Jan 23 2009
Tearing Down Every Idol
As I read through Scripture there are repeated instructions from God to tear down the altars and destroy every idol wherever Israel went. Why did God do that?
As our Creator, He knows we are fickle, falling easily for the next thing that comes along. We are no different from Israel. During their day, Israel would war against others and be told that God would go before them to fight their enemies. And once the victory was theirs, He would demand that they tear down the idols. But rarely did they do that, and in nearly every case, they ended up worshiping them. And over time they grew distant and arrogant, disobeying what God had said, not realizing their unbelief was eating them up from the inside out.
Back in that day just as in our day, purity of heart and loyalty to God alone meant everything to God, but it was in short supply. And its supply is just as scarce today. We have enjoyed freedoms, blessing and abundance for over 300 years. But one thing we did not do was tear down the idols that have come in among us.
Instead we have worshiped the blessing more than the One who blessed us. We have believed a lie, thinking we deserve good things when it’s merely by God’s grace that we are blesssed. In fact, we now demand good things and grow arrogant when we fail to get our way. We have adopted secular humanism and set ourselves up as gods, scarcely acknowledging His existence among us today. We’ve taken prayer and Bible reading from schools, removed His name off our buildings and His creche scenes from our public spaces. We are so far from our roots now that there is little resemblance to the nation we used to be.
And now we have our Saul. Remember the story of Saul? In I Samuel chapter 8, the people demanded a king, saying a righteous judge was no longer good enough to rule over them.
So, God gave them what they wanted, a king, and Saul ruled them with an iron hand. Our Saul was just inaugurated to the tune of $150 million and given a blank check the likes of which has never been seen before.
We have our king, exactly what we asked for, apart from God’s will, but will that turn our hearts back to God? I believe things will only go downhill from here, forcing us to look back to God, the only answer for what ails us today. If we’re wise, we will run back to God, repenting and turning away from evil, for Scripture says, “Prepare ye the way of the Lord and make His paths straight!”
Let him who has an ear hear the word of the Lord.
Because of His great love,
Nancy
