Today’s Devotional Theme God Detests Idols
Daily ScriptureEzekiel 6:3-4
“Say, ‘O mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord God! Thus says he Lord God to the mountains, to the hills, to the ravines, and to the valleys: “Indeed I, even I, will bring a sword against you, and I will destroy your high places. Then your altars shall be desolate, your incense altars shall be broken, and I will cast down your slain men before your idols.”’”
Encouragement
As are many little boys, I was fascinated by bugs. One day when I was 8 or 9 years old, I was astonished to find a beetle rolling a little brown ball backwards with its hind legs. I ran in the house and asked my knowledgeable mother what kind of bug that was. “That’s a dung beetle, Mark. That ball is a ball of [bleep]! (My mother had a potent and colorful vocabulary.) “Oh, cool!” I said and ran to grab my “bug book” with its hundreds of pictures and descriptions of insects. I quickly found the dung beetle entry and began reading. The bug that fascinated me is a species of scarab, a beetle whose image is often found in ancient Egyptian art, where dung beetles are common. What does that have to do with today’s scripture? The word translated “idols” at the end literally means “dung balls.” The ancient Israelis were perhaps as fascinated by this weird bug as I was.
Apply God’s Word
Ezekiel uses the word gelulim, dung balls, some 40 times to refer to Israel’s idols. The word graphically displays the repulsiveness of idols in God’s eyes. The worship of foreign gods – idols – was perhaps the biggest factor in God’s exacting revenge on Israel and sending her people into exile. Among the several Hebrew words for idols, small wonder Ezekiel reflects God’s anger by frequently using perhaps the most graphic and derisive of those words. Clearly anything we idolize in detriment to our giving God our due attention will tend to build a wall between Him and us. Money, fast cars, off-color subjects on the Internet – if it becomes an obsession or outright sin in our lives, we need to redirect our focus away from those things and back on Him.
Come into His Presence
Lord God, I welcome You to search my heart and my conscience as David asks and show me any idol in my life that stands in the way of a closer walk with You. In Jesus’ name, amen.
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