Ephesians 2:1-22
Psalm 67:1-7
Proverbs 23:29-35
If you were going to summarise the book of Isaiah into a short number of phrases they would probably be something like this:
Yahweh (the Hebrew name for God) is the God of the whole earth, not just one place
Yahweh really cares about Israel but is really hacked off with them
Yahweh is in charge of everything
Yahweh really cares about poor people
Because of her sin Yahweh is sending Judah into exile
Because of his love for her he will bring her back
Yahweh has something really special planned for the future
Idols are crap!
In this passage we have the last two tunes in Isaiah's top ten. The "Idols are crap song" is one that he seems to approach with a great amount of relish. He seems to really enjoy making fun of idols and going into detail about how these "gods" are made. The way he keeps goading the gods of the nations or the idols of Israel to just "do something, anything if you can" seems to be sung by him with great aplomb.
He contrasts this with Yahweh, the true God who not only knows what will happen in the fututre but is the one who makes it happen. His riffs on idol worship might be comic poetry but his conclusions are pretty serious. Idols make you filthy because they are filthy. Idol worship means taking a part of creation and putting it in the place of the creator who made it. This could be a person (a loved one, a saint, a leader), an object (money, art, a place) or an idea (your country, political party, a favourite partisan dogma). Anything that is not God but put in the place of God is an idol.
If worshipping the true God in the true way enriches our life then worshipping an idol degrades us as human beings. Isaiah finishes by talking about God's great plan for the future and in this we get a 600 year early glimpse of Jesus. It is by no means a complete or clear picture but we can clearly recognise who Isaiah is talking about. Jesus is the one who enriches us as we draw closer to him in worship.
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