the Bible is not silent on this. Part of being made in God’s image is reflecting God’s glory (2 Cor. 3:18) through the face and this happens over and over in the Bible (Matt 17, Acts 6, Ecc 8, Ex 34 and more). God created the face unique and is the part of the body made to behold. We don’t gaze at someone’s shin to see what emotion they might be feeling-the face is what God gave us. So covering the unique beauty and complexity of the face and replacing it with a cold sterile image takes away from not only being made in the image of God, but reflecting God’s glory. It takes away from what makes man made in God’s image-making him different and above the animals. It’s a tactice that reduces and dehumanizes-just as they dehumanize with abortion. In Islamic cultures that mask women it in effect eliminates women. It reduces their role in society to simply what the men want it to be. 

The human soul is a spiritual part of a person that shines through their face. A person’s countenance (Acts 6) is what God used to testify against those who would murder Stephen. He’s countenance was that of an angel as he was dying; he cried out for God not to lay this sin to their charge. What they saw in his face was to convict them of the wrong they were doing. 

It’s the primary source of how we identify people. It is the organ of emotion. It’s critical to a person’s emotional and psychological development. If a baby or young child is deprived of a mother’s face for a time it will become inconsolable. This will continue until the baby is able to see the mother’s face. We are told to seek God’s face countless times in scripture and this instinct is how God created us to seek each other’s face (3 John, Acts 20, among others). 

The universal masking of society diminishes what was made to reflect God’s glory. Whatever covid 19 actually is it has exposed who people trust. I thought sports were our nation’s biggest idol-but turns out it’s actually so called medicine or science. When we allow this idolatry to corrupt and alter the scope and nature of worship and service to God-that is a dangerous place. Judgement will start at the house of God and we should be certain that we are not found to be worshipping false idols in our day of visitation. That would be far more frightening and devastating any virus.