Meet Your Idol Today's Three-minute Bible Study Print, Study and Apply Title: Meet Your Idol-------------------------- Date: 8/22/2001 Keywords: "devotion" "idol" Welcome to eXXit, the web site designed to help you stand strong in the face of sexual temptation. Passage: Isaiah 42:16-17* 16. I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them; I will turn the darkness into light before them and make the rough places smooth. These are the things I will do; I will not forsake them. 17. But those who trust in idols, who say to images, 'You are our gods,' will be turned back in utter shame. Questions 1. How will God deal with those who pursue him versus those who follow idols?   2. How might this admonition help you in your struggle with pornography?   Practical help Christian speakers rightly compare the American worship of money, fame and power to the Old Testament idols described in passages like Isaiah 42. Though false, idols animate our existence. They give us direction for our energies and a sense of meaning in a seemingly chaotic world. And in no other area do speakers nail 21st-century idolatry than with pornography. In today's passage, God stresses the "image" of the idol, the visible manifestation of its power. Nothing captures the appeal of pornography more than the visual. The passage also makes clear that all of our heavy breathing is a form of worship to an imaginary deity. That's why pornography ends in "shame." It leaves us empty when we expect so much in return for our devotion. By contrast, verse 16 speaks of the guidance and care of God we receive when we follow him. If we reserve our devotion only for the Lord, he will make our labors worthwhile. eXXit homepage Index of three-minute studies Copyright 2001 by eXXit *Scriptures are from The Holy Bible: New International Version, © Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. All rights reserved.