This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

Welcome back for Day 2 of Week 6 of our look through the book of Isaiah, Chapter
44 today. As we begin, just let me ask you, can you imagine an advertisement in
the newspaper that said, "Gods, two for a dollar. On special this week only, get
them while they last.

" That's what was happening on Isaiah's day. They made and sold gods just like
you and I would a blender or a pair of jeans. And throughout these chapters on
receiving God's comfort, Isaiah has come back again and again to our tendency to
look to the wrong places to find comfort.

And he calls it what it is, it's called idolatry. Now idolatry is an ancient
sounding word that has a very modern ring. And today, these next few minutes
together, we want to expose some idols, cast down some idols.

This is going to be more than a history lesson about statues in Isaiah's day.
The scripture gives us an opportunity to look into our own lives, to see some of
the false idols, false securities that are there. These false idols are terrible
things.

The false securities in our lives, God gives us peace, idols create worry. God
gives us assurance, idols create fear. God gives abundance, idols create
dependence.

Now let's just walk through this, what Isaiah 44 has to say to us about idols.
First there's a description of idols. Isaiah's idols were the gods they
worshipped in that day.

And they were often made in the image of a man, image of a person, and people
would put them on their mantle or they put them at their door as people came in
to their house to say they were depending on this God, little G God, to take
care of them, to make sure that no problems came to them, to make sure that
their children were safe. They in many ways expressed the desires of man, these
idols, the thoughts and desires and purposes of man and not of God. They had
names, they called them El, the creator of earth, controller of storms, Asherah,
the wife of El, the goddess of faithfulness, fruitfulness, Baal and Asherah, the
power of fertility that was there, Haran, the shepherd god, Mott, the god of
death and sterility.

They had names, but they were all about wanting to make sure that you were kept
safe, that you were kept secure, so they depended on these false gods. And we
think that's so silly, but the truth is there's 21st century idols, there's
false gods that we worship. And these idols have names too, they're not as fancy
or as hidden as the names back then.

Our names for our idols are money and popularity and work and happiness. Now our
particular idols, I know all of those could be used for good. They become idols
when we chase after them as if they're going to meet our deepest needs, needs
that only God can meet.

When you chase after money as if it's going to meet your need for significance,
you've made money an idol in your life. So we still have idols today. And Isaiah
44 is really about how we build them.

How do you build an idol? Let me take a few minutes just to read through what he
has to say beginning in verse 12 about how they built an idol in that day. He's
trying to show them how foolish an idol can really be.

So beginning in verse 12, the blacksmith takes a tool and works with it in the
coals. He shapes an idol with hammers and he forges it with the might of his
arm. He gets hungry and loses his strength.

He drinks no water and he grows faint. The carpenter measures with a line and
makes an outline with a marker. He rusts it out with chisels and marks it with
compasses.

He shapes it in human form, human form in all its glory, that it may dwell in a
shrine. He cut down cedars or perhaps took a cypress or oak. He let it grow
among the trees of the forest or planted a pine and the rain made it grow.

It's used as fuel for burning. Some of it he takes and warms himself. He kindles
a fire and bakes bread.

But he also fashions a god and worships it. He makes an idol and bows down to
it. Half of the wood he burns in the fire.

He prepares a meal and he roasts his meat and eats his fill. He warms himself
and says, "Ah, I am warm. I see the fire.

" From the rest, he makes a god. His idol, he bows down to it and worships. He
prays to it and says, "Save me, you are my god.

" They know nothing. They understand nothing. Their eyes are plastered over so
they cannot see and their minds closed so they cannot understand.

So Isaiah gives us this picture of the building of an idol. He talks about a
blacksmith who tires, a carpenter who measures, a tree just like all the other
trees that were beside it, a block of wood. Half of it for the fire and half of
it for a god.

That's how they built an idol. How about us? How do we build idols?

How do the modern idols of popularity or money, how do they gain a foothold in
our lives? In our minds, in our hearts, how do we build these idols in our lives
today? We use different kinds of tools.

The first tool is insecurity. The foundation of the building of an idol is
insecurity at some point. You're not sure God's going to take care of you.

You're not sure God's going to get done what you want to get done. We start to
listen to our circumstances instead of listening to God's assurances. We see
people get hurt in our lives that we love and we wonder, "Is that going to
happen to me?

" And we try to find some way to make sure that we're going to be okay. So it
begins with this insecurity and then the second truth that causes us to begin to
build idols, I'd use the word insurance. We look for guarantees in all the wrong
places.

God has not guaranteed us no problems in this world, but we want no problems. We
certainly want no problems for our kids. So we try to build some kind of an idol
that'll make sure that we won't ever have to face a problem in this world.

Well, there's no such thing. The only person who would say they would give you
such a thing is a liar. And idols lie.

Satan lies. So he's more than willing to lie and say, "If you'll do this, if
you'll do that, if you'll live here, if you'll say these things, then if you
won't get too serious about your faith, if you'll do all of these things, then
you'll never have to face a problem in your life. " When we look for this
insurance, we tend to look to things that are familiar to us or things that are
formed by us.

We look to things that are familiar to us. The issue here is the wrong kind of
comfort. We just want to keep things the same so I don't have any problems in my
life.

Or even worse, we look to things that are formed by us. And the issue here is
control. We figure if I can control it, then maybe I can make sure it's going to
happen like I want it.

Well, there's no such life. The only person who would guarantee you that kind of
life is a liar. But we begin to buy the lie and out of that we build the idol.

If I just get enough money, then everything's going to be okay. If I just get
enough popularity, then everybody's going to think good of me. The next thing
that happens is we go down the road of influence.

We begin to trust that idol to make us feel important, to make us feel secure,
to make us feel valuable. So the idol of the amount of money we've gained in a
bank account or the kind of house that we have or the idol of what everybody's
saying about us. We trust that as our security instead of trusting the love of
God as our security.

We trust something that will not last as our security rather than trusting the
love of God as our security. The same person who felt insecure that started this
whole process, we started to trust in ourselves and our feelings about ourselves
that aren't going to last. And then out of all of this, something strange starts
to happen.

And we find out, we find out too late most often what's happening. We've built
this idol, we're depending on our money, we're depending on our popularity,
we're depending on our work. And we find out that that which we thought we were
controlling, it's actually controlling us.

We find out just how powerful our trust really is. That which we trust in,
that's what you trust in in your life, it will end up running your life. If you
trust in money for your security, money will end up running your life.

Who would you rather have run your life, money or God? Money's going to run your
life into nothing and give you nothing in the end. God gets you everything in
the end.

When all that happens, we've done it. We've built an idol. And we need to do
what the people of Israel needed to do again and again.

We need to cast down that idol. Now for them it was casting it down because it
was up on a hill or it was up on a mantle. It literally had to be cast down,
taken down.

In our hearts we have to do this, we have to cast down idols all the time. How
do you do that? Well, there's two main things you need to do.

Number one, you have to see idols for what they really are. That's what this
whole chapter is about, seeing it for what it really is. It's just a hunk of
wood.

And you and I, we have to see the people, the possessions, the passions, the
positions that we make idols of. We have to see them as people just like us,
things that just won't last. See it for what it really is.

I'm trusting in something that has no lasting significance. It cannot give me
what I'm hoping it will give me. Some people make an idol of their marriage.

They think that their marriage can give them what only God can give. They make
an idol of their children. Their children can give them a kind of love that only
God can give.

You see the idols for what they really are. And then the second thing you do is
you see God for who he really is. When you look at Isaiah's references to God as
he discusses idols throughout the book of Isaiah, it helps us to see God for who
he really is.

He'll talk about the idol and then he says, "Oh, by the way, God is your king. "
He'll talk about the idol and say, "God is your Redeemer. God is the Almighty.

God is the first and last. God is the rock that you depend on, that you stand
on. " So you remember who God really is.

You want to cast down an idol? I need to do it. I need to do it all the time
because we're human beings.

We tend to trust in the things of this world. So we constantly have to return to
trust in God. To cast down an idol, the last two verses I'd give you is Isaiah
44, 21, and 22.

Remember these things, Jacob, "For you, Israel, are my servant. I have made you.
You are my servant, Israel.

I will not forget you. I have swept away your offenses like a cloud, your sins
like a morning mist. For I have redeemed you.

" To cast down an idol, you return to this faith in God, "I have made you. " The
way to not make idols is to remember that God has made you. Remembering that God
has made you is so much better than an idol that you know you have made.

Oh yeah, you can control that idol, but it's not going to give you the hope that
you need. And remember also these verses remind us, God says, "I will not forget
you. An idol will soon be forgotten.

" Whatever that idol seems to get you will soon be forgotten. God will never
forget you. And remember, he says, "I have redeemed you.

An idol will cost you dearly. " Chasing after popularity, it's going to cost you
dearly. But God says, "I've redeemed you.

I have paid for you. I've given my life for you so that you can live the life
I've made you to live. " Let's pray together.

Our Father, first, just help us to be honest in our hearts that we tend to raise
other things up, things or people or work or relationships, we raise them up
above you, and many times because we're looking for some kind of security that
we can find only in you. We want to control it. We want it to be closer to us.

We want to see it more clearly than we can see you. So we make these things that
maybe could be good things in our lives, we make them into idols. Forgive us
when we do that and help us right now to return to trust in you.

Instead of building idols, we want to build a deeper and deeper trust in you
every day of our lives. That's what we ask for. In Jesus' name, amen.

Tomorrow, we're going to look at Isaiah chapter 49, which talks about God's
power to restore.