Wiping Out Idolatry (2 Kings 10:27)
And they demolished the pillar of Baal, and demolished the house of Baal, and made it a latrine to this day.
—2 Kings 10:27
What a verse. Jehu basically leads the charge in wiping out Baal from Israel. That’s actually what the very next verse says, 2 Kings 10:28. And as I read this verse, I just think about the need to wipe out Baal, all idolatry in our lives, in our hearts.
So I just want to encourage you today, like even in this moment, what in your heart are you prone to worship, to desire, to trust, to hope in, to long for more than God? What are you prone to desire more than God? What are you prone to hope in, put your trust in more than God? What are you prone to long for more than you long for God? This is where we realize that many times, if not most times, idols are actually good things.
2 Kings 10:27 calls us to remove everything that competes with God.
They’re oftentimes really good gifts that God gives that we’re prone to put in the place of God. That’s what makes them idols. We want them. We desire them. But this is also why we need to pause and take inventory of our hearts and ask, what am I putting in the place that only God deserves? Think about Jesus saying in the New Testament in Matthew 10,
Anyone who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. He goes on to talk about other family relationships or anything that to follow Jesus means to live with supreme love for God that puts everything else in perspective, and everything else pales in comparison.
So, God, we pray, search our hearts even now. What are the good things or evil things that we are desiring more than you, that we’re longing for more than you, that we’re trusting in or hoping in or looking forward to more than you? God, please show us where things like money or possessions or various pleasures in this world, pursuits in this world— sex, sports, success in work or school, whatever it might be— God, we pray that you would help us to demolish idolatry from our hearts. Just like we read in 2 Kings 10, they demolished the pillar of Baal and made it a latrine. To this day, Jehu wiped out Baal from Israel.
2 Kings 10:27 points us toward wholehearted satisfaction in God.
God, wipe out the idols from our hearts and our lives, we pray, that you might be supreme in our affections and our devotion and our worship and our trust and our hope and our longings and our desires.
And God, we pray that as our souls are satisfied supremely in you, in worshiping you, you use us to spread your worship around us in this world. Help us to show this world that you are infinitely better than money.
That you’re infinitely better than all the pleasures of this world put together. That we’re not a people who just seek after everything else that the world seeks after and then tack on Jesus on Sundays. No, that you are supreme in our lives and we love you. And even when good things are taken away from us, we trust in you. We hope in you. Lord, we long for you. We desire you. We still have you.
Oh God, help us to live lives that are the overflow of supreme joy and satisfaction in you and affection for you, that your glory might spread through us.
A Prayer for the Didoi People
God, we pray for your glory to spread all around the world over all the idols of this world. We pray specifically today for the Didoi people of Russia and Georgia. God, we pray that this people group that doesn’t know your glory and beauty, Lord Jesus, that they would be reached with the good news of who you are, that they might find eternal satisfaction in you as God. We pray this over them, even as we pray this over our own lives. In Jesus’ name, amen.
