Confronts Lies

The Foolishness of Idolatry & The Faithfulness of God

7.19.26 [Isaiah 44:6-111] River of Life (9th Sunday after Pentecost)

Sixty years after Candid Camera invented reality TV, it hit its peak. In the late 2000s, a single show curated all the best moments captured by closed-circuit television. It was Cops meets AFHV. The show was called World’s Dumbest Criminals. You can probably guess the plot. Most episodes featured a collection of would-be thieves making fools of themselves. There was the thief who tried to rob a catering business and got stuck in the chimney for 10 hours. When the cops arrived, they had to rescue him and then arrest him. There were thieves who tried to conceal their faces with permanent marker and duct tape. There was a thief in Chicago that tried to rob a muffler shop only to find out that muffler shops don’t have much money until the end of the workday, so he left his phone number for the staff to call him when they had some money. My personal favorite was the two guys from New Zealand who were awaiting trial. As they broke away from custody, they either forgot they were handcuffed together or banked on their buddy going the other way around the power pole. It didn’t take long before it was lights out. 

Maybe you remember that show. If not, you probably remember something like it. People making such foolish choices you can hardly believe it’s real. But sometimes, the truth is stranger than fiction. 

Isaiah 44 is little like that. We might call it World’s Dumbest Sinners. 

Isaiah tells the story of a blacksmith. All day long, he shapes an idol with his hammer until he runs out of strength. Then the blacksmith has to take a break and get something to eat and to drink before he faints.

Isaiah writes of a craftsman who watches a tree grow before his eyes, year after year, until it’s perfect. Then he cuts it down. Half of it goes into the fire where he warms himself and cooks his dinner. The other half he chisels and shapes into a god which he prays to and says: Is. 44:17 Save me! You are my god! Truth can be stranger than fiction. 

But why does God give us these slices of life? Because he wants all mankind to learn the origin story of all these false gods. They are man-made. Some are the figments of people’s imaginations. Others are the work of weary hands. But all idols are powerless. Thoughtless. 

God warns that all those who worship false gods are Is. 44:20 being misled by a deluded heart. They are feeding on ashes. The Lord’s way with words is striking. Imagine being gathered around the campfire and in the center of the fire is a Dutch oven with some wonderful smelling chili. Someone asks you if you’re hungry and hands you a bowlful. But instead of a meaty spoonful, it’s bitter and chalky and acrid. You’d be furious, right?

This is how the Lord describes idolatry. But this wasn’t some practical joke being played on Israel. Israel was doing it to themselves. They were choosing to feed on ashes. 

You know some of the stories. The golden calf at Mt. Sinai. The showdown between Elijah and the prophets of Baal at Mt. Carmel. The time when Gideon tore down his father’s altar to Baal and the townspeople wanted to kill Gideon and his dad said if Baal is really a god he can fight his own battles. You know some of those false gods. Names like Dagon, Baal, Asherah, Ashtoreth, Molech, Rimmon, and Chemosh—gods of fertility and fruitfulness. gods of wind and rain and the stars and the sea. The ancient world is filled with idols, it seems. 

Today, it’s easy for us to believe that we are more sophisticated than that. That we would never make something and bow down to it. That we would never lift something up in our hands and cry out, “ Save me! You are my god!” But the truth is stranger than fiction. The ancient world was filled with idols. But so, too, is our world. 

There are the idols we fashion and hold in our hands. Car keys. Cellphones. Credit cards. Cold hard cash. The things we borrow money to buy. The things that steal our attention away. The things that captivate our hearts. 

There are the Sunday-morning idols. The things that always seem to wrestle us away from time in God’s house, with our spiritual family. Friends in town. Sleeping in. Big league games and little league games. Mornings on the lake. Late nights in front of the TV. It’s not even as if we have to choose. God doesn’t give us an ultimatum of “ it’s me or these things.” What does it say if we consistently choose a bunch of other things rather than God? 

Imagine flaking on your friends, and they find out that you just decided to sleep in. Imagine telling your boss you were going to miss a big meeting for some of the excuses we make to our Lord. Imagine cancelling date night with this flimsiess. God knows our real why. 

But Sunday isn’t the only day when idols strike. Our eyes are opened to the prevalence of false gods and idols when we study our catechisms. A god is anything or anyone to whom we look to for all good or where we look for refuge in all need. A god is the one in whom you trust, the thing or person your heart relies or depends on. 

So what do you depend on? Where do you turn in tough times? Whom do you credit when things are going well? Whom do you really trust?As we ask ourselves these kinds of questions, the idols of our lives begin to pop up like a game of whack-a-mole. 

Like Israel, we may say we worship one God, but our past is full of side-idols. When we’re young, we may have idolized the popular kids, the jocks, the prom queen, the class clown, or the straight A students. We obsess over the one. It’s not that we bowed down and worshipped them, but we envied what they had and despised that we didn’t. Greed and covetousness ( Col. 3:5) is idolatry. Perhaps we coveted the clothes they wore or the car they drove. We craved the attention they commanded, the potential they had, or the success they enjoyed. The false gods we fashioned led us into all kinds of foolish choices, wicked words, and sinful actions. 

As we grew up, our side-idols developed, too. We wanted the good life. The big house. The impressive job. The perfect family. The exciting vacations. What happened when we couldn’t have it all? Maybe we spent beyond our blessings. Maybe we lied to make ourselves look or sound more impressive. Maybe we envied those who had more and gossiped about them.  

Today, your side-idols take different shapes than they did a decade ago. Today, we may take refuge in what we’ve worked a lifetime for. Our finances. Our health. Our relationships. Paychecks, pensions, and portfolios help us feel safer in times of economic uncertainty.  Our health, our family, and our autonomy make our lives meaningful and satisfying. We proudly declare that our spouse is our rock. So quickly we forget who is really the source of every good and perfect gift. This is what God’s creation has done to him.  

What of these is like our God? Will the big house or the impressive job save you? Can a robust portfolio redeem you from your sins? Can your spouse really bear the weight of guilt and shame? Can you, with all your gifts and successes, even predict what will happen tomorrow, much less shape it? 

The things, the places, and the people we turn to in the pursuit of joy and satisfaction and safety and identity cannot do any of these. And it is not their fault, most of them. Your career, your family, your spouse, even your own mind were not meant to supplant the one true God. They didn’t ask for that. Your heart, which is wired to crave something, someone to worship, forced them into that role. 

But there is someone who is worthy. He is the first—there was no one before him and nothing without him. He is the last—nothing that has been made will outlast him and no one will vanquish him. He is the Lord Almighty. Israel’s King and the King of kings. Your Redeemer and mine. Our Savior. The Rock of our Salvation. 

You know there is no one like him. Even if you forget. So let his Word, his proven track-record of faithfulness, jog   your sinful memory. He is the God who was faithful and patient with Adam and Eve. He is the God who delivered Noah and Abraham and Moses and David. He is the God who brought Egypt to her knees and Israel to the Promised Land. He is the God who has a spotless record of promise keeping, even when his people are faithless. No idol can claim any of that. 

But our God is not just worthy of our worship because he has said and done things that no one else has. He knows that we are nothing. That our sins have put us to shame. That we have lived as blind, ignorant fools. That we have sold our souls to sin and acted as if we were mighty enough to figure our own way out of trouble. Yet the Lamb of God who is worthy of our worship, chose to be slain for us. 

The Lord Almighty took on flesh and blood and became like us. The King of kings became our servant and gave his life as a ransom for our sins. The Righteous Redeemer bought us back with his own blood. The Rock of our Salvation was buried in a rock hewn tomb. 

He lived for us. He died for us. But he did not stay dead. What idol can even move itself? Our Rock shook the earth and rolled away the stone. Our Redeemer rose from the dead and set us free from the power of death. Our King went to war with the Evil One and triumphed. The Lord Almighty is his name. And you are his witnesses. 

You are witnesses of his power to a world that thinks all this just came out of some great accidental collision. You are witnesses of his wisdom to a world who thinks wisdom comes from within. You are witnesses of his love who thinks love is something they can create. You are witnesses of his eternal power to a world that thinks nothing lasts forever. 

The world we live in is full of dumb idols and dumb idolaters. At times, it may frustrate us. When we look at our hearts and lives, it should humble us. But when we lift our eyes to the Maker of heaven and earth, when we hear his wisdom and we see his sacrificial love, we see there is no reason to tremble or be afraid. The Lord Almighty is the first and the last. He is our Rock and our Redeemer. Who is like him? Amen.