One of the strange and dreadful powers of men is the ability to make gods for themselves. No matter how ordinary their talents and unsuccessful their efforts in other directions, within the deity constructing business they always excel. From the successful manufacture of one, they can soon turn out “gods many.” In fine scorn and irony, the prophet addressed an idolatrous people, and said, “You take the trunk of a tree, make an image of it, call it god, and then afterwards burning it up, fail to see the silliness and absurdity of the whole proceeding.” This, and all other arguments, fails to deter idolaters from their god manufacture. So it was that intellectual Greece had thirty-three thousand false deities, military Rome possessed as many, and benighted Africa owned as great a multitude.

No tribe, no matter how degraded and poverty-stricken, seems to be poor when numbering their gods. They are legion, and they are of brass, iron, wood, stone, and anything and everything but spirit. In enlightened America, we have as many false gods as the countries previously mentioned had ever possessed. Men are still busy making gods. It is true that in this nation, men have better conceptions of the Divine Being than the Asiatics and Africans possess. They know that God is a spirit, and therefore is not to be constructed in the forms and images such as the heathen fashion for themselves. Nevertheless, all misconceptions of God are idolatrous. All wrong ideas that result in robbing Him of certain moral attributes, or that deny His will and word and work, inevitably make an idol or false gods.

It is marvelous to see what an impertinent and sacrilegious hand men attempt to lay upon the Almighty. They take from Him attributes that belong to Him alone and clothe Him with qualities that he plainly disclaims, and which are perfectly alien to His character. The result is, of course, a false god. Evidently, the God of the Bible does not suit people in America. They have gone to great lengths to cut Him up, shave Him down, and then add worldliness, weakness and general molluscousness to His character which really brings another false god upon the scene, whom men worship and whom at last they will find powerless to save them. It is a sickening thought that there are so many Christian congregations in the land today that are worshipping a false christ. About all some of them have of the real, true Savior is the name Jesus Christ. That a certain divine man named Christ died on Calvary two thousand years ago is the one fact and truth they start out with, but after that comes in their handiwork in all that remains. Instead of changing their hearts and lives to suit the Holy One of the Bible, they alter Him to suit their worldly and sinful lives. So a soft, easygoing, worldly christ is lifted up in their church as the object of worship.

As a god, he is indifferent to the amusements and business life of his followers. He winks at card-playing, utilizing foul language, R-rated theater-going, drinking excessively and bowing down before images with the idea that the appearance of evil is no longer a problem so long as they are called “icons” instead of idols. He does not mind white lies, gossip, and various kinds of diversions in the family and church. He is perfectly satisfied that his people come to his “temple” twice on Sunday, sing him an anthem or two, bow slightly in the pews, and if convenient attend the prayer meeting on Wednesday night or mass on Saturday evenings before sun down. The rest of the week can be spent anywhere and everywhere it suits them; it is all the same to him.

There is not the shadow of a doubt that we have churches throughout our country called “The Church of the Redeemer,” or “The Church of the Messiah,” or “St. Anne’s,” that if the real Christ, as he is, should walk down its aisles, the congregation would not know him. If he preached a single sermon they would never hear another, and if he persisted in his rebuke they would kill him as certainly as did the Jews. It is purely an imaginary Christ that many congregations are worshipping. They have manufactured a God to suit themselves. The boundary lines of his salvation have been so run in and out as to allow not only questionable things, but also matters forbidden by the Law and the Sermon on the Mount. The Christ of the Bible, demanding a complete consecration, a devoted service, and a rulership without a rival in the heart, is one Being, and the one they call “christ” who permits compromise, a half-hearted following, and actual sin and worldliness is another person altogether different. The first is the true God, the second is a false one manufactured by the worshipper and unable to save in life, comfort in death or deliver at the Day of Judgment.

In our goings about, we have often heard the expression, “My God allows me to do so and so, or this and that.” We never heard the speech, but felt that some kind of sin was being covered. In numerous instances, the proof was finally given to verify the suspicion.

The explanation of the phrase is that the man, being plainly forbidden by the God of the Bible from committing certain things, or acting in various ways, immediately proceeded to make a god for himself who would allow him to do whatsoever he desired. This manufactured deity he calls “his god.” Then, in due season, we hear the words, “My god allows me to play cards,” or to “go to the R-rated theater movies,” etc., etc. These gods, of course, are very diverse, as people do not all favor the same kind of sin; and so they differ and are numerous as well. If a town has a population of three thousand people, it is perfectly safe to say there are over one thousand false gods in the community. A city of a million would have an array of man-created deities that would make the thirty-three thousand idols of Athens look like a corporal’s guard.

It stands to reason that if we would wield a harsh, slanderous tongue, we must be under the necessity of creating a god who will allow this so that we can, in the indulgence of such unkindness and spleen, be able to say that our god continues to smile upon and bless us. The God of the Bible is against such words and such a spirit, so the counterfeit deity is struck off, elevated into position, and then, with hands wet with the blood of a brother’s reputation, the deluded man looks upward while the lips say, “My god allows me to do this,” “My god continues to bless and prosper me while I do and say such things.” If a man wants to be divorced from his wife for reasons other than the scriptural cause, he is under the necessity of making a god to let him do it, for the true God forbids it. Hence, we do not have to travel far these days to hear a man or woman say, “My god allowed me to get a divorce and the ground was incompatibility.” Another god-maker! If a person would like to gossip, or repeat evil reports; if he would condemn a fellow being unheard, and nurse a grudge, he must manufacture a god to permit such a spirit and life, for the true God is against it all. No one need be surprised to hear people, who are well-known to be guilty of these things, stand up in testimony meetings and say that God dwells in their hearts and that they never enjoyed religion more in all their lives than now.

The explanation is that a god has been manufactured to suit the unloving, unChrist-like life. It is true that their tongue is sharper than a serpent’s tooth, and their conversation is one of abuse, detraction, and slander. Yet, here comes the stereotyped expression, “My lord was never nearer and dearer to me than now. He fills me now. He keeps me and blesses me all the time.” In spite of the bold declaration, many of the readers of this article will recall how the God of the Bible failed to make his presence felt at this juncture, and how, when the testifier sat down, there was a peculiar silence, unctionless, ominous and oppressive. False gods allow us to retain right eyes and right arms that offend. They grant seats at Jezebel’s table, and the most distinguished favors and attentions from the world. They generate no fears, whisper nothing about a coming judgment, but rock the soul to sleep with the nonsensical, but soothing, doctrine of final restoration. It is dreadful to mark the confusion and horror that comes with the light of the death hour revelation to men who have worshipped gods of their own creation. They find, with a sudden and unspeakable shock, that they have adored fantasies, delusions, and silly imaginations of their own. They find vanishing illusions where they wanted a divine Person, and mental fog where they needed the arm of Omnipotence. They compassed themselves with sparks of their own kindling, and now, says the prophet, they “lie down in sorrow.” They took their own desires to be divine leadings, their personal spleen to be righteous indignation and their pitiless treatment of their fellow-creatures to be zeal for the Lord.

With Christ’s own statement that no one who cast out devils in his name could speak lightly of him and could not be against him, yet they proceeded to condemn and cast out from their regard and presence all that did not “follow with them.” No matter what miracles of grace these same people were performing in Christ’s name, this strange anomaly and contradiction was their religion, and this un-Christ-like christ was their lord. Of course, at death, no such god appeared to help and save them. The true God had been substituted with a false one, and the false one was not only powerless to deliver, but being a mere concept, and a vain one at that, he was not even present to comfort. So, the now undeceived soul was left to flounder in darkness and despair in the hour of death. Better by far to serve the true God, though that service cost not only the right eye, the hand and foot, but all of earth beside. What are our members to us if we were cast with them into the lake of fire? What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his soul?

If the reader has a god, he should take it at once to the Bible and see how it compares with the Holy Being revealed there. If dissimilarity exists, and the prodigious blunder has been made of making a god instead of receiving the One who never had a beginning, there should be an instant destruction of the idol. There should be an immediate abandonment of the false, and a cleaving now and forever to the one true God, high over all and blessed forevermore. It is infinitely better to discover a great spiritual mistake in life than in death, when the senses are failing, the mind wandering, devils are assailing, and all the strange, trying and paralyzing sensations attending dissolution sweep like dark billows over the soul. It would be a dreadful thing in the midst of dying gasps, fading faces, and a receding world, to discover in the last moment of life that we had worshipped a wretched counterfeit, a base imitation, a helpless idol, a god that we ourselves had manufactured. Woe unto the man who has created an imaginary god, served all his life a false god, and dies at last with no God at all to save him!

Please feel free to send feedback concerning this article. Also, please include the title of this article in your feedback. Thank you for visiting Central Truth Ministries.