2 Samuel 5:21 “And there they left their images, and David and his men burned them.”

If you’ve ever read the Old Testament, you’ll find that God’s nation of Israel had a lot of trouble with “images”.

And images are still a big problem today.

In the law, before Israel went in to finally possess the land that God had promised Abraham, the first Hebrew, many years before… God commanded them to “break down their images” of the people in who’s land they were going to possess.

He didn’t want them just to break and cut them down, but to completely do away with and destroy them, because they gave Israel so much trouble.

And yes, these images were images of the gods of the other nations… gods who were unable to deliver these nations by the way… but they were also like many images which still persist and plague God’s people today.

Do you have trouble with images? Maybe you do more than you think.
Images are formed in the imagination of man… we all have an imagination, a mental space which creates and carves what we worship, what we dream of, what we crave for, even our own image of God.

Whether you consider yourself religious or not, you are a creature of worship, and you are worshipping something, and you are bowing to what images are in your head.

One image which is severely affecting God’s people is “pornography”. Just look at the etymology of the word, porno-graphy… “graphy” is where we get the word “graphic” from. It’s a visual word.

Pornography puts graphic images in our mind which may never be erased. And these images can greatly affect us, pervert our thinking and understanding and expectations of sex, and we bow down and worship these images that it puts in our head.

Many young boys and also girls grow up on porn these days, and they worship the images that they’ve seen and desire to fulfill them on themselves and others.

And a great deal of what we are seeing today in society is coming from the “god” and images of pornography, which creates a thirst and desire in people which may take them far beyond the “line” they thought they might have.

At the time, we don’t see the damage that images are doing to us and the people we are projecting them upon… we don’t see the harm at the time that sin does our own soul and spirit.

The Bible says “Can a man take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burned?” and it doesn’t say it in vain, if you mess in pornography, it will burn you in the end. It’s not worth it.

But that’s not the only image affecting God’s people, because there is an image of jealousy that Ezekiel spoke of which is perhaps even worse… which is perverting the image of God himself using the graving tools of our imagination.

Many of us are guilty of serving a God that we have created, rather than the God that created us.

Many of us are guilty of melting down the incorruptible image of God and recasting his perfect image in a melted down and degraded version of “God” that we’re more than happy to serve, who really serves us, who is shaped by and conforms to our depraved minds and how we think he should be.

This is why Israel loved false gods and their images, despite how ludicrous it seems for Israel to serve lifeless images, yet we are guilty of the very same thing, images that exist only in our mind and fantasy but just as dumb as the idols they decided to follow rather than actual God.

Nevertheless, the truth remains… despite what truths we create for ourself.

And it is that there is one real God in heaven, the most High, the one true God, and he has revealed himself to humanity through his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ… and he’s defined himself through his own word, untouched and unshaped and unadulterated by man… and while we may think highly of ourselves, this God doesn’t conform or commit himself to any human beings imagination.

The Bible says to Christians in 2 Corinthians “Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;” …and it says it for a reason.

It’s because no matter how much your imagination is flattered these days by other men… God knows how evil it is. Our imagination is a place of unimaginable (no pun intended!) evil and wickedness.

It was so bad back in Genesis 6… just six chapters into the Bible! … that God had to destroy a whole world “And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”

And so the verse quoted at the start deals with a key victory that David had after he became king over Israel. He burnt the Philistine images… and made sure they were gone. This is a victory Jesus must have in your life after you get right with him and he takes the throne of your heart to rule and reign.

There’s plenty of images been put in our head, mind and heart which oppose God, oppose truth, and oppose our own soul, salvation and sanctification… may we all pray for God’s grace in identifying and dealing with them… because they’ll end up ruining our life forever if we do not.

Blog Christian Church Faith God Heart Idol Idolatry Image Images Imagination Jesus Mind Pornography Salvation