Sermon Tone Analysis

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.

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

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)

What are some ways you have broken this commandment by failing to do what God has required?

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)

The ark was treated like this in battle. 1 Sam.

4:3

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.

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

Repeated several times in the OT and connected with God’s steadfast love

It does not mean that God will judge someone unrighteously, based on their family and not on themselves.

A corrective in Ezek.

18:20

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.

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

Application

God is Spirit and surpasses our vain imaginations

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.

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.

"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’?

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