What do demons have to do with idol worship? Many different religions and spiritual practices recognize ancient figure-heads in the form of statues. Followers will actually bow down and/or pray to these golden, stone, or wooden forms. Are these practices okay?
The Bible is very clear about it. It's even mentioned in the original Ten Commandments:
You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God. – Exodus 10:3-5a, ESV
There is one God, one Creator. He does not share allegiances. He does not even want us to worship Him through an idol. To worship an idol is equivalent to committing spiritual adultery against God. But exactly who would we be committing spiritual adultery with? Evil spirits plain and simple.
So they must no longer offer their sacrifices to the goat demons, acting like prostitutes by going after them. This is to be a perpetual statute for them throughout their generations. – Leviticus 17:7, NET
They provoked His jealousy with foreign gods; they enraged Him with detestable practices. They sacrificed to demons, not God, to gods they had not known, new gods that had just arrived, which your fathers did not fear. – Deuteronomy 32:16,17, HCSB
My people inquire of a piece of wood, and their walking staff gives them oracles. For a spirit of whoredom has led them astray, and they have left their God to play the whore. – Hosea 4:12, ESV
Many people commit adultery against their spouse with another man or woman. When we worship any kind of idol or statue, we are committing spiritual adultery against God with the demon that is hiding behind the inanimate object.
Idols are just another trap set by evil spirits in their war against humanity and the one true God.
And they worshiped their idols, which became a trap for them. They sacrificed their sons and daughters to demons. – Psalms 106:36,37, GW
The apostle Paul also warned the Corinthian church about idols. He basically said that an idol is nothing, but worshiping idols is still the same as bowing down to demons:
What do I imply then? That food offered to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything?
No, I imply that what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be participants with demons. – I Corinthians 10:19,20, ESV
That's scary stuff. There are a lot of religious systems that put significance on idols and statues. If you are engaged in anything of this sort, please be careful. Please reexamine your faith and spiritual loyalties. Ask yourself if you have fallen into a trap set by evil spirits. May it one day be said of you in this way:
For they themselves report concerning us the kind of reception we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God. – I Thessalonians 1:9, ESV
Read the next segment anytime--dealing with the subject of demon possession.
You can start this series on understanding demons by going back to the Introduction.
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