“A Stark Contrast!” – FBC Morning Light (7/24/2024)

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Well a good Wednesday morning to you. Today we're reading Isaiah chapters 44 through 47.

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Zero in on chapter 44 because it provides a wonderful contrast between the one true

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God and all of the false gods that we might manufacture, we might create out of our own imagination.

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So beginning in verse 6, the Lord discloses who he is.

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He talks about himself. He says, I am your Redeemer. I am the Lord of hosts.

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Alright, so in the first place we see that the one true God is a Redeemer, a Savior. Alright, what about the false gods?

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Well, we'll get to that in a minute. Then he goes on to say, I am the first and I am the last. Besides me there is no

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God. He says, and who can proclaim as I do? And what what's he talking about here?

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He's talking about how God, in his wisdom and knowledge of all things, his omniscience, knows the end from the beginning, since he's the first and the last.

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He can proclaim what's going to happen centuries before it does. Okay, he says, well who can proclaim as I do?

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And the gods that man creates, can they do so? He says, then let him declare it and set it in order for me, since I appointed the ancient people.

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So he's talking about himself, and then there is the God is, and then he provides a contrast with these man -made gods.

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He says, those who make an image, in verse 9, all of them are useless and their precious things shall not profit.

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It goes on in verses 12 and following to talk about the process of manufacturing, of fabricating these man -made gods.

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He says in verse 12, the blacksmith with his tongs works one in the coals, fashions it with hammers, and works it with the strength of his arms.

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And he gets worn out making the God that he's going to bow down and worship.

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Then in verse 13, that's a metal, some kind of a God made out of metal, gold, silver, whatever.

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Then in verse 13, he says the craftsman, the woodworker, stretches out his rule.

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He marks one out with a chalk, he fashions it with a plane, he marks it out with a compass, and makes it like the figure of a man, according to the beauty of a man, that it may remain in his house.

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He cuts down cedars for himself, takes the cypress and the oak, he secures it for himself among the trees of the forest, he plants a pine and the rain nourishes it, and then it shall be for man to burn.

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He will take some of it and warm himself. So he takes this lumber out of which he's going to craft his idol and use it for fuel.

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He's going to warm himself, he's going to use it to cook his food, and then some of the wood he's from, some of the wood he's going to shape it and craft it and probably cover it with gold or whatever, and then he's going to set that up and fall down before it in verse 17 and worship it.

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And he prays to it and he says, deliver me for you are my God. And the

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Lord says, they don't know, nor do they understand. They don't understand how foolish all of this is.

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How foolish it is to be an idolater. You say, well what's that got to do with us? I mean, this was centuries ago,

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I mean, people don't make idols like this anymore. Well, actually there are people that do, and there are idols in other parts of the world.

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You're not going to see them like in our country so much as you will in some other countries, although that's becoming more and more common, where you'll see these temples and so forth with their statues of their gods and so forth.

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But we are still idolaters. Calvin said our heart is an idol factory, and we're very prone to make idols of other things, and how foolish it is.

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For we manufacture them, and we give our lives to them. Stuff, for example, a career, trying to earn our significance and importance as an idol in itself, and yet none of these things can deliver.

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None of these things can provide. Only the one true God can. But the objector might say, well, you know, but this

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God of the Bible who says he is the first and the last and so forth, we can't see him. We can't, you know, we can't touch him.

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We can't know, but we can see him with the eyes of faith as we read his word, as his word reveals him to us, and by his grace our eyes can be opened and we can see him and therefore believe in him.

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But you say, well, I can see my car, I can see my career,

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I can see the things that I'm chasing after, but can you see the end of those things?

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Can you see where those things are going to take you? You know, I just read this morning about the regret of Lyndon Johnson when he came to his deathbed, and he was looking back over his presidency and what he thought of was such great legacy when he was carrying it out.

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It was going to be such a great legacy. And by that time, his successor had come into the presidency, and everybody forgot about Johnson, and everybody's enamored instead with his successor.

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And he was lamenting that all that he had given himself for, and given himself to, has just kind of come to nothing, and he would have been so much better off if he'd put his efforts somewhere else.

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And it's the way idols are. They leave us with a sense of futility and emptiness when we come to realize just how little they can do.

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Well, worship the one true God, He who is the first and the last, the true

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Redeemer. Our Father and our God, may we do just that. We thank you for your

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Word and giving us insight into who you are. We thank you for your grace that opens blind eyes and clears dark understanding that we might know you.

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Bless these thoughts to our hearts, we pray in Jesus' name, Amen. All right, listen, have a great rest of your