Isaiah 44:20 He feeds on ashes: a deceived heart has turned him aside, that he cannot deliver his soul, nor say… In the spiritual world there are many who feed upon ashes. The prophet is speaking of the idolater. I. WHO IS THE IDOLATER — who is the "he" that is said to feed on ashes? The prophet had a definite audience before him. He was prophesying to the children of Israel. Notwithstanding the purity and sublimity of their own monotheistic creed, and the awful threatenings and sanctions with which it was guarded, we can trace throughout their entire history, as a marked feature of their character, a propensity to blend a theoretical belief in the true God with an accommodating reverence to the idols of the heathen Pantheon. Except when under the immediate spell of some special revelation of Jehovah, they craved for some visible shape or outward sign of the divinity — a craving which was satisfied for a time by the erection of the tabernacle and temple, and the establishment of the worship connected with them, but which soon overleaped barriers thus imposed upon it, and sought for novel sensations in the tabernacle of Moloch and in the star of the god Remphan — figures which they made to worship them. The very priests and Levites, who were most concerned in keeping the worship of Jehovah pure, were the leaders of the various national apostasies. Isaiah deeply deplored this national fickleness and spiritual inconstancy. In the passage under consideration he seeks to overwhelm it with contempt. Were Isaiah addressing us in these days his ideas would be the same, though the form in which he would present them would be different. Material idolatry, in its literal import, has passed away among civilised nations. But the essence of the temptation remains the same. Human society is changed, but human nature is unchanged. The impulse which led to idolatry is therefore as strong at the present day as it was in the time of Isaiah; and images are set up and worshipped now as fantastic as any pagan fetich or joss. The New Testament form of the Second Commandment, "Be not conformed to this world," requires to be frequently and urgently enforced. If I were to sum up all spiritual idolatry in these days in one form, I should call it worldliness, for everything else is but a phase of this. And this worldly conformity leads speedily, in most instances, to a low moral standard, and to a weak and corrupt form of religion, and produces the same humiliating results which flowed from the idolatry of ancient times. II. WHAT IS IDOLATRY? It is a perverted spiritual appetite. In certain diseased states of the brain there is an unnatural craving for the most extraordinary and unwholesome substances. Men and women under such morbid influences have been known to eat cinders and sand with apparent relish, and even to prefer them to the richest dainties. In such cases it is not the appetite that is at fault. The controlling power of the brain, which chooses the proper food, is impaired, and this healthy appetite is set to work upon substances which are altogether unsuitable. In like manner idolatry arises from a natural craving of the soul, which was made for God, for His worship and enjoyment. It finds that it must go out of itself for the blessedness it needs. This spiritual appetite is a God-given instinct of our nature. It is the soul seeking its highest good. It is healthy and natural. But when, under the guidance and power of a deceived heart, it seeks its gratification in earthly things to the exclusion altogether of God, it affords a most melancholy example of a perverted spiritual appetite. III. WHAT ARE THE EFFECTS OF IDOLATRY? How does idolatry affect the man guilty of it? There is a very striking and beautiful relation between the food of man and his digestive organs. He is omnivorous. He is the ruler of the world, and therefore the varied life of the world must throb in his veins. But all the varied food which she presents to him must be organic food. "Phosphorus literally flames in the brain, that thoughts may breathe and words may burn; lime gives solidity to the bones; the alkaline salts promote the oxidation and removal of the effete materials of the body. Common minerals — iron, sulphur, soda, potash, and others — circulate in the blood, or are garnered in the various tissues. But all these inorganic materials are furnished, not from the earth directly, but in the food; the various vegetable and animal products containing them in varying quantities." Such being the law of man's nutrition, it will be seen at once that if he feeds directly upon ashes, he is feeding upon substances that are altogether incongruous, and unfitted to nourish him. His organs cannot digest or assimilate ashes. And is not the analogy between spiritual and natural things here very clear? If man's spiritual appetite can feed only on God, then if man seeks his portion only in the things of the world, what can you expect but spiritual indigestion and misery? It is true, indeed, that just as the body requires inorganic elements — salt, lime, and iron — as well as organic, for its proper nourishment, so man requires the things of the world as well as the things of faith for his spiritual welfare. But then we are to seek these temporal things, not directly from the world, but through the channel of communion with God. There are natures that, by a long course of feeding upon ashes, have become accustomed to this unnatural diet. Like the clay-eaters of South America, their digestive organs become assimilated to their food, and they are put to little inconvenience by it. We meet with persons who are satisfied with their portion in this world, who mind earthly things, and are contented with the nourishment for their souls which they find in them. But are such persons the truly great and noble ones of our race? How can an infinite hunger be appeased by a finite good? The soul wants organised food; food that has spiritual life in it; food that is redolent of the sunshine and permeated with the light of heaven; food that has drunk in all the impalpable virtues and forces of the things unseen and eternal; food that can gather up in itself these vitalising influences, and transfer them to us to glow within our veins and animate our nerves; and, instead of that, we get ashes out of which all the glow and the virtue have departed. Our sin will become our punishment; our idols our scourges. I have remarked that there are some who are satisfied with their worldly portion — who, though feeding upon clay, are not put to inconvenience by it. Such individuals, in the midst of their contentment, are in reality, if they only knew it, more to be pitied than those whose truer instincts are tortured by the unsuitable food by which they endeavour to appease their spiritual cravings. (H. Macmillan, LL. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: He feedeth on ashes: a deceived heart hath turned him aside, that he cannot deliver his soul, nor say, Is there not a lie in my right hand? |
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