They that make them are like unto them: so is every one that trusteth in them.
Those who fashion idols become like the lifeless and powerless things they have made, and everyone who puts trust in idols likewise becomes like them, for people become like what they worship. The idols cannot see or walk, and they cannot hear the pleas made to them or defend those who worship them, so that trusting in them is helpless darkness that cannot save. The Jebusites trusted in gods like these, and with confidence in the defenses of Jerusalem boasted against David, which was foolish because such trust could not save them from him.
The likeness works in the other direction as well, for idols share the character of the men who made them, being without morals like men with money but no morals. To enter the service of such gods in heathen temples is to enter vile and impure service. There homeless and starving girls are taken in to be exploited and ruined. The same principle applies to will-worship, where making self a god conforms people to their own deceitful and wicked nature and makes them unlike the Spirit.
Those who fashion idols become like the lifeless and powerless things they have made, and everyone who puts trust in idols likewise becomes like them, for people become like what they worship. The idols cannot see or walk, and they cannot hear the pleas made to them or defend those who worship them, so that trusting in them is helpless darkness that cannot save. The Jebusites trusted in gods like these, and with confidence in the defenses of Jerusalem boasted against David, which was foolish because such trust could not save them from him.
The likeness works in the other direction as well, for idols share the character of the men who made them, being without morals like men with money but no morals. To enter the service of such gods in heathen temples is to enter vile and impure service. There homeless and starving girls are taken in to be exploited and ruined. The same principle applies to will-worship, where making self a god conforms people to their own deceitful and wicked nature and makes them unlike the Spirit.