by Tom Wacaster
This past week has been
a week of festivity in honor of the Hindu God. Worship services to that idol
occur daily, extending into the late hours of the night during this week long
festivity. It is sad to see such devotion to a false god. In contrast it is
rewarding to see those who hear the truth and turn away from that false system
of worship to serve the true and living God. There is one interesting feature
of this week long festivity that caught my interest. During the week gifts are
given to this false Hindu god, and at the end of the week’s festivity, the idol
is placed on a wagon, and taken to the river and thrown in the river, along
with the treasures and gifts that were given by the devotees of the idol. Many
people die attempting to recover some of the treasures that are cast into the
river with the idol. Every town has a number of these idols, and so when these
false gods are put on the wagons, the procession can be quite lengthy. We were
returning from a late night preaching appointment and passed one of those
wagons that had evidently made its way to the river and was now returning to
town. The decorations still draped the wagon, but the idol was gone. Gone too
were the merrymaking, singing and dancing, and loud musical procession that
accompanied the wagon on its way to the river. And I thought to myself, “An
empty wagon going nowhere.” That adequately describes the essence of the Hindu
religion. While it may carry a colorful idol, and be draped with ribbons, and
surrounded with singing and dancing, it is really an empty wagon going nowhere.
It is empty, vain, and futile, whether it is going to or coming from the river.
Many a life can be described with the same words. All of us are on the road to
eternity. Some travel the narrow way; while others march with the multitudes
down that broad path that leads to eternal ruin. Some, like the Hindu idol, are
surrounded with wealth, merriment, and pleasure. Some are devotees to false
religion; others to no religion at all. Multitudes are marching in the long
dark night of spiritual darkness to eternal separation from God. With no
awareness of their lost condition, they march on. Like that idolatrous
procession going to the river, the masses of humanity are marching toward the
river that will forever separate them from the God Who created them and loves
them. And so many of them could easily have the epitaph engraved upon their
tombstone: “An empty wagon going nowhere.” How sad!