Idolatry: Let's do Something About it! (Reposted)

By: C. Peter Wagnar

Most of my Christian friends are saying that they would like to see their cities transformed. Few of them would need to be convinced that what we are seeing all around us, day in and day out, seems to be resulting much more from the activities of the forces of darkness than from the kingdom of God in our midst.

Taking Our Cities for God:

Is there something we can do about this? We must begin by praying, as Jesus instructed us to do: Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. But we cannot stop there, because a major way that God has chosen to answer our prayers and manifest His kingdom in our communities is to use Christian people as His front-line agents in bringing it about. Are we ready for Him to use us?

Ever since John Dawson published his book, Taking Our Cities for God (Creation House) in 1989, the body of Christ has been diligently seeking to understand and to apply the different means that God has been providing us to take our cities. We have come a long way, and many wonderful things have been happening. But few of us would be able to say, "Yes, we have taken our city for God! It is transformed! God's kingdom now far overshadows the kingdom of darkness in our city!"

Why? Why, after years of exponentially increased prayer, of high-quality books and articles on city-taking, of ministries that have come into our cities with well-attended conferences, of revival signs in city after city, of pastors' prayer summits, of leaders gathering in large numbers for annual Fasting & Prayer events, of Marches for Jesus, of organized prayer walking, of massive Promise Keepers' public repentance, of powerful and motivating sermons from our pulpits, and of many other exemplary corporate Christian activities have we seen such relatively scant progress? Several leaders, myself included, have been agonizing over this question for months; Happily, some promising answers are emerging which I believe will help us, by the grace of God, begin to se the breakthroughs that both God, and we earnestly desire.

It has only been fairly recently that the Lord has been impressing on me the urgent need to deal aggressively with idolatry if we ever expect to see our cities transformed. If you read the literature that has been coming out on the subject, you will see that this crucial issue has been largely overlooked. The major reason for this, in all probability, is that few of us have really understood the nature of hard-core idolatry, and that is why I am writing this. Let's get our thinking straight on idolatry, and let's do something about it!

DEALING A BLOW TO IDOLATRY IN OUR CITY:

This leads into one of the strongest statements I will make The finest of our leaders may competently apply all the excellent insights that God has given us for city transformation over the last few years in the highest levels in our cities, but if we do not also deal a significant and simultaneous blow to idolatry, we will mot see our dream for city transformation come true.

The reason I dare to make such a bold statement is that the Bible is so clear about the way that God refuses to move in the way He desires to move if the pathway is clogged with idols.

Take, for example. Jacob. God had called Abraham out of the matrix of sun-goddess worship in Ur and Haran, and Abraham had pledged his total allegiance to the Lord. Isaac followed him, and then Jacob, who was to give birth to the tribes of Israel. But, by that time, through household servants or in-laws or other means, idolatry had crept into Jacob's household. God was ready to take Jacob to a new level in Bethel where He would change his name to Israel and promise him that a nation and a company of nations shall proceed from you, and kings shall come from your body (Gen. 35:1 1).

"PUT AWAY FOREIGN GODS!"

But the prerequisite for God's will to be accomplished was to abolish the idolatry in their midst. Jacob obeyed, Jacob said to his household and to all that were with him, 'Put away the foreign gods [i.e., idols] that are among you, purify yourselves, and change your garments. Then let us arise and go up to Bethel and I will make an altar there to God' (Gen. 35:2-3). This was a radical demand, but there was no question that it had to be done if Jacob's household was to be everything God wanted them to be. So they gave Jacob all the foreign gods which were in their hands, and all their earrings which were in their ears (Gen. 35:4).'

What happened? And they journeyed, and the terror of God was upon the cities that were all around them, and they did not pursue the sons of Jacob (Gen. 35:5). The hand of God was definitely on them so powerfully that they enjoyed total protection from potential enemies. Getting rid of their idols made all the difference in the world.

WHAT ABOUT JEWELRY?

Notice that items of jewelry entered the picture. They turned their earrings over to Jacob. Why would they do this? It is not because God frowns on the use of decorative jewelry, but there was something about those particular earrings that were giving honor to foreign gods? Namely certain demonic spirits, and not to God. In other words, the earrings were idols. As we have seen, honoring those spirits by glorifying them through ornaments is a way of committing spiritual adultery, and God is a jealous God. He simply will not put up with it.

An example occurs to me. Back a few years ago when I was teaching my adult Sunday School class in Lake Avenue Congregational Church in Pasadena, California, we prayed for the sick on a regular basis. One Sunday morning a class member brought a friend who had been suffering for months from a chronic headache that would not go away no matter what. I prayed for her in my normal way, and I saw certain things happen which led m to believe that she would be healed, but when I finished, the headache was still there.

Then God drew my attention to a piece of jewelry -a pendant around her neck which had a graven image of the Queen of Heaven in the form of a counterfeit Virgin Mary. "Do you always wear that?' I asked her. "Yes," she replied, "I have worn it for years. I never take it off." o I did what Jacob might have done, and said, "Well, take it off now!" She looked shocked! She said, "I could never take that off. I love her, and she loves me. She takes care of me." I said, "She isn't taking care of your headache very well, is she? It's your choice. Take off that medal and get rid of your headache, or leave it on and keep the headache." I turned as if to go, but she told me to wait. I could see that she was agonizing, but finally with trembling hands, she took it off and put it on the table. I prayed again, and the headache left for the first time in months!

Then I said, "Do you want me to take that necklace?" Another long pause. "No," she said, "I'll take care of it. "So she picked it up and put it in her purse. I never saw her again, but I could almost guarantee that if she had her neck, the headache would have been back.

NEUTRALIZING THE POWER OF THE PHILISTINES:

Israel had been taking too many hits from their archenemies, the Philistines. The problem? Israel was committing idolatry! So at a critical moment, their leader, Samuel, said, If you turn to the Lord with all your hearts, then put away foreign gods and the Ashtoreths [i.e., the idols ] from among you, and prepare your hearts for the Lord, and serve Him only and He will deliver you from the Philistines (l Sam. 7:3). Once again God's people were missing God's best for them because they had a dual allegiance-to God and to their idols. God does not allow you to have it both ways.

Fortunately, when they realized the error of their ways, they repented for their sin, and they decided to give their total allegiance to God. So the children of Israel put away the Baals and the Ashtoreths, and served the Lord only (l Sam. 7:4). As a result, the Philistines were subdued, and they did not come anymore into the territory of Israel (l Sam. 7:13). I believe that we could see similar results in our cities today if we decided to deal decisively with hard-core idolatry and thus rid our cities of our contemporary Baals and Ashtoreths.

HOW STRONG CAN IDOLS BE? PAUL KNOWS!

One of the best examples of the power of idolatry to block the entrance of the kingdom of God into a city is Paul's experience in Athens. Paul reaped abundant spiritual fruit in Thessalonica and Berea before he went to Athens, and he reaped abundant fruit in Corinth and Ephesus after he left Athens. But in Athens he saw very few converts and he left no church behind that we hear anything more about. What had blocked Paul's ministry there? Idolatry! Paul's spirit was provoked within him when he saw that the city was given over to idols (Acts 17:16). True, cities like Thessalonica, Berea, Corinth, and Ephesus had their share of idols, but not like Athens. Athens was notable in ancient literature for its unusually extravagant idolatry. Athens was called a forest of idols. Some said that it was easier to find a god in Athens than a human being. One estimate calculated that the city of Athens housed more idols than all the rest of Greece combined!

How hard did Paul try to take Athens for Christ? As hard as he could. In fact, the consensus among homiletics professors is that Paul preached his most brilliant sermon in Athens - the Sermon on Mars Hill. But the forces of darkness, led by the goddess Athena, had built almost impenetrable defenses against the Gospel through festivals, pilgrimages, rituals, unholy sculptures, ornate demonic temples, blood sacrifices, altars inside and outside of every home, sacred pillars, and public invitations by civic officials for the demonic principalities to maintain possession of their city. Paul had met his 'match in the spiritual realm. That is how powerful hand-core idolatry can be!

If Paul found the idolatry of Athens so formidable an obstacle, it should not surprise us that our cities today are so hard to take for the kingdom. I frankly doubt if any American city is as thoroughly idolatrous as Athens was, but that does not mean that idolatry is not a powerful barrier to the Gospel of the kingdom in Virtually every one of our cities. Paul brake through the other cities, and so can we.

SAN LA MUERTE OF RESISTENCIA:

Resistencia, Argentina, while probably not as idolatrous as Athens, had given itself over as a playground for several powerful demonic principalities. Resistencia was the target of one of the decade's first city-taking efforts, led by Ed Silvoso of Harvest Evangelism. My wife, Doris, and I, along with Cindy Jacobs and several others joined Silvoso in a three-year effort to see a true spiritual breakthrough in Resistencia beginning in 1990.

The highest-ranking spirit in that Northern Argentina city of 400,000 was San La Muerte, literally translated, "St. Death." Thirteen shrines to St. Death throughout the city offered easy access for worship to the entire population. His idol was a skeleton.

Why did people worship this spirit? Because he had promised them a "good death!" It is hard to imagine a people so hopeless and full of despair that the most they could hope for down the road was a good death! In fact, many had miniature idols of San La Muerte surgically implanted in parts of their bodies, such as under their nipples, so that wherever they went, San La Muerte would go with them and give them a good death.

The few Christian pastors of the city joined forces with Silvoso's team and declared war on San La Muerte and his cohorts. Open spiritual confrontation was the order of the day. Multiple strategic events took place in carefully-planned sequence over a 36-month period. The culmination was to be a massive public evangelistic campaign, featuring all the leaders of the Argentine revival.

While the city was notoriously and openly idolatrous, it took some time to recognize the fact that a good bit of this idolatry had spilled over into the body of Christ as well. Many believers were found to be acting like the ancient children of Israel under Samuel-they had their modern counterparts to Israel's Baals and Ashtoreths somewhere on their persons or in their homes.

"Burn the idols!"

Doris was preparing to travel to Argentina with Cindy Jacobs for the climactic evangelistic campaign. As she was reading Scripture the morning she was to leave, The Holy Spirit told her that in Resistencia they must burn the idols, like magicians did in Ephesus. Ed Silvoso, Cindy Jacob and the resistencia pastors agreed. So the evening before the evangelistic crusade, all the city's believers came together for prayer. The leaders explained how important it would be to do spiritual housecleaning in their homes before they came to the meeting. They began mentioning the kinds of material things that might be bringing honor to the spirits of darkness; pictures, statues, Catholic saints, Books of Morman, pictures of former lovers, pornographic material, fetishes, drugs, Ouija boards, zodiac charms, good luck symbols, crystals for healing, amulets, talismans, tarot cards, witch dolls, voodoo items, love potions, books of magic, totem poles, certain pieces of jewelry, objects of Freemasonry, horoscopes gargoyles, native art, foreign souvenirs, and what have you.

The believers agreed to obey God and to cleanse their homes, even if it meant giving up what might have been expensive items. They were to wrap each item in newspaper to protect privacy, and then cast the objects into a 55-gallon drum set before the platform the following night. The drum was heaped to overflowing! They poured gasoline on it and set it on fire. This was a major power encounter because the witches and warlocks had surrounded the area and done their occult sacrifices, killing animals, burning incense, and sending the most powerful curses they could muster toward the evangelists. When the flames shot up, a woman right behind Doris screamed and manifested a demon. Which Doris immediately cast out!

THE FALL OF SAN LA MUERTE:

Many unbelievers came to Christ that night, and each one was instructed to go home, do their own spiritual housecleaning, and bring their objects to the bonfire the following night. As this went on, night after night, San La Muerte's power diminished. The breakthrough that the believers had prayed for occurred. Eighteen new Churches sprang up, and the evangelical population increased many fold over the next few years.

As if to headline how the aggressive onslaught against idolatry had succeeded, God permitted a spectacular event to occur one week before the evangelistic campaign. Resistencia's high priestess of San La Muerte had been smoking in her bed. She fell asleep, and her bed caught fire. The only things that were consumed by fire were the bed, the woman, and her idol of San La Muerte located in the next room! No wonder the city was ready to hear the word of God!