Comands 2 & 3

Review

words - filing system -

C2 - Ex 20:4-6 ““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. 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, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.”

Remember 1 comm - one God - and only worship him

have no other gods before him

2 comm - one God - only worship him - RIGHTLY

TEMPTATION HERE IS EVERYWHERE

and we see that by the bredth of the commandment

don’t make an image of ANYTHING - from ANYWHERE

don’t make them - don’t bow down to them - don’t serve them.

and we see warnings against this throughout all the Bible - we just finished reading kings and chronicles - it’s all over the place

AND IT’S INTERESTING

this is the command directly linked to God’s JEALOUSY AND the promise of blessings and cursings for generations.

DONT FORGET - God is GENERATIONAL - Deut 7:9-11 “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, and repays to their face those who hate him, by destroying them. He will not be slack with one who hates him. He will repay him to his face. You shall therefore be careful to do the commandment and the statutes and the rules that I command you today.”

So what does the second commandment mean.

no images in worship.

why?

well, who saw God?

Moses saw his back once - and even then God himself had to protect him by covering him in the cleft of a rock and pputting his own hand over him to shield him from destruction.

Translation - nobody saw God. And God wanted to keep it that way.

but what do we keep doing - making images.

an image or an icon will distract us.

who is Jesus? the what made flesh

the WORD made flesh.

(but wasn’t Jesus, being physical, an image? Yeah God made him - but what about images of him?)

we’ll get to that in a second...

Common refutations:

“we aren’t worshipping false Gods, we’re worshiping the true God.”

Ex 32:4-5 “And he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden calf. And they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!” When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it. And Aaron made a proclamation and said, “Tomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord.””

So was Israel in the wilderness. But what happened when Moses came off the mountain and saw what theyw ere doing?

God even expressly warns ISRAEL to not make images of HIM

Deut 4:15-16 ““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, beware lest you act corruptly by making a carved image for yourselves, in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female,”

no idol worship of false gods, AND of the TRUE GOD

“We aren’t worshiping the image - the image is HELPING US WORSHIP”

ps 97:7 “All worshipers of images are put to shame, who make their boast in worthless idols; worship him, all you gods!”

God expressly warns - and we add to his provisions. Watch out!

We worship in SPIRIT and in TRUTH

and to do so means to follow the 2C

Some argue that images “aren’t there for worship, but for teaching”

Teaching what?

Hab 2:18 ““What profit is an idol when its maker has shaped it, a metal image, a teacher of lies? For its maker trusts in his own creation when he makes speechless idols!”

“High church worship is beautiful and it honors God!”

disobedience doesn’t honor God.

you can have rich deep worship w/o images - just proclaim and believe the truth.

BUT WE SHOULD NOTE - to the degree that worship becomes a formality - dead in the word - the images begin to creep in to spice things up.

AND LASTLY “BUT JESUS BECAME A MAN, can we have an image of Jesus in our worship?”

some even take this farther - “to deny images is to deny the incarnation!”

John 14:9 “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’?”

the same CANNOT be said of images of Jesus, heck we don’t even know what any of his images looked like, the only thing we can do is cast actors that look like hippy Jesus.

there is a very strong case that Jesus didn’t have long hair, btw.

What’s interesting though, is that since the incarnation is true and did happen, a photograph of Jesus wouldn’t have been sinful.

but cameras weren’t going to come on the scene for another 2000 years.

and think about what would have happened if there was a picture of him, people would obsess over it.

the shroud that some believe he was buried in - obsessed over. Carries an image.

for a little while there Jesus’ face was popping up in random things like potatoes, and people obsessed.

God knows our frame, our disposition, he gives us these laws to free us from our sin.

and remember - what’s the promise for obedience? blessings to a thousand generations.

3C

Ex 20:7 ““You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.”

echoed in Lord’s prayer - “hallowed be your name”

Alright - this is a big one - and it get’s misconstrued pretty often.

First - TAKE - it means to bear or carry. NOT SAY, although say is implied.

and IN VAIN - means EMPTY or FALSELY

what’s the term for believers in Jesus?

Christians - we’ve taken that name.

what was Israel called by?

Deut 28:10 “And all the peoples of the earth shall see that you are called by the name of the Lord, and they shall be afraid of you.”

by God’s name...

and that’s all over the Bible, Is 43:7, 2 Chron 7:14, Jer 15:16, to name a few.

this command doesn’ tjust regulate speech.

I think I know how we got there though, more in amoment

but it’s more than DON’T CUSS!! (preacher video)

Here’s the point - if you’re in covenant with God, you’ve “taken up his name”

in baptism we see it explicitly - “in the name of the… Fathers Son and Holy Spirit”

and if you’ve taken up his name - don’t do it casually - vainly - falsely - in an empty way.

when someone shouts GD casually in a flick or when they stub their toe, this is a clear demonstration of this.

this is not to say however, that we can’t ever ask God to damn something.

the imprecatory psalms are full of that.

the problem is, that the speakers are casual with it - it means nothing to them - their carrying the Lord’s name in vain and that is DEMONSTRATED in their speech.

ASIDE ON WORDS: words have power and significance - there is no list of bad words in heaven. but our DISPOSITION towards the use of words is the issue.

Use the appropriate word at the approriate time, that’s great, and a good use of language.

strong language is appropriate for strong situations. but be measured.

You can be rude, but the Bible does regulate crudeness, obscenity. - Potty talk.

perversion in joke is not permissible - potty jokes, watch out, Ephesians 5:4 is a clear regulation here. Teach your kids the same.

and parents teach your kids these principles, don’t just say things like “we don’t say that...”

tell them why.

and see the signs in speech around you, it is an indicator of the heart.

Matt 12:34 “You brood of vipers! How can you speak good, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.”

The 3rd commandment brings a lot of this to the surface in our language.

If we take up God’s name - we do so seriously.

So how exactly is this command broken?

When we pray and worship without believing, without engaging - Luke 18:11 “The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.”

the pharisees prayers are a display, not actual worship.

When we speak irreverently, casually, of the Lord

Matt 12:36-37 “I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.””

When we take oaths before God in the name of created things Matt 5:34 “But I say to you, Do not take an oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God,”

***this includes swearing on Bibles, btw***

BUT Deut 6:13 “It is the Lord your God you shall fear. Him you shall serve and by his name you shall swear.”

How does Jesus put it?

Matt 5:37 “Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil.”

our yes and no is what matters.

and since we’re carrying the name of the Lord with us - don’t do it vainly.

Guard your words.