By the law of witnesses, the gospel principles of greatest importance are repeated in at least three different locations in the scriptures. The Ten Commandments, therefore, are found in Ex 20, Deut 5, Mosiah 12-13, and DC 42 (commandments 6-9), to mention a few. It is only appropriate that the Ten Commandments appear somewhere in the pages of the Book of Mormon.
The commandment to have no other gods before Jehovah is more expressively rendered in the New Testament rendition, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind (Lu 10:27). This first commandment is the single, key beginning to a relationship with our Maker. The Creator of the Universe doesn’t like taking second or third place to our worldly interests. Therefore, he has declared in unmistakable language, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God (Ex 34:14).
The latter-day prophets have continually warned that the saints need to beware of idolatry, not the old-fashioned, idol worship version, but the version in which the desires and thoughts of the heart are not centered on the Lord. In this respect, our pursuit of wealth, our hobbies, our careers, and our recreational pursuits can become our gods. This form of idolatry is more insidious but no less pernicious.
Spencer W. Kimball
"Many worship the hunt, the fishing trip, the vacation, the weekend picnics and outings. Others have as their idols the games of sport, baseball, football, the bullfight, or golf. These pursuits more often than not interfere with the worship of the Lord and with giving service to the building up of the kingdom of God. To the participants this emphasis may not seem serious, yet it indicates where their allegiance and loyalty are.
“Still another image men worship is that of power and prestige. Many will trample underfoot the spiritual and often the ethical values in their climb to success. These gods of power, wealth, and influence are most demanding and are quite as real as the golden calves of the children of Israel in the wilderness.” (The Miracle of Forgiveness, pp. 41-42)
Mark E. Petersen
“God will not favor us if we put him in second place in our lives and if we follow after worldly things regardless of what they may be. The command of the Savior was: ’Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness.’ (Matthew 6:33). In revelations to the Prophet Joseph Smith the Lord taught that we must have an eye single to the glory of God.” (Old Testament Institute Manual, p. 127)
Brigham Young
“…the Latter-day Saints are drifting as fast as they can into idolatry…drifting into the spirit of the world and into pride and vanity.” “We wish the wealth of things of the world; we think about them morning, noon and night; they are first in our minds when we awake in the morning, and the last thing before we go to sleep at night.” (Hugh Nibley, Approaching Zion, p. 334)
Hugh Nibley
‘So money is the name of the game by which the devil cleverly decoys the minds of the Saints from God’s work to his. ’What does the Lord want of us up here in the tops of these mountains?’ Brigham Young asked twenty years after the first settling of the Valley. ’He wishes us to build up Zion. What are the people doing? They are merchandizing, trafficking and trading.‘ ’Elders are agreed on the way and manner necessary to obtain celestial glory, but they quarrel about a dollar. When principles of eternal life are brought before them--God and the things pertaining to God and godliness--they apparently care not half so much about them as they do about five cents.’…. ’Are their eyes single to the building up of the Kingdom of God? No; they are single to the building up of themselves.‘ ’Does this congregation understand what idolatry is? The New Testament says that covetousness is idolatry; therefore, a covetous people is an idolatrous people.‘ ’Man is made in the image of God, but what do we know of him or of ourselves, when we suffer ourselves to love and worship the god of this world--riches?’ Had the Latter-day Saints gone so far? They had, from the beginning; when the Church was only a year old, the Prophet Joseph observed that ’God has often sealed up the heavens because of covetousness in the Church.’ Three years later, God revoked that ‘united order’ by which alone Zion could exist on earth (D&C 104:52-53)--in their desire for wealth, the Saints had tried to embrace both Babylon and Zion by smooth double-talk. The Mormons would have to wait for their blessings until they learned their lesson: ’If the people neglect their duty, turn away from the holy commandments which God has given us, seek for their own individual wealth, and neglect the interests of the kingdom of God, we may expect to be here quite a time--perhaps a period that will be far longer than we anticipate.’" (Approaching Zion, p. 37)