Lord of All

1 Kings 12:20-13:34

Acts 9:26-43

Psalm 132:1-18

Proverbs 17:6

How is it that after all this time someone can make a golden calf and the Israelites will worship it?

It's so weird! Their inclination to turn to literal physical idols is not something I can relate to. It's such a cultural thing. For the generation of Israelites who lived in Egypt they were surrounded by idolatry and it must have gotten confusing. And then throughout the many generations I guess they still had examples of idol-worshipping cultures. They are like clueless sheep who copy everything they see.

But the new king Jeroboam makes two golden calves and says "Here are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt." And Israel listens?! And they go worship the golden calves?! As if they never (though they most certainly had) heard the story of the golden calf while Moses was on Mount Sinai.

It's hard for me to wrap my head around all of it. In my mind, living in this American culture, I would think the most attractive lie Jeroboam could give would be "there is no god."

It seems to me that would work better if I was going to try to get people to stop worshiping the one true God. But the Israelites need to worship someone, they know that.

And in that sense they are better than us. Because we worship things all the time without even knowing we are doing it. Just look at the media! Any given movie or TV show is highlighting our gods. Romance, sex, money, success, celebrities...SELF. Even the good things in this life that Christians might even say are most important...family, charity, etc. We do have idols. Anything that we would put before or even equal to the LORD GOD is an idol: for He is all.

Demons lie and pretend they offer something better than God can, that's how we end up with idols, that's how we end up with conflicts, fears, and all bad evil things. Hello, Eve and the serpent.

While on a beautiful hike yesterday I thought a lot about how obviously God's it all was. It's so His handiwork. It so brings glory to Him. And yet, even demons can lie to us there. Demons lie even in those gorgeous corners of the earth trying to fool us that healing, restoration, life, joy, love can be found anywhere besides God.

God reveals His power in the way He takes breath away..we see that with the prophet who is killed by a lion in this passage of 1 Kings...but God also reveals His power in the way He restores breath...we that with Dorcas, Tabitha, in this passage of Acts. He is the Lord of life and death. He is the Lord of all nations, all tribes, all tongues. He is the Lord over all the earth...the cities, the living rooms, the plains, the seas, the little corners of the world with the pretty waterfalls: He is Lord of all.