Our Awesome God

I think that’s where many Christians get stumped. We know, in the abstract sense, that God can do anything, but we have a problem believing that He’ll do anything for us.

The God of the Bible is a living Being – and a very personal one at that. The Philistines worshipped gods as made of stone or wood. The Israelites had forsaken God. But to David, the God of all creation was a living God!

In 1Samuel 17:36, David said to King Saul, “Your servant has killed both lions and bears; and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be like one of them, since he has defied the armies of the living God.”

The idea that God was real and alive had not entered the minds of the Philistines and, for that matter, most of Israel either. They were worshipping gods made of stone and wood; gods devised by their own imaginations.

Isaiah 40:18-20 asks the question:

To whom then will you liken God, or what likeness will you compare with him? An idol perhaps? A workman casts (the idol), and a goldsmith overlays it with gold, and casts for it silver chains. As a gift (to that god), one chooses mulberry wood — wood that will not rot — then seeks out a skilled artisan to set up an image that will not topple.

Maybe you’re thinking that we don’t see Christians do these things. Wouldn’t it be strange to see your neighbor praying to his apple tree? Or watch him peel and apple and offer it to a rock? But that’s precisely what Isaiah’s talking about with ancient idolatry.

Today, however, there’s a different kind of idolatry. Anytime you or I make a person, a goal, a institution or anything else equal to or higher than the living God in our loyalties and priorities, then we’re committing idolatry. That’s what idolatry is; giving to anyone or anything the loyalty and devotion we should render to God . . . this even includes anything that we feel deserves our time and resources more than our worship of God.

We’re all born worshippers – even so-called atheists. They may claim that they worship no god, but in God’s eyes they worship themselves or whatever it is that gives them pleasure.

If you think about it, Isaiah does have a sense of humor. In verse 20 for instance, he’s saying, “Some of you are poor and you say that you don’t have gold to cover your idol. Well if that’s the case, be careful of the wood you choose! Your god may be eaten by termites.” Then he says, “And by the way, be sure to nail your gods down, or they may just fall their pedestal and break!”

Doesn’t that remind you a bit of how some treat their Hollywood idols? They put them on a pedestal, follow and envy their every success, pay them lots of money to be entertaining, and then – somewhat morbidly – spend even more money to read about their failures or human foibles.

Well, God cannot be compared with a physical object or human icon. He’s very much alive, and He’s without foibles or failures. All that He declares is accomplished. Anything or anyone that we put ahead of Him is bowing to deaf and dumb idols of ancient times.

Nevertheless, we do tend to put material things ahead of God. Every time we make our jobs, our leisure time, our worries or our friends more important than our worship of God, we show that our view and estimation of God is lacking.