What is an idol? Do you think you know? For idols are unrecognized as
such, and never seen for what they really are. That is the only power
which they have. Their PURPOSE is obscure, and they are feared and
worshipped, both, BECAUSE you do not know what they are for, and why
they have been made. An idol is an image of your brother which you would
value more than what he IS. Idols are made that he may be replaced, no
matter what their form. And it is this which never is perceived and
recognized. Be it a body or a thing, a place, a situation or a
circumstance, an object owned or wanted, or a right demanded or
achieved, it is the same.

Let not their form deceive you. Idols are but substitutes for your
reality. In some way, you believe they will complete your little self,
for safety in a world perceived as dangerous, with forces massed against
your confidence and peace of mind. They have the power to supply your
lacks, and add the value which you do not have. No-one believes in idols
who has not enslaved himself to littleness and loss. And thus must seek
beyond his little self for strength to raise his head, and stand apart
from all the misery the world reflects. This is the penalty for looking
not within for certainty and quiet calm which liberates you from the
world, and lets you stand apart, in quiet and in peace.

An idol is a false impression, or a false belief; some form of
anti-Christ, which constitutes a gap between the Christ and what you
see. An idol is a wish, made tangible and given form, and thus perceived
as real, and seen outside the mind. Yet it is still a thought, and cannot
leave the mind that is its source. Nor is its form apart from the idea
it represents. All forms of anti-Christ oppose the Christ. And fall
before His face like a dark veil which seems to shut you off from Him,
alone in darkness. Yet the light is there. A cloud does not put out the
sun. No more a veil can banish what it seems to separate, nor darken by
one whit the light itself.

This world of idols IS a veil across the face of Christ, because its
PURPOSE is to separate your brother from yourself. A dark and fearful
purpose, yet a thought without the power to change one blade of grass
from something living to a sign of death. Its form is nowhere, for its
source abides within your mind, where God abideth not. Where is this
place where what is everywhere has been excluded, and been kept apart?
What hand could be held up to block God’s way? Whose voice could make
demand He enter not? The “more-than-everything” is not a thing to make
you tremble, and to quail in fear. Christ’s enemy is nowhere. He can
take no form in which he EVER will be real.

What is an idol? Nothing! It must be believed before it seems to come to
life, and GIVEN power that it may be feared. Its life and power are its
believer’s gift, and this is what the miracle restores to what HAS life
and power worthy of the gift of Heaven and eternal peace. The miracle
does not restore the truth, the light the veil
between has not put out. It merely lifts the veil, and LETS the truth
shine unencumbered, being what it is. It does not need belief to be
itself, for it HAS BEEN created, so it IS. An idol is ESTABLISHED by
belief, and when it is withdrawn, the idol “dies.”

This is the anti-Christ; the strange idea there is a power past
omnipotence, a place beyond the infinite, a time transcending the
eternal. Here the world of idols has been set by the idea this power and
place and time are given form, and shape the world where the impossible
has happened. Here the deathless come to die, the all-encompassing to
suffer loss, the timeless to be made the slaves of time. Here does the
changeless change; the peace of God, forever given to all living things,
give way to chaos. And the Son of God, as perfect, sinless and as loving
as his Father, come to hate a little while; to suffer pain, and finally
to die.

Where is an idol? Nowhere! Can there be a gap in what is infinite, a
place where time can interrupt eternity? A place of darkness set where
all is light, a dismal alcove separated off from what is endless, HAS no
place to be. An idol is beyond where God has set all things forever, and
has left no room for anything to be EXCEPT His Will. Nothing and nowhere
must an idol be, while God is everything and everywhere.

What purpose has an idol, then? What is it FOR? This is the only
question which has many answers, each depending on the one of whom the
question has been asked. The world BELIEVES in idols. No-one comes unless
he worshipped them, and still attempts to seek for one that yet might
offer him a gift reality does not contain. Each worshipper of idols
harbors hope his special deities will give him more than other men
possess. It MUST be more. It does not really matter more of what; more
beauty, more intelligence, more wealth, or even more affliction and more
pain. But MORE of something is an idol FOR. And when one fails another
takes its place, with hope of finding more of something else. Be not
deceived by forms the “something” takes. An idol is a means for getting
MORE. And it is THIS that is against God’s Will.

God has not many sons, but only One. Who can have more, and who be given
less? In Heaven would the Son of God but laugh, if idols could intrude
upon his peace. It is for him the Holy Spirit
speaks, and tells you idols HAVE no purpose here. For more than Heaven
can you never have. If Heaven is within, why would you seek for idols
which would make of Heaven less, to give you more than God bestowed upon
your brother and on you, as one with Him? God GAVE you all there is. And
to be sure you could not lose it, did He also give the same to every
living thing as well. And thus IS every living thing a part of you, as
of Himself. No idol can establish you as MORE than God. But you will
never be content with being LESS.