Isaiah 2:18

THE GREAT DETHRONEMENT

Isaiah 2:18. And the idols He shall utterly abolish.

There are a great number of things which would be incredible if they had not actually happened! Men who, like ourselves, boasted of “reason” and “common sense,” sought to settle their disputes and to vindicate their honour by the duel; they have stoutly believed in witchcraft, in “touching for the king’s evil,” and in other absurdities. But surely the supreme folly of which men have been guilty is idolatry. That men should fashion an idol of wood or stone, and then bow down to worship it, what absurdity is this! Yet

I. The idols have had a long reign in the earth. Trace human history back as far as all extant records will enable you to do so, and you will find idols enthroned in the affections of men. That they should ever have been set up there must be regarded as one of Satan’s subtlest and greatest triumphs. The instincts that lead men to worship are so strong, that his only hope of preventing fallen men from returning to their allegiance to God lay in persuading them to worship some other thing or being. His difficulty and his device were those of Jeroboam (1 Kings 12:26). He seems to have led men down step by step: stars, images as their respresentatives, then the images themselves: first, natural principles, then living creatures in which these principles were supposed to be embodied, then the living creatures themselves. To have begun at the end would have been too great a shock; the absurdity as well as the wickedness of such worship would have been too obvious. Thus was the empire of the idols founded, and it continues to this day.

II. The empire of the idols has been world-wide. It might have been supposed to be a folly that could be imposed only on a few barbarous tribes, and that all civilised nations would have rejected it with disdain; but as a matter of fact, it is precisely among these nations (Egypt, Greece, Rome, Judæa, India) that idolatry flourished most and in its basest forms. Hence the empire of idolatry was co-extensive with the globe. In Elijah’s time even God thought it a great thing that He would assure His prophet that there were seven thousand who had not bowed the knee to Baal (1 Kings 19:18).

III. The idols have been served with passionate devotion. In almost all ages worshippers of idols have put to shame the worshippers of God, by their fidelity to their convictions, the scrupulousness of their observance of the rites which they have esteemed religious, and the greatness of the cost at which they have done honour to their gods.

IV. The idols have had for their allies the most influential of social and moral forces. Their priests and dependents (Acts 19:25) have jealously watched every encroachment on the empire of their gods. Rulers, for political reasons, have strenuously endeavoured to uphold the national faiths. Custom and fashion have wrought in the same direction But, above all, the idols have had their most powerful allies in the human breast—in the instinct of worship, and the craving for sensual indulgences. Idolatry has combined these most powerful of all cravings—has provided deities in whose worship the worst passions of man’s animal nature have been gratified.

V. Nevertheless the empire of idolatry shall be utterly destroyed. It shall vanish as utterly as the great empire of Assyria. “The idols He shall utterly abolish.” Already that empire has been overthrown where it seemed most firmly established, and the complete fulfilment of the prediction of our text is obviously now only a question of time. Even in heathen countries, men are becoming ashamed of their idols, and are representing them as merely the media of worship. The victory of Christianity over idolatry is already assured. The struggles that are yet to shake the world will be, not between Christianity and idolatry; not even between Christianity and atheism, for atheism is necessarily merely a brief episode in human experience; but between Christianity and other forms of monotheism.

APPLICATION.

1. In the wide-spread and long-continued empire of the idols we have a conclusive proof of man’s need of a Divine revelation. The natural progress of fallen man is not to light, but to darkness (Romans 1:21; 1 Corinthians 1:21).

2. In the prediction of our text, we have a conclusive proof of that in the Bible we have such a revelation. Consider the circumstances of the prophet: idolatry on every hand, corrupting even His own people. It was contrary to all experience; it must have seemed to many who first heard it as the ravings of a lunatic. Such a prediction, already so marvellously fulfilled, came from God!

3. In the approaching complete fulfilment of the prediction of our text, let us rejoice. And let us labour as well as pray, that the time may be hastened when by idolatry God shall be no longer dishonoured nor man degraded.