God's Tools Yesterday, Our Idols Tomorrow

There is no doubt or debate that God’s word tells us to look back on God’s blessings and mighty works and to remember his great power and faithfulness. But as we saw last week, we can dwell in the past to a degree which becomes unhealthy and unproductive. Today, I would like to continue in that same vein of thought.

There have been times in the history of man that God has chosen in His sovereignty to use an object to demonstrate His power or will in a particular manner for a specific time. Some examples would be Aaron’s rod that budded, Elijah’s mantle, and the Ark of the Covenant. These things stood as symbols of God’s power, and God showed great manifestation through them. But as powerful as these manifestations were, these objects were merely objects. They had no real power of their own!

As intriguing and captivating as such God-empowered objects are, they can be dangerous! The hearts of fallen mankind have a great propensity for idolatry, and we have a tendency to want to make these “tools of God” objects of worship. A good example of this is found in the Old Testament.

In the eighteenth chapter of 2 Kings, we read of the account of King Hezekiah destroying the idols and false gods that Israel had begun to worship. Among those objects was a particularly interesting idol. This idol was called Nehushtan, and King Hezekiah had it broke into pieces. 2 Kings 18:4 tells us that Nehushtan was “the bronze snake Moses had made” and that “up to that time the Israelites had been burning incense to it.” The Israelites had taken an object that God intended to be looked upon in repentance and changed it into an object of devotion and worship to which they burned incense.

In this story, we see the propensity of man to make idols out of objects. We easily loose sight of the God who chose to use the object for His purpose for a season, and we become focused on the object itself. We slide slowly yet easily down the slippery slope of nostalgia in to the pit of idolatry. Let’s not forget that although God can use objects for His purposes, He is neither confined to nor represented in objects of any sort.