Counterfeit Gods: The Empty Promises of Money, Sex, and Power, and the Only Hope that Matters

by Timothy J. Keller

“the incomplete joys of this world will never satisfy [the human] heart.”3

There is a difference between sorrow and despair. Sorrow is pain for which there are sources of consolation. Sorrow comes from losing one good thing among others, so that, if you experience a career reversal, you can find comfort in your family to get you through it. Despair, however, is inconsolable, because it comes from losing an ultimate thing.

taking some “incomplete joy of this world” and building your entire life on it. That is the definition of idolatry.

Long ago, Saint Paul wrote that greed was not just bad behavior. “Greed is idolatry,” he wrote. (Colossians 3:5)

God was saying that the human heart takes good things like a successful career, love, material possessions, even family, and turns them into ultimate things. Our hearts deify them as the center of our lives, because, we think, they can give us significance and security, safety and fulfillment, if we attain them.6

The very first commandment is “I am the Lord your God . . . you shall have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3). That leads to the natural question—“What do you mean, ‘other gods’?” An answer comes immediately. “You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them. . . .” (Exodus 20:4-5) That includes everything in the world!

We think that idols are bad things, but that is almost never the case. The greater the good, the more likely we are to expect that it can satisfy our deepest needs and hopes. Anything can serve as a counterfeit god, especially the very best things in life.

An idol is whatever you look at and say, in your heart of hearts, “If I have that, then I’ll feel my life has meaning, then I’ll know I have value, then I’ll feel significant and secure.” There are many ways to describe that kind of relationship to something, but perhaps the best one is worship.

The only way to free ourselves from the destructive influence of counterfeit gods is to turn back to the true one. The living God, who revealed himself both at Mount Sinai and on the Cross, is the only Lord who, if you find him, can truly fulfill you, and, if you fail him, can truly forgive you.