A 21st Century Look at the Big Ten

(Living and Loving God’s Way)

3/3/2001 and 3/4/2001

Exodus 20

1 ¶ And God spoke all these words:

 2 "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.

 3 "You shall have no other gods before me.

 4 "You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.

 5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me,

 6 but showing love to a thousand [generations] of those who love me and keep my commandments.

 7 "You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.

 8 "Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.

 9 Six days you shall labour and do all your work,

 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates.

 11 For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

 12 ¶ "Honour your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you.

 13 "You shall not murder.

 14 "You shall not commit adultery.

 15 "You shall not steal.

 16 "You shall not give false testimony against your neighbour.

 17 "You shall not covet your neighbour's house. You shall not covet your neighbour's wife, or his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbour."

REVIEW:

Use the Lighthouse Questions for last week: The First Commandment

COMMANDMENT # 2

4 "You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.

 5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, (NIV)

-In every culture archaeologists find idols of some forms.

1. LET’S FIRST LOOK AT ISRAEL

-God separates Abraham from a pagan culture.

-Then He brings the Israelites out of Egypt and tells them not to worship any Gods except Him and not to bow down to any idols.

-The story of the Israelites in the wilderness is comical.

-Moses is up the mountain too long so they convince Aaron to go along with the plan to make a GOLDEN CALF.

Exodus 32

19 When Moses approached the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, his anger burned and he threw the tablets out of his hands, breaking them to pieces at the foot of the mountain.

 20 And he took the calf they had made and burned it in the fire; then he ground it to powder, scattered it on the water and made the Israelites drink it.

 21 ¶ He said to Aaron, "What did these people do to you, that you led them into such great sin?"

 22 "Do not be angry, my lord," Aaron answered. "You know how prone these people are to evil.

 23 They said to me, `Make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don't know what has happened to him.'

 24 So I told them, `Whoever has any gold jewellery, take it off.' Then they gave me the gold, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf!"

-That sounds like a 5 year olds response.

-The three primary idols in the Bible were:

MAMMON-MONEY

BAAL- SEX

MOLECH-VIOLENCE

-Sex, violence, and money…..does that sound familiar?

-God told the Israelites to worship Him because the culture they came from was always creating their image of God.

Isaiah 42:8 "I am the LORD; that is my name! I will not give my glory to another or my praise to idols.

Isaiah 44

8 Do not tremble, do not be afraid. Did I not proclaim this and foretell it long ago? You are my witnesses. Is there any God besides me? No, there is no other Rock; I know not one."

 9 ¶ All who make idols are nothing, and the things they treasure are worthless. Those who would speak up for them are blind; they are ignorant, to their own shame.

 10 Who shapes a god and casts an idol, which can profit him nothing?

 11 He and his kind will be put to shame; craftsmen are nothing but men. Let them all come together and take their stand; they will be brought down to terror and infamy.

 12 The blacksmith takes a tool and works with it in the coals; he shapes an idol with hammers, he forges it with the might of his arm. He gets hungry and loses his strength; he drinks no water and grows faint.

 13 The carpenter measures with a line and makes an outline with a marker; he roughs it out with chisels and marks it with compasses. He shapes it in the form of man, of man in all his glory, that it may dwell in a shrine.

 14 He cut down cedars, or perhaps took a cypress or oak. He let it grow among the trees of the forest, or planted a pine, and the rain made it grow.

 15 It is man's fuel for burning; some of it he takes and warms himself, he kindles a fire and bakes bread. But he also fashions a god and worships it; he makes an idol and bows down to it.

 16 Half of the wood he burns in the fire; over it he prepares his meal, he roasts his meat and eats his fill. He also warms himself and says, "Ah! I am warm; I see the fire."

 17 From the rest he makes a god, his idol; he bows down to it and worships. He prays to it and says, "Save me; you are my god."

-Israel struggled with idols almost their entire existence.

-Solomon, as wise as he was, bowed down to idols because of his foreign wives.

2. WHAT’S WRONG WITH IDOLS?

-An idol is something you value more than God.

Jonah 2:8 "Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs.

(NIV)

John 4:24 God is spirit, and his worshippers must worship in spirit and in truth."

YOU FORFEIT GRACE

YOU CAN’T WORSHIP THE TRUE GOD

-Making an idol gives us a God we can control.

-We make God in our image and we can control His:

location

size/strength

-Idols give us the power to change the image of God rather than to change ourselves.

IDOLS ARE INCOMPLETE

-An idol may give us a representation of God for instance: the calf or bull could represent strength.

-The point is that it misses His love.

-What about Christian symbols?

A crucifix?

A cross?

A manger?

An empty tomb?

Stained glass?

-There is nothing wrong with those things. They are just an incomplete picture by themselves.

-We were talking about idolatry and we were driving and looking at all of the people who had Mary or St. Someone in their yards.

EXAMPLE: Little boy with bicycle-I’ve been good/I want to be good/statute of Mary…”Dear Jesus, if you ever want to see your mother again…

-A lot of idols are just good luck charms.

-The only accurate representation of God is Jesus.

Hebrews 1

1 ¶ In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways,

 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe.

 3 The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.

Col 1:15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.

3. WHAT ABOUT US AND IDOLS?

-We know the story of the rich young ruler. As far as I know, that is the only person Jesus told to get rid of everything.

-He had an idol-money.

Col 3:5 ¶ Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry.

 1Pe 4:3 For you have spent enough time in the past doing what pagans choose to do--living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing and detestable idolatry.

(NIV)

-We can only relate properly to God when we see the way God really is.

Romans 1

17 For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: "The righteous will live by faith."

 18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness,

 19 ¶ since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them.

 20 For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

 21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.

 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools

 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.

 24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another.

 25 They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served created things rather than the Creator--who is for ever praised. Amen.

 26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones.

 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.

-Some people are tree huggers to the extent of idolatry.

-We may not have a totem pole in our living room but we may have an idol in our hearts.

-The key is to put God first, then remove anything in your life that is trying to take His place.

-We talk about idols: ELVIS/MADONNA/CLARK GABLE/MICHAEL JORDAN ETC.

-Charles Barclay basketball player. He quit basketball and said something like I want to have 50/100 million because God gave him the skill to play basketball. He wants to do this on His own. (In other words to prove that he doesn’t need God.)

-I want to close with the picture in our hearts of Daniel and his three friends.

-Daniel kept praying and went to visit the lions.

-God delivered him.

-His friends wouldn’t bow.

Daniel 3

15 Now when you hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipes and all kinds of music, if you are ready to fall down and worship the image I made, very good. But if you do not worship it, you will be thrown immediately into a blazing furnace. Then what god will be able to rescue you from my hand?"

 16 Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied to the king, "O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter.

 17 If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand, O king.

 18 But even if he does not, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up."

 19 ¶ Then Nebuchadnezzar was furious with Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, and his attitude towards them changed. He ordered the furnace to be heated seven times hotter than usual

 20 and commanded some of the strongest soldiers in his army to tie up Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego and throw them into the blazing furnace.

 21 So these men, wearing their robes, trousers, turbans and other clothes, were bound and thrown into the blazing furnace.

 22 The king's command was so urgent and the furnace so hot that the flames of the fire killed the soldiers who took up Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego,

 23 and these three men, firmly tied, fell into the blazing furnace.

 24 Then King Nebuchadnezzar leaped to his feet in amazement and asked his advisers, "Weren't there three men that we tied up and threw into the fire?" They replied, "Certainly, O king."

 25 He said, "Look! I see four men walking around in the fire, unbound and unharmed, and the fourth looks like a son of the gods."

 26 Nebuchadnezzar then approached the opening of the blazing furnace and shouted, "Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, servants of the Most High God, come out! Come here!" So Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego came out of the fire,

 27 and the satraps, prefects, governors and royal advisers crowded around them. They saw that the fire had not harmed their bodies, nor was a hair of their heads singed; their robes were not scorched, and there was no smell of fire on them.

 28 ¶ Then Nebuchadnezzar said, "Praise be to the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, who has sent his angel and rescued his servants! They trusted in him and defied the king's command and were willing to give up their lives rather than serve or worship any god except their own God.

 29 Therefore I decree that the people of any nation or language who say anything against the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego be cut into pieces and their houses be turned into piles of rubble, for no other god can save in this way."

-Let’s check our lives for idols this week.

-Trade your idols for Jesus and grace.