Reading for today:  Ezekiel 5-8
Original post:  September 4, 2014

Our reading, although chronological is a little out of order.  Jeremiah has told us that the siege has happened, and now Ezekiel is taking us back to show us what was going on elsewhere while in Babylon while Jeremiah was prophesying in Judah.   Think of it as a second story line that will merge with the rest of the events in a few chapters.

Why do we seem prone to worship idols?   I am recalling the first two commandments that God gave us:  1.  No other gods   2.  No idols.   Thinking about that, why were those the first two commandments?  Is it because they were the two things we were most prone to violate, or are they the two things that everything else hinges on, or are they the two things that are closest to God's heart?   Either way, there's something to be said for their importance based on priority of revelation.

Why then, are we so prone to go astray here?   I think of Gideon back in the time of the Judges: he made an ephod to celebrate the victory that God had given and within several years the people were worshiping the ephod and had forgotten God.  Even Solomon in all his wisdom was guilty of allowing false gods to be erected and worshiped.  

Maybe it's as simple as control.   If we make it, we feel we can control it.   Several years ago the students in our local elementary school were tasked with making a diety.  (yes, you heard me right).  They were studying the American Indians and the gods they worshiped.   Each student had to design an idol, and then write a paragraph describing the powers and attributes of the god.    It seems ridiculous that any adult would actually believe something like that, but it is exactly what happens.    A carpenter or metalsmith makes a form, and then lets people know what attributes it has.   In time, people come from all over to pray to the form, or where the form is located.   Again I say "ridiculous".    Beyond ridiculous....insulting.

In the temple the Israelites had inscribed pictures of animals that God told them were unclean on the walls.   Then they prayed to what they had drawn.    They saw the grass outside had wilted (like it did every summer) so they decided that it was a sign that the god of fertility had died (he came back to life every year), so they held a sort of funeral "party" for him.   By the way, it took place in God's temple also.  

We've established that the people of Ezekiel's day were out of their mind.   Now, how about today?   I wonder what God would think of our theory of evolution?   I don't have to wonder, I already know.  He doesn't like it.   And, it's insulting to give credit that rightly belongs to God to some other entity, or even worse yet....to say it happened by accident.

What about our fashioning of idols and praying to them?   Hmm.  Should we be praying to the cross?  Think hard, now.   Remember Gideon's ephod.   Why not pray to the one who was on the cross.  Don't forget the cross, remember it, celebrate it, thank God for it.   But be careful not to make the cross into an idol.   By itself it has no power.    What about statues of the saints that have come before?   Should we ask things of them, now that they have passed into heaven?     I don't think so.   They don't have any powers, and the statue of them that a skilled craftsman designed is nothing more than a block of wood.   Don't pray to it.   The statues don't have any powers...even if they are rumored to have cried, or moved, or anything else.   They are dangerous only in their ability to draw us away from genuine worship.

We want those things to have powers.  Because we want to be able to decide how and what gets changed, and what it takes to make it happen.   However, God has already decided that, and hasn't ever given the authority to man to make any changes to it.   God alone is to be worshiped, and nothing is to be fashioned that might serve as a "worship aid".  It is forbidden.   He decides what will happen, and our role is to obey.   We do not decide.  We can only ask.

The Israelite's are being punished harshly for violating the first two commandments.  It has taken some time for their sin to come to fruition, but as we read today, the end has come.

You and I should take note, and keep our worship pure, and free from the influence of any idols.


PR