A false doctrine can contain in itself wonderful truths and their supporter can use sublime terms but interpret them in such a function that they will arouse sinful motives in the person accepting those truths and terms.

In God's acting toward a man we see the wisdom by which the divine pedagogy saves a man lest the latter transform the blessings of God's mercy and patronage because of the weakness of his nature, into a damnation.

When God speaks about the blessings He gives to His people, then He pronounces the warning that it is not the people who have some values in themselves (its earthly "roots") nor merits, on the basis of which He would bless them:

"For thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God: the Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth. The Lord did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all people: But because the Lord loved you, and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, hath the Lord brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt." (Deuteronomy 7:6-8)

A man is not saved by his righteousness but by his choice. "Therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live, ... for he is thy life" (Deuteronomy 30:19-20) Loyalty to God is a prerequisite of blessing but not because the mercy is earned by that loyalty but because the mercy is accepted by it.

"When the Lord your God thrusts them out before you, do not say to yourself, 'It is because of my righteousness that the Lord has brought me in to occupy this land'; it is rather because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is dispossessing them before you. It is not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart that you are going in to occupy their land; but because of the wickedness of these nations the Lord your God is dispossessing them before you, in order to fulfill the promise that the Lord made on oath to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. Know, then, that the Lord your God is not giving you this good land to occupy because of your righteousness; for you are a stubborn people." (Deuteronomy 9:4- 6)

Lest the people attribute to themselves the glory of the victory over the surrounding pagan tribes and thus burden themselves with self- love and ambition, God used Moses:

"Whenever Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed; and whenever he lowered his hand, Amalek prevailed." (Exodus 17:11)

So it was clear to the Israelites that they were not winning by their strength and abilities. And how did God prevent them to adore Moses as someone who, by his force, perhaps bioenergy, was giving the strength to the Israelites? The Biblical account says:

"But Moses' hands grew weary; so they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it. Aaron and Hur held up his hands, one on one side, and the other on the other side; so his hands were steady until the sun set." (Exodus 17:12)

When Moses did not have the strength to hold his own arms upright, how then he alone would have the strength to help Israel?

Lest the people adore a man as a saviour, God often used men who were weak themselves. Having been invited by God to rescue Israel, Gedeon answered:

"He responded, 'But sir, how can I deliver Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family.' The Lord said to him, 'But I will be with you, and you shall strike down the Midianites, every one of them.'" (Judges 6:15-16)

God also used a woman several times through whom He did great things. So it was obvious, especially to the Israelites, that strength is not in body but in God.

Sometimes God used very "banal" reasons in order to announce clearly that He is the only Saviour. When the Israelites were attacked in the desert by poisonous serpents, God asked a look of faith at the bronze serpent nailed on a stick. It was clear to all that the serpent itself did not have the power to save but that the miracle was done by God. The serpent on the stick represented actually the evil nailed on the cross. It had its rational message - to point to the plan of salvation, as the rituals of the ceremonial law do. They did not win a man's feelings as pagan rituals did. The slaughter of innocent animals cannot give confidence and encouragement to a corporal heart. But it can send the reasonable revelation of salvation to the mind of a sinner who became aware, through God's law, of the need for the Redeemer.

By no human sacrifice, authority, nor the presents (bribe) can a man deserve or merit a favor from Heaven:

"For the Lord your God is God of gods, and Lord of lords, a great God, a mighty, and a terrible, which regardeth not persons, nor taketh reward." (Deuteronomy 10:17)

Therefore the salutary message of Gospel does not ask from a man to offer something great to God but to accept in his humility and simplicity what God gives him.

Being ill with leprosy, the Syrian duke Naaman asked for the miracle of healing and the prophet Elisha gave him a simple directive to wash himself seven times in the Jordan. Naaman doubted initially and refused God's salutary proposal:

"Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? may I not wash in them, and be clean? So he turned and went away in a rage. And his servants came near, and spake unto him, and said, My father, if the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldest thou not have done it? how much rather then, when he saith to thee, Wash, and be clean? Then went he down, and dipped himself seven times in Jordan, according to the saying of the man of God: and his flesh came again like unto the flesh of a little child, and he was clean." (2 Kings 5:12-14)

Naaman was not recovered by the very act of washing himself in the Jordan but by the faith in God just displayed by him on that occasion.

When a woman who had had a flow of blood was healed by touching Christ's garment, it was clear that it was not touching Christ that healed her, for others also were touching Him (see Luke 8:45). Only the faith is salutary just showed by the woman in such a way:

"And he said unto her, Daughter, be of good comfort: thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace." (Luke 8:48)

When the walls of Jericho fell down, that was not achieved by magic encircling them, but by the faith the Jews just showed in that way.

"By faith the walls of Jericho fell down, after they were compassed about seven days." (Hebrews 11:30)

Lest a God's miracle be ascribed to the natural course of things or a chance but to the one Who revealed Himself to us by the miracle, God relates it with His faithful servants.

"And it came to pass, as they were burying a man, that, behold, they spied a band of men; and they cast the man into the sepulchre of Elisha: and when the man was let down, and touched the bones of Elisha, he revived, and stood up on his feet." (2 Kings 13:21)

The dead bones of prophet Elisha certainly were not able to give life for "life can originate from Life only". Thus God reminds the Israelites of His own force and power related by Him to the principles of living followed by His faithful servant Elisha.

Let us notice that the miracles done by God were not based on certain principle or technique. The army commanders of Israel did not hold their arms always upright in order to receive God's blessing in war nor they were always encircling a hostile fortress in order that its walls fall down. If a man should, later on, be bit by serpent, he would not install the bronze serpent on the stick again and look at it. If Syrian army commanders should get leper, they would not be healed by washing themselves in Jordan. If people should die, they would not be resurrected through Elisha's bones but that was happening, as well as in other examples, just on one occasion.

When people still tried to make a principle from a miracle, God often showed by His intervention that it was the loyalty to Him and not the matter or magic power that His approval and blessing depends on. When Israelites tried to win the battle against Philistines with help of the Testament Tabernacle (with the tablets of Ten Commandments), the Philistines grabbed the Tabernacle from them. And when they began to offer incense to the bronze serpent, the faithful king Ezekiel shattered the serpent lest it represent any more the opportunity for idolatry and magic (2 Kings 18:4).

Satan tries to abuse the manifestation of God's force ascribing to people the rituals or things a principle of miraculous power. And so, right the means used by God to show that He is a mighty Saviour, and not that means itself, is used by Satan to humiliate a man even more, inducing him to adore a thing or ritual instead of Creator.

His humiliating of human dignity goes even so far that we see in the Christian world the people that bow in the temple of the living Saviour to the bones of dead creatures. In the East, believers eat the excrement of the supreme lama from Tibet, etc. Of course, there are always miracles (Deuteronomy 13:1-4, Isaiah 8:20) by which Satan appeases the conscience of a man before his humiliation: the relics heal, the excrement of the supreme lama is a medicine for all diseases, blood drips from statues, etc. The common sense has long been sacrificed lest it disturb the lulled conscience.

"Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen." (Romans 1:21-25)

Throughout Biblical history, from Adam to the apostles, we will not find any case that God performed a miracle through an icon or picture. Of course, not without reason.

Worshipping icons was not a characteristic of early Christian Church. Here is the evidence of that we find with its church fathers and earlier synods:

"It is an insult for God to make an image of Him in wood or stone." (Justin the Martyr, Justin's apology, II, p.44)

"God is to be respected withot pictures. Worshipping icons disgraces God." (Augustin, De Civitate Dei, 1. VII, C.5.)

"Infamy would be done by a believer who makes a material image in a church; thence he would be guilty of blasphemy condemned by saint Paul for he would thereby replace the form of the immortal God with a form of a mortal man." (Augustin, De Fide, fym. c. VII)

"We Christians have nothing in common with statues, for it is said by the second God's commandment. The first thing we bring forth to those who come to us - is to scorn idols and all statues and pictures; the character of Christian religion is such that it tend to elevate our thoughts above statues, in accordance with God's law given to humanity." (Origen against Celsius, 1,V,7)

"Holy and ecumenical council... conforming to God's word, in accordance with six previous synods, and according to the accepted doctrine of church fathers and practice of the Church since the first days asserts and announce, in the name of Holy Trinity, with one heart and mind, that worshipping statues and pictures is forbidden; that worshipping statues and pictures or some other creature is encroaching the honor we owe to God and that it is falling into idolatry." (Synod at Hierea near Constantinople, year 754)

If our attention dwells on a created instead of on Creator, it cannot remain without consequences. It suffices to see the character of an idolater and understand that a man transforms into what he looks at. He is cold and dead spiritually as well as the object of his worship:

"Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men's hands. They have mouths, but they speak not: eyes have they, but they see not. ... They that make them are like unto them; so is every one that trusteth in them." (Psalm 115:4-8)

Is a cold human heart to be heated by the even colder walls of a church? God does not dwell in hand-made churches (Acts 17:24) but in His faithful children. Whereas a corporal heart is delighted with beauty of a building, the spiritual soul notices and recognizes the character of the living Christ's Church; the community of the faithful ones. A living man should be a light to the world (Matthew 5:14) and raise the thoughts of people from visible to invisible, from the material reality to the spiritual one.

What opens really our hearts to God are not certain pictures, rituals, designations (names) or phenomena, but the correct idea about the character of God's unselfish love, the idea we can acquire by prayer and reasonable studying of His word. That idea is sublime in relation to our character and therefore it will elevate us.