Idea: How pitiful man is when he turns from the living God to the superstitions of the world around, to the thought that men might manipulate God.
1. A Failed Aliance - Syria looked prosperous in Isaiah's day. But Isaiah warned against presuming that Syria was spiritually superior. Their worship of Baal, an impersonal god, was superstitious and manipulative. Worshippers would act in a certain way, hoping that their god would respond in kind. So you want your god to make your land produce lots of crops or your family to have lots of children, you perform sexual rites of worship. You want your enemy to be killed, you kill something, maybe your own children.
2. You Cannot Manipulate God - God judged Damascus, removing its prosperity and power, its harvests and victories. Baal did not control the harvest and the seasons. God does. Tragically, while Syria prospered, Israel turned to tag along with Syria, conspiring to get where Syria was. Ironically, God said that he would turn their harvests into nothing. Where they thought to manipulate God to bring prosperity, God responded by turning their prosperity into poverty.
3. Restoration of Pure Trust - God promises to cleanse His people from their idolatry and to revive their pure trust in Him, in the Rock of our Salvation (see 1 Cor 10). They would be freed from their conspiring against God and from their attempts to manipulate God.
4. Modern Manipulation - Bargaining with God Superstition
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