Seeking Safety

Here’s a hard question: If we know and believe worshipping idols cannot satisfy us, why do we struggle to choose loving God over being devoted to the things of this world? Perhaps one of the reasons we turn away from the Lord is because He requires authenticity and righteousness that our idols don’t. When we construct our idols, we can control them – ultimately, that puts us in charge. But we cannot control God.

In Psalm 135, we read about idols. An idol – which doesn’t issue commands, hold us accountable, or hear if we’re being untruthful – can in many ways feel safer than the Lord. But we have to ask another difficult question: Is false security worth it?

Commentary from the In Touch devotional by Charles Stanley, April 18, 2021.

Beautiful Idol

The same trees that are used as fuel for fires to furnish warmth and to cook also provide wood for people to make idols, which they worship and to which they entrust their prayers and themselves.  Nothing could be more foolish than worshiping as deity a piece of wood, while burning the same wood in a fire to keep warm.  Idol-makers cannot comprehend the idiocy of creating gods from materials used for the most trivial domestic purposes.

Commentary from the MacArthur study Bible, notes for Isaiah 44:12-19.

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The True God

God, who sovereignly created and controls all things, is alone the eternal, living God worthy of trust.  By contrast, earthly idols have to be fashioned by men, and will perish.

Commentary from the MacArthur study Bible, notes for Jeremiah 10:7.

Worthless Doctrine

But they are altogether dull-hearted and foolish;

A wooden idol is a worthless doctrine.

Jeremiah 10:8

The context points out that it is impossible for idols, or non-existent gods, to punish or reward.

Commentary from the MacArthur study Bible, notes for Jeremiah 10:4.

Fellowship

God tolerates no competition and will not allow idolatry to go unpunished, (Deut. 32:21; Jer. 25:6,9; Rev. 21:8).  Idols and the things sacrificed to them have no spiritual nature or power in themselves (1 Corin. 8:4,8), but they do represent the demonic.  If pagan worshipers believe an idol was a god, demons act out the part of the imagined god (2 Thess. 2:9-11).  There is not a true god in the idol, but there is a satanic spiritual force (Deut. 32:17, Psalm 106:37).

“Rather, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice they sacrifice to demons and not to God, and I do not want you to have fellowship with demons”, 1 Corin. 10:20.

Commentary from the MacArthur study Bible, notes for 1 Corinthians 10:19,20,22.

Dissent

“Your words against Me are harsh,” says the Lord.

Yet you ask: “What have we spoken against You?”

You have said: “It is useless to serve God.  What have we gained by keeping His requirements and walking mournfully before the Lord of Hosts?  So now we consider the arrogant to be fortunate.  Not only do those who commit wickedness prosper, they even test God and escape.”  Malachi 3:13-15

“For indeed, the day is coming, burning like a furnace, when all the arrogant and everyone who commits wickedness will become stubble.  The coming day will consume them,” says the Lord of Hosts, “not leaving them root or branches.  But you who fear My name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings, and you will go out and playfully jump like calves from the stall.  You will trample the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day I am preparing,” says the Lord of Hosts.  

Malachi 4:1-3