Before Whom Will We Bow?

 “…He plants a cedar and the rain nourishes it. Then it becomes fuel for a man. He takes a part of it and warms himself; he kindles a fire and bakes bread. Also he makes a god and worships it; he makes it an idol and falls down before it.”

(Isaiah 44:14–15 ESV)

We don’t see or experience much in the way of traditional idol worship here in the United States. We don’t typically see people bowing before a statue, or a carved image, praying to it. Yet this continues to take place in many parts of the world.

The first time I experienced something remotely like this was as I lived in San Diego, where I served my first congregation. Many immigrants from Vietnam lived in my neighborhood. And many of these families had a small altar outside of their home, in which they’d regularly place a small offering of rice for their ancestors.

As I’ve been in other parts of the world, on mission trips, I’ve seen temples. Although I didn’t go into these temples, they contained the gods worshiped by the people. They contained idols to which the people would bow and offer their prayers.

For those of us, unfamiliar with these customs and religions, this seems foolish. And it is foolish. Isaiah, in the passage above, makes this clear.

He presents the illustration of a man who plants a tree, he plants a cedar, and it’s nourished by the rain. It then becomes fuel for him. He takes a part of this tree and warms himself. Over the fire, he bakes his bread.

At the same time, however, he makes a god of that same tree. He makes an idol from its wood. He then worships it. He falls down before it. He cries out to it for deliverance, declaring it to be his god.

He makes clear, in this way, that an idol is nothing. He makes clear that it is the work of man. He makes clear that it is the creation of man.

This, then, makes clear the foolishness of such an act. After all, how can something man has made deliver him? How can the creation of man save him?

Although this seems foreign to us, it’s really more familiar than we tend to believe. We too practice idolatry. We too depend upon man or the work of his hands for salvation.

In our culture, we often make a god of ourselves, looking to ourselves for salvation. We may look to others. We may depend upon political leaders. We may depend upon armies. We may depend upon wealth and possessions. We may depend upon technology. The examples are endless.

And just as we see the foolishness of bowing down to a block of wood, so must we see the foolishness of our actions. We must repent of it, turning to Christ for forgiveness and salvation. And rather than looking to something we have made to save us, we must look to the one who has made us.