PP The Second Commandment: God Worshiped Right! Text Exodus 20:4-6 Part 3, 2/26-2/27/2011 Illus The Automaker Jeep has a very interesting advertising campaign going and it was visible for all to see on a Route 22 billboard just after passing MacArthur Rd. The things we make, make us The things we make, make us is a near perfect warning about Idolatry There are two ways to commit idolatry: One is by worshiping someone or something other than the true God The other is by worshiping the true God in a way other than He has taught in His Word And that is the difference between the First and Second Commandments The First Commandment is we must worship the right God, the Second is we must worship the right God, in the right way The First forbids false gods, the Second forbids false worship We may honor the First and reject all other gods, but we still must learn to kneel before the one True God How we worship matters to God as does Who we worship PP 1-The Command: Do Not Imagine God! You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Exodus 20:4 This is not a condemnation of painting and sculpting as some have taken it And it is more than just tribal pagans carving idols to their deities PP a) What are images and likenesses? In the ancient world, they knew that the idol, or image was not the actual deity, their gods dwelled above Do you remember the crowds in Lystra shouting out when they saw the miracles Paul performed, The gods have come down to us (Acts 14:11) Images, idols or likenesses are physical or mental pictures thought to capture the essence of their invisible deities, after an image makes it easier to focus in worship At first the little image represented, but gradually it took the place of the god They believed that the deity inhabited the image, and the power of the deity was collected and channeled by means of the image The one who control of the image had control of the deity It can be illustrated through what we do with the power of electricity High voltage is dangerous, and has to be controlled by a transformer Divine power is dangerous and it too must be controlled and the transformer is the image It acts to reduce the power of the deity so it can be used at far less risk The Israelites carried and hid their images with them as they fled or traveled: lose the image and you lose the means to control the god the image represents The Philistines captured the Ark of the Covenant thinking they now had control of God
We see the distorted power and temptation of creating an image of Yahweh in Exodus 32 Read Exodus 32:1-5 These are your gods can be rendered either plural or singular, but since he only made one calf and he connected it to the God Who brought you up out of the land of Egypt, and dedicated it in a feast to the LORD [Yahweh] it should be rendered This is your God, O Israel 32:4, as the NASB, KJV and most Jewish versions They didn t break the First commandment, You shall have no other gods before Me. They broke the Second as they worshiped the one true God in a way that He forbids through an image of Him in the likeness of a beast Aaron probably thought he was helping as the calf was a symbol of power and fertility But he broke the very Commandment that God had just given and reduced the Creator God down to the level of something within creation Go to India and into a Hindu Temple and look at the idol statues and ask the priest if this is your god and the answer you get will be no This isn t the god, it represents the god. You see the many arms? I m a priest to a simple people and they don t understand omnipotence, but they understand if you have a lot of hands then you can do a lot of things all at the same time. You see this one with all the eyes? Our people cannot understand all-knowingness, but they understand that if you have a lot of eyes you can see a lot of things at once Man that s really helpful, we need to illustrate the God of the Christian, it will help us worship Him so much better So we put up on the platform a picture of a meek, feminine Christ on the cross, Who wouldn t hurt a flea and loves everyone just the way they are with no demands or expectations When you worship God through that image, you forget that the person who talked about and warned about Hell in the most vivid imagery, was Jesus The Second Commandment forbids the sinful tendency of God s people to create pictures of Him that distort His true nature PP b) What is so wrong with imaging God? To answer this we need to turn to Exodus 19:9, Moses is meeting with God on My. Sinai and God tells him, Behold, I am coming to you in a thick cloud, that the people may hear when I speak with you, and also believe you forever. Moses goes down and gathers the people to come to the base of the mountain for the LORD will come down in the sight of all the people. 19:11 God did and what did the people see? Now Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke because the LORD had descended on it in fire. 19:18 God inhabited thick darkness, 20:21 tells us PP Scripture seems clear that He let you see His great fire, and you heard His Words out of the midst of the fire. Deuteronomy 4:36 PP Again, they heard the Word of God but did not see His forms, Behold, the LORD
our God has shown us His glory and greatness and we have heard His voice out of the midst of the fire If we hear the voice of the LORD our God anymore, we shall die. Deuteronomy 5:24-25 They did not see God s form, but they heard His voice God is unseen by human eyes, but He has spoken clearly through His Word PP And there is a reason He did not let Israel see Him, He knows what they/we would have done: Since you saw no form on the day that the LORD spoke to you at Horeb [Sinai] out of the midst of the fire, beware lest you act corruptly by making a carved image for yourselves Deuteronomy 4:15-16 Seeing is not believing, contrary to the famous slogan PP We must love Him and obey Him by faith, which is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Hebrews 11:1 **Breaking the Second Commandment is fundamentally about the lack of faith PP We want to worship a god we can see, but God must be worshiped by faith: we walk by faith, not by sight. 2 Corinthians 5:7 **An image or likeness is our faithless attempt to bring the invisible God into the visible, because His self-revelation in His Word is not enough, we want a Way to see, touch and ultimately control Him Moses, in this same chapter prophecies to the people that God will scatter them among the nations because they will make idols and images PP Yet he gives them hope, When you are in tribulation, and all these things come upon you in the latter days, you will return to the LORD your God and obey His voice. Deuteronomy 4:30 They will obey His voice, they will obey His Word that He has revealed to them PP c) Do we see this occurring today with Christians? It s easy to see how the Second Commandment is broken with the use of the crucifix It starts perhaps as an object to identify with Christ and to focus the mind on Christ But then it becomes regarded with superstitious reverence, so one kisses it for good luck, wears it for blessings, holds it to ward off evil The object itself becomes holy and shifts the vision of the worshiper from God to the object, and from the object to the worshiper But about mental images, immaterial likenesses? Idols were/are created from the imagination as we make images in our minds PP The more dangerous place of idolatry is internal: the word of the Lord came to me: Son of man, these men have taken their idols into their hearts Ezekiel 14:2-3 We form mental images of God emphasizing what we like about Him, minimizing what we don t The best-selling book The Shack almost constantly breaks, in my opinion, the Second
commandment as it reduces God down to human characteristics in ways the Scriptures does not Some picture God as the Santa god, or the vending machine god who gives you what you want when your token of obedience goes in When I was young, I formed the picture of a terrorist god who held a cosmic gun to my mother s head if I did not obey Him Every time I fell short of His glory I feared my mother would die And instead of God making us more and more into His image, we make Him into ours Do we see a God Who really isn t too bothered by little sins? Calamity hasn t struck so maybe He s not that bothered with what I m doing Nearly half of the students at evangelical colleges and seminaries say that talking about divine judgment is wrong, God s justice and holiness is trumped by grace Feminist theology denies the Fatherhood of God, preferring a god in the image of women Friends, when people say, I like to think of God as, they re in danger of breaking the Second Commandment People are always looking for a more user-friendly god who can be reduced by the transformer of images and likenesses, adapted for their purposes They turn Him into the Celestial Santa, or the Man upstairs Spend time in the Word in the morning and God will bless my day with happiness But God will not allow Himself to be manipulated God wants us to worship Him as He has revealed Himself in His Word PP 2-The Reason: God is a jealous God You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God 20:5a Everyone worships something or someone, all of the time, and whatever God they bow down to they will serve ( house of slavery ) If we bow down to a god who stands poised above his smite button for every thing we do wrong, we will be a slave to fear and condemnation If we bow down to a god that is hard to please, we will struggle with perfectionism If we believe that God exists for our pleasure, then He will be okay when we go into debt to buy what we think we need to be happy If we see Him to be a God unconcerned with the little sins, then fudging numbers during tax season or little lies or gossip gets swallowed in indifference If we imagine God to be untrustworthy, then we will justify creating Allstate gods, you know, those back up plans which are insurance policies when mayhem strikes You shall not bow down to them or serve them means that we must not create an image or likeness of God and then worship it and order our lives around it Because God is jealous over His Person, not jealous like an intensely envious, selfish person, but jealous like a husband who sees his wife with another man God guards Who He is fiercely and will not allow Himself to be falsely represented in a
man-made image or likeness And He is jealous over us, that we would be His people who worship Him as He has revealed Himself in His Word He burns with passion for His own glory, and for His own people You will have nothing less than my full love and I will have nothing less than your full devotion to Me PP 3-The Warning: God s Judgment visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me 20:5b In ancient times, a girl was often married by 13 or 14, a mother by 15, grandmother by 30, great grandmother at 45 and if she lived to be 60, a great, great grandmother There were often 3 or 4 generations in a family, all directly influenced by the Patriarch Imagine the extent of damage if a father turned away from the God Who has revealed Himself in His Word to create a distorted image of God, physical or mental? This picture of destruction is seen in First and Second Kings as sons followed fathers It is a terrible thing to pass on to our children a twisted caricature of God, whether by teaching or example PP 4-The Promise: God s Blessing but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments. 20:6 Some translations have it, showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation What a great difference between God s kindness and His wrath His wrath extends to four generations, His steadfast love to a thousand No humanly designed image, physical or mental can adequately capture what God is like! C.S. Lewis wrote after his wife died of cancer: My idea of God is not a divine idea. It has to be shattered time after time. God shatters it Himself Could we not say that this shattering is one of the marks of God s presence? A Grief Observed Our images reduce God, diminish His majesty and attempt to put Him under our control God isn t the God as we understand Him, He is the God as He has revealed Himself PP He has provided for us a rich image of Himself in the form of Jesus Christ, Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. Colossians 1:15 PP This word image means that which is the same form as something else We cannot create images of God because we will inevitably distort His nature, but God Himself provided the only icon that makes Him known accuraely: Jesus PP He is the exact imprint of His nature Hebrews 1:3 Know Jesus as God s Word has revealed Him, and we will know God and worship Him right