Thursday, August 20, 2020
Then Gideon said to him, O my lord, if the LORD is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all His miracles which our fathers told us about, saying, Did not the LORD bring us up from Egypt? But now the LORD has abandoned us and given us into the hand of Midian. Judges 6:13
The Destruction of Idolatry
Sometimes, like Gideon, we may find ourselves in the middle of chaos wondering why God has allowed all this to happen, and why isn’t He helping us. But, as is the case with the Israelites, we need to examine our own hearts first before we throw our hands up into the air asking God why He has allowed this to happen.
The Israelites were in a bad place, but they had no one to blame but themselves. They had been warned many times about worshipping false Gods. Still they had continued in their apostasy – doing what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and now the Midianites were giving them grief. Now they cried out to the Lord to help them. He sent a prophet to deliver them, just as they had been rescued from Egypt.
If the Lord be with us… Gideon said. He was not feeling the presence of the Lord. I don’t see much sign of that. If the Lord be with us, why then has all this befallen us? He failed to hear the part when the prophet tried to tell the people that the cause of all of this was not God but their sin and idolatry.
Too soon we forget that the reason we are in our mess is not God’s curse but our own sin. We can quickly unseat God from the throne of our heart when we choose to worship something other than Him, and many of us do it every day. Anything we love more than Him is an idol. We may not think we are making idols in our lives, but silently they creep in. We don’t realize it is happening because it is usually not as blatant as the Israelites. We make idols of things, people, fitness, food, drugs, alcohol, anything that we love and that takes over our lives. Unfortunately, we can cause ourselves some pain as a result, just like the Israelites.
Suffering does not contradict the loving care of God but calls us to Him for comfort and peace. It tethers us to a God who gives mercy, forgiveness, grace, and even rescues us sometimes. He called Gideon to deliver them from the Midianites in spite of the many times they had turned their back on Him. He never gives up on us. He loves us through our sin and the suffering of the consequences. Christianity would be a dead faith if we had no hope for the present or future. The good news is that God has not abandoned us but is walking right with us through a fallen world with fallen people.
Righteous people suffer from a fallen world and righteous people suffer from the unrighteous actions of others. Sometimes we get caught in the consequences of other people's idolatry. When a parent, child, or a spouse is paying the consequences of sin, it does affect others around them. Remember that God does forgive, He gives mercy, and grace, but we don't always escape the consequences. If you are in a trial right now of your own doing, or that of a loved one, cling to the Lord. He walks with us through the valleys and sees us through to the other side.
Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion,
evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. Colossians 3:5
