Anything, apart from God, that commands the heart is an idol, the yielding of the heart to that thing is idolatry, and the one who yields to it is an idolater. Such is the plain, solemn truth in this matter, however unpalatable it may be to the proud human heart. Take that one great, crying, universal sin of “covetousness,” what does the inspired Apostle call it? He calls it “idolatry.” How many hearts are commanded by money! How many worshippers bow down before the idol of gold!
What is covetousness? Either a desire to get more or the love of what we have. We have both forms in the New Testament. The Greek has a word to represent both: “pleonexia”—the desire to get more (Col. 3:55Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry: (Colossians 3:5)) — and “philarguria” — the love of money (1 Tim. 6:10). But whether it be the desire to grasp or the desire to hoard, in either case it is idolatry.
The Hoarder and the Spender
And yet the two things may be very unlike in their outward development. The former, that is, the desire to get more, may often be found in connection with a readiness to spend; the latter, on the contrary, is generally linked with an intense spirit of hoarding. For example, there is a man of great business capacity—a thorough, commercial genius—in whose hand everything seems to prosper. He has a real zest for business, an unquenchable thirst for making money. His one object is to get more, to add thousand to thousand, to strengthen his commercial foundation, and to enlarge his sphere. He lives, thrives and revels in the atmosphere of commerce. He started on his career with a few pennies in his pocket, and he has risen to the proud position of a merchant prince. He is not a miser. He is as ready to scatter as to obtain. He fares sumptuously, entertains with a splendid hospitality, and gives munificently to manifold public objects. He is looked up to and respected by all classes of society.
But he loves to get more. He is a covetous man — an idolater. True, he despises the poor miser who spends his nights over his money-bags, delighting his heart and feasting his eyes with the very sight of the fascinating money, refusing himself and his family the common necessities of life, going about in rags and wretchedness, rather than spend a penny of the precious hoard. He loves money, not for what it can get or give, but simply for its own sake. Such loves to accumulate, not that he may spend, but that he may hoard, whose one ruling desire is to die worth so much wretched gold — strange, contemptible desire!
Covetousness
Now these two are apparently very different, but they meet in one point; they stand on one common platform: They are both covetous; they are both idolaters. This may sound harsh and severe, but it is the truth of God, and we must bow down before its holy authority. True it is that nothing is apparently more difficult to bring home to the conscience than the sin of covetousness—that very sin which the Holy Spirit declares to be idolatry. Thousands might see it in the case of the poor, degraded miser, who nevertheless would be shocked by its application to a merchant prince. It is one thing to see it in others, and quite another to judge it in ourselves. The fact is that nothing but the light of the Word of God shining in upon the soul and penetrating every chamber of our moral being can enable us to detect the hateful sin of covetousness. The pursuit of gain —the desire to have more — and the spirit of commerce—the desire to get ahead — all this is so “highly esteemed amongst men” that very few, comparatively, are prepared to see that it is positively “an abomination in the sight of God.”
The natural heart is formed by the thoughts of men. It loves, adores and worships the objects that it finds in this world, and each heart has its own idol. One man worships gold, another worships pleasure, another worships power. Every unconverted man is an idolater, and even converted men are not beyond the reach of idolatrous influences, as is evident from the warning note raised by the chosen Apostle, “Little children, keep yourselves from idols” (1 John 5:2121For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them; even so the Son quickeneth whom he will. (John 5:21)).
C. H. Mackintosh