Praying to a "god" Who Does Not Save

For thus says the Lord,who created the heavens (he is God!), who formed the earth and made it (he established it; he did not create it empty, he formed it to be inhabited!): “I am the Lord, and there is no other. I did not speak in secret, in a land of darkness; I did not say to the offspring of Jacob, ‘Seek me in vain.’ I the Lord speak the truth; I declare what is right.
“Assemble yourselves and come; draw near together, you survivors of the nations! They have no knowledge who carry about their wooden idols,

and keep on praying to a god that cannot save.

Isaiah 45:18-20 (ESV)

The sermon this morning was on Philippians 2:9-11, the great passage that speaks of the exaltation of Jesus as Lord. The pastor referred to Isaiah 45 from which Paul quotes in Philippians 2:10. As he was reading through this passage, vs. 20 jumped out at me: "They have no knowledge who carry about their wooden idols, and keep on praying to a god that cannot save. "

So often, when I read through a passage of Scripture that speaks of God's sovereignty, I am tempted to see God as the Almighty who is boasting of His greatness. To see God in this light is to view Him from the perspective of a fallen creature who does not understand Who God is. The fact is God is neither boasting nor acting in the slightest bit arrogant. He is stating the way things are.

The truth is our God, the Almighty, the great I Am, is so far above other creatures and idols that it is almost laughable that we would ever set up anything in the place of God. Yet we all do. For the heathen, their idols are made of wood and stone. They come daily to the shrines that they have set up to offer gifts and prayers in hopes that they will have better lives. For the more "Christianized" nations, our idols are not necessarily made of wood and stone, and we do not bow to them daily, yet we worship them just as much as any heathen. For some, it is money. They rush out any buy lottery tickets praying and hoping that the god of money will grant them prosperity, or they stash it away in the bank hoping it will multiply and give them more. Others erect yet more subtile idols of the heart: their children, their jobs, their careers. They place all their hopes and dreams for the future in these idols secretly praying that all they hope for will be fulfilled in these. For the believer, we often forgot our God and set up the same idols in our hearts. (Happily, His Spirit will not let them stay there for long.)

These gods to whom people pray, cannot save, nor will they ever save. They have been placed under the sovereignty of Jesus who is the Only Savior. Whether these idols are visible to the eye or hidden in the heart of man, they are powerless to do anything for us. So why do we set our hearts on gods who will not save? The answer is found in the same verse: "They have no knowledge" It is interesting to note the the Hebrew "yada" used here means the type of knowledge gained by experience. It is not merely an intellectual understanding of God. When we have no experiential knowledge of God, we seek to fill that emptiness by worshipping and praying to gods who cannot save. That is the plight of those who know not God.

As believers, those of us who have a knowledge of God based on our experience of His salvation, we can fall into the trap of running back to those dead idols instead of laying ourselves at His feet. The cure for this idolatry is daily give ourselves back to Him. To offer our prayers to Him continually, for He is the only God Who can and does save us.