The Scripture revelation starts with God and ends with God (cf. 1 Corinthians 15:24, 28; Revelation 22:13, 21). God gave the Scripture to mankind to reveal Himself to us. No one that humbly bows to God's words, in submission and true faith, should remain in the dark as to real knowledge of Him both as Creator, Provider and Saviour of all. This verse speaks of God's being and attributes. Here are some of the details:
God is eternal. "Before the mountains were brought forth, or ere Thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from eon to eon, Thou art God." (Psalm 90:2) Before God could create the heaven, the earth and all, He must had existed prior to everything else. To illustrate: the carpenter must had existed first prior to the house that he himself has built. The same is analogous to God's relationship to all creation. "He is before all, and all has its cohesion in Him." (Colossians 1:17, Concordant Version)
How foolish then we all become when, in spiritual blindness, against God's words, we try to parade our speculations, ideas, and theories - we who are but of yesterday, whose life is but a vapour - with such an air of self-assurance that betrays not knowledge but pride and foolishness. "For the wicked boasts of his heart's desire, and blesses the covetous, whom the LORD abhors. The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will not seek after God: God is not in all his thoughts...he has said in his heart, 'I shall not be moved: for I shall never be in adversity.' His mouth is full of cursing and deceit and fraud: under his tongue is mischief and vanity." (Psalm 10:3-7)
"Therefore, pride compasses them about as a chain; violence covers them as a garment. Their eyes stand out with fatness: they have more than heart could wish. They are corrupt, and speak wickedly concerning oppression: they speak loftily. They set their mouth against the heavens [that is, against God, by figure metonymy], and their tongue walks through the earth...and they say, 'How does God know? and is there knowledge in the most High? Behold, these are the ungodly, who prosper in the world; they increase in riches." (73:6-12)
"Because that, when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools" (Romans 1:21-22).
What great fools we make of ourselves then when, we in conceit, try to 'teach' Him - Who is Himself wisdom and omniscience - how to run the universe that He has created! O remember that you and I are but of yesterday! (Job 8:9) You don't even know how to make one hair of your head, white or black (Matt.5:36), neither the way where light dwells, nor the place of darkness, that you should take it to the bound of it or know the paths of its house (Job 38:19-21). If you are ignorant of such lesser and lighter things, how could you then ascend up to the greater and weightier matters that concern the management of God's universe and kingdom?
Trying to instruct God, eh, dude. That's like the baby on the crib that doesn't even know how to change his own wet diapers, trying to advise the president of the United States of America how to run the country!
"Who has directed that spirit of the LORD, or being His counselor has taught Him? with whom took He counsel, and who instructed Him in the path of judgment, and taught Him knowledge, and showed to Him the way of understanding? Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance: behold, He takes up the isles as a very little thing...All nations before Him are as nothing; and they are counted to Him less than nothing, and vanity." (Isaiah 40:13-17)
Isn't it therefore right that we should learn the humble prayer of one of the old prophets? who said: "LORD, make me to know mine end, and the measure of my days, what it is; that I may know how frail I am." This is where most of our problems come in. We all have a too overblown, or should I say, bloated opinion of ourselves that we have forgotten that we are but dust and ashes (Gen.18:27), our life a wind (Job 7:6, 9), our days are as a shadow that passes away (Psalm 144:4), and all our glory as the flower of grass that falls away (1 Peter 1:24).
We, in demented arrogance, like the prince of Tyrus of old, may say: "I am a God, I sit in the seat of God" (Ezekiel 28:2). But we all fall, in the end, to the hands death - that imperious tyrant - to prove us wrong finally. "They shall bring thee down to the pit, and thou shalt die the deaths of them that are slain in the midst of the seas. Wilt thou yet say before him that slays thee, 'I am God?' but thou shalt be a man, and no God, in the hand of him that slays thee." (28:8-9) "Man that is in honor, and understands not, is like the beasts that perish." (Psalm 49:12, 20)
"Behold, Thou hast made my days as an handbreadth; and mine age is as nothing before Thee: verily every man at his best state is altogether vanity" (Psalm 39:4-5).
Have you read that last statement carefully? It doesn't say: verily every man at his worst state is altogether vanity. No. It does put us all to shame for it reveals: verily every man at his best state is altogether vanity. "Vanity", as to its definition, is the quality or state of being useless, worthless, or futile.
Fallen man, in the state of sin, could have all the best that the world has to offer such as material riches, intellectual knowledge, decorum and culture. You may also add, with those already named, high social position, good name, religion, etc., etc. But what they all amount to, spiritually, is nothing. "For that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God" (Luke 16:15).
"In Adam" - all that we were and are and whatever we do ultimately end in death, in vanity, in nothing. "In Adam all die" (1 Corinthians 15:22 cf. Romans 5:12)
It is "in Christ" that we find our only hope and salvation. "For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." (1 Corinthians 15:22 cf. Romans 5:18)
God is all-powerful. Only a God of such infinite power could bring the universe - as we now behold and witness - into existence. And this creative act He all did through His omnipotent word of command.
- Day 1: "And God said, 'Let there be light:' and there was light..." (Genesis 1:3-5)
- Day 2: "And God said, 'Let there be a firmament [Heb., atmosphere] in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters...and it was so..." (verses 6-8)
- Day 3: "And God said, 'Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so...." (verses 9-13)
- Day 4: "And God said, 'Let there be lights [Heb., luminaries] in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years...and it was so..." (verses 14-19)
- Day 5: "And God said, 'Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature [Heb., soul] that has life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. And God created great whales [Heb., monsters] and every living creature [soul] that moves, which the waters brought forth abundantly..." (verses 20-23)
- Day 6: "And God said, ' Let the earth bring forth the living creature [Heb., soul] after his kind...And God said, 'Let us make man [Heb., humanity] in our image, after our likeness...So God created man [humanity] in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them..." (verses 26-31)
Everything was and is being carried out through the power of His word: "By the word of the LORD were the heavens made; and all the hosts of them by the breath of His mouth. He gathers the waters of the sea together as an heap: He lays up the depth in storehouses. Let all the earth fear the LORD: let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him. For He spoke, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast." (Psalm 33:6-9)
God - the Creator - only has to speak a word of command, and whatever sovereignly pleases Him, in wisdom and love, takes place as He had intended. "For I know that the LORD is great, and that our Lord is above all gods. Whatever the LORD pleased, that did He in heaven, and in earth, in the seas, and all deep places." (135:5-6)
Fallen man's words and thoughts, by contrast, may come like Herod with great pomp and oratorical show, but they end in decay and ruin. (Acts 12:21-23)
God is all-wise and all-knowing. "O LORD, how manifold are Thy works! in wisdom hast Thou made them all: the earth is full of Thy riches. So is this great and wide sea, wherein are things creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts." (Psalm 104:23-25)
What an infinite contrast between the true and living God of the Scripture and the lifeless idols of the nations. "For the customs of the peoples are vain: for one cuts a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. They deck it with silver and gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not. They [the idols] are upright as the palm tree, but they speak not: they must needs be borne, because they cannot go. Be not afraid of them; for they cannot do evil, neither is it in them to do good. (Jeremiah 10:3-5)
The idols of the nations are nothing but lifeless, carved wood and pictures, "graved by art and man's device" (Acts 17:29). Those idols cannot speak or move. Neither can they do evil nor do good. The Scriptures therefore enjoin us: Be not afraid of those idols, for they cannot do good or evil. They are powerless. They, altogether, are absolutely useless, worthless, nothing.
Pagan priestcraft, by contrast, often says that "idols" afford help to the common people (or the illiterate masses), for those idols serve as books to the masses to teach them, in concrete form, the doctrine of religion. Priestcraft says that the abstract and abstruse teaching of religion, which is accessible only to the clergy, is beyond the ken of the laity (or unlearned people) so the laity needs the concrete teaching that the idols provide!
Is that true? Are those man-invented idols of any help in teaching the common people what they need to know about God? What do the words of the Lord say concerning this matter?
The Scripture, speaking of the idols, tells us: "the stock is a doctrine of vanities...Every man is brutish in his knowledge: every founder is confounded by the graven image: for his molten image is falsehood, and there is no breath in them. They are vanity, and the work of errors: in the time of their visitation they shall perish." (Jeremiah 10:8, 14, 15)
Take note that those idols, contemptuously termed "stock" (lifeless log of wood) in the above verses, do bring a doctrine to the people, but what they bring is not "sound doctrine" (Titus 2:2) but "doctrine of vanities"! The word "vanities" refer to any thing, any act, or any idea that is utterly worthless, useless, and futile (in the sense of incapable of producing the desired result).
If those idols bring nothing but "doctrine of vanities", it simply means that what they teach are utterly worthless. Their teaching are absolutely valueless (worthless, useless) to help us know God. They add nothing to our ignorance of God. Worthless teaching plus human ignorance is not equal to sound wisdom and knowledge! Those idols are in fact futile, meaning, incapable of producing the desired result that every human needs, which is, the knowledge of God.
"What profits the graven image that the maker thereof has graven it; the molten image, and a teacher of lies, that the maker of his work trusts therein, to make dumb idols? Woe to him that says to the wood, 'Awake;' to the dumb stone, 'Arise, it shall teach!' Behold, it is laid over with gold and silver, and there is no breath at all in the midst of it." (Habakkuk 2:18-19)
Idols don't just bring worthless teaching - a teaching that doesn't add any profitable information to our ignorance - but worst of all, they, altogether, are a TEACHER OF LIES! (see Habakkuk 2:18) A lie is any statement, any action, or any thing that one makes for the purpose of deception! Lie is the direct opposite of truth.
Negatively, idols don't add anything profitable to our ignorance, but, on the other hand, positively, they actually introduce something baneful and destructive to our ignorant soul. They inject, through sin and satanic deception, the poison of LIES to our unsuspecting mind. Ignorance plus lies is equal to misconception or distorted understanding.
Our naive mind, being not armed by God's truth, is easily vulnerable to the idolatrous lies that our mind cannot assess properly. This is due to the fact that the ignorant mind, when exposed to the idols' lies, has no grasp of the truth by which it could compare, appraise, and recognize the lies to which it is exposed. It is like being offered a fake hundred dollar bill that one accepted gladly without detecting the deception, because one has no idea whatever of what a true hundred dollar bill looks like and what are its actual qualities.
Thus, all of us of the nations were "carried away unto these dumb idols" just like that, and "did service unto them which by nature are no gods" (1 Corinthians 12:2; Galatians 4:8). We "changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things", and thereby "changed the truth of God into the lie, and worshiped and served the creature more than the Creator, Who is blessed for the eons". (Romans 1:23, 25)
"God is spirit" (John 4:24) as to His essence and infinite perfections. His truth cannot be rightly and properly represented by the finite proportions of any lifeless idol made by man's hands. Any such attempt to portray God through lifeless idols is sure to end in failure. God didn't create trees, gold, silver, and such for mankind to use as carved representations of Him. He already provided Jesus Christ - His Son - as His perfect Expression and Image to manifest Himself to mankind (John 1:1, 14, 18; Colossians 1:15; Hebrews 1:1-3).
All forms of idols misrepresent God in a most pernicious way. Only His Son - the Lord Jesus Christ - reveals Him exactly and truthfully as He intends it to be. "No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, Who is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him." (John 1:18)
This is the reason why God forbids the making of those idols. In His revelation to Moses, He says: "I am the LORD thy God, Who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage. Thou shalt have none other gods before Me. Thou shalt not make any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the waters beneath the earth: thou shalt not bow down thyself unto them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Me, and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love Me and keep My commandments." (Deuteronomy 5:6-10)
No man-made image, conceived by human imagination, is capable of revealing God and bringing us to Him. The Lord Jesus Christ says, "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no one comes unto the Father, but by Me." (John 14:6) ) Only Christ Jesus can! "For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; Who will have (literally, wills) all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; Who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time." (1 Timothy 2:3-6)
"Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you shall be saved, you and your household." (Acts 16:31, C.V.)
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