Beholding the Glory of the Courtroom of God

We are continuing in our series on beholding God to behave godly for God's glory. This is the second message in that series. Last week, we beheld Christ to reveal the sinfulness within us and our absolute need for his salvation and atonement. Today, we behold God to expose things in our lives that might not be inherently sinful but that we have made sinful—namely, idolatry.

All sin is idolatry, but not every form of idolatry started as sin. We want to behold God to expose idolatry. This is one of the most significant activities a Christian can engage in regularly: to expose idols, clear them out, and pursue deeper sanctification and repentance. We must sniff out idolatry in our own lives.

Isaiah 41:21-29 shows God in his courtroom demonstrating the futility, pointlessness, and vanity of idols, while proving himself supremely valuable. God calls the idols into his courtroom and wins the argument decisively. As Ray Orland Jr. puts it, God is suing the false gods for false advertising.

To behold God in his courtroom and behave godly for God's glory, we focus on three things.

1. Behold the Arguments of God

God uses his own attributes as the test for the deity of idols. Are these really gods? He demonstrates they are false by comparing them to himself.

Set forth your case, says the Lord; bring your proofs, says the King of Jacob. Let them bring them and tell us what is to happen. Tell us the former things, what they are, that we may consider them, that we may know their outcome or declare to us the things to come. Tell us what is to come hereafter, that we may know that you are gods. Do good, or do harm, that we may be dismayed and terrified.

Isaiah 41:21-23

The phrase "let them bring them" refers to the idols being carried into the courtroom by their idolaters. This shows idols are dependent on humans for movement—they derive their life from the idolater. God argues against idols for the sake of the idolater, proving idolatry worthless compared to him.

God demands two things: explain history and its outcome, and declare and decree the future. A god must have absolute sovereign control over history to prove deity and worth. Idols cannot tell what has happened, why it happened, what will happen, or bring it about. They lack power.

God is self-existing, like the burning bush that burns without consuming fuel. He knows the past, declares the future, and brings it about. Sovereignty proves his existence and worthiness. Anything without sovereign control over all things is unworthy of your worship, affection, time, or relationship.

God challenges: "Do good or do harm, that we may be dismayed and terrified." Do something awe-inspiring. Idols cannot invoke fear, dread, or worship. Imagine God confronting them: "Do something!" They sit pathetically silent. Only the God who ordains and controls your whole life deserves your heart and mind—not just Sundays or Wednesdays, but everything. Idols improve nothing.

2. Behold the Acknowledgment of God

God's verdict: the idols fail utterly.

Behold, you are nothing, and your work is less than nothing; an abomination is he who chooses you.

Isaiah 41:24

"Nothing" means non-existent, like Isaiah's "woe is me, I am undone." Idols' works are less than nothing—worse than non-existence. God calls choosing them an abomination, the strongest Old Testament denunciation of sin, arousing God's wrath. The idolater, not the idol, is the abomination. Idolatry makes you like the idol—horrific, especially hidden idols.

But when I look, there is no one among them; there is no counselor who, when I ask, gives an answer. Behold, all of them are false; their works are worthless; their molten images are wind and emptiness.

Isaiah 41:28-29

Idols offer no counsel—like chasing wind (Ecclesiastes). Augustine confessed: "Late have I loved you... You were within me, and I was in the external world and sought you there... The lovely things kept me far from you."

Some claim, "I have no idols—no statues." But Scripture broadens idolatry:

For rebellion is as the sin of divination, and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry.

1 Samuel 15:23

Rebelling against God's word equals consulting idols. Arrogance (presumption) is idolatry—self-worship.

Do not be idolaters as some of them were, as it is written, 'The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.'

1 Corinthians 10:7 (quoting Exodus 32:6)

Excessive amusement—"rose up to play"—is idolatry. "Play" means uncontrolled self-amusement, a mental checkout.

For you may be sure of this: every one who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.

Ephesians 5:5

Covetousness is idolatry. Idolatry is anything that holds your heart, mind, attention, or affections in place of God—or distracts from him. Test: If stripped of it, are you satisfied with God alone? Would you be the richest in the universe?

Ray Orland Jr.: "An idol is anything other than God that we absolutize as essential to our peace, self-image, contentment, sense of control, or acceptability."

Good things become idols when essential beyond God. Bizarre: We have the sovereign Creator yet spend little time adoring him. Good gifts should point to God's goodness, not surpass him. Take everything in your life into God's courtroom—compare to him.

3. Behold the Attestation of God

God proves his supremacy by his actions.

I stirred up one from the north, and he has come. From the rising of the sun he shall call upon my name; he shall trample on rulers as on mortar, as the potter treads clay... Who declared it from the beginning, that we might know?... I first have declared it to Zion, 'Behold, here they are!' and to Jerusalem a herald of good news.

Isaiah 41:25-27

Who declared it from the beginning, that we might know, and beforehand, that we might say, 'He is right'? There was none who declared it, none who proclaimed, none who heard your words... Behold, they are all a delusion; their works are nothing; their metal images are empty wind.

Isaiah 41:26, 29

God sovereignly raises Cyrus from the east to conquer empires, proclaiming his name (Isaiah 45). God controls nations like Pharaoh or Psalm 2's raging kings—God laughs at their plots. He declares the end from the beginning (Isaiah 46:10). In a storm, take the sovereign God, not the sinking idol.

Idols offer no counselor (parakletos—comforter, advocate). Jesus is our advocate and propitiation (1 John 2:1-2). Idols deceive; the unaware ones are best at it. John Calvin: "The human mind is a perpetual forge of idols." Ezekiel shows idols in hearts—imagination.

Behold my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my Spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations... He will faithfully bring forth justice... till he has established justice in the earth.

Isaiah 42:1-4

God promises his Servant-Son, empowered by the Spirit, for our justice and salvation—no idol can. Behold God to see his supreme, soul-satisfying excellence. Take your life into his courtroom.