Idols and the Lost Vision of God
When people lose their consciousness of God, they become restless and cry for what is lost, often misinterpreting their own history in the process.
G. Campbell Morgan discusses the dangers of idolatry, using the example of the brazen serpent that the Israelites began to worship, which revealed their deep hunger for God despite their lost vision of Him. He emphasizes that when people lose their awareness of God's presence, they still feel a profound need for Him, leading to confusion and misinterpretation of their history. The worship of the serpent symbolizes a misguided attempt to fill the void left by the absence of true communion with God, highlighting the restless nature of the human heart. Morgan warns that such idolatry is a distortion of past blessings, turning them into curses when misinterpreted. Ultimately, he calls for a return to a clear vision of God to satisfy the deepest longings of the soul.
Text
"...he brake in pieces the brasen serpent that Moses had made:...and he called it Nehushtan (a piece of brass)"
(2 Kings 18:4).
I see a people hungering after what they have lost. An idol always means this. An idol created by the fingers of men, or chosen by men and appointed to the place of a god, is forevermore a revelation of the sense of need, the sense of lack. It is an evidence that the deepest thing in the human heart is its cry after God. This is not to defend idolatry, not to defend the action of these people in the deification of the brazen serpent, but to say that when people lose their consciousness of God they do not lose their sense of need for God. Whereas I look back on these people in this hour and say they have lost their vision of God, have lost the sense of His nearness, have wandered far away from that spiritual communion with Him which is in itself a fire and a force, I say also that having lost the vision and having lost the sense, they are restless. When the one true and living God, having been revealed and known, is lost to consciousness the heart will clamantly cry for that which is lost. This worship of the serpent was certainly a revelation of the hunger of the people after God.
There is one other matter which I think this event reveals. Having lost their vision of God, and still being conscious of the necessity for some object of worship around which their spiritual life could gather, their deification of the serpent was a revelation of the utmost confusion. It was history misinterpreted. A blessing of the olden days was made a curse in the present moment by that misinterpretation of their own history Setting up the brazen serpent as an object of worship suggested that the serpent itself had been the means of their healing on the past occasion. Their vision of God lost, and the cry of their souls after such a God, and the blundering confusion of a people who, looking back at their own history, emphasized it wrong, interpreted it falsely, and treated the serpent as though it had been the means of their healing in the past--such was the abuse of the brazen serpent.
Sermon Outline
- I. The Revelation of Need
- A. An idol is a revelation of the sense of need and lack
- B. It is evidence of the cry after God
- II. The Loss of Vision
- A. When people lose their consciousness of God, they do not lose their sense of need for God
- B. They become restless and cry for what is lost
- III. The Misinterpretation of History
- A. The deification of the serpent was a revelation of confusion
- B. It was a misinterpretation of their own history
Key Quotes
“An idol always means this: an idol created by the fingers of men, or chosen by men and appointed to the place of a god, is forevermore a revelation of the sense of need, the sense of lack.” — G. Campbell Morgan
“When the one true and living God, having been revealed and known, is lost to consciousness the heart will clamantly cry for that which is lost.” — G. Campbell Morgan
Application Points
- When we lose our sense of God's presence, we must seek to re-establish our spiritual communion with Him.
- Misinterpreting our own history can lead to confusion and idolatry.
- Our hearts will always cry for what is lost, and we must be careful not to misinterpret this cry as a desire for something else.