Who said the heart is an idol factory

For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

For no man can plead that he has fulfilled all his obligations to God and to his neighbour; nor can any truly say that he has fully acted up to the light afforded him. The sinfulness of man is described as ungodliness against the laws of the first table, and unrighteousness against those of the second.

The cause of that sinfulness is holding the truth in unrighteousness. All, more or less, do what they know to be wrong, and omit what they know to be right, so that the plea of ignorance cannot be allowed from any. They foolishly followed idolatry; and rational creatures changed the worship of the glorious Creator, for that of brutes, reptiles, and senseless images.

They wandered from God, till all traces of true religion must have been lost, had not the revelation of the gospel prevented it. And these plainly show that men have dishonoured God by the most absurd idolatries and superstitions; and have degraded themselves by the vilest affections and most abominable deeds.

The full quote is:. But lest men excuse themselves therewithal, this history doth witness that this is the fountain of superstitions, because men are not thankful to God, and do give his glory to some other.

In context, Calvin is speaking of how the people thought the Apostle Paul was a murderer until he survived being bitten by a viper and then the people deemed him a god. Calvin, Henry and the Apostle Paul are addressing the unregenerate. In truth, any study of Calvin is actually just a study of God's work in the life of His servant in His kingdom.

In mastering his heart, the Lord left Calvin with no choice but to offer his heart to God promptly and sincerely. Although Calvin understood that "man's nature is a perpetual factory of idols," that the "mind begets an idol, and the hand gives it birth," and that man's heart is deceitfully wicked above all things Jer. In everything, Calvin, more than simply dedicating himself, offered himself sacrificially to the Lord: his family, his studies, his preaching—his entire ministry Rom.

He was a man who ministered not for his own glory, but for the glory of God Ps. According to Parker, Calvin "had a horror of those who preached their own ideas in place of the gospel of the Bible: 'When we enter the pulpit, it is not so that we may bring our own dreams and fancies with us. Although it has become popular in many churches for the pastor to strive to "pour out his heart" to his congregation, such was not Calvin's aim in his preaching, for he had offered his heart to God alone.

As a result, Calvin did not think it was profitable to share the ever-changing passions of his own heart, but to proclaim the heart of God in His never-changing Word. Anything may become an idol but usually it is ourselves and our longings for satisfaction and love. In doing this we make ourselves god and shut out the living God. The confession of Christ as Lord is central to any true claim to be a child of God. It has to be. It is the massive and necessary shift in belief that dethrones self and enthrones Christ as the centre of our lives.

It may strain friendships, empty our bank accounts and take us far away from all that we regard as familiar and safe. But within this recentering on God there is true joy, purpose and identity. This place of true belonging is always under threat in our hearts. The recent Covid crisis has shown that we are part of a culture that idolises pleasure and possessions. It also will be obliged to increase in strength during this period so as to vanquish one by one the injustices, the governments responsible for injustice, the obstinately bourgeois nations, and the people who are blind to their own interests.

And when, on an earth that has finally been subdued and purged of enemies, the final iniquity shall have been drowned in the blood of the just and the unjust, then the State, which has reached the limit of all power, a monstrous idol covering the entire earth, will be discreetly absorbed into the silent city of Justice.

Under the easily predictable pressure of adverse imperialism, the imperialism of justice was born, in reality, with Lenin. But imperialism, even the imperialism of justice, has no other end but defeat or world empire. Until then it has no other means but injustice.

From now on, the doctrine is definitively identified with the prophecy. For the sake of justice in the far-away future, it authorizes injustice throughout the entire course of history and becomes the type of mystification which Lenin detested more than anything else in the world. It contrives the acceptance of injustice, crime, and falsehood by the promise of a miracle.

Still greater production, still more power, uninterrupted labor, incessant suffering, permanent war, and then a moment will come when universal bondage in the totalitarian empire will be miraculously changed into its opposite: free leisure in a universal republic.

Pseudo-revolutionary mystification has now acquired a formula: all freedom must be crushed in order to conquer the empire, and one day the empire will be the equivalent of freedom.