I hope that you have been well. My family and I were away at a conference in the US for the past week and took a week away from posting these lessons to catch our breath. I hope that you enjoyed the journey through the Book of Romans. Today we will ask a question that we all need to consider: who or what is our Idol? This may seem like a weird question to ask in 2026, but I fear that this question is maybe more relevant today than it was in Isaiah 44, about 700 years before Jesus was born. We will explore this, and I hope that we can identify and get rid of any idols that are obstacles to us truly relying and trusting in God.

Verses 1-8: God lays out that He is the Supreme God. It was He that chose Israel (verse 1), made her and formed her (by the way, read Ezekiel 16 if you ever wonder how God feels about Israel), like a child is formed in the womb. God had blessed her and blessed her offspring (verse 3). For a long time, the people loved to be called by the Lord’s name, and even in their idolatry, they did so.

In verse 6, God says that He is their King; He is their Redeemer. He shows that He is the Almighty One, the First and the Last, and clearly stated that there are no other gods; none! God finishes the opening verses by stating that He is the Rock, and there is no other. As an aside, Jesus is also called the Rock; He identifies Himself as the Rock, and in 1 Corinthians 10:4, He is identified by Paul as the Rock that followed the Israelites in the wilderness and provided water.

Verses 9-20: God launches into a very sarcastic conversation with the people of Israel and, in so doing, shows the utter stupidity of idolatry. He deals with two kinds of idols: those made of metal (verse 12), and then ones made of wood (verses 13-17). God is drawing a contrast here between Him and the idols they fall down to. He is the Creator, the Maker, the Sustainer, and the Rock; steadfast, sure and strong. In contrast, they worship an idol they have to make. He has established that the one doing the making is the actual god.

Nonetheless, the blacksmith takes metal, heats it, and beats it into shape. He cannot stop once he has begun to make the image, so he grows weary; he does not even stop to drink (verse 12), and he does not even eat until the image is fully formed. Notice that the God of Heaven did not grow tired, did not get thirsty nor hungry when making and sustaining Israel. The craftsman, the woodworker, cuts down a cedar (verse 14); he has to mark it and measure it before he cuts it and shapes it into the image of a man.

In verse 14, God throws out a dig at the craftsman, mentioning that the man had to plant the very tree he is worshipping and further had to rely on God to even send the rain to nourish the tree. Yet, he refuses to acknowledge God. In verses 15-17, he cuts down the tree and divides it into a section to burn and make food, warm himself, and then the rest he forms into a god and falls down to it and asks, ‘Deliver me.’

There is such spiritual blindness in these Israelites that they cannot see how evil and how ridiculous this is. But even in their sin, God is gracious, and in verse 21-28, He reminds them that they are loved, they will be forgiven, and that Judah will be restored.

God then gives a closer fulfillment of prophecy to confirm a promise that is further in the future. In verse 28, He mentioned Cyrus. This is the Cyrus that invades Babylon about 200 years later, and it is recorded for us in Daniel 5. In October 539 BC, we have a non-biblical historical record from the Persian Empire that Cyrus the Great defeated the Babylonian army at the Battle of Opis and entered the city basically without resistance. Then, once he spoke to Daniel, he sent the Jews back to rebuild Jerusalem and the temple. This is a short-term fulfillment of a far future promise; Judah will be restored, and Israel redeemed.

There are many who tell us that God is done with Israel. Nothing could be further from the truth. Jesus, a Jewish King, will come to rule from Jerusalem one day, and Israel will be the center of the political and religious world for a long, long time.

Now, to us. What idols do we have? Spouses, children, homes, money, fame, comfort, security, health, and on and on we can go. A lot of us Christians may have some things that are more important than God – His way, His wants for us, His plans for us – and we would rather be complacent than step out in faith and lose these things.

The Laodicean church was rich externally, but poor spiritually. Being rich had become their god; yet if one went to a service there on any given day, you would have heard the Gospel, heard that Jesus loves you, heard from one of Paul’s writings, and maybe seen a baptism, yet they were far from God.

Maybe you are your biggest idol; you are more important than God; you are first in your life and not Him. We need to be clearing and tearing down the idols in our lives; I know I had to do some tearing down; maybe you do too!

seangooding@yahoo.ca

Dr. Sean Gooding
Pastor of Bethany Baptist Church
70 Victoria Street, Elora, Ontario

There are no Lone Rangers in the Bible. Adam needed Eve, Moses needed Aaron, David needed Jonathan, Elijah had Elisha, and even in the New Testament, Jesus had a beloved disciple named John. On and on we can go. But as we explore the life of the Apostle Paul and his ministry, it is easy to forget that he did not do the work alone. He had an array of faithful men and women that served alongside him in the field. In this chapter, as in many other of his books, Paul pays homage to them and mentions them. Many of the names we are familiar with, and we hear them over and over as we explore the life of the Apostle Paul. We will explore a few of these here.

Verse 3-4: Priscilla and Aquila, those who served alongside him, his fellow tentmakers. And in verse 4, we see that they too had put their lives in danger for the Gospel. Paul was not the only one living in danger and for fear of life. These folks did as well.

We also see in verse 5 that there was a church in their home. Most of us are not accustomed to this; we attend church service in a building, sometimes an elaborate building, house or ministry. Now, in some cases, these buildings are used for schools and many other functions during the week. But there are a host of church buildings that go unused except for a few hours each week. Maybe, just maybe, there could have been a better use of the monies invested.

Other churches once were larger but now occupy a small percentage of a once well-used building. The members hold on to the building when the monies could be used in missions, in maybe a smaller facility, and more help to your Pastor. I have heard of a situation where 2 churches simply swapped buildings as one was getting bigger and another not growing as much. We need to be careful that the building does not become an idol.

In verse 7, we meet Andronicus and Junia who had been imprisoned with Paul. So not just Silas, but others shared a cell with Paul. This is why we need to read the scriptures and expand our understanding of all that happened and all that these new churches faced in the Roman kingdom.

Then we come to verse 13, and we hear of Rufus. Often, I had read this and not done the connecting of the dots. In Mark 15:21, we have a situation where Jesus stumbles as He is carrying the cross, and they ask Simon of Cyrene to carry it. We are told that he is the father of Alexander and Rufus. Well, many Biblical historians have come to the conclusion that the Rufus we see in Romans 16 is this same Rufus. There we are told that his mother is a mother to Paul as well. Many saved men, many saved people are cut off from their blood families when they are saved, and they need spiritual mothers and fathers to help them. It would appear that Paul had one of those in his life.

Verse 17-18: In contrast to those that help those that hurt alongside contribute personally and financially are those that cause division. God hates discord amongst His people. He hates those that come in and search out our peace and try to steal it. He hates those that are the broken cog in a well-oiled machine. Watch for doctrinal division; we weary of it and get in the way ASAP. Watch for those that bring in division by attitude, a lack of love, a lack of forgiveness, backbiters and complainers; quiet their voices ASAP, or they will slowly break you and stop the wonderful fellowship and progress in the Gospel. It is better to be small, filled with God’s peace, and to be actually contributing to the Kingdom than to be big, divided and useless.

Verse 21-24: Even there on the road, Paul had a large group. In particular, we meet Tertius who wrote the book of Romans. Paul, as he aged, began to lose his eyesight. We see that in his earlier books he wrote them himself, and then as he aged, the books were written in uppercase. Eventually, he would simply dictate them, and then sign them at the end. Most likely, verses 25-27 were written by Paul as a sign that he, in fact, was the one telling Tertius what to write.

Even the Lone Ranger had Tonto; he was not alone. Paul did not do the work alone. Our missionaries that go abroad do not do the work alone. There is an army of people making sure the monies get to where they need to be. Our association of churches, the American Baptist Association, has a man who does logistics. He books plane flights, hotels, and gets people to where they need to go. We have a treasurer that makes sure that cheques get deposited and the special funds get raised so that the missionaries get paid. On and on we can go; it takes a team.

Are you actively involved in spreading the Gospel? Have you found a way to invest yourself in the Kingdom and the work? Get in, get involved, and you know what you can do from your home; get all the prayer cards from the missionaries that visit your church and begin to pray for them daily. Make time, keep the appointment, and get involved.

seangooding@yahoo.ca

Dr. Sean Gooding
Pastor of Bethany Baptist Church
70 Victoria Street, Elora, Ontario