Dumb as a Doornail
Tuesday (December 16)
Dumb as a Doornail
Psalm 115:4-8
Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands. They have mouths, but do not speak; eyes, but do not see. They have ears, but do not hear; noses, but do not smell. They have hands, but do not feel; feet, but do not walk; and they do not make a sound in their throat. Those who make them become like them; so do all who trust in them.
This isn’t the touchy-feely sort of Psalm that songwriters today like to put to music, but boy does it cut to the heart of our innate idolatry. For what it’s worth, I believe that the thrust of idolatry isn’t demon-worship, which is a by-product of idolatry, but rather self-worship. Eve didn’t eat the fruit because the snake looked good to her, but because the fruit did. She wanted what she wanted and took it. So did Cain when he killed Abel. So did David when he took Bathsheba. So do you and I every time we sin. That’s the real reason artisans cut down trees or cut through stone and labor to skillfully fashion an image with eyes and ears and hands and feet. Not because they thought they were creating gods, but because they wanted to be as god and create objects of worship for themselves. That’s why the consequence of idolatry in verse 8 is so personal and so devastating, that “those who make them become like them.”
Let that sink in for a moment friend. Let that word cut its way through your affections and ambitions till your heart is clean again. What we do with our hands, what we fashion from own passion, what we cook up and spend energy pursuing and identify with becomes who we are. That is, what we do is what we become. When we build dead, dumb, mute, blind things, we become dead and dumb and mute and blind ourselves. When we exchange holiness for unholiness, when we stop devoting ourselves to prayer and ministry and study and instead idle away our precious hours in pornography and gambling and profanity, when we stop seeking first the Kingdom of Heaven and His righteousness and instead pour all our time and resources into building our own portfolio, our life, though perhaps full for a while of transient successes, becomes a limp and cold and dead thing.