We have idols as both people & things. Under things, I’d place addictions. Under people, I place gods. Yes I understand the Bible calls men gods, because He—God, can only reproduce after Himself. You know…like how dogs give birth to dogs.
This godism however wasn’t meant to carry specific burdens. Burdens like saving the soul. There are two types of gods. The type that’s born naturally, (well since they have souls made by God) and two—the ones that have been born again (have God living on the inside of them under whom their wills are subjected)
The first desires for God or the idea of Him haunts them, and many times their faith is misplaced in people or things or ideas (such as evolution) which they make themselves believe to be God. This is because these things might agree to all these gods want to do, be it homosexuality, murder, racism, supremacy? or other forms of sin.
The other gods have God, and because they are still bound to the flesh, they might not entirely awe the other category of gods. For while they seem to have it altogether, if an accusation happens, say, a bishop is caught in adultery, they immediately rubbish their reverence and respect of these men of God.
Anyhow, In Isaiah 46:1-7, God speaks,
“BEL BOWS down, Nebo stoops [gods of Babylon, whose idols are being carried off]; their idols are on the beasts [of burden] and on the cattle. These things that you carry about are loaded as burdens on the weary beasts. [The gods] stoop, they bow down together; they cannot save [their own idols], but are themselves going into captivity…”
Idols are graven images of things to be revered. But I doubt that anything that is revered can save. Elijah challenged Baal’s prophets to make it rain fire, but nothing happened. Reverence doesn’t guarantee the presence of power.
Absence of statues today doesn’t mean we no longer have idols. Addictions such as alcoholism make us think that when we run to them they’ll rescue us from our troubles. We think they’ll save us from due rent, or heartbreaks. They only make us forget about these temporarily, but they do not solve these problems.
They can’t solve these problems because they are less than the humans. God is supreme because He made us (gods) so we are meant to look up to Him. It’s then funny, for God who made us to look ‘up’ to us (yet we are ‘down’/ lesser)
That’s what we humans are doing. We think being constantly on Instagram and garnering likes will fill the void of purpose absence in us, solve the identity crises we have, and make us feel more loved.
We turn to social media, as an idol of a god of validation, who when we get extra likes will say to ‘Thank you, for we are liked…’
Man made money. But he has turned to money to solve his problems. It’s a creature under man. So it can’t save. Mr Steve Jobs headed the Apple Co. He had cancer. But even with all His wealth, it didn’t save him from cancer. And yet we’ve heard of others who are miraculously healed of the same.
Just like a phone was made by man to serve or help man, it has to realize that man is its God, lest it lives the rest of its life wondering what its purpose is. In the same manner, we have to turn to He who made us to serve Him. He alone holds the right to be our God. He alone can save, just like only one man can repair a phone, and not one phone repairing the other’s damage. For they have not hands!
“… Listen to Me [says the Lord], O house of Jacob, and all the remnant of the house of Israel, you who have been borne by Me from your birth, carried from the womb: Even to your old age I am He, and even to hair white with age will I carry you. I have made, and I will bear; yes, I will carry and will save you… “
What we notice from that last portion is the fatherhood of God. He acknowledges making us. He acknowledges the responsibility that comes with it. Saying He has made you and He will bear (sustain, support, hold up) you. Other meanings are, ‘To feel and show loyalty to, towards, or unto a person or thing.’
Since He made you, He’ll support & sustain & show loyalty to you! Just like you—a phone owner ensures to have your phone charged, and repaired in case the screen cracks for example. In both, we see the owners take responsibility.
Now imagine your phone is stolen or is being used by another person constantly. Anger envelopes you, as you personally desire to use it as well. Someone could say they’d buy another, but that’s different to God. Everyone He made uniquely, and so He gets jealous when other things take the attention and relationship He deserves from us.
This is what He says,
“…To whom will you liken Me and make Me equal and compare Me, that we may be alike? They lavish gold out of the cup or bag, weigh out silver on the scales, and hire a goldsmith, and he fashions it into a god; [then] they fall down, yes, they worship it! They bear it upon their shoulders [in religious processions or into battle]; they carry it and set it down in its place, and there it stands. It cannot move from its place. Even if one cries to it for help, yet [the idol] cannot answer or save him out of his distress.”
The idols we trust can’t save. That’s why He’s stressing the point.
He warns on to say,
“Leviticus 19:4 Do not turn to idols and things of nought or make for yourselves molten gods. I the Lord am your God.”
When we don’t, we provoke another nature and facet of Him.
“Exodus 34:14 For you shall worship no other god; for the Lord, Whose name is Jealous, is a jealous (impassioned) God,”
To be jealous means ‘feeling suspicion that one’s partner is attracted or involved with someone else.’ It also means ‘fiercely protective of one’s possessions (which you and I are)’ and also, ‘being watchful, careful & defensive.’
In God’s defence, He let many bad things happen to the Israelites back then because they gave in to their idols, despite God’s warning. He let them get exiled, and in that punishing, they returned to Him, having realized that their gods could not save.
God is using another method now; Understanding. Understand that He loves you. Understand that no one can fix your wires, for it is He that wired you; He can break that addiction, or make disappear that thing that makes you think you can’t live without it. It’s Him you can’t live without.
He prophesies saying,
“For in that day every man of you will cast away [in contempt and disgust] his idols of silver and his idols of gold, which your own hands have sinfully made for you”. (Isaiah 31:7)
“In that day men shall cast away to the moles and to the bats their idols of silver and their idols of gold, which they made for themselves to worship.” (Isaiah 2:20)
Understand that the idols you made (whether accidentally or intentionally) can’t save. For if they too can get captive or bound in chains, how can they disband your shackles. You need One who can’t be bound to save you. Superman had a kryptonite weakness. This God doesn’t.
Well, metaphorically, His weakness is you! Not in a sense that He can’t save. But in a way that He’ll do whatever He can, to guarantee your freedom.
As for men we’ve idolized, the fact that they can’t be ever present with us, always, denies them the reason for us to trust in them completely. Even if it’s a prophet who heals, who you run to always when sickness strikes, what if he has travelled and you can’t access him.
What if his phone can’t be reached for a week! Will you die? No! The God who makes him heal is present with you, and He’ll intend all that, so that you can realize that it is Him who saves and He can do it with or without the prophet. For he too would have gone ‘captive’ metaphorically.
May God embrace you, and show you that He alone is He, who won’t disappoint. He alone is the Lord your God. Whom you will love, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind!
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