Scarecrows in a Cucumber Field

Daily Reading: Jeremiah 10

Scripture Focus: Their idols are like scarecrows in a cucumber field. (Jeremiah 10.5)

Devotional Thought: In L. Frank Baum's classic - The Wizard of Oz - the tin man needed a heart.  The lion needed courage.  What did the scarecrow need?  A brain! Jeremiah told the people of his congregation that they needed brains because they worshiped idols: "They are both stupid and foolish; the instruction of idols is but wood!" (v. 8).

Idols, Jeremiah said, are like scarecrows:

·       They cannot speak.  God has been speaking since the dawn of creation... "And God said, 'Let there be light,' And there was light" (Genesis 1.3).  While we can safely ignore what idols are purported to say, we would do well to heed what God says for when he speaks, things happen!

·       They have to be carried.  Not only are idols unable to move things, they have to be moved themselves!  Two centuries after Jeremiah, Aristotle spoke of the "unmoved mover", that one thing that set everything else in motion.  The unmoved mover is not a principle, but a person.  God is the unmoved mover.

·       They cannot do evil.  We do not need to fear idols for they are incapable of doing evil, but they certainly are used by evil-doers to justify their evil deeds.  God, however, "cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one" (James 1.13).  He is the only one to whom we can pray, "And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil" (Matthew 6.13).

·       They cannot do good.  Just as an idol cannot do anything evil, neither can it do anything good.  God, however, is the ultimate good, the source of all good.  Any goodness in creation is derived from the Creator.

Whom do you serve?  A scarecrow in a cucumber field or the God of creation?

Prayer: "I serve a risen Savior; he's in the world today.  I know that he is living, whatever men may say...  He lives!  He lives within my heart!"  Amen!

Psalm of the Day: Psalm 107.1-3

1 Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever!

2 Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom he has redeemed from trouble

3 and gathered in from the lands, from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south.