Morning, May 4
Go To Evening Reading
“Shall a man make gods unto himself, and they are no gods.”
Jeremiah 16:20
One great besetting sin of ancient Israel was idolatry, and the spiritual
Israel are vexed with a tendency to the same folly. Remphan’s star shines no longer, and the women weep no more for Tammuz, but
Mammon still intrudes his golden calf, and the shrines of pride are
not forsaken. Self in various forms struggles to subdue the chosen
ones under its dominion, and the flesh sets up its altars wherever
it can find space for them. Favourite children are often the cause
of much sin in believers; the Lord is grieved when he sees us doting
upon them above measure; they will live to be as great a curse to
us as Absalom was to David, or they will be taken from us to leave
our homes desolate. If Christians desire to grow thorns to stuff their
sleepless pillows, let them dote on their dear ones.
It is truly said that “they are no gods,” for the objects of our foolish love are very doubtful blessings,
the solace which they yield us now is dangerous, and the help which
they can give us in the hour of trouble is little indeed. Why, then,
are we so bewitched with vanities? We pity the poor heathen who adore
a god of stone, and yet worship a god of gold. Where is the vast superiority
between a god of flesh and one of wood? The principle, the sin, the
folly is the same in either case, only that in ours the crime is more
aggravated because we have more light, and sin in the face of it.
The heathen bows to a false deity, but the true God he has never known;
we commit two evils, inasmuch as we forsake the living God and turn
unto idols. May the Lord purge us all from this grievous iniquity!
“The dearest idol I have known,
Whate'er that idol be;
Help me to tear it from thy throne,
And worship only thee.”