Day 164, Year 1

Eradicating the Voices of Idols Within

“Therefore speak to them and tell them, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD, Any man of the house of Israel who sets up his idols in his heart, puts right before his face the stumbling block of his iniquity, and then comes to the prophet, I the LORD will be brought to give him an answer in the matter in view of the multitude of his idols.'” (Ezekiel 14:4 NASB)

The act of receiving the Lord Jesus into one’s heart, in fact, has an Old Testament background. Around 600 years before Christ, the prophet Ezekiel received today’s scripture. The “idols” refer to the gods of the neighboring nations around Israel at that time. From the New Testament perspective, behind these idols were actually evil spirits. The situation was thus quite terrifying. When the Israelites sought counsel from the true prophets of God while believing in and worshiping these evil spirits, the responses they received were only from the devil. God allowed those evil spirits to impersonate His voice to answer their inquiries. This could explain why, as mentioned previously, God appears as deceitful to those who intentionally distort the truth.

When we ponder the sound of Jesus knocking at the door, note that in the case of the Laodicean church, though He was absent inside, there did not seem to be evil spirits in that church. However, for some who call themselves believers, there might already be the voices of idols or the evil spirits within them. How, then, could they possibly hear the voice of the Lord Jesus? Thus, they must first cast out the idols from within. Idols are closely associated with “the stumbling block of his iniquity” in today’s scripture. It refers to the sin of idolatry. To truly hear and obey His voice, we need to truly long to listen to Him, including the sound of His knocking. And before that, we must demolish all our idols and eradicate the clamor of idolatry. If there is anything in your heart that you know is not in line with Jesus, discard it as soon as possible. Otherwise, those sins will become your stumbling blocks and cause your eternal calamity.

If believers have the sins of false gods and idolatry, this is often due to the influence of others, such as family members, elders, friends, etc. We need to ask Jesus Christ to forgive us for worshiping those false gods and idols, and for following the sins and foolishness of others. Subsequently, we can ask Him to remove the related noises so that our hearts may be cleansed and we can eventually hear His voice clearly. If you believe you have no issue with idolatry, which will be discussed later on, please pray for those who are struggling with idolatry and hard to hearing God’s voice, or have difficulty opening their doors of hearts to Him.

Reflection questions:

1) Do you think there are voices of idols or evil spirits within you? If so, are you determined to remove them completely?

2) Are you sure you do not worship any idols now? If you discover any idols or false gods that might have replaced the one and only God, quickly repent and ask Him to help you to discard all of them!