Isaiah 2:6-9

You may be sitting there thinking that it's not too bad to be a little bit 'of the world'. That we have to act a little bit like the world to fit in so that maybe we can make more friends and hence convert more people. Read this through slowly:

'For You have forsaken Your people, the house of Jacob,
Because they are filled with eastern ways;
They are soothsayers like the Philistines,
And they are pleased with the children of foreigners.
Their land is also full of silver and gold,
And there is no end to their treasures;
Their land is also full of horses,
And there is no end to their chariots.
Their land is also full of idols;
They worship the work of their own hands,
That which their own fingers have made.
People bow down,
And each man humbles himself.' (Isaiah 2:6-9)

So God has forsaken His special chosen people (for a time) specifically because they had adopted the ways of the world outside them, and created idols for themselves. I was listening to a message last night on 'the intercessory prayer of Moses', and Don Carson said idolatry, the 'degodding of God' is more fundamental than breaking the law as sin! Before the law was given, there was still idolatry. Satan was cast out of heaven for it (although he set himself up as the idol) and hence all of sin started. He also said that idolatry comes in many forms...these days we don't generally build ourselves idols of gold and silver, but equally we can have many other idols, as you know: Sport, people, music, religion, the list goes on. Idolatry can come in the form of a domesticated God. A God that we sort of put all the Biblical descriptions onto, but really when we pray and ask that 'Your will be done' it is really our will we want. It's just a God of our imagining set up to feel like the real God. It's still idolatry.

And so, after saying all these judgmental, critical things about Israel from the Lord, does Isaiah sympathise, or encourage or try to lessen their sins before the Lord? No. The very next is: 'Therefore do not forgive them'. Not only are we to hate the things of the world, the ways of the world, but we are to love it when justice is served because of it. God is not a game. Life is not a game. This is battle. This is war. We gotta live hardcore lives. No messing around.