For your gods have become as many as your cities, O Judah, and as many as the streets of Jerusalem are the altars you have set up to shame, altars to make offerings to Baal.
Jeremiah 11:3
There is a reason there were so many idols in Jerusalem. People can't help worshipping. It is what we were made to do.
The Lord's displeasure at the idolatrous deeds of Judah had reached the point that His justice had to act. Again, Jeremiah gives a warning to the nation. He rehearses the history of the covenant and reiterates the multitude of times which Israel and Judah have broken faith with God.
The sad state of the nation was that it was rife with the worship of false gods. This had gotten out of hand. Now Judah was filled with every idol imaginable. And the practices of Baal worship filled every street in Jerusalem. There were clearly many gods in the place of the worship of Yahweh. And the superstitious idolatry was apparent at every urban street corner.
The capacity of the human heart to covet and create idols is great. We are easily distracted from the worship of God on His terms. But we will always worship something. Even atheists worship (subscribe supreme worth and obedience to a life cause). It is inevitable. Human beings are worshippers by our sheer mortal status. Death confronts us in our physical weakness. And we must rely on something or someone to get us past that awareness. To ignore our Creator at that point is pretty arrogant, but entirely possible.
When looking at human beings, I will recognize that people have an internal worship motivation. That is always true. It may be fixated on themselves, on humanity, on a favorite activity, on the faceless god of naturalism, or in any other false god of human design. But God wants each human heart pointed to Him, in awe and in love of Him. That starts with mine, in worship, right now.
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