Isa
44:16-19 (NLT) He burns part of the tree to roast his meat
and to
keep himself warm.
He
says, "Ah, that fire feels good."
17 Then
he takes what's left
and
makes his god: a carved idol!
He
falls down in front of it,
worshiping
and praying to it.
"Rescue
me!" he says.
"You
are my god!"
18 Such
stupidity and ignorance!
Their
eyes are closed, and they cannot see.
Their
minds are shut, and they cannot think.
19 The
person who made the idol never stops to reflect,
"Why,
it's just a block of wood!
I
burned half of it for heat
and
used it to bake my bread and roast my meat.
How can
the rest of it be a god?
Should
I bow down to worship a piece of wood?"
NOTE: Christians
fall into a very subtle trap when they see a verse that does not agree with
their philosophy or belief, and then pronounce, "well, my God is not like
that." Essentially, they have created an idol, because the idol is based
on what they want God to be and not what God has revealed himself to be in the
bible. They are no different from the idol maker in these verses who carves an
image (what he thinks God is) out of piece of wood and falls down and worship
it. When we deviate from the bible, we carve out our own image (what he is to
us) and create an idol.
Another aspect of
idol worship is that the man creates his idol out of the same wood that he
cooks with and eats his meal. Now maybe I'm spiritualizing a little, but his
idol comes out of his daily existence and the things of life. It is based on
how he lives and has its' basis in the very foundations of existence: food
(roasts his meat), warmth (keep himself warm--similar to shelter), and comfort
("ah, that feels good"). We do the same thing in life experiences
when we reject a concept or verses in the bible that do not make us feel good.
And so, like the idol maker, we create the god we want to worship.
The third aspect
which God repeatedly mentions (in this section) is that the idol maker does not
stop to think. He doesn't use any logic. His response is based on an emotional
appeal ("it makes me feel good"). I'm not suggestng that emotion and
logic are diametrically opposed to each other, because by nature they are not,
but our emotions do cloud our reasoning when we let them rule. Emotion and
logic can self exist. One does not have to rule over the other. Just as a
husband and wife learned to reach a common understanding despite differing
viewpoints, so logic and emotion can come together, but it takes work.
I realize that for
many people, an event with great emotional weight has caused us to seek an idol
that agrees with what we want to believe. The scriptures seem too harsh or too
unbelievable, especially for what we have gone through; but it is an idol when
it disagrees with the bible, no matter what we want to believe. Logic and
emotion can come together, without changing the meaning of scripture (changing
the meaning also creates an idol). We must go to the Lord in prayer, with our
pain, with our emotion, and ask for understanding. Because the only God we ever
want to worship is the God of the bible.
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