Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Idols Can't Save You | Historical Books | Isaiah 46

Episode Date: December 15, 2025

Do you know the ten commandments? Who were the Babylonian gods? What are your idols? In today's episode, Keith shares how Isaiah 46 reminds us that it is futile to worship idols. Read the Bible with us in 2026! This year, we’re exploring the Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Download your reading plan now. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it so that others can find it, too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Isaiah 46

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Keith Simon. The Ten Commandments are one of the most familiar parts of the Bible, but that doesn't mean that people actually know the Ten Commandments. Back when Stephen Colbert used to have a show on Comedy Central, he interviewed a U.S. rep from Georgia. The rep's name was Lynn Westmoreland, and the Congressman went on the Cobert show to promote his proposal to post the Ten Commandments in the United States House. and Senate. Representative Westmoreland said that the Ten Commandments were so important to the direction of the country that they needed to be publicly displayed in the congressional chambers.

Colbert gave the Congressman plenty of time to explain the importance of the Ten Commandments. But it got funny when Cobar asked Westmoreland to name the Ten Commandments, because he couldn't. The guy who said the Ten Commandments were important could name less than half of them. Do you think you can name all the Ten Commandments? You can find them in Exodus 20 and due to Deeronomy, five. Let's review them just in case you're ever asked to name them. The first commandment is you shall have no other gods before me. Second, you shall not make an image of God. Third, you shall not misuse God's name. Fourth, you shall keep the Sabbath holy. Fifth, you shall honor your mother and your father. Sixth, you shall not murder. Seven, you shall not commit

adultery. Eight, you shall not steal. Nine, you shall not bear false witness. Ten, you shall not covet. One more quick thing. All the Ten commandments are repeated in the New Testament except the fourth one, which is to keep the Sabbath holy. Today, though, we're focused on the first commandment, to have no other gods before the Lord. To worship other gods is to commit the sin of idolatry. Idolatry is giving an idol or a false God what you should only give the true God. When you read through the Bible, you see that idolatry is the fundamental sin human beings are guilty of. In Romans 1, Paul says, they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshipped and served created things rather than the Creator. That's what idolatry is, serving something in creation instead of the God who created it. Another consistent biblical

pattern is that we are influenced by the idols of the culture we live in. When Israel went into the promised land, they were tempted to serve the idols of the nations who lived there. When they were taken captive to Babylon, they were tempted to serve and worship the Babylonian gods. Of course, the same is true of us. We are tempted to worship the idols of money, sex, power, human approval, and all the other false gods our culture promotes. So all this brings us to Isaiah chapter 46, where God is calling his people to turn away from serving the Babylonian gods and to worship the one true God. I'll read the opening verses.

Bell bows down, Nebo stoops low. Their idols are born by beasts of burden. The images that are carried about are burdensome, a burden for the weary. They stoop and bow down together, unable to rescue the burden. They themselves go off into captivity. Now, who are Bell and Nebo? Well, Bell was the patron god of Babylon, the king of the gods, and determiner of the destinies of nations.

At least that's what the Babylonians believed. And Nebo was his eldest son. These were the most important gods in Babylon. And according to the Babylonian worldview, these gods made the nation of Babylon the leading culture of the world. So every year the Babylonians gathered to worship Belle and Nebo at their New Year festival. And at the festival, the images or the statues of Bell and Nebo were carried in grand procession through the city as tokens of good

fortune for the coming year. But Isaiah looks at that same procession, and what does he see? Well, he doesn't see Bell and Nebo triumphantly leading the way into the future. No, what Isaiah sees are donkeys lugging these big, heavy idols through town. Isaiah isn't dazzled by the official line. He sees the obvious. If a God has to be carried, how can it carry you? If a God can't help itself, how can it help you? If a God needs your strength, how can it strength? How can it strength? strength in you. Now, notice that Isaiah doesn't believe that Bell and Ebo are different names for the same God everyone worships. Many people today claim that different religions are simply different paths up the same mountain, different paths to the same God. But Isaiah says, no, these are false gods. The one true God is very

different from the false gods of Bell and Nebo or any of the other Babylonian gods. Here we're back in Isaiah 46, verse 3. Listen to me, you descendants. of Jacob, all the remnant of the people of Israel, you whom I have upheld since your birth and have carried since you were born. Even to your old age and gray hairs, I am he. I am he who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you. I will sustain you and I will rescue you. Do you hear the contrast? People carry idols, but the one true God carries us. He carries us from our birth to our old age. We honor God when we depend on him and acknowledge our need for him. Psalm 55 says, cast your burden on the Lord and he will sustain you. Psalm 68 says,

Blessed be the Lord who daily bears us up. First Peter says, cast all your anxieties on him because he cares for you. God doesn't just carry you. He wants to carry you. He wants you to depend on him, not on yourself, not on anyone else. Back to Isaiah 46. In verse 5, God asks questions. He says, with whom will you compare me or count me equal? To whom will you liken me that we may be compared? Now, those are rhetorical questions.

The ensuing silence is the point. No one compares to the Lord. No one is his equal. We pick back up in Isaiah 46. Some pour out gold from their bags and weigh out silver in the scales. They hire a goldsmith to make it into a god, and they bowed down and worship it. They lift it to their shoulders and carry it. They set it up on its place, and there it stands.

From that spot, it cannot move. Even though someone cries out to it, it cannot answer. It cannot save them from their troubles. The false gods are made from silver and gold. In other words, they are made from creation. And remember, the essence of idolatry is worshiping the creation instead of the creator. But the bigger point in here, is that idols can't save you, which is ironic, since that's the reason we look to idols.

We look to idols to help us, but they can't. Let me give you a few examples of how idols fail us. If you center your life and identity on your spouse or your boyfriend or girlfriend, you will be emotionally dependent upon them. You'll become jealous of them. You'll be attempted to control them. Their problems will be overwhelming to you. If you center your life and identity on your family and children, you'll try to live your life through your children until they resent you or have no real life of their own.

At worst, you may even abuse them when they displease you and fail you. If you center your life and identity on your working career, you will be a driven workaholic and a boring, shallow person. At worst, you will lose your family and friends, and if your career goes poorly, develop deep depression. If you center your life and identity on money and possessions, you'll be eaten up by worry or jealousy about money. You'll be willing to do unethical things to maintain your lifestyle, which will eventually blow up your life. If you center your life and identity on pleasure or gratification and comfort, you'll find yourself getting addicted to something. You'll become chained to the escape strategies by which you avoid the challenges of life. If you center your life and identity on relationships and human

approval. You will be constantly overly sensitive to criticism and thus always losing friends because they'll always end up hurting your feelings. You will fear confronting others and therefore be a useless friend. If you center your life and identity on a noble cause, then you'll divide the world into the good people and the bad people. You'll be tempted to demonize your opponents. Ironically, you'll be controlled by your enemies because without them, your life won't have purpose. If you center your life and identity on religion and morality, you will, if you're living up to your moral standards, be proud and self-righteous. If you don't live up to your own moral standards, your guilt will be utterly devastating. See, idols always fail you because they can't do the thing they promise.

They can't do what you want, what you ask of them. They can't bring true life. They are, after all, just man-made things. Contrast them to the one true God. Back in Isaiah 46, it says this. remember this keep it in mind take it to heart you rebels remember the former things those of long ago i am god and there is no other i am god and there's none like me i make known the end from the beginning from ancient times what is still to come i say my purpose will stand and i will do all that i please

see what separates the true god from the false gods is that the true god knows all things he knows the end from the beginning he knows the future before it happens and he does whatever please Heases Him. You see, you can put your hope and trust in the true God. You can look to him to carry you. You can look to him to meet your needs because he doesn't have needs. You can look to him for strength. You can look to him for everything you need in life. What's kind of interesting is that idols are almost always good things that we've made into ultimate things, good things that we've given ultimate allegiance to. They take the place of God in our life. Here's another way of saying it. An idol is anything other than God. that you look to to be your hope or your acceptance or your security or to give you meaning to your life. You can make an idol out of your career or your education or family or pleasure or success or food. The list of things we can turn into idols is endless. Perhaps the most common idol, though, is just ourselves. We idolize ourselves when we make ourselves central and God peripheral.

Idolatry is common in the Old Testament. It's common in the New Testament. It's common in our life today. What Isaiah 46 is trying to do is expose how futile it is to worship idols and to call us back to worship the one true God. Amen.