Hideyoshi, a Japanese warlord who ruled over Japan in the late 1500s, commissioned a colossal statue of Buddha for a shrine in Kyoto. It took 50,000 men five
years to build, but the work had scarcely been completed when the earthquake of
1596 brought the roof of the shrine crashing down and wrecked the statue. In a
rage Hideyoshi shot an arrow at the fallen colossus. "I put you here at great expense," he shouted, "and you can't even look after your own temple." (Today in
the Word, MBI, August, 1991)
Dagon, the Philistine fish-god in today’s text, was much like Hideyoshi’s Buddha
in that he couldn’t even look after his own temple. In fact Dagon was knocked
down on his face by the Lord and broken into pieces. But the Philistines still
chose to worship him over Jehovah anyway.
I wonder how many of our gods, God has knocked down and yet we still give
them priority over Him. Today’s lesson serves a reminder of the foolishness of
serving other gods rather than Jesus, and should help motivate us “to keep ourselves from idols!”
George
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