No Other Gods

Bel bows down and Nebo stoops (Isaiah 46:1).

They are set in their place having No Power to Move or to Save (Isaiah 46:7). Who hath formed a god, or molten an image that is profitable for nothing (Isaiah 44;10)? The Lord Hates Idolatry (Deuteronomy 16:22) (KJV).

This is not a suggestion. It is a commandment. “Thou shall have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God…. (Exodus 20:3-5)”

Thus saith the Lord and King of Israel, and his redeemer (Holy Spirit) the Lord of hosts, I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God. (Isaiah 44:6)

In this day and time, the effects of globalism are being felt around the world. While we walk in love toward our fellow man, we must Hold On to our Unwavering Faith. We no longer have to travel the world to fulfill the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19), but God has placed the reaping field in our own back yard.

We are surely living in the end times. While some are in desperation they are being drawn away from the truth. Some having itchy ears (2Timothy 4:3), and some being Puffed Up in Their Own Knowledge, “Ever learning and never able to come to the Knowledge of the truth” (2 Timothy 3:7). They practice Occultism (Wicca) and idolatry. Their earthly wisdom and knowledge has perverted them. Their enchantments and sorceries will not prevail. Their astrologers, stargazers, and prognosticators (fortune tellers) will not be able to save them from the things to come (Isaiah 47).

Death is hard, and a certainty of life. While we all would like to believe that that every one goes to heaven, that is Surely Not the case. There is only one door ( John 10:7), and His Name Is Jesus (Philippians 2:9-10). You Must be born again (John 3:17). “But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God (Romans 2:29).

My God is Not an idol! He has hands that move, eyes that see, ears that hear, and a heart that can be touched with feelings of my infirmities ( Hebrews 4:15). He is the Creator of ALL things (Acts 17:22-28) (Genesis 1:1-3). He will Carry Me from the Cradle to the Grave. He has made me. He will deliver me (Isaiah 46:4). There is None like Him. He has declared the end from the beginning. He Is God All By Himself! He will do His pleasure, and His Counsel Will Stand (Isaiah 46:10).

Isaiah 44-48 is such an Awesome read! Babylon was the center of Intellectual life in Western Asia (Merril Unger). It was home to magicians, sorcerers, diviners, and other Occults. Chaldean astrologers were proficient in the practice of astrology, ( Daniel 2 “conjurers”). Israel was under their captivity for seventy years for punishment for the practice of Idolatry. As you will find, My God is a God of Covenant. Although He may feed us with the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, He Always Redeems us ( Isaiah 30:20-21). He will never break Covenant or alter what His lips have uttered (Psalm 89:34).

As I noted earlier, God knows the end from the beginning. He knew that we would be transgressors from the womb (Isaiah 48:8), but He says “;from the time that it was, there am I: (Isaiah 48:16)”. King Josiah (of Judah) was mentioned 300 years before his birth (1Kings 13:2) . He put down the idolatrous priests whom the kings of Judah had ordained to burn incense in the high places in the city of Judah, and in the places round about Jerusalem; them also that burned incense to Baal, to the sun, and to the moon, and to the planets, and to all the host of heaven (2Kings 23:5).

Jeremiah preached for 40 years, appealing to Judah to repent from idolatry and to turn back to God. He prophesied that God was going to give Judah over to the king of Babylon, and it would be burned with fire (Jeremiah 34:2), also in the first year of King Zedekiah’s reign (son of Josiah), Jeremiah prophesied again that Judah would go into Babylonian captivity (Jeremiah 27). Nine years later Babylon besieged it (Jeremiah 39). My God confirms the words of his servants, and performs the counsel of His messengers ( Isaiah 44:26).

Because He is a God of Covenant and Redemption, we are sometimes chosen in the furnace of affliction, and refined in the fire (Isaiah 48:10). Although He gives us the Rod of Correction, like our earthly parents, He doesn’t take it kindly when we are mistreated. Therefore, He would not meet Babylon as a man (Isaiah 47:3). He anointed King Cyrus (Gentile), called him by his name, and surnamed him, even though Cyrus did not know him (Isaiah 45:1-4). Babylon fell in 39BC to this Persian King. God says, “I am the Lord, and there is none else, there is no God beside me: I girded thee, though thou hast not known me: That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me. I am the Lord, and there is none else (Isaiah 45:5-6).

Isaiah 44:12-17

The smith with the tongs both works in the coals and fashions it with hammers, and works with the strength of his arms: yea he is hungry, and his strength fails, and he drinks no water and is faint. The carpenter stretches out his rule; he marks it out with a line; he fits it with plains, and marks it out with a compass, and makes it after the figure of a man, according to the beauty of a man; that it may remain in the house. He cuts down the cedars and the cypress and the oak which he replenished in the forest: he plants an ash and the rain nourishes it. Then he burns it to warm himself with, and to bake bread; then he makes a god, and worships it; he makes a graven image, and falls down to it. He burns part of it; and roasts flesh to eat; and is satisfied. With the residue he makes a god, even his graven image; he falls down to it, and worships it, and prays for it to deliver him.

Isaiah 44:19-20

And none considers in his heart, neither is there knowledge or understanding to say, I have burned part of it in the fire; yes, also I have baked bread on the coals thereof; I have roasted flesh and eaten it: and I shall make the residue thereof an ABOMINATION? shall I fall down to the stock of a tree? He feeds on ashes: a deceived heart has turned him aside, that he cannot deliver his own soul, nor say, is there not a lie in my right hand?

God did not speak in secret, in a dark place of the earth: He did not say to the seed of Jacob (Israel, a Jew Inwardly) to seek Him in vain ( Isaiah 45:19). He said ” They have no knowledge that set up the wood of their graven image, and pray unto a god that cannot save (Isaiah 45:20). In His mercy and grace He is still calling, “Look unto Me, and be ye saved, All the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else “(Isaiah 45:22).

References

Merrill F. Unger, D.H. (1988). The New Unger’s Bible Dictionary. Chicago: The Moody Bible Institute Of Chicago.

Photo – https://www.worldhistory.org/Nabu/

Photo – https://freethinkerjon.blogspot.com/2019/07/ancient-god-bel-baal-main-character-in.html