Exodus 20:4-6 - The Second Commandment
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4 “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. 5 You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.
Introduction
Introduction
Paul in Athens
Intellectual and cultural center of the world.
Acts 17:16 (ESV)
16 Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols.
They were very religious, but they were not worshipping the true God the way he required.
22 And the people were shouting, “The voice of a god, and not of a man!” 23 Immediately an angel of the Lord struck him down, because he did not give God the glory, and he was eaten by worms and breathed his last.
At first, this commandment may seem easy to obey.
If the first commandment is against worshiping the wrong God, the second commandment is against worshiping God in the wrong way. - Kevin DeYoung
1st commandment teaches us not to worship anything other than God
2nd commandment teaches us not to worship anything less than God
Duties Required
Duties Required
To receive, respectfully perform, and preserve completely and purely all the regulations for religion and worship that God has established in his word. (WLC 108)
Disapproving, denouncing, and opposing false worship and doing our best, in accordance with our position and calling in life, to eliminate it and all forms of idolatry. (WLC 108)
16 Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols. 17 So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there.
5 But thus shall you deal with them: you shall break down their altars and dash in pieces their pillars and chop down their Asherim and burn their carved images with fire.
22 Then you will defile your carved idols overlaid with silver and your gold-plated metal images. You will scatter them as unclean things. You will say to them, “Be gone!”
What are some ways you have broken this commandment by failing to do what God has required?
Sins Forbidden
Sins Forbidden
Imagining, recommending, demanding, practicing, or in any way approving any religious worship not established by God himself (WLC 109)
Worshiping the true God, the wrong way.
Do we, by our approval or recommendation, lead people away from the right worship of God.
Creating any likeness of God as the Trinity or as anyone of his three persons, either internally in our minds or externally in the form of any kind of image or representation of a created being. (WLC 109)
We are not to make images to represent God.
Even in our minds
Movies and TV in our mind when we worship, etc.
There is still a place for art.
God gifted artists and craftsman specifically for the building the Temple.
Cherubim on the ark of the covenant and various images in the Tabernacle.
We are not to worship any created thing (creature).
When we call things holy that are not holy, we commit the sin of idolatry. This is the grievous error of idolatry, giving to common things the respect, awe, worship, and adoration that belong only to God. To worship the creature instead of the Creator is the essence of idolatry. R. C. Sproul
Any worship of such created likenesses as if God were in them or as if they were a means to worshiping him (WLC 109)
We are not to worship images of any kind.
Worship and veneration distinction does not exist.
The creation of any likenesses of invented gods, any worship of them or service relating to them (WLC 109)
And all superstitious contrivances. (WLC 109)
19 And a number of those who had practiced magic arts brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all. And they counted the value of them and found it came to fifty thousand pieces of silver.
The ark was treated like this in battle. 1 Sam. 4:3
3 And when the people came to the camp, the elders of Israel said, “Why has the Lord defeated us today before the Philistines? Let us bring the ark of the covenant of the Lord here from Shiloh, that it may come among us and save us from the power of our enemies.”
Religious jewelry, a fish on our car.
Any departure from the true worship of God by adding to or taking away from it, whether by our own invention or received from some other tradition, and whether justified by antiquity, custom, devotional practice, good intentions, or any other excuse (WLC 109)
Regulative principle.
God determines how He is to be worshipped
What God commands, we must do. What God does not command we must not do.
2 You shall not add to the word that I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you.
9 in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ ”
Simony and anything sacrilegious (WLC 109)
Simony is buying or selling something spiritual, especially ecclesial offices.
Any neglect of, contempt for, hindering, or opposition to the worship and regulations established by God. (WLC 109)
What are some ways you have broken this commandment by doing what God has forbidden?
Curse & Promise 5-6
Curse & Promise 5-6
Repeated several times in the OT and connected with God’s steadfast love
6 The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, 7 keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”
It does not mean that God will judge someone unrighteously, based on their family and not on themselves.
A corrective in Ezek. 18:20
20 The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself.
Children who share in their parents’ sin will share in their judgment.
Often our sin is passed on to our children (taught).
It is contagious.
Praise God for His grace if you have been delivered.
God shows steadfast love to thousands (6)
Or a thousand generations.
“Generations” is not in the original of this passage at all.
9 Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations,
His steadfast love far exceeds his wrath and judgment.
The curse is for those who hate God
The promise is to those who keep His commandments.
Hatred of God is expressed in disobedience
Love of God is expressed in obedience.
The seriousness of sin
2 Why should the nations say, “Where is their God?” 3 Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases. 4 Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands. 5 They have mouths, but do not speak; eyes, but do not see. 6 They have ears, but do not hear; noses, but do not smell. 7 They have hands, but do not feel; feet, but do not walk; and they do not make a sound in their throat. 8 Those who make them become like them; so do all who trust in them.
Application
Application
God is Spirit and surpasses our vain imaginations
15 “Therefore watch yourselves very carefully. Since you saw no form on the day that the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire,
Idols are poor substitutes for God.
There is nothing so abominable in the eyes of God and of men as idolatry, whereby men render to the creature that honor which is due only to the Creator. Blaise Pascal
They cannot communicate accurately who He is and they blaspheme Him and diminish His worship.
24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”
We apply to God the attributes of the gods of the world around us.
We attempt to make God more approachable and in the process minimize His attributes.
God is jealous for His glory
Idols minimize that glory.
8 I am the Lord; that is my name; my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to carved idols.
"God is the jealous husband who will not tolerate His bride, Israel, entering into a relationship with another so-called god. “ (Allan M. Harman)
God intends that we see Him by the Word.
Deuteronomy 4:12, 15 (ESV)
Then the Lord spoke to you out of the midst of the fire. You heard the sound of words, but saw no form; there was only a voice... “Therefore watch yourselves very carefully. Since you saw no form on the day that the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire”
Romans 10:17 tells us that faith comes by hearing the Word of God
God creates images of God
Humans are made in His image (Gen. 1:26-27)
Baptism and the Lord’s Supper
Christ fulfills the 2nd Commandment
Jesus is the exact image of God
Hebrews 1:3 (ESV) He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.
John 14:9 (ESV)
Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?
15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.
We are not to make images of Jesus
We do not know what He looked like - the Bible does not describe His physical appearance.
By God’s grace Christians have been delivered from such useless ways
18 knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.
Be on guard
John Calvin called our hearts “perpetual idol factories.”
Watch out for mental images of God
Patiently wait
One day, we will see Him as He is.
Then we will understand why God rejects the lesser imitations of idols.
Pray
William Cowper, "The dearest idol I have known, whate'er that idol be, help me to tear it from Thy throne and worship only Thee."
Closing Hymn: 457 Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing
Benediction: Now to Him who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see. To him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen