The Divine Satire of Sawdust Gods Text: Isaiah 44:9-20
Introduction: The Idol Factory of the Heart
John Calvin famously said that the human heart is a perpetual factory of idols. We are constitutionally idolaters. Our default setting is to take a created thing, something finite, and give it the weight, the glory, and the trust that belongs only to the uncreated God. This is not just a problem for primitive tribes in loincloths bowing to wooden totems. This is the central problem of the human race, from the Garden to the Googleplex. We are always looking for a substitute god, a manageable god, a god we can control. And because we are made in the image of God, we are inveterate worshippers. The question is never whether we will worship, but only what we will worship.
Our sophisticated, secular age scoffs at the idea of bowing to a block of wood. But our idolatries are simply more abstract, and therefore more insidious. We don't carve our gods from oak; we carve them from ideologies, from political saviors, from our careers, from our sexual autonomy, or from our own self-esteem. But the principle is identical. We are looking to a finite thing to provide what only the infinite can provide: security, meaning, deliverance, and identity. And as Paul tells us, covetousness is idolatry. A man lusting after his neighbor's portfolio is worshipping just as surely as the man in Isaiah's day lusting after a well-carved Asherah pole.
In this passage, the prophet Isaiah does not engage in a polite, philosophical debate about the nature of idolatry. He unsheathes the sword of satire. He employs a serrated edge. He holds up the entire enterprise of idol-making to the bright, disinfecting light of ridicule. He shows us, with devastating clarity, the sheer, unvarnished absurdity of it all. This is not just an argument; it is a divine mockery. God, through His prophet, is laughing at the pretensions of rebellious man. And He invites us to laugh along with Him, so that we might see the foolishness of our own hearts and turn from our own sawdust gods.
The logic is simple and crushing: a thing made by a man cannot be the God who made the man. A god that gets hungry, a god that can be measured with a ruler, a god that is the leftover bit of firewood, is no god at all. It is a lie, a vanity, a feeding on ashes. This passage is a powerful emetic, designed to make us spiritually sick of our idols so that we might turn to the only one who can truly deliver us.
The Text
Those who form a graven image are all of them futile, and their desirable things are of no profit; even their own witnesses fail to see or know, so that they will be put to shame. Who has formed a god or cast a graven image to no profit? Behold, all his companions will be put to shame. The craftsmen themselves are mere men. Let them all assemble themselves, let them stand up, let them be in dread, let them together be put to shame. The man crafts iron into a cutting tool and does his work over the coals, forming it with hammers and working it with his powerful arm. He also gets hungry and has no power; he drinks no water and becomes weary. Another crafts wood, he extends a measuring line; he outlines it with a stylus. He makes it with planes and outlines it with a compass and makes it like the form of a man, like the glory of man, so that it may sit in a house. In order to cut cedars for himself, he takes a cypress or an oak and raises it for himself among the trees of the forest. He plants a fir, and the rain makes it grow. Then it becomes something for a man to burn, so he takes one of them and warms himself; he also kindles a fire to bake bread. He also works to produce a god and worships it; he makes it a graven image and falls down before it. Half of it he burns in the fire; over this half he eats meat as he roasts a roast and is satisfied. He also warms himself and says, “Aha! I am warm; I have seen the fire.” But the rest of it he makes into a god, his graven image. He falls down before it and worships; he also prays to it and says, “Deliver me, for you are my god.” They do not know, nor do they understand, for He has smeared over their eyes so that they cannot see and their hearts so that they will have no insight. No one causes this to return to his heart, nor is there knowledge or understanding to say, “I have burned half of it in the fire and also have baked bread over its coals. I roast meat and eat it. Then I make the rest of it into an abomination; I fall down before a block of wood!” He feeds on ashes; a deceived heart has turned him aside. And he cannot deliver his soul, and he cannot say, “Is there not a lie in my right hand?”
(Isaiah 44:9-20 LSB)
The Verdict on the Idol-Makers (vv. 9-11)
Isaiah begins with a sweeping, summary judgment on the whole affair.
"Those who form a graven image are all of them futile, and their desirable things are of no profit; even their own witnesses fail to see or know, so that they will be put to shame." (Isaiah 44:9)
The word "futile" here is tohu, the same word used in Genesis 1 for the formless chaos before God spoke His ordering Word. The idol-makers are trying to create meaning and order and power, but all they produce is more chaos, more emptiness. Their "desirable things," their precious, gold-plated gods, are of no profit. They cannot hear, cannot speak, cannot save. They are a spiritual black hole, sucking in worship and giving nothing back.
And the idolaters themselves are their own witnesses, and they are blind witnesses. They see the wood, they feel the hammer, they know it is their own creation, and yet they fail to "know" in any meaningful sense. This is a willful blindness. And the end result of this self-deception is shame. When the crisis comes, when the Babylonians are at the gates, and they cry out to their block of wood for deliverance, its silence will be their public humiliation.
Isaiah continues the taunt in verses 10 and 11, emphasizing the sheer humanity of the enterprise. "Who has formed a god...?" The question is incredulous. The very idea is laughable. And all his companions, the whole guild of idol-makers and the congregation of idol-worshippers, will be put to shame together. Why? Because "the craftsmen themselves are mere men." This is the fundamental problem, the violation of the Creator/creature distinction. Man, the creature, is attempting to create his creator. It is an act of cosmic effrontery, a pathetic attempt to reverse the flow of reality. They are trying to get the river to flow uphill.
A Tale of Two Craftsmen (vv. 12-17)
Isaiah then gives us two detailed, almost journalistic accounts of the manufacturing process. He pulls back the curtain on the idol factory, and what we see is not mystery and power, but sweat, fatigue, and mundane carpentry.
"The man crafts iron... He also gets hungry and has no power; he drinks no water and becomes weary. Another crafts wood..." (Isaiah 44:12-13a)
First, the blacksmith. He works over the coals, sweating, swinging his hammer with his powerful arm. But his power is contingent. He gets hungry. His strength fails. He gets thirsty and weary. The prophet is rubbing our noses in the creatureliness of the creator of the "god." How can a god who is fashioned by a man who needs a lunch break and a water bottle be of any use in a real crisis? The god's power is derivative of the man's power, and the man's power is running out. The god is weaker than the man, and the man is weak. This is not a sound investment.
Next, the carpenter. This description is even more damning in its detail. He measures the wood. He sketches an outline. He uses his planes and compass. He is a meticulous craftsman. And what is his goal? To make it "like the form of a man, like the glory of man." This is the essence of all idolatry. We worship ourselves. We project our own image onto the godhead and then bow down to the reflection. The idol is made in the image of man, a pathetic reversal of the truth that man was made in the image of God.
But the satire reaches its crescendo in verses 14-17. The man plants a tree, and the rain, sent by the true God, makes it grow. The man is not even the ultimate source of his raw materials. He is dependent on God's common grace for the very wood he will use to rebel against Him. Then comes the absurd dual-use of this log. He uses part of it for fuel. He warms himself. He bakes his bread. He roasts his meat and eats his fill. He is satisfied. "Aha! I am warm; I have seen the fire." The wood serves him perfectly in its created purpose. It gives him heat and cooked food.
But then, with the leftover piece, the rest of it, he makes a god. The same log. One part is for the hearth, the other for the shrine. He falls down to the piece that was not quite right for the fire. He worships it. He prays to it. "Deliver me, for you are my god." The sheer irrationality is breathtaking. The thing that is his servant, he now calls his master. The thing he manufactured, he now asks to deliver him. He is praying to his own garbage.
The Divine Diagnosis: Judicial Blindness (vv. 18-20)
How can anyone be this foolish? How can this level of self-deception be possible? Isaiah provides the ultimate theological answer. It is not a matter of low IQ. It is a matter of divine judgment.
"They do not know, nor do they understand, for He has smeared over their eyes so that they cannot see and their hearts so that they will have no insight." (Isaiah 44:18)
This is terrifying. When men persistently exchange the truth of God for a lie and worship the creature rather than the Creator, God gives them over to their delusion. This is the doctrine of judicial hardening. God, in His wrath, confirms them in their rebellion. He plasters their eyes shut. He gives them the lie they so desperately wanted. This is what Paul describes in Romans 1. Because they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind.
The result is a complete inability for self-reflection. "No one causes this to return to his heart." The idolater cannot perform the simple, logical calculation: "I burned half of this in the fire... Then I make the rest of it into an abomination; I fall down before a block of wood!" The dots are right there, but his sin-addled, divinely-hardened mind cannot connect them.
The final verse is a devastating summary of the idolater's condition. "He feeds on ashes." He is trying to get spiritual nourishment from something that has no life, no substance. It is a diet of dust and death. "A deceived heart has turned him aside." His affections are disordered, and his intellect has followed them into the ditch. And the most tragic part is his utter inability to save himself. "He cannot deliver his soul, and he cannot say, 'Is there not a lie in my right hand?'" He is holding his own damnation in his hand, and he cannot even ask the right question. He has become like the idol he worships: blind, dumb, and helpless.
The Gospel for Ash-Eaters
This passage is a brilliant piece of satire, but it is not meant simply to make us feel superior to the foolish carpenter. It is a mirror. We must ask ourselves: what are the leftover bits of our lives that we have fashioned into gods? What are the good gifts of God, like that log of wood, that we have perverted into objects of worship? Is it our career, which warms us and feeds us, but which we now pray to for our ultimate deliverance? Is it our family? Our political party? Our own righteousness?
We are all, by nature, ash-eaters. We are all holding a lie in our right hand. And apart from a sovereign work of God, we are all judicially blinded, unable to see our own folly. The diagnosis in verse 18 is our diagnosis.
But this is where the glory of the gospel shines. The same God who in His wrath smears the eyes of the rebellious is the God who in His mercy opens the eyes of the blind. The same God who said, "Let there be light" in the first creation, is the one who says, "Let there be light" in the new creation of a sinner's heart. "For God, who said, 'Let light shine out of darkness,' has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" (2 Cor. 4:6).
Jesus Christ is the ultimate anti-idol. An idol is the glory of man, made in the image of man. Jesus is the glory of God, the exact image of the Father (Heb. 1:3). An idol is a man making a god. The incarnation is God becoming a man. An idol is a creature pretending to be the Creator. Jesus is the Creator entering into His creation. An idol is a dead thing that cannot save. Jesus is the living God who died and rose again in order to save.
The call of this passage is to look at the lie in our right hand, to see the ashes we have been feeding on, and by the grace of God, to confess its foolishness. It is a call to drop our pathetic, man-made idols and to cling to the only one who can truly say, "Deliver me." For He is not a god we have made. He is the God who has made us, and who has remade us in Himself.