Isa 40:18-24 ESV - 18 To whom then will you liken God, or what likeness compare with him? 19 An idol! A craftsman casts it, and a goldsmith overlays it with gold and casts for it silver chains. 20 He who is too impoverished for an offering chooses wood that will not rot; he seeks out a skillful craftsman to set up an idol that will not move. 21 Do you not know? Do you not hear? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? 22 It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to dwell in; 23 who brings princes to nothing, and makes the rulers of the earth as emptiness. 24 Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown, scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth, when he blows on them, and they wither, and the tempest carries them off like stubble.
If we can’t compare God with the majesty of mountains or the vastness of an ocean, then, of course we would fashion an idol to represent him — or replace him. How absurd!
Who gave the craftsman and the goldsmith the talent and knowledge to perform their craft with skill? Did that piece of wood magically speak and tell the craftsman, “this is where you cut and this is what I should look like?” Did the gold speak to the goldsmith to tell him how hot to make the fire to melt the gold and just what to add to make it the most beneficial?
To continue the absurdity, someone who already is pinching pennies for food spends what he doesn’t have for a block of wood, and then spends more to hire someone to make it into an idol that he can set up in his house and pray to and ask to supply him with more food and shelter that he needs.
Can you hear the frustration in Isaiah’s voice? He has just explained how useless it is to try to compare an incomparable God. But he will review . . .
Imagine sitting above the circle of the earth — in outer space, beyond earth’s gravitational pull; so immense that if the heavens (all the galaxies and more) were curtains or a tent He could just spread them out because God is bigger than the heavens . . .
Again, Nebuchadnezzar got a glimpse of God’s power and might. (He’s not the only one) We think our lives are so long but compared to eternity this temporal life is marked by “scarcely”
Pray for the Persecuted Church–OpenDoorsUSA
Day 6: Pray that God would bring opportunities for
local Open Doors partners to serve the persecuted
church in Cuba.
Daily Wisdom Psalm 108-111 Proverbs 24
Plea for Grace 