And on that day, declares the Lord of hosts, I will cut off the names of the idols from the land, so that they shall be remembered no more. (Zechariah 13:2 ESV)
False Dependencies
Theodore Roosevelt was a tricky politician. As soon as he attained power, whether as police commissioner of New York, ranch owner in North Dakota, or President of the United States, the first thing he did was sideline anyone who seemed to want his position, power, or praise. In that way, he was known to get rid of Senators, cabinet members, postmasters, and dog-catchers.
But Roosevelt was an amateur compared to God. And even more importantly, Roosevelt did those things selfishly, ambitiously, and cruelly. But God, when He removes His opponents, does so because God loves His people.
We, as God’s people have always done, struggle with false Gods. Whether it was the tower of Babel, or Baal, or the Roman emperors, they found it too easy to slip into trusting the wrong thing. And so do we.
And God promises Zechariah that one of the ways God helps us is to remove those other things we trust.
That is wonderful and scary at the same time. It is wonderful because it shows how much He loves us. He not only took away the sins of God’s people through the cross, He also works to take away those false things we falsely trust.
It is scary because we do not want Him to take away the things we trust. When we lose what we have been trusting in, it hurts. We miss that thing. But God is saying, you do not need THAT. You have me.
When we depend too much on our money, He not only forgives our falseness… but He takes away that money. When we depend too much on a form of government, He takes away that form of government. When we depend too much on our health, He takes away that health. When we depend too much on our abilities, He takes away those abilities.
And He replaces them with Jesus.
That is a good trade.
We are peculiar, God takes away our false dependencies.