The helplessness of idols.
Before God can hopefully intervene on behalf of man, man must have become thoroughly convinced of his own helplessness, and of the insufficiency of all on whom he is disposed to rely. In the time of the Babylonish captivity, many, surrounded day by day with idolatrous sentiments and associations, would incline to reliance on these idols, and to seeking help and deliverance from them. Therefore the prophet, by solemn warnings, by satire and taunt, strives to break God's people away from all such vain confidences. We have some idea of the boastings of the Assyrians in the power of their idol-gods given in the Rabshakeh's messages to Hezekiah. He glories in the superiority of the Assyrian gods over all the gods of the conquered nations; and the discouraged exiles might be tempted to say, "Even our God, Jehovah. could not stand against these Assyrian gods; then let us seek to them for help and deliverance." And if such formal idolatries belong to the past, answering spiritual idolatries belong to the present; and we also are ready enough to turn away from God, when he does not let things be "according to our mind," and we easily take up with idol-devices of our own hearts. So Israel and we may profitably be reminded that all self-made idols are vanity, and must utterly fail all who put their trust in them when the testing-day comes. In our text the idol-claimants are put to a test. Let them do something. Helpless things'. A great deal is done for them; now let things be turned about, and let them do something. We need not be over-particular. If it is inconvenient for them to do something good, let them do something evil—only let it be something. But they cannot. "They are of nothing, and their work of nought" (see 1 Corinthians 8:4). Cheyne says, "The Divine Speaker waives the question of foreknowledge, and makes the least requirement possible." Prove that you are alive, by performing some act whether good (for your friends) or bad (for your foes).' Or, we may empty the terms 'good' and 'evil' of their moral meaning, and suppose them to be used proverbially to express the one simple notion of anything, exactly as the two words 'right and left' merely conveyed the idea of anywhere." Matthew Henry paraphrases thus: "Let them do, if they can, anything extraordinary, that people may admire and be affected with. Let them either bless or curse, with power. Let us see them inflict such plagues as God brought on Egypt, or bestow such blessings as God bestowed on Israel. Let them do some great thing, and we shall be amazed when we see it, and frightened into a veneration of them, as many have been into a veneration of the true God." The point suggested for illustration is that it would be well to put nineteenth-century idols also to the test, and see whether they are worthy of confidence because they have power to do either good or evil. What may be regarded as idols must be decided by each teacher of men for himself. We can only venture to hint that the following may come under the denomination. Indeed, an idol is anything which so occupies the interest of man as to push God out of his supreme place in man's affection and service.
I. THE IDOL OF SCIENCE. Worshipped by many in our day. What can it do? What can it do towards meeting the spiritual need, the sense of sin, the soul-cry, of man? And it can do nothing if it can bear no relation to them.
II. THE IDOL OF LUXURY. Pleasure has numberless votaries, who delight in her service. Yet is she but the syren, who floats on, just a little in front, luring her worshippers into headlessness of the black storms that are gathering in the sky. What can she do in the day of calamity? Then her votaries find she is "all vanity, and her works are nothing."
III. THE IDOL OF SELF. Taking often very interesting shapes, as socialistic theories of man's regeneration by man. Very attractive is the notion that all earth-woes would fade away if only men would bind themselves together in a universal "Help-Myself" Society. And yet the story of the ages is the ever-fresh illustration of the fact that it is not, and it never has been, in "man that walketh to direct his steps." Ask "Self" what it can do for our best and highest interests, and it is as dumb as any idol-block. None hear, and there is no one to answer. Only when the claims of idol Self had been thoroughly worked out, and "man by his wisdom evidently knew not God," did Divine love intervene and send the Son. The "fulness of times" was precisely the time when helpless "Self" was proved to be of nothing, and his works of nought. And yet round these and other idol-shrines men crowd to-day, and need to heat' the solemn appeal of the last of Christ's apostles, "Little children, keep yourselves from idols."—R.T.
Isaiah 40
Isaiah
Isaiah 42
Isaiah 41 - isaiah-41 - worlddic.com