Idolatry Quotes

• God will put up with a great many things in the human heart, but there is one thing that He will not put up with in it--a second place. He who offers God a second place, offers Him no place.

  John Ruskin

  Heart, Great Men, Gods Will

  John Ruskin, Louisa Caroline Tuthill (1865). “Precious Thoughts”, p.101

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• If you love anything better than God you are idolaters: if there is anything you would not give up for God it is your idol: if there is anything that you seek with greater fervor than you seek the glory of God, that is your idol, and conversion means a turning from every idol.

  Charles Spurgeon

  Giving Up, Mean, Idols

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• Not only the adoration of images is idolatry, but also trust in one's own righteousness, works and merits, and putting confidence in riches and power. As the latter is the commonest, so it also is the most noxious.

  Martin Luther

  Riches, Merit, Latter

  Martin Luther (1959). “What Luther says: an anthology”

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• The idolatry the exists in a man's heart always wants to lead him away from his Savior and back to self-reliance no matter how pitiful that self-reliance is or how many times it has betrayed him.

  Matt Chandler

  Heart, Men, Self

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• We make a god out of whatever we find most joy in. So find your joy in God and be done with all idolatry.

  John Piper

  Joy, Done

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• The opposite of Christianity is not atheism, but idolatry.

  Peter Kreeft

  Opposites, Atheism, Christianity

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• Idolatry is worshipping anything that ought to be used, or using anything that is meant to be worshipped.

  Saint Augustine

  Used, Ought, Meant To Be

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• For what is idolatry if not this: to worship the gifts in place of the Giver himself?

  John Calvin

  Worship, Giver, Ifs

  John Calvin “Calvin: Institutes of the Christian Religion”, Westminster John Knox Press

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• When something becomes so important to you that it drives your behavior and commands your emotions, you are worshipping it.

  J. D. Greear

  Important, Emotion, Behavior

  J.D. Greear (2011). “Gospel: Recovering the Power that Made Christianity Revolutionary”, p.27, B&H Publishing Group

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• The heart clings to collected treasure. Stored-up possessions get between me and God. Where my treasure is, there is my trust, my security, my comfort, my God. Treasure means idolatry.

  Dietrich Bonhoeffer

  Wisdom, Heart, Mean

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• Idolatry happens when we take good things and make them ultimate things

  Timothy Keller

  Good Things, Happens, Ultimate

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• The Human heart is an idol factory.

  John Calvin

  Heart, Idols, Factories

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• If we esteem them too highly, good works can become the greatest idolatry.

  Martin Luther

  Christian, Good Work, Esteem

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• He who offers God a second place offers Him no place.

  John Ruskin

  Offers, Second Place

  John Ruskin (1867). “Precious Thoughts: Moral and Religious. Gathered from the Works of John Ruskin, A. M.”, p.76

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• Everyone should be respected as an individual, but no one idolized.

  Albert Einstein

  Inspirational, Respect, Idols

  Albert Einstein (2013). “Einstein on Politics: His Private Thoughts and Public Stands on Nationalism, Zionism, War, Peace, and the Bomb”, p.228, Princeton University Press

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• The heart of all idolatry in the Bible is the de-godding of God.

  D. A. Carson

  Heart

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• We have created new idols. The worship of the ancient golden calf (cf. Ex 32:1-35) has returned in a new and ruthless guise in the idolatry of money and the dictatorship of an impersonal economy lacking a truly human purpose. The worldwide crisis affecting finance and the economy lays bare their imbalances and, above all, their lack of real concern for human beings; man is reduced to one of his needs alone: consumption.

  Pope Francis

  Real, Men, Cfs

  "The Joy of the Gospel: Evangelii Gaudium". Book by Pope Francis, w2.vatican.va. November 26, 2013.

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• The opposite of theism is not atheism, it’s idolatry

  Peter Kreeft

  Opposites, Atheism, Theism

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• When people say, "I know God forgives me, but I can't forgive myself," they mean that they have failed an idol, whose approval is more important than God's.

  Timothy Keller

  Mean, Idols, People

  Timothy Keller (2009). “Counterfeit Gods: The Empty Promises of Money, Sex, and Power, and the Only Hope that Matters”, p.83, Penguin

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• If you uproot the idol and fail to plant the love of Christ in its place, the idol will grow back.

  Tullian Tchividjian

  Idols, Failing, Christ

  "Counterfeit Gods: When the Empty Promises of Love, Money and Power Let You Down". Book by Timothy Keller, 2010.

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• It is time to cease to argue about God , and instead to unite in the unmasking of contemporary forms of idolatry.

  Erich Fromm

  Unmasking, Arguing, Form

  Erich Fromm (2013). “Psychoanalysis and Religion”, p.111, Open Road Media

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• If gratitude is not rooted in the beauty of God before the gift, it is probably disguised idolatry. May God grant us a heart to delight in him for who he is so that all our gratitude for his gifts will be the echo of our joy in the excellency of the Giver!

  John Piper

  Gratitude, Heart, Echoes

  John Piper (2009). “A Godward Life: Savoring the Supremacy of God in All of Life”, p.214, Multnomah

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• Idolatry, then, is always polytheism, an aimless passing from one lord to another. Idolatry does not offer a journey but rather a plethora of paths leading nowhere and forming a vast labyrinth.

  Pope Francis

  Journey, Labyrinth, Path

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• Superstition, idolatry, and hypocrisy have ample wages, but truth goes a begging.

  Martin Luther

  Truth, Begging You, Hypocrisy

  Martin Luther (1848). “The table talk or familiar discourse of Martin Luther, tr. by W. Hazlitt”, p.25

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• Tis mad idolatry To make the service greater than the god.

  William Shakespeare

  God, Idols, Mad

  William Shakespeare, James Boswell, Edward Capell, Alexander Pope, George Steevens (1821). “The Plays and Poems of William Shakspeare”, p.291

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