Doing things backward.

The prophet Isaiah tells a parable about a man who did things back ward. This strange fellow started out right. He planted a tree for future use. This was intelligent planning the prophet observes. When the tree grew to a usable size, he cut it down.

Then the man did a strange thing. He built a fire and cooked a meal. He was chilly, so he warmed himself by the fire. Then he was not satisfied, so he picked up a scrap of the wood and carved a little God. He bowed and worshiped and prayed to the scrap of wood, “Deliver me for you are my God.”

As Isaiah noted it may have made more sense if the man had taken the best part of the tree and carved a beautiful wooden idol first, but the way he did it didn’t make sense. His God was made from the scrapes, with what was left over.

The story is found in Isa 44:13-19. There is a sarcasm about this description which ought to convince the most blind devotees of an idol.

But I wonder if there is any difference between the ‘heathen’ and some professing Christians. If the Christian’s God also comes last; if He only gets what is left over from our time, talents, or money then what is the difference?

The world gets excited about the wrong things. We can get excited about the wrong things.  We cling tenaciously to our traditions and get excited about football, sport, or issues in theology. We need to be excited about the kingdom and the prospect of its soon coming and the prospects of new kingdom comers.

The essence of idolatry is this— to love anything better than God, to trust anything more than God, to wish to have a God other than we have, or to have some signs and wonders by which we may see him, some outward symbol, healing, or manifestation that can be seen with the eye or heard with the ear rather than to rest in an invisible God and believe the faithful promise of Him who eye has not seen nor ear heard. In some form or other this great sin is the main mischief of the heart of humanity; and even in saved people this is one of the developments of corruption. Even the Bible can become an idol to us if we are reading it for the wrong purpose.