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Commending The Commandments
The Second Commandment.
Exodus 20 v 4-6
In The First Commandment we discover that there is only one true God and are warned against false gods. In The Second Commandment we are warned against worshipping the true God in a false way. The First Commandment regards whom to worship, the second how to worship.
In the previous section we noticed that the commandments had been given to Israel They had broken them by making a golden calf.
Exodus 32:4 And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf: and they said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.
They made a representation of God in the form of an image. Many Jews to this day will say when any evil befalls them there is an ounce of the golden calf in it.
Don’t confuse this with something that was commanded by God.
Numbers 21:8 And the Lord said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live.
There was a special use in this both literal and spiritual. Does this allow for images? I think 2 Kings makes it clear that it does not.
2 Kings 18:4 He removed the high places, and brake the images, and cut down the groves, and brake in pieces the brasen serpent that Moses had made: for unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it: and he called it Nehushtan.
Nehustan means brass, they made a god out of it and worshipped it. God by commending Hezekiah in this verse for destroying the image , condemns the practice.
Man has within him that desire to worship. He has a God consciousness and with this he has manufactured things to help him worship god. This commandment condemns all such images.
"All ideas, portraitures, shapes and images of God are here forbidden," Thomas Watson.
Paul encountered those who worshipped images.
Acts 17:23 For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.
And still to this day the Church of Rome is rotten to the core with images and relics.
It is of little wonder the Church of Rome has removed this commandment and divided the tenth into two. This commandment condemns Rome.
Habakkuk 2:18 What profiteth the graven image that the maker thereof hath graven it; the molten image, and a teacher of lies, that the maker of his work trusteth therein, to make dumb idols?
The Copy That Is Impossible.
Exodus 20:4 Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:
This verse speaks of the Heaven above, the earth beneath or the water under or just below the earth, which means under sea level. In other words nothing material can ever be used to represent God.
Some believe the three tiers here speak of heavenly, earthly [material] and perhaps even beyond the grave. Whatever you believe one thing is sure, nothing material can ever be used to represent God or assist in the worship of God.
The woman at the well made the mistake of bringing God down to the level of an earthly monarch.
John 4:20 Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.
In her mind there had to be a place.
John 4:24 God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.
God is a spirit and he is invisible. He must be worshipped in spirit and in truth, no material or physical substance can represent or be used to worship God.
Since the nature of the Almighty is not material. No material representation can be used as a platform for worship of the eternal one. Any idol shows man neither knows nor understands God.
The unregenerate cannot understand the spiritual for they are dead.
Romans 1:23 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.
What man is simply doing is bringing God down to their size.
God is not a person who can be pictured, drawn, painted or sculptured. He says, "I am above all that, you cannot picture me, I am not like any creature in the world."
The moment you make an image you place God within boundaries. He is infinite and by this you belittle God. Our God can hear, our God can help and our God can feel. How dare we make images of God.
A blacksmith cannot fire it up.
Isaiah 44:12 The smith with the tongs both worketh in the coals, and fashioneth it with hammers, and worketh it with the strength of his arms: yea, he is hungry, and his strength faileth: he drinketh no water, and is faint.
A carpenter cannot nail it up.
Isaiah 44:13-14 The carpenter stretcheth out his rule; he marketh it out with a line; he fitteth it with planes, and he marketh it out with the compass, and maketh it after the figure of a man, according to the beauty of a man; that it may remain in the house. [14] He heweth him down cedars, and taketh the cypress and the oak, which he strengtheneth for himself among the trees of the forest: he planteth an ash, and the rain doth nourish it.
A cook cannot cook it up.
Isaiah 44:15 Then shall it be for a man to burn: for he will take thereof, and warm himself; yea, he kindleth it, and baketh bread; yea, he maketh a god, and worshippeth it; he maketh it a graven image, and falleth down thereto.
1 Kings 8:27 But will God indeed dwell on the earth? behold, the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain thee; how much less this house that I have builded?
How can something dead represent the living God?
Deut. 4:15 Take ye therefore good heed unto yourselves; for ye saw no manner of similitude on the day that the Lord spake unto you in Horeb out of the midst of the fire:
How can we depict that which no one has ever seen?
The all powerful, all knowing, ever present, gracious, just, holy, infinite, invisible, immortal only wise God, cannot be represented by anything that we can make ourselves. It is degrading and insulting to our God and is forbidden in scripture.
Think about the first picture your child brings home from school. It will be of a stick man with arms dangling to his legs. He will have feet about twenty foot long and underneath are the word, My Daddy! How could we expect to represent God?
We don’t like to be badly represented. One photographer said, "Where there is beauty I take it, where there is none I make it."
Christ left no pictures, sculptors or portraits of himself
It was said by Cromwell, "When a man got a false idea of God through images and systems of worship he was apt to become as false as his imaginary god."
God is to be adored in the heart not painted in the eye.
The Concern That Is Impressive.
Let’s look at verse five for a moment.
Exodus 20:5 "Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them."
The Lord says, "Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them." God says you should not submit to idols. We should obey, fear, love and serve only the Lord. As God’s people are we submitted or bowing down to something in our lives? Those that we bow down to we become slaves too as verse five shows.
Exodus 20:5 "Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them."
We can see it in the world, men and woman slaves to drink, slaves to drugs and slaves to lust and pleasure. Are we bowing down to certain things in our lives? Are we slaves to possessions? Are we slaves to money? Are we slaves to covetousness?
An idol may not be an image of stone, perhaps we have an image in our mind and we didn’t know it, something that we bow down and has enslaved us. Perhaps some would argue, "The image is nothing God means more to me," Rome might say, "The image is there to remind us of God and to help us worship him."
That’s like going into a restaurant seeing a woman who looks like your wife, kissing her and telling your wife you were only doing it to help. When I kissed her I was kissing you and when I hugged her I was hugging you, I don’t think the argument would wash.
We can’t bow down to an image and say, "God we are doing this for you," it is preposterous. God wants us to worship in spirit and in truth.
Idols will take us away from God. The Lord wants our total life, he wants our total love and he wants our total loyalty. God will not share his heart with another.
Could we have images or idols in our lives that we worship?
This is why God says again in verse five:
Exodus 20:5 "Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God."
God is a jealous God. Perhaps you say, "I thought all jealousy was wrong?"
Here we discover the concern that is impressive. Like any man who loves his wife, he will have a healthy jealousy for her, he wouldn’t want to be cheated or betrayed. God likewise has a jealousy for us, he is not jealous of us but for us.
Exodus 34:14 For thou shalt worship no other god: for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God:
2 Cor. 11:2 For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.
God knows that when anything comes between him and his people it effects their relationship to him. It affects their walk, their witness and their worship. God jealously guards and protects the relationship between him and his people.
What a wonderful Lord, what a wonderful Saviour. You belong to me, you’re special to me and I am going to fight to maintain that relationship.
Jealousy is love in action.
Adrian Rodgers said, "No athlete has a right to be jealous of another athlete as he doesn’t own athletics. A husband has a right to be jealous of his wife, she is his wife she belongs to no one else."
"I am the only God there is and you belong to me," God is jealous of that relationship. He wants all of our lives, every day of our lives.
The word jealous has heat in it, there is a real zeal from God to maintain the relationship between him and his people. A zeal for what is right, a utter total consuming commitment to hold on to what is right.
Zech. 1:14 So the angel that communed with me said unto me, Cry thou, saying, Thus saith the Lord of hosts; I am jealous for Jerusalem and for Zion with a great jealousy.
Zech. 2:8 For thus saith the Lord of hosts; After the glory hath he sent me unto the nations which spoiled you: for he that toucheth you toucheth the apple of his eye.
Oh how God loves us and jealously guards and protects that relationship. God doesn’t want to be married to two, he wants your undivided attention, love and commitment.
Condemnation Indicated.
Exodus 20:5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;
Does this mean that God punishes children for the parent’s sin? The following verse would teach us that that is not the case.
Ezekiel 18:20 The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him.
Deut. 24:16 The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers: every man shall be put to death for his own sin.
God is stating the obvious.
In those days families lived together and it would have been possible for four generations to share the same home or neighbouring tents. If you worship idols it will have a lasting effect upon the next generation. This should not shock us.
Romans 5:12 Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:
All of us have picked up the baggage of Adam’s sin. Some times people do suffer because of the sins of their fathers.
Alan Redpath tells of a couple who had a child terribly crippled from birth.
The consultant said, "I can do nothing."
The dad lost his temper and when provoked the doctor said this, "Sir I was going to spare you but you have been strait with me, the reason your child is in this condition is probably due to the kind of life you lived before you were married"
Go to any physciatrist and he will inevitably try and find out something about your family background. Our attitude to God affects our children. We could pass on to our children a false conception of God.
In a church on one occasion was a man who was unkind and critical of the Pastor. Sadly this man’s son ended up in prison and he asked the pastor to visit his son.
The son said, "What are you doing here?
The Pastor replied, "Your dad asked me to come and speak to you about the Lord."
The son said, "The way my dad speaks about you, made fun of the church and laughed at you all I don’t want to hear anything from you, go on your way."
We find this truth illustrated in scripture. King Uzziah was a good king but he did something forbidden he carried out a function not given to him.
2 Chron. 26:16 But when he was strong, his heart was lifted up to his destruction: for he transgressed against the Lord his God, and went into the temple of the Lord to burn incense upon the altar of incense.
What about his son Jotham?
2 Chron. 27:2 And he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his father Uzziah did: howbeit he entered not into the temple of the Lord. And the people did yet corruptly.
He wouldn’t darken a church door, so to speak because of his Dad’s experience.
What about Jotham’s son?
He was an idol worshipper.
2 Chron. 28:23 For he sacrificed unto the gods of Damascus, which smote him: and he said, Because the gods of the kings of Syria help them, therefore will I sacrifice to them, that they may help me. But they were the ruin of him, and of all Israel.
What concept of God are we passing on to our children?
What sort of an image have we formed?
We want a god who is like an image that is, he is stationary. Yes we want to come to church to meet him, but when we leave church we leave God there.
We want a god who is not all knowing.
Because there are things we do and we don’t want God to know any thing about them. We want him like an image so he doesn’t know what we are doing.
We want a god who is easy going with no standards, we then can do what we think is right.
We want a god who is not completely holy so as not to make sin look very serious.
We want a god who is blind, deaf and suffers from memory failure.
We are building an image in our minds of the god we want, or we live as if that is the god we worship.
Is that the concept of God we are passing on?
Like a statue carry it with you when it suits leave it off when it doesn’t. A take it or leave it god. Do you see how it’s possible for us to worship an image? An image we have formed in our own minds.
How tragic to pass on a false concept of God to the next generation.
We want a god who is fashionable and suitable.
How does God describe image worshippers?
Exodus 20:5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;
Image worshippers love their god but they hate the God of the Bible. Don’t be fooled by pious words and religious activity, God says, "They hate me."
The Compassion That Is Immeasurable.
Exodus 20:6 And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.
The opposite is also true. If we love him, worship him only and keep his commandments, he will show mercy for thousands of generations.
What an impact a life lived for God can have. If I am prepared to sweep away the idols and get in touch with the living God. What an influence I could have on the next generation.
Christ’s Image.
We don’t look at objects to see God. We need to look into the face of Jesus Christ, look into the word of God, which reveals Christ.
John 14:9 Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father?
Hebrews 1:3 Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high;
Col. 1:15 Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature:
This is the only image we should be interested in, the Lord Jesus Christ, when we see Jesus we have seen the father. What effect does this have?
2 Cor. 3:18 But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.
This is why we are saved.
Romans 8:29 For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.
The story is told of a lad who lived in a village at the foot of a mountain. On the profile of the mountain formed the image of an old stone face. Legend had it that a man who would resemble old stone face would one day come to the village.
The young boy would look at this face for hours and hours, as he grew older he still kept his eyes on the face. As an old man walking down the Village Street he could hear some children saying, "There goes old stone face," He had looked for so long that he now bore the image himself.
If we constantly behold his face and gaze upon his majesty we will bear his image in our lives, that’s what we need to pass on to others.
1 Cor. 15:49 And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.
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