Comparisons (1)
We're moving to the last part of the magnificent poem-song of Isaiah 40. The structure for the last section is interesting - it has a ABAcB pattern:
- A - To whom will you compare God? To idols?
- B - Do you not know? He brings down the mighty!
- A - To whom will you compare God? To astrology?
- c - (Bridge - the key to the whole chapter)
- B - Do you not know? He lifts up the weak!!!
We'll look at each of these this week...
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| To whom, then, will you compare God? What image will you compare him to? 19 As for an idol, a craftsman casts it, and a goldsmith overlays it with gold and fashions silver chains for it. 20 A man too poor to present such an offering selects wood that will not rot. He looks for a skilled craftsman to set up an idol that will not topple. (Isaiah40:18-20) |
Idolatry was an ongoing problem in Israel. We find idols in Israel's history from Jacob's wife Rachael who stole her father's house-god and then sat on it to hide it from her angry dad (seriously! See Gen31:33-35) to the golden calf in Exodus that Moses grinds to dust and the Baal statue that Gideon pulled over with his father's prize bull in Judges 6.
Again and again idols were revealed to be powerless before God's might - my favourite example of this is when the Philistines capture the Ark of the Covenant and place it before their statue of their god, Dagon, and the statue collapses before the Ark in the night! (1Sam5:1-5). But the Israelites continued to worship idols.
Here Isaiah is at his candid best - "Just think about it," he says...
"How can you possibly compare God to some dumb statue?
An idol is made by human hands and is budget dependent.
It's got to have a firm base in case the kids knock it over when they run around the house...!
Is this your god? SERIOUSLY???"
Look at some of the idols we worship today:
Wealth - doesn't satisfy.
Fame - can turn around so easily.
Power - corrupts
Beauty - is only skin deep
Possessions - are temporary
But the sad thing is that we worship at the shrines of these idols.
CHALLENGE: Stop and think about the things that you are chasing.
If someone with Isaiah's candour and honesty had to look at us might they also be tempted to ask: "Seriously??"
