Passage: Exodus 23:24-26

The Big Idea

How do you get blessed? Hard work, luck, the right connections, religious effort? God promised Israel blessed bread and water, freedom from sickness, fruitfulness and full lives, if they tore down their idols. An idol is anything we turn to for what only God can give. Under the New Covenant, these physical blessings picture spiritual realities we receive in Jesus: nourishment, healing from sin, fruitfulness and abundant life. Blessing isn’t found anywhere but in Him, and it comes through faith, not through backup idols.

How Do You Make Your Life Better?

Hard work? (Ronald Reagan once joked that hard work never killed anybody, but why take the chance?) Luck? Self-help? Knowing the right people? Getting the right degree? Making wise decisions? Going to church? Serving the poor? Tithing? Loving God and others?

Here’s what we’ll see: blessings aren’t found anywhere except in relationship with Jesus Christ, even though we keep trying to get them through idols. It never works.

Three Promises

God gives three promises in this chapter that point us to Jesus:

He will lead.
He will bless.
He will fight for us.

The Conditions (Exodus 23:24-26)

“Don’t bow down to their gods or worship them or follow their practices. Demolish them and smash their sacred stones to pieces. Worship the LORD your God, and He will bless your bread and your water. I will take away sickness from among you. No one will miscarry or be barren in your land. I will give you a full life span.“

What were the conditions?

No idolatry.
Don’t bow to them.
Don’t serve them.
Don’t imitate their practices.
Give them no place, no importance, no influence.
Demolish them.

Rejecting idols is foundational for God’s people, in Israel and in the church.

Does that mean no statues in the house? No watching a TV talent show called Idol? Can an object be an idol?

It’s really about faith. Who will we put our trust in: God, or an idol?

Burning the Books (Acts 19:18-20)

In Ephesus, many who became believers came and openly confessed their practices. A number who had practiced sorcery brought their scrolls together and burned them publicly. When they added up the value, it came to fifty thousand pieces of silver, a fortune. And the word of the Lord spread widely and grew in power.

Those books represented what they had trusted before they came to know Jesus.
That’s idolatry: the ways of the world, the things people turn to when times are tough or something is needed.

That’s how you can identify your idols too.

An idol is anything we turn to for what we need, besides Jesus.

Idols can be:

Money
Sex
Friendship
Power
Control
Even church
Achievement and recognition
Entertainment
Lust
Lying
Adultery
Jobs
Safety and security
And many more

Ancient people openly trusted in spiritual beings to help them. That’s still practiced around the world. Today we call ourselves advanced, yet we often turn to the same idols, while denying the spiritual forces behind them.

We still worship the idol of power, much like Baal. The urge to control others and rebel against God’s authority runs deep in our society.

An idol is anything we turn to for what we need, besides Jesus.

Rachel’s Backup Plan

Remember Jacob’s family leaving Laban’s house (Genesis 31)?

They had seen God’s faithfulness. They’d learned He could be trusted.
Yet as they left, Rachel secretly stole her father’s household idols and hid them in her camel’s saddle (Genesis 31:19, 34).
Why? Perhaps she wanted a backup plan.
Deep down, maybe she didn’t fully believe God would take care of her.
That’s the only reason anyone keeps a “just in case” idol in their bag: wanting something else to turn to besides God.

Jesus offers complete salvation: not only forgiveness of sins, but freedom from their power. That’s real blessing.

But His “price” can seem high.

He doesn’t ask for good works or sacrifices to prove how sincere we are.
He asks that we surrender our idols. All of them.
Idols are things we trust. Jesus asks to be the One we trust.
You could say idols are things we love more than God. Love and trust are deeply connected.
It’s like a husband asking his wife to be faithful to him alone. Not so crazy.
It’s a relationship reality. To cast down our idols is to stop trusting them and stop turning to them.

The enemy has nothing to tempt us with except idols.

“Remember how this made you feel loved? Comforted?”
He reminds you how the idol used to “work,” how you used to feel better trusting it. And it did, for a while.

But God won’t let it work for His children anymore. He won’t let us experience the blessings He’s promised while we’re turning to idols.

“Why don’t I have peace?” God sees the idol I’m trusting. He wants to give me peace. He’s done everything to purchase it, and He offers it. But I don’t experience it, because I insist on keeping my idol:

My status
My relationship
My anger
My worry
My stuff
My entertainment
My “me time”
My overtime
My fear

Which idol is keeping you from His blessing? Probably the one you’d rather not talk about. The one you don’t want to burn.

There are always reasons to hang on to an idol. It’s how you’ve always done things. It’s comfortable and familiar. It’s how you’ve coped with pain and rejection your whole life.

But you can let it go today. You can burn it in public. Because the gospel freely gives you everything you were trying to get from that idol.

He takes our hurt and replaces it with peace and joy. He’ll wipe away every tear. He comforts us with true comfort by the Holy Spirit. That’s the only real answer to pain.
He accepts us as His children. That’s why so many people chase relationship after relationship: a deep need to be accepted. They look for love in all the wrong places. In Jesus we’re fully accepted (Ephesians 1:6).

The Blessings

What did God promise?

“He will bless your bread and your water.” Food would nourish more; water would refresh more.
“I will take away sickness.” Israel would be spared the diseases of Egypt.
“No one will miscarry or be barren.” Things that should live wouldn’t die.
“I will give you a full life span.” Your life would be all it’s meant to be.

These promises teach us how God works in our lives through Jesus. Under the Old Covenant, these were largely physical, national blessings tied to Israel’s obedience. Under the New Covenant, they point to spiritual realities given freely to us through union with Christ by faith. (God can and does heal and provide physically, but He hasn’t promised believers a life free of all sickness or loss in this age. Our deepest blessings are spiritual, and our full redemption is still coming, Romans 8:23.)

Bread and water: spiritual nourishment

Jesus is our bread and water.

“I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever” (John 6:51).
“Whoever drinks the water I give will never thirst; it will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:14).

But if we turn to idols, we’ll be spiritually dry and malnourished.

Example: We feel dry, so we turn to a new relationship, a new job or a new show, hoping it’ll nourish us. It works for a while. Then it stops working, because we’re God’s children and He won’t let idols satisfy us.

Solution: It’s in Jesus. Feed on Him. Drink from Him.

Sickness: healing from sin

Sin is the sickness afflicting us all. Through trusting Jesus and believing His gospel, we’re healed.

“He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by His wounds you have been healed” (1 Peter 2:24).

But if we turn to idols, we stay spiritually sick.

Example: Pornography is an idol. It poisons our ability to love our spouse. Our capacity to love grows weak and sickly when we turn to it.

Solution: It’s in Jesus. Believe the gospel: you don’t need that idol. God has provided everything you need in Jesus. As you believe it and fix your eyes on Him, there’s deep healing.

Barrenness: fruitfulness

Jesus makes our lives fruitful. He produces fruit in us through communion with Him.

If we turn to idols, life may look busy, but it won’t be truly fruitful.

“Remain in Me, and I will remain in you. A branch can’t bear fruit by itself unless it remains in the vine, and neither can you unless you remain in Me” (John 15:4).

If we trust idols, things that should be alive will die. That’s not God’s plan.

Example: A parent wants their family to follow God and make good choices, but turns to the idol of anger and manipulation to force it. God doesn’t let it work. He frustrates the plan.

Solution: It’s in Jesus. Those who wait on the Lord receive His grace. Trust Jesus and pray with confidence. In every interaction with your family, act with love, patience and kindness.

A full life: abundant life

Jesus gives life beyond measure, not just a long life, but a full one.

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly” (John 10:10).

But if we turn to idols, life loses its meaning. Something’s always missing.

Example: A man chases success, always reaching for the next promotion and the bigger payoff. In the end he dies empty. His life seems pointless, and all his stuff goes to someone else. However hard he worked, it didn’t last.

Solution: It’s in Jesus. Seek God’s kingdom first. “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me” (Galatians 2:20). That’s the gospel. Believe that those things aren’t what a child of God really wants. What you really want is to see God’s kingdom grow through your life.

Grace Takeaway

Blessing isn’t found anywhere except in relationship with Jesus Christ, even though we keep trying to find it in idols. It never works. It’s in Jesus. How do you get into Him? The same way Israel was to enter the promised land: by faith. Enter into the Promised One by faith. Burn your backup plans, and let Him be your bread, your water, your healing, your fruitfulness and your life.

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