They have no clue what they’re doing and don’t comprehend how absurd it is! For they shut their eyes so they cannot see. They close their hearts so they cannot understand. 19 They have no knowledge, no understanding, no discernment to say, “Half of the wood I burned in the fire. I roasted meat and cooked my dinner. Now should I take the rest of the wood and make it into an abomination? Should I bow down and worship a block of wood?” 20 He feeds his spirit on ashes! His deluded heart leads him astray. He can’t even ask himself, “Is this thing I’m holding in my right hand a fraud?” Isaiah 44:18-20

Isaiah is showing us spiritual blindness and dullness is self-inflicted. It is a choice we make to shut God out. When this happens we go down a road of rebellion and idolatry because man needs something to worship. If he rejects God what better way to fill this spiritual void than to create a god in his own image. A god who is accommodating, progressive, and fitted to the times. A god who is light on holiness but heavy on love, perfectly unbalanced to meet the needs of modern man.

This man then finds his people who help reinforce he is right and in Isaiah’s words, “His deluded heart leads him astray.” When confronted with the truth he cannot question this delusion or ask himself if this even makes sense. His food is the ashes of dead religion meant to fool an empty stomach longing for spiritual nutrition and the bread of Heaven.