The Heart is an Idol Factory

Reading in Joshua 23.16 this morning. The last thing that Joshua leaves to the people is the dangers of idolatry. It is a prescient comment, since it would be idolatry that brought them into exile. I think it is safe to say that idolatry has been and is the chief failure of humans. As someone once said, "the human heart is an idol factory." Just so. Always and everywhere it wants to make an idol of something.

In all this exhortation we see how closely Joshua copies the example of his great master Moses. See Lev. xxvi. 7, 8, 14, &c.; Deuteronomy xxviii. 7; xxxii. 30. He was tenderly concerned for the welfare of the people, and with a deeply affected heart he spoke to their hearts. No people ever were more fairly and fully warned, and no people profited less by it. The threatenings pronounced here were accomplished in the Babylonish captivity, but more fully in their general dispersion since the crucifixion of our Lord. And should not every Christian fear when he reads, If God spared not the natural branches, take heed that he spare not thee? Surely a worldly, carnal, and godless Christian has no more reason to expect indulgence from the justice of God than a profligate Jew. We have a goodly land, but the justice of God can decree a captivity from it, or a state of bondage in it. The privileges that are abused are thereby forfeited. And this is as applicable to the individual as to the whole system. - John Trapp