Lessons from an Unlikely Idol

July 30, 2025Todd R Leave a comment

The history of the kings of Judah can read like a back-and-forth between construction of idols by bad kings and the destruction of idols by good kings. Hezekiah was one of the few good kings, and one reason is recorded in 2 Kings 18:4, which says:

“[Hezekiah] removed the high places and broke the pillars and cut down the Asherah. And he broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the people of Israel had made offerings to it (it was called Nehushtan).”

Judah was meant to have only one God, the true God Yahweh, and to destroy anything that would lead them to idolatry. Unfortunately, worshipping other gods in high places was not uncommon, and neither was worship of Asherah. What’s interesting about this verse is the mention of this “Nehushtan.” The origin of this bronze snake that Moses made comes from a story in the book of Numbers.

As often happened while they wandered the wilderness, the people of Israel complained to God and Moses that they would have been better off if still in Egypt. They hated the food God was providing and accused Him of leading them into the wilderness to die. As discipline for this grumbling, “the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died.”[1] The people repented and asked for the serpents to be removed, and Moses prayed for them.

The answer was that “Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live.”[2] This serpent being lifted up was later identified in John 3:14 as a prelude to Jesus being lifted up on the cross, but in Hezekiah’s day it had become an idol, an object that took people away from worship of the true God and the then-future Christ. Instead of being a symbol of salvation, the bronze serpent became a symbol of idolatry, which leads to damnation.

The story of the serpents ends there, and there is no mention that God told the people to keep this bronze serpent, or that God told them to give it a name. This was probably the beginning of the problem, that Israel added to God’s intentions for it.

So, what are the lessons for us?

Nehushtan, the bronze serpent, was created at God’s command to be an aid to worship, a device for reminding His people of His provision for them, from above. Instead, it became an idol. What this tells us is that anything, even something once (or currently) used in worship, can become an idol. Even things like private Bible study or public singing of hymns can be idols if we use them as ends in themselves and not as a way to worship our only God. A thing can be an idol not because of what it is, but because of our attitude toward it.

Also, something that is an idol to one person might not be an idol to another. The bronze serpent was not an idol to Moses, but it was to people in Hezekiah’s time. So, if we know that something tempts us, that thing might not be a temptation for others, and vice versa. Therefore, we should not be quick to judge others for doing things that bother us, but may not be a problem for them, and are not specifically prohibited in the Bible.

When Christ was raised up on the cross like the bronze serpent and was raised from the dead like those who survived the bites of serpents, He identified Himself as the only God and the only one worthy of our worship, but He also identified Himself as the merciful one who desires that we be merciful to each other.

Like ancient Israel, we all have Nehushtans in our lives that corrupt our worship, and like the good king Hezekiah, we must remove them from our lives to reform our worship.

[1] Numbers 21:6
[2] Numbers 21:9

Serving Other Gods

July 19, 2025July 17, 2025Todd R 2 Comments

Foundational to God’s relationship with His people – His covenant – is the idea that He will be our God and we will be His people. If we forsake all other “gods,” we will be blessed immeasurably by the true God, Yahweh.

However, in the time of the Old Testament prophet Jeremiah, right before the exile of Judah into Babylon, God’s people were not being faithful to Yahweh and were worse than prior generations in their rebellion. So, Jeremiah says in chapter 16, verse 13 – “Therefore I will hurl you out of this land into a land that neither you nor your fathers have known, and there you shall serve other gods day and night, for I will show you no favor.”

This punishment has 2 parts: banishment from the Promised Land, and also “you shall serve other gods day and night.” Have you ever thought that serving gods other than Yahweh is a punishment, or just that its bad or sinful? It certainly isn’t the way the world sees it: many consider serving any god as punishment. Others might have their own gods and would only consider serving other gods, including Yahweh, as punishment. But here the Bible says that it is only punishment to follow false gods.

Why is this? A good explanation comes from another prophet, Zechariah, in chapter 10, verse 2:

“For the household gods utter nonsense,
            and the diviners see lies;
they tell false dreams
            and give empty consolation.
Therefore the people wander like sheep;
            they are afflicted for lack of a shepherd.”

Compared to a loving, omniscient, wise God, these other gods have no knowledge or wisdom and are not benevolent. They cannot give us what we need to live and are not worthy of worship. They cannot guide us like our Good Shepherd can. Therefore, when we choose to follow anything other than Yahweh, are we punishing ourselves?

When Yahweh said “You shall have no other gods before me” in Exodus 20:3, He said it for our own benefit, and for His glory.

Amen.

We’re All Little Pharaohs

April 3, 2025April 2, 2025Todd R 4 Comments

Anyone who knows the story of the Exodus knows who the bad guy is: Pharaoh. As the leader of Egypt, he is primarily to blame for the enslavement of Israel. Eventually, through Moses and Aaron, God tells Pharaoh to free the Israelites from slavery, and time and again Pharaoh refuses. Clearly, Pharaoh is God’s enemy. However, in his resistance to God, I think Pharaoh fell into some habits any of us could fall into.

First, Pharaoh admitted his need for God only when things were going wrong but shut God out when things were going well. In Exodus 8:8, Pharaoh asked Moses to “Plead with the LORD to take away the frogs from me and from my people” but once the frogs were gone, Exodus 8:15 tells us that “when Pharaoh saw that there was a respite, he hardened his heart” and refused to do God’s will. The same thing happens in chapter 9, during the plague of the hail. Seeing the destruction caused by the hail, Pharaoh says “Plead with the LORD, for there has been enough of God’s thunder and hail” in verse 28, but in verse 34, “when Pharaoh saw that the rain and the hail and the thunder had ceased, he sinned yet again and hardened his heart.”

Next, Pharaoh repeatedly negotiated with God to define the scope of His influence. Faced with the plague of flies, Pharoah said to Moses and Aaron “Go, sacrifice to your God within the land.”[1] But staying “in the land” was not what God wanted His people to do. In response to the plague of locusts, Pharoah said “the men among you” could leave and worship God, but he wouldn’t let the “little ones”[2] go. Also, after the plague of darkness, Pharoah said “Go, serve the LORD; your little ones also may go with you; only let your flocks and your herds remain behind.”[3] In these 3 responses, Pharaoh insisted on limits to where the people should worship, which people should worship, and what they could (and couldn’t) use in worship.

Third, Pharaoh also tried to limit the scope of his own sin, and which sins he would be accountable to God for. In Exodus 9:27, Pharaoh said, “this time I have sinned” and in 10:17 said “forgive my sin, please, only this once.” In reality Pharaoh was sinning every time he refused to listen to God, but he wasn’t willing to admit that. He only admitted a minority of the times he disobeyed.

If you’re like me, this all might sound familiar. Often our prayers are more fervent and sincere when we need help than they are when we have something to praise God for, or when times are good. Often, we allow God to govern some parts of our life, but we keep other parts for ourselves, to do what we want with. Also, we often only admit some of our sins and choose which ones to care about. We’re all a bit like Pharaoh, the bad guy in the Exodus story.

Fortunately for us, we have something else in common with Pharaoh: the true, Almighty God will defeat all of the “gods” we follow. Every single one. Behind the battle between Moses and Pharaoh was a contest between our God and Pharaoh’s gods. As the Life Application Study Bible notes: “As each gloomy plague descended upon the land, the Egyptian people realized how powerless their own gods were to stop it. Hapi, the god of the Nile River, could not prevent the waters from turning to blood. Hathor, the crafty cow-goddess, was helpless as Egyptian livestock died in droves. Amon-Re, the sun-god and chief of the Egyptian gods, could not stop an eerie darkness from covering the land for three full days.”

When we choose not to obey God, we harden our hearts against Him and follow the “gods” we choose for ourselves, but God will ultimately defeat them all. God’s purpose in saving us is to deliver us from all other gods, as He delivered Israel from Egypt. He will deliver us from our slavery to every sin that binds us and make us not follow Him wholeheartedly.

We may be more like Pharaoh than we’d like to admit, but the Pharaoh in us has been killed, nailed to the cross with Jesus. When we reach heaven, all of our other “gods” will be gone and we will be perfected in our obedience to the one, true God, for our good and for His glory!

That’s a deliverance worth looking forward to and praising God for!

Amen.

[1] Exodus 8:25
[2] Exodus 10:10-11
[3] Exodus 10:24

Only God Gets the Glory for Gomer’s Goods

October 28, 2024October 27, 2024Todd R Leave a comment

In the story of the Old Testament prophet Hosea, God told him to marry a prostitute named Gomer to teach a lesson about idolatry, but also God’s steadfast love and mercy. Gomer was not only a prostitute physically, but also spiritually, worshipping other gods, which isn’t limited to literal, physical idols. Hosea 2:8-9 explains that idolatry includes giving credit to other gods (or no gods) for things that the LORD had actually provided. God said through Hosea:

“And [Gomer] did not know
            that it was I who gave her
            the grain, the wine, and the oil,
and who lavished on her silver and gold,
            which they used for Baal.
Therefore I will take back
            my grain in its time,
            and my wine in its season,
and I will take away my wool and my flax,
            which were to cover her nakedness.”

In other words, if Gomer (who represents all of Israel) doesn’t recognize the true source of her blessings, God is fully justified in taking them away. Fortunately, He is a God of love and mercy, who provides for our nakedness – both physical and spiritual, beginning all the way back in Genesis 3:21, which says: “And the LORD God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.” Adam and Eve had fallen and became ashamed of their condition, expecting God to judge them, but instead He covered them physically, but also set in place a plan to redeem His people by the blood of Jesus.

In Gomers case, “And the LORD said to me, ‘Go again, love a woman who is loved by another man and is an adulteress, even as the LORD loves the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love cakes of raisins.’ So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and a homer and a lethech of barley.” (Hosea 3:1-2)

Fifteen shekels was not a lot of money, meaning other people didn’t value Gomer much, but God and Hosea were faithful and loved her. The real price of God’s people – His own Son – was much steeper, but He decided we’re worth it even though we are unfaithful. It is His faithfulness that really matters.

Therefore, today be thankful! For the One who gives us “the grain, the wine, and the oil” and the “silver and gold” is the same One who died for us to make us His own people.

Soli Deo Gloria