The Idolatry Challenge: Lessons from Psalm 115
By Elizabeth Prata
I discuss Psalm 115 using Charles Spurgeon’s commentary, The Treasury of David. I focus on the Psalm’s theme of God’s glory versus heathen idols. The Psalm underscores a fervent plea for God to receive glory amidst hardship. Modern idolatry can encompass things like money, social media, and a host of other personal idols. They all detract from God’s glory. I urge reflection on true devotion.
Did you know that Charles Spurgeon wrote a commentary on every Psalm? It is called The Treasury of David. It’s available online in many places, including here.
The author of Psalm 115 is unknown. The theme of the Psalm is ‘Heathen idols contrasted with the LORD.’
In reading Psalm 115 this week, I was struck by the author’s fervency to plead that God receives all glory and not us, Lord, not us; as verse 1 says.
Not to us, LORD, not to us,
But to Your name give glory,
Because of Your mercy, because of Your truth.
Do we plead for the Lord to receive His due glory, even if we are enduring a tragic situation?
Spurgeon wrote,
The repetition of the words, ‘Not unto us’, would seem to indicate a very serious desire to renounce any glory which they might at any time have proudly appropriated to themselves, and it also sets forth the vehemence of their wish that God would at any cost to them magnify his own name.
O, the idols that arise from every quarter, all competing for glory and stealing it from the LORD.
Their idols are silver and gold,
The work of human hands. verse 4.
Spurgeon said, Verse 4. Their idols are silver and gold, mere dead inert matter; at the best only made of precious metal, but that metal quite as powerless as the commonest wood or clay. The value of the idol shows the folly of the maker in wasting his substance, but certainly does not increase the power of the image, since there is no more life in silver and gold than in brass or iron.
I wonder if Alexander the Coppersmith ever repented of the damage he caused Paul. (2 Timothy 4:14) Or Demetrius the silversmith in the New Testament whose income depended on making idols of Artemis and thus incited the riot in Ephesus…was he ever converted? If not, at death they found themselves facing the actual God of all, and their mouths would find no explanation for the evil work of their hands.
verse 8 says, Those who make them will become like them,
Everyone who trusts in them.
Spurgeon said, “Those who have sunk so low as to be capable of confiding in idols have reached the extreme of folly, and are worthy of as much contempt as their detestable deities.”
TableTalk article The Heart is an Idol Factory.
Do WE hate idols enough? What are some modern forms of idolatry? We see the Buddha statues, the crucifixes, the Mary on the half0shell figures…but what about abstract or intangible idols?
R.C. Sproul said that common modern-day idols could be things created by humans or ideas that people prioritize over God, including money, power, sex, reputation, appearance, knowledge, celebrity, and especially comfort. I’d also add social media, self-image, careers, relationships or any created thing that gets greater devotion than God can become an idol. Anything.
1:28 quick reminder from Sproul: The Idol Factory of the Heart
Verse 18. But we will bless the LORD from this time forth and for evermore.
Spurgeon: “Even eternity cannot exhaust the reasons why God should be glorified. Praise the Lord, or Hallelujah. Though the dead cannot, and the wicked will not, and the careless do not praise God, yet we will shout “Hallelujah” for ever and ever. Amen.”
Be concerned today that the Lord above receives His due glory. Praise Him with your lips and obey him with your actions and kindle holy affections in your heart.
