“Feeding on Ashes” — Week 4
By Reverend J. Carla Northcutt, Ed.D., Marietta, Georgia

At the heart of this study is Isaiah 44:19 and 20.  The Amplified Bible reads, in part, “…no one has…understanding…to say [to himself], ‘I have burned part of this log in the fire, and also I have baked bread on its coals and have roasted meat and eaten it.  And shall I make the rest of it into an abomination [the very essence of what is disgusting, detestable, and shamefully vile in the eyes of a jealous God]?  Shall I fall down and worship the stock of a tree [a block of wood without consciousness of life]?’ Verse 20:  That kind of man feeds on ashes (italics mine)…a deluded mind has led him astray, so that he cannot release or save himself or ask, ‘Is not [this thing I am holding] in my right hand a lie?’”

We know from the reading of the Old Testament that the worst and most common sin of the children of Israel was idolatry.  Whether it was the building of a golden calf, marrying Canaanite women or consulting a medium, God would have no other gods before Him or in His place.  What God knew, that man could not, is that idolatry reverses creation.

John Wesley explained that when people cast idols, they form gods as images of themselves—which is the reverse of mankind, for we are created in the image of God.  Isaiah says it is “vanity” to create idols because by doing so, we change creation back into chaos.  Wesley said, “When people reverse the order of creation in their faith and worship, there can be no profit, only shame.”

It is “lunacy” Wesley explained to make an idol out of a tree the idol maker could not create, and then expect it to do the miraculous!  “The idolater can never come up with his own creation; he is always depending on what God has done, but perverting it.”

Here is the recipe for spiritual blindness:

• ½ tree for warmth or fire to bake food
• ½ tree to carve a god
• Yield:  Ashes!

Your idol, dear friend, is no more powerful than yourself.  Can you deliver yourself?  Can anything you create heal you?  Rely on the God of Isaiah—the Almighty Deliverer, the Rock, the Holy One of Israel to deliver you.  Cast down your idols.  Burn them!  Expunge them from your life.

There is only one true God and besides Him, there is no other!

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