THE inclination to worship a deity of some sort is inherent in mankind. Many regard this tendency as the higher nature in mortals struggling against the lower. Through the ages, legions of gods of almost every conceivable type and nature have been set up for worship. Even in this supposedly enlightened age much idolatry is still in evidence. Pantheism, worship of personality, worship of the state, are being foisted on millions of people, and in some lands material might is taught as being superior in power even to Christ, which, as Paul stated to the Ephesians, is "far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion."
The Scriptures show plainly the ensuing ill effects of turning thus away from God, the source of all true might and the Giver of all good. Neither men nor nations can with impunity vaunt the power of material might above the power of the one universal and omnipotent God, for the Scriptural pronouncement stands forever true: "Thus saith the Lord God; ... I will overturn, overturn, overturn,... until he come whose right it is."
All false worship is instigated by the belief of life and intelligence in matter. Christian Science shows that matter is the expression of the so-called mortal mind, and that man is not physical or material, but spiritual. Practically all professed Christians believe that God is Spirit, and that man is created in God's likeness, as the Scriptures aver; but many are prone to regard mortal and material man as that likeness. There is also a strong tendency to worship and plead with God as though He possessed human characteristics. Such inconsistencies run counter to the modus of true worship. "The true worshippers," Jesus declared, "shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth."
