July 10, 2025 - Isaiah 46-48

The Lord says of Israel and her idols:

To whom will you liken me and make me equal,

      and compare me, that we may be alike?

Those who lavish gold from the purse,

      and weigh out silver in the scales,

hire a goldsmith, and he makes it into a god;

      then they fall down and worship!

They lift it to their shoulders, they carry it,

      they set it in its place, and it stands there;

      it cannot move from its place.

If one cries to it, it does not answer

      or save him from his trouble (46:5-7).

I recently saw a photograph of two people walking through flood waters.  Each of them was carrying a large idol.  The caption read:  “If you have to save your god from a flood, he can’t save you.”  Idols do not answer prayers.  Idols do not save from trouble.  Idols are nothing.  Our God says, “  I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me” (46:9).  He, and he alone, is able to say to Israel (and to us):  I am “Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: “I am the LORD your God, who teaches you to profit, who leads you in the way you should go” (48:17).

Lord, thou hast been thy children’s God,

All-powerful, wise and good, and just,

In every age their safe abode,

Their hope, their refuge, and their trust,

Before thy word gave nature birth,

Or spread the starry heavens abroad,

Or formed the varied face of earth,

From everlasting thou art God.   --Anne Steele (1760)