The Maker vs. The Made Text: Jeremiah 10:12-16
Introduction: The Unavoidable Foundry
Every man is a worshipper, and every man lives in a foundry. The only question is what he is making there, and to what end. Modern man, particularly sophisticated Western man, believes he has long ago graduated from the primitive business of idolatry. He looks at the ancient pagan, melting down his gold to fashion a calf or carving a piece of wood into a household god, and he smirks with the chronological snobbery that defines our age. We have science, technology, and philosophy. We are beyond such things.
But this is a profound self-deception. Man has not stopped making idols; he has simply moved the foundry from the blacksmith's shop into the laboratory, the legislature, and, most potently, into the workshop of his own mind. Man is an idol factory. He cannot help himself. If he will not worship the God who made him, he will invariably worship something he has made. It might be a political ideology that promises utopia, a scientific materialism that promises ultimate knowledge, a sexual identity that promises liberation, or a state that promises cradle-to-grave security. But whatever it is, it is a graven image, a molten calf, and the man who makes it will bow down to it.
Jeremiah is writing to a people who were trying to have it both ways. They wanted to worship Yahweh at the temple on the Sabbath, and then dabble with the local deities the rest of the week. They wanted the security of the covenant God and the supposed benefits of the pagan gods of the land. But the prophet Jeremiah, speaking for God, draws a line in the sand as wide as the cosmos. He places the living God, the Maker of all, on one side, and the dead, man-made idols on the other, and he says, in effect, "Choose. You cannot have both. One is reality; the other is a lie. One is the Creator; the other is a cheap knock-off from your own pathetic workshop." This is not a polite debate. This is a declaration of war between two mutually exclusive religions, and that war is still raging today.
The Text
It is He who made the earth by His power, Who established the world by His wisdom; And by His understanding He has stretched out the heavens. When He gives forth His voice, there is a tumult of waters in the heavens, And He causes the clouds to ascend from the end of the earth; He makes lightning for the rain, And brings out the wind from His storehouses. Every man is senseless, devoid of knowledge; Every goldsmith is put to shame by his graven images; For his molten images are a lie, And there is no breath in them. They are vanity, a work of mockery; In the time of their punishment they will perish. The portion of Jacob is not like these; For the Maker of all is He, And Israel is the tribe of His inheritance; Yahweh of hosts is His name.
(Jeremiah 10:12-16 LSB)
The God Who Speaks and Makes (vv. 12-13)
Jeremiah begins by establishing the absolute foundation of reality: the character and work of the living God.
"It is He who made the earth by His power, Who established the world by His wisdom; And by His understanding He has stretched out the heavens." (Jeremiah 10:12)
Notice the three-fold description of God's creative work. He creates with power, wisdom, and understanding. This is not a chaotic accident. This is not a blind, purposeless process. This is the work of an infinite mind and an omnipotent will. The universe is not the product of a cosmic burp; it is a finely-tuned, intelligently designed masterpiece. His power brought it into being, His wisdom gave it structure and order, and His understanding governs its vast and intricate operations. This verse is a direct refutation of any worldview that posits a dumb, material universe that somehow organized itself into intelligence. That is the modern myth, the modern idol. The Bible says that intelligence, wisdom, and purpose are there at the beginning, because God is there at the beginning.
But God is not a deist. He did not just wind up the clock and walk away. Verse 13 shows His active, moment-by-moment sovereignty over His creation.
"When He gives forth His voice, there is a tumult of waters in the heavens, And He causes the clouds to ascend from the end of the earth; He makes lightning for the rain, And brings out the wind from His storehouses." (Jeremiah 10:13)
The pagans looked at the storm and saw a pantheon of warring, capricious gods. They saw a god of lightning, a god of thunder, a god of wind. Jeremiah says this is nonsense. The entire weather system, from the evaporation that forms the clouds to the lightning that accompanies the rain, is orchestrated by the single voice of Yahweh. When He speaks, reality happens. The "tumult of waters" is the thunder, and it is the echo of His command. He does not just permit the storm; He makes it. He brings the wind out of His "storehouses" as though it were His personal possession, to be released at His good pleasure. This is a God who is intimately and powerfully involved. He is not an abstract principle; He is the personal governor of the universe. The world is not a closed system of natural laws; it is an open stage for the continuous display of God's majestic power.
The Man Who Makes and Fakes (vv. 14-15)
From the breathtaking reality of the Creator, Jeremiah pivots to the pathetic absurdity of the idolater.
"Every man is senseless, devoid of knowledge; Every goldsmith is put to shame by his graven images; For his molten images are a lie, And there is no breath in them." (Jeremiah 10:14)
The contrast is intentionally jarring. We go from the God of infinite wisdom to the man who is "senseless," or brutish. The man who rejects the Creator to worship the creation does not become more intelligent; he becomes a fool. Paul tells us in Romans 1 that "professing to be wise, they became fools." This is not an insult; it is a spiritual diagnosis. To worship an idol is to engage in an act of profound stupidity. The goldsmith takes a lump of inert metal, and with his own skill, forges it into an image. He then bows down to the thing that his own hands have made. The maker worships the made. This is the central, laughable contradiction of all idolatry. The thing in the shrine is a "lie." It pretends to be a god, but it cannot see, cannot hear, and most importantly, has no breath, no life, in it.
This is why the goldsmith is "put to shame" by his own work. His creation is a monument to his own folly. It is a silent, golden testament to his rebellion and his irrationality. The same is true for the modern idolater. The Marxist is shamed by the mountains of corpses his ideology produces. The sexual revolutionary is shamed by the wreckage of broken families, diseases, and confusion he leaves in his wake. The materialist is shamed when his collection of stuff leaves him empty and dead inside. The idol always fails to deliver, because it is a lie. It has no breath.
Jeremiah drives the point home in the next verse.
"They are vanity, a work of mockery; In the time of their punishment they will perish." (Jeremiah 10:15)
The word for vanity is hebel, the same word that echoes through Ecclesiastes. It means vapor, smoke, a puff of air. It is worthless, insubstantial. And it is a "work of mockery." It is a joke. God is not threatened by idols; He mocks them. And those who worship them will share in their fate. When God brings His judgment, the idols will not save anyone. They will be the first things to go, melted down in the fire of His wrath. They have no power and no future. To invest your life, your worship, and your hope in an idol is to book a ticket on a sinking ship.
The Incomparable Portion (v. 16)
After establishing the absolute chasm between the living God and dead idols, Jeremiah brings it to a glorious, covenantal conclusion.
"The portion of Jacob is not like these; For the Maker of all is He, And Israel is the tribe of His inheritance; Yahweh of hosts is His name." (Jeremiah 10:16)
This is the great antithesis. Our God, the God of the covenant, the "portion of Jacob," is not like these pathetic trinkets. And why? Two fundamental reasons are given. First, He is "the Maker of all." This is the Creator/creature distinction in its starkest form. Our God is on the Creator side of that line. Everything else, literally everything, is on the creature side. You will either worship the Maker, or you will worship something He made. There is no third option. To worship anything in the creation is idolatry, whether it is the sun, the state, or the self.
Second, He is a covenant-making God. He is not just the generic Maker of all; He has entered into a specific, binding relationship with His people. He is Jacob's portion, and Israel is His inheritance. This is astounding. The God who owns everything has condescended to make a people His own special possession, His inheritance. And in turn, He gives Himself to them as their portion, their inheritance. This is not the cold, impersonal relationship of a man to a statue. This is the living, breathing, covenantal relationship of a Father to His children, a King to His people.
And what is His name? "Yahweh of hosts." This is His covenant name, Yahweh, the great I AM. And He is the Lord of hosts, the commander of the armies of heaven. He is the one who commands the stars, the angels, the storms, and the nations. This is the God who is our portion. Why would anyone trade this infinite, all-powerful, covenant-keeping God for a block of wood that you have to dust? Why would anyone trade the Lord of hosts for an ideology that will perish, a government that will fail, or a pleasure that will fade? It is, as Jeremiah says, senseless.
Conclusion: Choose Your God
The choice before Israel then is the same choice that stands before us now. You will worship. The question is not whether, but what. You will either worship the Maker of all, or you will worship something that has been made. One is the God of power, wisdom, and life. The other is a lie, a vanity, a work of mockery with no breath in it.
To worship an idol is to become like it. As the psalmist says, "Those who make them become like them, so do all who trust in them" (Psalm 115:8). If you worship dead things, you will become spiritually dead. If you worship lies, your life will become a lie. If you worship vanity, your life will be empty and vain.
But to worship the living God, Yahweh of hosts, is to be made alive. He is the portion of Jacob, and through the true Jacob, the true Israel, Jesus Christ, He has made a way for us to be brought into His inheritance. Christ is the ultimate wisdom of God who established the world. It is through His voice that God creates new life in us. He went to the cross to smash the idols in our hearts and to purchase us for His own possession.
Therefore, the call is to repent of our modern idolatries. Turn from the lies of materialism, the folly of self-worship, and the vanity of political saviors. Turn from the molten images you have forged in the foundry of your heart. Turn, and take Yahweh of hosts as your portion. For He alone is the Maker of all, and in Him alone is life.