I wonder how many false gods have been dreamed up since the creation of the world. In pagan religions, there are entire pantheons of these supposed gods. In Hinduism, there are something like 330 million supposed deities. In Mormonism, they surmise that there must be an unknowable, but an ever-expanding number of gods. But it is not outright false religions that are prone to worship such false gods. But we see that historically even Israel adopted many of them. Jer. 11:13a says – “For according to the number of your cities were your gods, O Judah…” From minuscule hand-carved idols to elaborate systems of false religions – False gods simply abound. But the true God warns in Jer. 10:11 – “Thus you shall say to them: ‘The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth shall perish from the earth and from under these heavens.’”
What always concerns me most, is not those that are easily seen to be false, but the false versions of God that people believe in within their hearts. I’ve written on this point before, but we cannot consider it enough. Men’s thoughts of God are so skewed, that they imagine they are worshiping the one true God, but they are really worshiping a mere caricature of Him. O, they may believe their version of God “made the heavens and the earth,” they might even attribute to Him the right name, but the God they worship is not the same God. A man could carve a nice angelic-looking statue out of a piece of wood, and say: “This carving is the God that created the earth, he is loving, and merciful, and mighty to save.” That man might even call his carving by the name of Jesus, and bow down to that carving and worship it, and live his whole life to serve that carving. But in the end, the nature of that carving is still just a piece of wood. It was called by the right name, it was believed that this god could save the man, and it was served and worshiped with great zeal. But in actuality that carving did nothing that was attributed to it – It was just a lump of wood. Even being called by the name of Jesus did not imbue it with the power to save anyone. In essence, it created nothing on its own but was rather created by the man.
Now, hear me in this, people do this very same thing all the time! The only difference is that they don’t carve their false God out of wood, they rather use the medium of their imaginations. In their imaginations, they start backward. Rather than beginning with God’s declaration of Himself in the Word, they start with their own desired end. They want to see themselves ultimately come to everlasting life, and so they imagine a god who will bring them there. Sure, they apply certain things to their imaginary god that they have heard about the true God. They say that their imaginary god is loving, and compassionate, and forgiving, etc. And, they say that he has the power to bring them to heaven. And based on what they have gleaned, they say that this god must be Jesus. But this practice has led to an innumerable number of different Jesus’ that all vary from person to person. Some of these false Christs are more permissible than others, some are more powerful than others, and some ideas of him are more well-thought-out than others. But there is but one true God and Jesus Christ. Jn. 17:3 – “And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.”
Personal views and individual definitions really amount to nothing in the end. There is one true God, and you either know Him, or you are believing in some misnamed substitute. How can we know if we are believing in the one who is true rather than some elaborate working of our own imagination? How can we know if we are worshiping the true God who created us, or some false god that we have created? Well, it is important to remember as we read in Jn. 1:18 – “No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.” Thus, we cannot start with our own views and our own desires of what we want God to be. O how many idols have their beginning in man’s desire to have a god that suits their preferences, that only has their good in mind, and that accepts them as they are. Rather than starting with such things, the Word declares that no one has seen God, and no one can truly know what God is like on their own. And so we are dependent on His revelation of Himself to us. We must not start with our desired end in mind, but rather we must start with God’s own declaration. A man will find that the true God is actually not promising eternal life to everyone, nor is He accepting of our sinfulness, nor is He anything like you! In His holiness, He actually stands opposed to you in your sins and will condemn you for them. There is no hope for you unless you turn from your sins in repentance and come to Him, the true God, to have your sins dealt with and removed through the sacrifice of His true Son. O, don’t settle for some caricature; don’t carve some idol in your mind, but come to His own declaration of Himself that is derived not from your desires or imaginations, but from His own Word.