Isaiah Lesson 57

The Problem of Idols and Spiritual Control

Thank you so much for this opportunity to open your word, to hear your voice, and we pray that you would teach us from your scripture, and we pray that we would be refined and strengthened in the truth, Lord, that you have given us to fight.

And so, Lord, be with us now as we open your word.

In Jesus' name, amen.

John Calvin said, our hearts are idol factories.

True enough.

Idol factories.

And by that, he meant that we could make an idol out of almost anything. Anything that we desire can begin to gain the place that God has in our lives and get out of sorts. But Calvin said that from the perspective of a Reformed theologian who said, sola de gloria, right?

All to the glory of God. He was very focused on the glory of God, the transcendent God, and far be it from the Reformers to make images and idols, right? Remember the iconoclasts in the Reformation? They went smashing any kind of idol or relic, knocking out stained glass windows, and busting up statues and relics of the past.

Yeah, often in the Catholic church.

Well, the Reformers understood a high view of God. Now, that didn't excuse vandalism of private property. That's not excusable. But what they did understand is that an idol is nothing. It's just something made by hands, that people invest in that idol some kind of power to control things.

So in our understanding as evangelical Christians who have a worldview formed by the scripture, we're not prone to make physical idols, but we may be prone to make spiritual idols. We could be so much a fan of football that we begin to idolize the advancement of a football down the field, and it becomes a thing that we are most interested in all week long.

Just can't wait till Sunday, not to worship the Lord, but to watch our favorite football team.

Or our own kids.

Yeah, so our hearts become idol factories. But it's also true in some parts of evangelicalism, but especially when you go outside of the truth of God's word, that people today still do make idols. If you were to go outside of the United States of America, let's say you went to India and observed Hindus in their culture.

They have a million gods, and they make idols to all of them. They'll set up booths to worship them with burning incense and all kinds of things. What are they seeking to accomplish? Well, they want to manipulate some spiritual power.

For their own benefit.

It's not a God-centered worship, a submission to God's will, it's trying to control deities or spirits or powers through some kind of incantation. So Hindus do that. Did you know that a vast majority of Muslims are into what's called folk Islam?

Not the kind of Islam proper that you see in Saudi Arabia, but it's more of a folk Islam that mixes in like animism with the doctrines of Islam.

Is that Sikhism?

A Sikh? No, I don't think that's exactly the same. The Sufis might be more mystical, but many Muslims are into this. So if you were to go like out into India or Indonesia or Northern Africa, you would find that the Imams are often very much like shamans that perform all kinds of dark magic.

There was one guy I was reading named Rick Love.

Who wrote,.

Muslims, Magic and the Kingdom of God. And he describes when he went to North Africa, someone invited him into the home. And this Muslim man had some dark magical powers. And he said, take that light bulb.

And right before his eyes, he smashed the light bulb and put it in his rice bowl and mixed it up. And right before him, he ate glass and it didn't even affect him.

Just chewing and eating glass.

Because he had some kind of mystical power.

How wonderful.

Yeah, dark and scary. And they do things like that. So there's this dark shaman-like element in folk Islam. Mormonism, same thing. Did you know that when Joseph Smith was first looking for the golden plates, he had what was called a seer stone.

And he would take that stone and put it in his top hat and bury his face in to locate the position of hidden treasures. He was a treasure hunter, but he did so with amulets and the occult, a seer stone.

That's where Mormonism came from. And to this day, Mormonism is very occultic. They have cultic handshakes and rituals in the temple, which they invest with a special power. So it's common here, even in America.

Of course, Catholicism. Has anybody ever been up to New York City and gone to that giant Roman Catholic church near Broad Street? Anybody been down to... You've seen it? I went in there one time. We were just on like a sightseeing tour.

So we just peeked in and it makes you sick. The smell of incense, the iconography, however you say it. Yeah, iconography. Everything is idolatrous. They have little stands set up with different places to go and manipulate God by using this as a way to get favor from him.

So it's in Catholicism. As you know, they have pilgrimages to places of relics. If you go to Mexico City at a certain time of the year, you'll see people groveling on their knees for miles to get to a place where they think this apparition appeared of Mary, the Virgin of Guadalupe.

It's mysticism and it's the making of idols. Sadly, it also seeps its way into Protestant churches sometimes. I know someone who was just recently telling me that her mother has an amulet and she has convinced herself that it's like the umim and thumim of scripture.

Remember how the high priest told me that Goshen, he had this umim and thumim, which were some kind of stone or stick or something. It's very mysterious. It's not something that we're told to emulate in any way.

It's not prescriptive.

But descriptively, he would somehow consult that for decisions. Well, that was the case for a period of time. And I think as the prophets came into the monarchy, they were the voice of God to give direction to the king.

And so you see that fade out. You see one more reference of the umim and thumim when Ezra, the high priest, had those stones and made some decision in Ezra too. But after that, you don't see it again.

And it's because God was only using that for a time to direct his people. But what this woman does, this mother of someone who is sharing this with me, is it gives her up and down, yes and no answers to questions.

She carries it in her pocket. And someone in the family will consult her and she'll consult the umim, thumim in her pocket to make a yes or no decision. It always has to be a binary, either black or white.

Left or right.

I got something just like this called the magic eight ball.

The magic eight ball would be a great example. It's in the same pot.

It's like a children's toy. They sell it as a children's toy. Yes, absolutely.

I once was in a parking lot and got a little flyer for one of those mediums in town. And I held onto it so I could pray for this woman. And one day I'd like to go into her little medium place and preach the power of God, of Jesus Christ, to take authority over that, share the gospel with her.

I haven't done it yet. But one of the things that surprised me is I was on a Facebook group, the Mount Laurel Surrounding Talents Facebook group. And somebody said, hey, can you recommend a good medium?

And to my surprise, the thread underneath that question was a mile long.

Oh, yeah.

Everybody had been to these various mediums in town and they were saying who was better than the other. And all of these testimonies to the power of these witches,.

It's common in Mount Laurel, New Jersey.

Common all over the country.

It's common all over the country. And even more so as you get out into the countryside of Northern Africa and Indonesia. Our world is dominated by this folk Islam or this mystical animistic view of the world.

And here's what it comes down to. People are afraid. They're afraid because they know something that's true, which is that they can't control life. They can't prevent death. They can't force their husband to love them.

And they want control.

And so they turn to idols that they can control. And they try to manipulate deities or spirits, ancestor spirits or demons, to control things that they can't. It's very common. Isaiah 44 is about this.

Another just weird anecdote that I just read from that same book. Most Arabs, most Arab men, a vast majority of Arab men, you might wanna plug your ears if you're squeamish, have drunk the urine of their wives.

Because the mystical practice is for women to pee into the drink of their husband to keep them devoted to them and not them running off to other women.

Are you guys ready? We need to go home now.

Most Arabs, according to Rick Loves. It's like a love potion kind of thing. It's somehow to control.

I don't think it says love like that.

Yeah, it says love like that.

Perfume, not perfume.

Well, it's disgusting, but it's symptomatic of the world in which we live. Christian, realize that your next door neighbor, although operating in the scientific Western world, and probably not as controlled as an Arabic housewife, is still afraid and is making idols to control things.

They pray to their deceased husband because they don't understand the God who made them. They pray to ancestors. It's very common. Unless you come to a biblical understanding of God, you will take this mystical, magical route to try to control spirits.

Nowadays, almost everybody will say, I'm spiritual. I'm not religious, by which they mean, I'm not going to be dictated what to believe and understand from some source outside of myself, but I'm spiritual.

Yeah, that's okay.

I'm spiritual. And often what they mean is they're kind of new age.

Yeah, that's all comes with the new age.

It's a new age kind of thing. That's the dominant religiosity of our culture. Right here in Mount Laurel, right here in the surrounding towns, Isaiah 44. Who's my first reader? One through five. So here we are with the trial of false gods.

God’s Chosen People and the Promise of Fearlessness

So the Isaiah 40s are the trial of false gods where Yahweh holds himself up as the unique I Am, the Ego Emi, the Any Who, the God who is who he is, and he puts on trial every pretender, every supposed rival, and shows that they are not gods at all.

So the idols are on trial, the trial of false gods. So the first thing I'd like for us to see is that we who belong to Yahweh are recipients of his special love.

And because of this, because we're in covenant.

With the true God, we ought to be fearless. We need not fear. Our anxieties can be put to rest because we're kept in him, in his love. We know that he loves us and he is the all-powerful God, so we are safe in his love.

So that will be the starting point of this discussion.

What's that?

The false gods don't love.

That's right. A false god has no love, right? Allah, they say, is great, but they don't say Allah is love.

Nowhere in the Quran do you find Allah,.

And I don't mean to go off,.

But an 11-year-old girl won a Muslim to Christ. She said to him, if you can find one verse in the Quran that says Allah loves me, I'll be a Muslim. He couldn't find it, so he became converted.

Wow, yeah, interesting. I wouldn't have made that statement, but it's true, Allah is not a god of love. Who would like to read 44, one through five, please? Ah, we'll just start here and go around this way.

Thanks, Rob.

But now hear, O Jacob, my servant, Israel, whom I have chosen. Thus says the Lord who made you, who formed you from the womb, and will help you. Fear not, O Jacob, my servant, Jerome, whom I have chosen, for I will pour water on the thirsty land and streams on the dry ground.

I will pour my spirit upon your offspring and my blessing on your descendants. They shall spring up among the grass like willows by flowing streams. This one will say, I am the Lord's. Another will call in the name of Jacob.

Another will write on his hand, the Lord's, and name himself by the name of Israel.

This is one of the classic texts of God's love and his treasuring his own people. It says, but now hear, O Jacob, my servant, Israel, whom I have, what? Chosen or loved. Thus says the Lord who made you, who formed you from the womb, and will help you.

Fear not, O Jacob, my servant, Jeshurun, whom I have chosen. That term Jeshurun appears only in three other verses anywhere in the Old Testament. But both of those, those three occurrences are all in two chapters, Deuteronomy 32 and 33.

What is this term Jeshurun? As the Torah is rounding out, the last very end of Torah, of the Pentateuch.

For final. Yeah.

The end of Deuteronomy, God begins to call Jacob, Israel, Jeshurun. It means upright one, or as the Septuagint translates it, it means beloved one. So it comes from the form of, in Greek, agape. So remember the Septuagint was the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible.

And it used the word, a form of the word agape.

To arrive at this term Jeshurun.

So what is it?

It's a term of endearment. My loved one, my chosen one, my cherished one, my beloved one. God speaks to his people in a term of endearment. And what follows confirms that, because he says, I will pour water on the thirsty land and streams on the dry ground.

I will pour my spirit upon your offspring and my blessing on your descendants. Now, Israel will not experience this in full until where? Rich?

The millennium.

The millennium. Yes, because it will be a disobedient people. And the New Covenant promise, Ezekiel 36, Jeremiah 31, is for Israel, but they reject. And so the Gentiles are brought in, but God's not done dealing with his people.

And in those last seven years of tribulation, and then in fulfillment, the thousand year reign of Christ, Israel will be the center of the earth, of the world, and of the reign of the Christ. And they will experience his spirit poured out upon them.

Verse four, they shall spring up among the grass.

Like willows.

Who shall? The descendants, your children, your offspring. This remnant that now is thriving like willows by the stream. They're springing up, just filling the earth.

And Israel, I was reading out one for Israel. They said that when Israel as a country in 1948 was founded, there were 30 confessing believers, Israelites, in Christ. Today, there's over 30 ,000.

30 ,000 in Israel.

In Israel.

Yeah, and worldwide, it's probably said it's, yeah.

In the midst of really growing fast.

Wow, praise God. One for Israel, what a great ministry. This one will say, I am the Lord's. Another will call on the name of Jacob. And another will write on his hand, the Lord's, and name himself by the name of Israel.

Now, the church is derivative from Israel. We're grafted in. So there's a sense in which as those grafted in, the church also can claim this promise. I as a father hold onto this promise. And a similar one in Isaiah 54.

54 verse 17. And in 57, there's a similar statement. Again and again, you'll see through the scriptures, chapter 59, verse 21. Let me just read 59, 21. As for me, this is my covenant with them, says the Lord.

My spirit that is upon you, and my words that I have put in your mouth, shall not depart out of your mouth. I claim that for myself, that I will be preaching this gospel to the day I die, or out of the mouth of your offspring, or out of the mouth of your children's offspring, says the Lord from this time forth and forevermore.

I have wept over this passage. Just the beauty of that promise to say that there is a sense in which it applies, not just to Israel, but to the grafted in church, that my children will praise the same God that I worship,.

The true God.

And their children will too, all the way until the coming of Christ,.

And then forevermore.

So what you see in 44 .3 is this promise on your offspring, your descendants. Let's pray this over them. Let's say, Lord, you have a blessing on the descendant of the believer. And Lord, let not any of our children be lost, or any of our grandchildren.

Let them praise you. Open their eyes. And sometimes we don't see it in reality for a time. There's the prodigal walk, but we never stop praying this over them, until the Lord brings back the prodigal.

Until one day, they take a pen, and they write on their hand, the Lord's, as I just did on mine, the Lord's. Write it over your hand. It belonged to him. This hand belongs to him. This heart, this life is his.

Until my children do that, which they do, and all of our children. This is the promise here. This is the joy and the peace that we have, that our God would do this, to write the Lord's on our hand, and on our lips to say, I belong to him.

He is my God. Yahweh, to claim the name of Yahweh. What a beautiful start to this passage. It's kind of like the start to 43, remember 43? But now says the Lord who created you, O Jacob, who formed you, O Israel.

Fear not, for I have redeemed you. I have called you by name. You are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you. And through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you. When you walk through fire, you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.

Beautiful promise here. Let's read six to eight. Okay, so now we realize that we should expect to see God's salvation. Therefore, we're not to fear. God is a savior. He's Yahweh. Yeshua, Jesus, means Yahweh is salvation.

We're not afraid. We have that. So let's read, then, about any potential threat to that. Is there any threat to Yahweh who saves us? And there's not. So, Rich, would you read six to eight?

The Only True God and the Test of Prophecy

Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel, and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts. I am the first, and I am the last. Besides me, there is no God. And who can proclaim as I do? Then let him declare it and set it in order for me.

Since I appointed the ancient people and the things that are coming and shall come, let them show these to them. Do not fear, nor be afraid. Have I not told you from that time and declared it? You are my witnesses.

Is there a God besides me? Indeed, there is no other rival. I know not one.

Amen.

Here is God proclaiming that he has no rival. Who is like me? Therefore, if there's no rival, what have you to fear? If he is for us, who could be against us? If neither height, nor depth, nor angels,.

Nor principalities, nor things present,.

Nor things to come, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

What have we to fear?

There's no rival. Who is like me, says the Lord of hosts. Now in verse six, he's called the King of Israel and his Redeemer, which the way that actually reads in the Hebrew, the King James and the ESV and the NAS pick up on, and some other translations don't, it seems to separate that by the conjunction and, that it's referring to father and son.

Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts. I like the way the ESV picked that up. In either case, if you're referring to God as Yahweh in the essence of his being, he is both King and Lord, Redeemer and King.

So it could apply however you read it, but I like the way the ESV picked it with the word and there to separate that this could refer to two persons, father and son. The Redeemer being Christ. I am the first and the last.

Besides me, there is no God. Is Jesus a different God than the father? No, one God, one essence, one being. There's a distinction in personhood, the who, but there's only one what, one being, one essence of who, of God, and that is Yahweh, the Lord.

There is no other God besides the one true God who identifies himself as father, son, and Holy Spirit. Who is like me? Let him proclaim it. Let him declare and set it before me since I appointed an ancient people.

Let them declare what is to come and what will happen. What is the test of the true God?

Knowing the future, prophesying.

Yeah, prophecy. And that's seen in Deuteronomy 13, Deuteronomy 18, and here again and again in the trial of false gods. God says, you'll know me because I tell the end from the beginning. I declare it ahead of time, then I bring it to pass.

And so we see it here. The false gods can't do that. And the false prophets will be identified by their false prophecies. Verse eight, fear not, nor be afraid. Have I not told you from of old and declared it?

Again, once again, over and over in the scripture, we're told, fear not. It's the second time now in 44. We saw it all the way up in verse two, fear not, O Jacob. And now again, verse eight, fear not, nor be afraid.

Well, why should we not be afraid?

God has no rival.

He said that he's for you, you're his chosen.

He has you in the palm of his hand,.

So there's no rival that can snatch him out. Nothing can snatch one of his sheep out of his hand. So we are safe, we're secure.

He loves us.

Yeah, and we can rest in his sovereign plan. And so the Christian can sit secure,.

No matter what's happening in life,.

Because the God over all has decreed the end from the beginning. And he is working all things together for our good. All things, Romans 8 .28.

Our good is Lord.

We don't need to control things. We don't need amulets in our pocket. We don't need to go to little altars and light incense and try to control spirits. We don't need to ask for our dead relative to help us find our keys.

Pray to Mary.

Yeah, or take a trip, or pray to Mary. Or use beads, rosary beads. That's the kind of idolatry that now comes squarely into view. Who would like to read, why don't you just read the whole thing, 9 to 20?

Because now, the trial of false gods becomes irenic. It becomes polemic. A strong verbal attack against the gods of the nation. In fact, I would describe this as mockery. God will actually mock the false gods and those who would make them and rely on them.

He holds them in derision.

He holds them in derision. And it's a rhetorical device that's meant to pull people away. It's actually loving that God would do this.

It's loving. It's a form of love.

So who would like to read this? I got it.

Okay, thanks, Bob.

It's a long one, 9 through 20. Just get the full swoop of this, how he brings the hammer down on this nonsense.

The Folly of Idolatry and the Making of Images

All who make idols are nothing and the things they treasure are worthless. Those who would speak up for them are blind. They are ignorant to their own shame. Who shapes a god and casts an idol, which can profit him nothing?

He and his kind would be put to shame. Craftsmen are nothing but men. Let them all come together and take their stand. They will be brought down to terror and infamy. The blacksmith takes a tool and works with it in the coals.

He shapes an idol with hammers. He forges it with the might of his arm. He gets hungry and loses his strength. He drinks no water and grows faint. The carpenter measures with a line and makes an outline with a marker.

He roughs it out with chisels and marks it with compasses. He shapes it in the form of man, of man in all his glory, that it may dwell in a shrine. He cut down cedars or perhaps took a cypress or oak.

He let it grow among the trees in the forest or planted a pine and the rain made it grow. It is man's fuel for burning. Some of it he takes and warms himself. He kindles a fire and bakes bread. But he also fashions a god and worships it.

He makes an idol and bows down to it. Half of the wood he burns in the fire. Over it he prepares his meal. He roasts his meat and eats his fill. He also warms himself and says, ah, I am warm, I see the fire.

From the rest he makes a god, his idol. He bows down to it and worships. He prays to it and says, save me, you are my god. They know nothing. They understand nothing. Their eyes are plastered over so they cannot see.

And their minds closed so they cannot understand. No one stops to think. No one has the knowledge or understanding to say, half of it I use for fuel. I even bake bread over its coals. I roasted meat and I ate.

Shall I make a detestable thing from what is left? Shall I bow down to a block of wood? He feeds on ashes. A deluded heart misleads him. He cannot save himself or say, is not this thing in my right hand a lie?

Wow, that's a fun passage.

Very interesting. So in 9 to 11, he's sort of like calling them to assemble in order to put them to shame.

That they would repent,.

That they would come to saving faith, we know. But in verse 12, it becomes, he begins to kind of recount what they're doing and say,.

Can you just step out of yourself for a minute.

And observe what you're actually doing here? The ironsmith takes a cutting stool and works over the coals. He fashions it with hammers and works at it with his strong arm.

And then at the end of verse 12,.

He becomes hungry and his strength fails. He drinks no water and is faint.

It's just this human work.

And the guy's getting tired while he's making something that's supposedly a god. The carpenter stretches a line, he marks it out with a pencil. He shapes it with planes and marks it with a compass. He shapes it into the figure of a man with the beauty of a man to dwell in a house.

That's interesting. Very often idols are made in human form, right? Why?

Men want to be gods.

Men want to be gods.

They want to bring God down to man's level.

Yeah, bringing God down, exchanging, Romans 1, exchanging the glory of God for things made. Ultimately, man is in the image of God and the closest expression to what we can see of God, bearing the image of God.

And yet we're fallen and we're mere creatures. We're meant to be the image of God. And so they make an image of God and begin to worship that. So idols are often fashioned in the form of a man,.

A mere man.

He cuts down cedars. He plants a cedar. He doesn't realize it's only that God is making the rain fall on the just and the unjust alike that these trees grow.

There's a God that all this points to.

He's doing all this in verse 15. Then it becomes fuel for a man. He takes a part of it and warms himself. So, okay, he cuts down the tree and he realizes it's just wood because he's burning this wood over here.

And he's warming his hands.

Okay, back to work. On the same wood that you just burned as nothing. You warmed your hands over here and now you're gonna grab your hammer again.

And start making your God.

It's the folly that he's mocking. He kindles a fire. He makes a God and worships it. He makes it an idol and falls down before it.

Half of it he burns in the fire,.

Over the half he eats meat.

He roasts it and he's satisfied. He warms himself and says, aha, I am warmed. I have seen the fire.

And the rest of it, he makes it to a God. Can you imagine the folly of making anything an idol? Votie Bauckham was asked by a social justice warrior, will you denounce the white Jesus paintings that people have in their house because Jesus would not have had such a light complexion.