The Second Commandment

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Preacher: Ross Macdonald Scripture: Exodus 20:4-6

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Well this morning we take a look at the second commandment and as we look at Exodus chapter 20 verses 4 through 6 we see that God has elaborated on the second commandment by again pointing to himself and We'll we'll keep seeing that theme as we work our way through this morning.
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In fact It's very important that we understand how the second commandment flows from the first commandment
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Which flows from that prologue I am the Lord your God who brought you up out of Egypt out of the house of bondage
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So this is the God who speaks to us in this way You shall not make for yourself a carved image 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
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You shall not bow down to them nor serve them for I the Lord your
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God am a jealous God Visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me
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But showing mercy to thousands to those who love me and keep my commandments
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Well again this morning. We're looking at the second commandment second commandment similar to the first in this first table
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Respects our relationship to the Lord God by way of our worship of God And so like the first which says we are to have no other gods
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But the Lord God the second commandment says we are to worship God not by images of God But as image bearers of God, that's the three points that we'll consider this morning
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We worship God first point secondly not by images of God thirdly, but as image bearers of God very important that third part a
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Dimension that is often missing in this discussion, and I hope we'll have enough time to do justice to it
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So we worship God question 56 from our catechism. What's required in the second commandment?
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second commandment requires the receiving Observing keeping pure and entire all such religious worship and ordinances as God has appointed in his
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Word Now you'll notice that our catechism Begins to explain the second commandment without reference to images.
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We read the second commandment and all that we see is Images are forbidden.
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We are not to worship God through images, but our catechism I think rightly says what the commandment requires is pure worship the right worship of God tied to that especially in the life and experience of the
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Israelites is that They are not to worship God in the ways that idolaters and pagans around them worship their gods
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For this is the true and living God. He appoints how he will be worshipped He's not to be devised or approached by the vain imaginations or efforts of men and so rightly they say what's required is receiving and observing keeping pure and Entire the worship of God now
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We're gonna start again in the kind of middle of our passage just to remind you the Lord Whenever he gives a command
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Whenever he gives that imperative He also gives this reminder this picture this presentation of who he is and what he's done
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In other words his identity and his saving Activity and we find that here
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You shall not bow down nor serve them. That's the command But look at what's attached to that command or what it's standing upon for I the
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Lord your God am a jealous God He showed his jealousy when the
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Israelites were still in Egypt and he brought plagues upon that pagan Empire and All of their gods the sort of contest of the gods
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You know the gods of the harvest the God of the day the God of the Nile Whatever it may be and God going to war against these gods as it were
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Putting them to nothing exposing them to be fraudulent to be hollow.
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I The Lord your God am a jealous God And you're jealous you're craving in your flesh to go meet to go and serve me in the ways of the pagans
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But I am jealous for my own worship. I Visit the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me
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But show mercy to thousands to those who love me and keep my commandments So this is attached to this commandment that we are not to bow down and serve images
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We're not to have any other gods But neither are we to produce images or have some inventive way of worshiping the
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God who is invisible And cannot be seen with our eyes We usually find this combination to bow and to serve with the worship of pagan gods
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Solomon's heart was turned away to bow down and serve after the gods of his wives So we're not to lower ourselves or find ourselves prostrate to the ground.
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In fact That second verb could be pointed and understood in a hopeful stem Which would be a you're not to allow yourself to be carried away and and bow down to two other gods
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So neither are you to do this? But you're also not to put yourself in a place or be dragged away by others to do this
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There's no place to say well, you know when in Rome this is how they kind of worship So this is what we're going to do as well.
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We're not to lower ourselves in reverence to anything but the Lord God So we worship
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God we saw that last week right worship is tied to knowing God We said the first commandment requires that we glorify
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God. How do you glorify God? You must know God How can you glorify one whom you do not know?
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We are not as those in act 17 who build an altar to an unknown God. We can only glorify
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God if we know him And God makes himself known in this way. This is who
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I am. I brought you out of Egypt I redeemed your life. I Took you to myself that I would be your
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God and you would be my people that you would serve me Know me be light to the nations be my salt on the earth
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Make my name renowned and and spread my glory as far as the seas
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What kind of God is he he visits iniquity to the threes and the fours? Translators supply generations.
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It's I think it's a wise decision, but he visits iniquity to threes and fours He shows mercy to thousands
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So what's being highlighted there with all the gravity and weight of this God who is just and judges righteously?
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But yet what he puts forward as his strong leg as it were his great hand is his mercy
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He adorns his mercy. It's this word has said loving kindness It endures to the thousandth generation another possible translation
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Not just to thousands but to the thousandth generation Another way of saying a sort of idiomatic way of saying his love his cassette
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Endures forever the mercy of the Lord endures forever that constant refrain of Psalm 118
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Right worship then is tied to knowing God and we know God, right?
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If we understand the justice of God and the mercy of God We do not understand
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God rightly if we fail to understand his justice His perfect holiness and all that that means for fallen people like you and I And yet we certainly if we know
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God is an austere judge. That's at least something We know we have some handhold on something of the nature of God, but you still do not know
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God All right, unless you know God to be merciful But then indeed
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Paul says to the Galatians when you did not know God You serve those which by nature are not
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God We're always serving other gods until we come to this knowledge this saving knowledge of the true and living
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God Knowing him in this way According to his justice which fell down upon our substitute our
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Savior the Lord Jesus That we might receive his mercy the mercy that endures forever
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Now, of course to serve any other God is folly. This is the constant Rebuke of the prophets.
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It's foolishness. It's ignorance. It's blindness but as we see this The service to false gods is more than just folly.
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It's actually a way of being bound It's important that we understand this it's it's at the very heart of the second commandment to be drawn after the images after the imaginations after the
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Production of what men call God is to actually be held captive to hope to be held in sway by these very things
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Though they're empty hollow fraudulent nothing a lie nevertheless
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Spiritually, there's this power this force The Prince of the power of the air working through even these false ways and false means and false gods to hold
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Captive fallen people we see this for example in Isaiah 44 We see idolatry is folly, but it's more than folly
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Isaiah 44 beginning in verse 18 Really 9 through 20 is this wonderful rebuke of idolatry beginning in verse 18.
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They do not know You're an idolater unless you know the true and living
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God. They do not know nor understand Why he has shut their eyes.
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They cannot see their hearts. They cannot understand No one considers in his heart nor is there knowledge or understanding to say
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I've burned half of the wood in the fire Yes, I've also baked bread on its coals I've roasted meat and eaten it and shall
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I make the rest of it an abomination shall I fall down before a block of wood? What do they say he feeds on the ashes?
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Now listen to this a deceived heart has turned him aside now he cannot deliver his soul
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Do you see what has taken place? It's just a block of wood It's just a block of wood with half of it.
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He's making dinner He's opening up that can of dinty more. He's putting it on half of the wood.
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The other half has become his God That's just a block of wood and you become like what you worship the worshipper becomes a block of wood
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He's so clueless that he's worshiping when he's just has the ashes of the other half of his
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God He just finished his meal over there's pieces of beef stew as it were mixed into the ashes of his
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God He's as dumb as the wood. He's worshiping But what does Isaiah says this fallen heart this predilection to worship what he can make what can fulfill his desires?
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He feeds on the ashes his deceived heart has turned him aside Now he cannot deliver his soul
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Something has happened though. It's just a block of wood. Something has happened in this vacuum of nothingness that holds the idolater captive Isaiah says it's not just the ignorance or the foolishness of the idolater
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But at a deeper level this act of idolatry Forms a grip around the worshipper that the worshipper cannot break.
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So idols are nothing and yet they hold sway They hold captive the ones who render service to them.
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Paul essentially says the same thing in 1st Corinthians 10 Observe Israel after the flesh he says are not those who eat of the sacrifices partakers of the altar
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What am I saying then that an idol is anything or what is offered to idols is anything?
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he's just made the argument an idol is nothing just like Isaiah 44, but The things which the
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Gentiles sacrifice they sacrifice to demons not to God and I don't want you to have fellowship with demons
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More is at play than a block of wood or a statue of stone And so Paul says you cannot drink the cup of the
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Lord and the cup of demons. It's not just empty There's actually a spiritual captivity at stake or he says do we provoke the
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Lord to jealousy? It's the same language we have in Exodus or throughout the prophets.
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The Lord is jealous for his worship Idolatry has a certain cost. There's a captivity that comes with the things that you serve
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Now the problem here is the second commandment doesn't just forbid objects of stone or wood
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These graven images that have the names of false gods or even graven images that haven't had the name of the true
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God We see that the second commandment as our Catechism rightly points out holds before us the purity of God's worship
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God requires us to Follow after what he has laid down in his worship
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Now we live in an age where much teaching about God tries to display him according to our own palette our own imagination, that's as much a
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Transgression the second commandment as if we were building a stone statue and saying this is Yahweh For conferences to be had where God is reimagined or he's made sort of politically acceptable culturally acceptable to sort of defaying the threats and warnings of God to a twist to manipulate his character and His revelation of himself in his word according to our dictates and our vain fleshly
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Imaginations is to break this second commandment our fleshly mind wants to wants to constantly tinker with and portray
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God in a way that somehow What we're doing and what our likes and what our wants are at exactly how
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God is and what God likes and what God wants If you don't feel the bite of that somewhere in your life, you probably aren't thinking rightly about the second commandment
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This isn't just something for them out there. This is something for each one of us There's a way that we actually think we're deeply spiritual.
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We're deeply committed somehow we're We're having a sort of humility and we're understanding things in a much broader way
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And that looks like well, I just realized God is not like this narrow God He seems so I don't know angry and and vengeful and spiteful
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You know, I've just gotten to this place where I realize how broad and how Transcendent everything is and and you think somehow you become more spiritual when in fact, you're just in raptured with the
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God of your own imagination and So you start to condescend and denigrate and remove yourself from those who are saying this is who
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God is look at I'm just telling You from his word what he has said about himself. No, no, no. No, that's not spiritual
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Look at how humble I am. Look at look at the warm fuzzies I have in my life That can come from worshipping a
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God of your own imagination Paul says this in Colossians to let no one cheat you of your reward taking delight in false humility worship of angels
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Intruding into those things which he has not seen vainly puffing up his fleshly mind
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Why what has happened? He has not held fast to the head He hasn't taken his thoughts captive to Christ Rather he's made his own
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Christ and imagined Christ to worship and follow after and it just so happens this Christ Blesses and agrees with everything he seeks to do
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There are conferences throughout our land year by year where this is exactly the Christ that is being preached a
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Christ who would honor your sacrilege that would actually smirk at your sins that doesn't require you to follow after him and pick up a cross a
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Christ that will actually embrace your sins and allow you to keep them. Maybe smuggle them with you into his kingdom
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There's no place for I gouging no place to cut off your arm. This is not the Christ of Scripture And if you don't feel the bite of the second commandment in this way
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Paul is speaking to you this vainly puffed up fleshly mind. You haven't held fast to the head
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This is how I feel. This is what I want. Therefore. This must be what
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God is like But the Lord is jealous for his worship and this is not only for his glory
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But it's also for our good if we worship God according to our own design according to our own vain
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Imagination instead of according to his word we become idolaters There are many well -intentioned idolaters that surround us vital that we understand and what happens is it?
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In the way that we worship a God of our own making a God who always agrees with us This own little privatized
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God our grandfather in the sky What happens is it seems to offer us this enhancement of spirituality?
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Now I'm freed now. I'm liberated now I'm strengthened and empowered to follow after the
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Lord God when in fact you become weak and Unable to walk after the true and living
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God. This is always the cost of idolatry There's only one way to be transformed into the likeness of God That is knowing
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God and glorifying him as God and guarding and protecting his worship for he is jealous
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So worshiping him in a likeness according to our image in our own vain imagination will derail our sanctification
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What is sanctification? Come tonight SLBC we're starting in in chapter 13.
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What is sanctification? It's conformity to the image of God It's conformity to the image of God You will not be sanctified
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If you have the wrong image of God before you If it's not the image of God that is drawn from his word
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God as he has revealed himself if that's not who is before you who you are seeking
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You are not going to be conformed to that image, which means you're not sanctified If you make up a
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God of your own imagination and seek to be conformed to that imagination It won't look like sanctification.
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It will look like the very opposite thing. We've seen this play out time and time again
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So we must worship God that was the first point secondly Really at the heart of the commandment now in terms of the text we worship
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God, but not by images of God We worship God, but not by images of God Catechism again 57 what's forbidden in the second commandment?
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the second commandment forbids the worshiping of God by images or Any other way that's not appointed in his word.
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So the second commandment forbids the worshiping of God by Images that's just reading our text you shall not make for yourself a carved image any likeness of anything
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That's in heaven above or that's in the earth beneath the image here There's different words that are translated image out of Hebrew The image here is a graven or a carved image a peso which almost always is something used in worship there's other words for architectural elements or Adornments, but the pestle here clearly in the context of the second commandment is being used for worship
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That is what is forbidden another example same use Daniel 3. Let it be known to you.
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Oh King We do not serve your gods nor will we worship the gold image which you have set up All right
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This representative image this pestle that is to be worshiped now the plight of fallen man is presented to us in this way
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As we established last week We cannot deny that we were made to worship
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We must worship as much as you have to bring blink and breathe You have to worship.
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It's what it means to be human. You will worship something Somehow you must it's inherent to your to your nature as a human being
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The plight of fallen man then is that because we are fleeing from God Because of our own sinful fallenness and alienation from him
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We flee from the presence of God and instead of that proper reverence and worship toward him which is what we were created to inhabit we then want to Let that worship and reverence be toward things that we produce that we can make
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Paul says the plight of fallen man is expressed in this way Romans 1 although they knew
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God They did not glorify him as God nor were they thankful but They became futile in their thinking
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Their foolish hearts were darkened You see how he's taking up this language of idolatry the fool professing to be wise they became fools and changed the glory of the incorruptible
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God into an image That's the plight of fallen man
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We must worship if we can't worship the true God will make an image to worship
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Will imagine a God to worship? something must be worshipped and so Paul looking at fallen man says they change the glory of the incorruptible
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God into an image made like Corruptible man and birds and four -footed animals creeping things
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What's the response of God to this therefore God gave them up to uncleanness handed them over they wanted to be idolatrous
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Rather than worship and be conformed to his image They want to worship and be conformed to the images that they produce then
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God hands them over to it You want to worship animals? You'll be wild like animals. You'll be unclean like that.
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They exchange the truth of God For the lie worship and serve the creature Rather than the
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Creator So God specifically says this this making of an image the very heart of idolatrous worship
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We're gonna understand in the third point why it's such an abomination why that image is held out in the second commandment
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God specifically says that making an image of him is an abomination It's nothing that Israel is to tolerate though They're surrounded by all of the nations that this is all they know about worship.
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You make an image You make a representation of the God that you will serve Of course the Israelites themselves as we see in Exodus 32, they're tempted to do this very thing with the golden calf
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This is the Lord who brought us up out of Egypt. What does Moses say in Deuteronomy 4 take careful heed to yourselves?
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You saw no form when the Lord spoke to you at Horeb in the midst of the fire. You see what he's saying
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Here we are in Exodus 20 the mountain is on fire thunderings clashing the people are trembling like leaves
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Moses himself will go on to you. I'm gonna die if I keep hearing this the commands of God are thundering down the mount to the assembly of Israel and Moses is reminding them in Deuteronomy 4 when you were at Horeb you saw no form
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You saw no form of God and so he says here take careful heed
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You saw no form when the Lord spoke to you out of the midst of the fire Lest you act corruptly and make for yourselves a carved image
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Remember when you were receiving the second commandment, it wasn't a bull that was speaking to you
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It wasn't any created thing. You heard this voice. You knew that this was the Lord God So don't go make the image of that which you did not see
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The likeness of male or female the likeness of any animal that's on the earth any winged bird anything that creeps on the ground
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Take heed lest you lift your eyes to heaven And when you see the Sun the moon the stars all the host of heaven you feel driven to worship them and serve them
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You see that's the heart When you make the image and you say look at the splendor look at the glory
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Look how now I have something that I can see and behold and therefore worship and serve and manipulate and control
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Moses reminds the people at Sinai they saw no tokens of God's presence no visible representation of God himself
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But only heard his word and Moses says as you continue to serve and follow after this
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God May it be his voice ringing in your ears May it be his words hiding in your heart and not something to behold with your eyes.
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Don't make a graven image God is free to determine how he'll be worshipped
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We've already seen throughout Genesis and Exodus God manifests his presence in these symbolic ways
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We've seen it in Exodus with the burning bush theophany God is free to do this
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But God also understands that the nature of our heart in a classic example of this.
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I believe Watson mentioned it as well the the fiery serpents attacking the Israelites in numbers 21 and God says
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Lift up a brazen serpent on the pole and command that the the children of Israel look upon it that they might be healed
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And so you have God ordaining an image to be made This image is a representation of the
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Lord Jesus John 3 makes it clear when the Son of Man is lifted up So God commands this brazen serpent
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To be crafted and lifted up and for the Israelites to behold it God's free to do that They look upon it and they're healed.
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This is not a transgression of the Second Commandment But it becomes a transgression of the
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Second Commandment Because a cult develops around this brazen serpent
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What do you do after you craft a serpent that miraculously heals of people that were you know stung with these fiery?
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Serpents with this venom and they were dying by the thousands and all of a sudden they look upon this brazen crafted image
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And they're healed. What do you do with it out? You know, that was good I'll keep that one in the closet might come in handy something.
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What do you do with it? Well, they adore it. They revere it it becomes this
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Testimony but more than some sort of artifact it it actually develops a cult around it now
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Still they're looking to Yahweh But now they have this brazen serpent this serpent that was used in a miraculous manner
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And we can understand that there was a false worship being attached in God's eyes a false worship a false reverence being shown to this artifact the the nahush time the serpent is nahash the nahush time this brazen serpent and when we come to 2nd
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Kings 18 Hezekiah It starts breaking down the high places cutting down the sacred grows starts purging idolatry
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From the people of Israel and what does he do in 2nd Kings 18? He breaks into pieces the brazen serpent of Moses and we read he did what was right in the sight of the
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Lord This was right for Hezekiah to do God can command something to be fabricated and for it to be looked upon and he can use it as a powerful means
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To go beyond that to turn reverence toward that object or toward that manifestation
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That then is a transgression of the second commandment It's not a problem for the Israelites to craft and to look and to be healed by that brazen serpent
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But after that act to then adore it to reverence it to use it as an article of worship that then is forbidden
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And sadly they carry on this idolatry until the days of Hezekiah only he understands this is idolatrous though God appointed it though.
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God used it. We are not to adore it. We adore God alone worship him only so the second commandment deals with the manner of our worship now,
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I want to make a point here about the arts about fabrication about beauty the second commandment is not a rejection of human creativity it is not a
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A deprecation of artistic endeavor it is not a putting down on the vocation and labor of artisans and architects and engineers and craftsmen the second commandment should never be used in this way because these skills are
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Inherent to what it means for people to be the image of God. God is a creator as J.
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R. Tolkien the professor of Literature in Oxford Maintained humans are sub creators
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We create with what he has created But because we've been created by him as his image bearers we can't help but create whether you're creating a piece of art or an
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Excel spreadsheet or opening a business or Arranging wood on your pile for the winter.
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You can't help but create You can't help but do things in an aesthetic way even a reaction against Aesthetic form is it becomes its own aesthetic.
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It's inescapable. We are Creative because God is our creator So I say the second commandment is not a rejection of artistic labor far from it far from it
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And I won't derail the the message here, but I have a lot to say about the danger of Fundamentalism when it comes to the arts,
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I think right now there's a Big temptation a big sort of threat to The sort of reforms
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Calvinistic circles a real danger of fundamentalism. I Think would do well to learn some of the lessons from World War two and beyond those first two decades after World War two and the rise of neo evangelical
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Evangelicalism coming out of the fundamentalist modernist debate would do well to understand some of the lessons and some of the
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Institutions in ways the culture was engaged in the fruit of that though Imperfect was far better than the fruit that came out of the fundamentalist drive and right now
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I see a lot of reform types that are almost circling wagons and putting their head into the sand They're almost becoming willing fundamentalists and fundamentalism goes hand -in -hand with philistinism philistinism is a sort of Deprecation on higher forms of culture or the arts.
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I think it's a huge mistake It's a huge mistake It's been a mistake for many decades that we've handed our culture over to the idols of the left
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And we've handed artistic endeavor and creativity over to the left huge mistake big mistake
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And we're you know, we're reaping the whirlwind for it. That's as much as I'll say on that point I have a lot
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I want to say about that But as it relates to the second commandment, let me say this Moses spent as much time in Exodus and Deuteronomy Receiving instructions from God for the purposes of artistic decoration as he did in receiving and elaborating the law
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Think about that God had as much to say about the objects and adornment and beauty and craft and skill of the artists and the way he wanted things to be decorated and What that would mean for the worshiper beholding it aesthetically
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He had as much to say about that as he did about the moral commands of his law and what that meant to live in an upright and holy way
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God gave the Ten Commandments to Moses and then he gave a command to Construct a tabernacle in a way that involved almost every form of representational art imaginable
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So the second commandment is not forbidding The value the good the need the blessing the
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God glorifying nature of art We have to establish that to be human is to be creative, but it is to say
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Our artistic and creative endeavors just like everything need to be redeemed.
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They need to be saved There is no neutrality Art is formative, but it's also deformative
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Like everything we do as human beings with all of our potential as those who bear the image of God We can do things in a way that bless or in a way that wound we can do things that glorify
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God or desecrate We can do things in a way that are beautiful and formative in that way or ugly hideous and deformative in that way and this all is the backdrop for the second commandment and the controversy it gave birth to in the history of the church now
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Here's where we could be in some deep water Because I've done a lot of reading this week and I want to give a
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Snapshot of some of the issues, but I don't want to spend too much time on it So bear with me, but it's important that we understand the nature of the controversy when it comes to the image
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That God is forbidding You have what's called the iconoclastic controversy.
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This takes place in the 8th century Now there's many Controversies that are related to this.
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There's many periods of iconoclasm so icon image Clasm to to break or to destroy so iconoclasm you have of course this
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Iconoclastic controversy because images are widespread in the church in the 8th century The Eastern Church and the
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Western Church are very different There's a lot of strain and tension for that reason and yet there has not been the great
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Schism there has not been the separation of the East and West that takes place in 1054 but in the 8th century the nature of images in the worship of Christians comes to a head
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Christians had begun to lose a series of battles and Emperor Leo the third began to think
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Perhaps it's because we're using images in worship that God is no longer blessing our military strength
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And so the use of images became the sort of lightning bolt and it became tied to some of the political concerns of the
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Holy Roman Empire The Synod convened in the time of Constantine the fifth it was called the
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Council of Hyria It was also known as the mock council because only Western bishops came none of the patriarchs from the east came to it and Against their rejection of images a second council was formed where both east and west came together
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This was the second council of Nicaea 787 And rather than rejecting the use of images in worship, they required it
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This is how volatile things were in the in the hundred year stretch surrounding this iconoclastic controversy
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You have church councils that say it is absolutely forbidden and then three generations later
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It is absolutely required. You're sinful if you do it to your sinful if you don't Now both councils understood that it is
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God alone who is worshipped Even the second council of Nicaea where they affirm the use of images they distinguished between Latreia which would sort of be a sort of formal adoration and proskynesis
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So you have veneration distinct from adoration God alone receives adoration, but veneration kissing
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Utilizing images was seen as necessary one of the chief figures that comes out of the second council of Nicaea is
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John of Damascus and he had the most to say perhaps the most Outspoken proponent of the use of images in worship
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John of Damascus said I'm emboldened to depict the invisible God not as invisible But as he became visible in the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ Some of you men yesterday morning as we said, it's the nature of Christ's humanity and divinity that turns this whole issue of iconoclasm
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By the way, John of Damascus even some of the Puritans and some of the reform like Peter Martyr Vermigli He would agree with John of Damascus He would say the nature of the incarnation is such that as a creature
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It's allowable to make images of the incarnate or human Christ largely
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He was beyond the pale of what the consensus was for the reformed. We'll get there in a moment
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So this was John of Damascus his claim, do we not believe that Jesus was incarnate that it was born of the
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Virgin Mary Did he not dwell among us as a human? In all of our humanity as the
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God -man Emmanuel And so I'm emboldened to depict the invisible God not as invisible that's forbidden the second commandment, but as he became visible in flesh and in blood as Jesus Christ now this was the response of the iconoclasts if an image
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Pictures only Christ's human nature it severs his humanity from his person Remember his personhood is divine
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It's the divine person of the Son that takes to himself a human nature And so the iconoclasts respond it severs his humanity from his divine personhood
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If it portrays Christ in both natures his deity is then reduced to the level of his humanity
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In other words, you cannot truly portray Christ as the God -man. That was the iconoclast response
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Well, even after the Council of Nicaea and this didn't settle Rightly, so just because the council says it doesn't well, what can we do?
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the council has spoken in in 843 there was a whole other burst of Iconoclasm and this was finally ended in the east by a patriarch named
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Methodius. And by the way, these are nasty times I know right now you're you're tempted to be bored Maybe only
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Ryan is interested in this You're tempted to be bored right and you're going what's the big deal?
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Well, if you could go back to the 9th century Most of the monks that were on the opposite side of the iconoclasm.
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They had their nostrils cut off All right, they had to be publicly shamed one of the patriarchs in Constantinople was beheaded publicly these things matter
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All right, we're like I can barely pay attention. When is lunch coming? But if a monk from the 9th century
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Showed up without a nose and he's like, you know, this is really important. Do you understand the issues? I Can't smell because of this.
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All right, these things really matter Well the West after the
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Eastern patriarchs really embraced Icon of dualism or the use of images in worship the the
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West had very different theological underpinnings But sort of ended up in a similar way. They never venerated
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Iconography in the way of the East but certainly images were used more as aids to worship books for the laity right in other words
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Only the sacred Word of God is to be understood by the clergy for the laity They need images pictures to help them understand what is taught therein
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So the church would direct artists and what to create what to sculpt what to paint and how to adorn the cathedrals in the
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West The Reformation then was another form of of Iconoclasm against Catholic veneration of images in their own way
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But if you know even the history of Lutheranism, it wasn't so black and white. It wasn't so clean -cut
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Images were not Tolerated as books for the laity one thing the Reformation rightly recovered is we are not wiser than God God has never said that people are to be taught by images salvation comes by the hearing of the
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Word of God And so rather than images with mass at the center making a visual spectacle out of God's worship
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The pulpit replaced the mass table God's worth God's Word went forth That is how sinners were converted into a saving knowledge of him
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Refin Reformation leaders understood the danger of images in worship and in contrast to the papacy
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They seemed almost excessive in their combat against that but it all came from this emphasis of the
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Word of God The fundamental nature of God's Word as the means by which he has made himself known
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So let me help you weigh in the issues before I kind of land us what are the concerns of of the use of images well on the one hand
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Someone like John of Damascus those who would argue there's there's no fault in the use of images whether as an aid to worship or simply something to adorn or to beautify or to enjoy and John of Damascus or those that were icon of duels would say if you're forbidding all images of Jesus as the second person of the
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Godhead, are you not veering toward docet ISM? You're denying the humanity of Jesus Jesus was a man you could behold him as such
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John of Damascus concerned if you don't make an image of the incarnate one. You're essentially saying he was only divine
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You're denying the incarnation. That's why it's required that you make images Are you denying
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God's mode of revelation through symbolic imagery has God not made himself manifest through symbols
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Luther in his response to Karl Stott Who was the most famous iconoclast of his day and Luther agreed?
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There's excess on the side of Roman Catholicism But he was not willing to go so far as Karl Stott in the history of Lutheranism Maybe he should have but his argument was words are symbolic at some level
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You can't escape the symbolic nature of semiotes of signs Just by saying it'll be word only and not image words are as much symbolic as images
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Has God not manifested himself in this mode? So that's on the one hand, but on the other hand
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This boundless use of images of Jesus ends up feeding the imaginations of men
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You can just go to Worcester Art Museum and just walk through the sort of Renaissance galleries And see a hundred different Jesus's and they all look like Western European Jesus's They don't look like a
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Palestinian Jew, you know circa first century AD Now that might not seem like a big deal
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You know you have in a setting like Syria or Ethiopia You have a Jesus that looks a lot like that or a
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Mongolian looking Jesus or in 1930s Germany a very Aryan looking Jesus There's a there's a dark shadow to what happens that you can actually deny the historicity historical event of our faith
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By the use of images and certainly in Germany There was a reason that they wanted to depict
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Jesus as Aryan and not Jewish So there's a theological danger
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Where we don't have restraints or bounds upon our portrayal of Jesus. So let me land us now.
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Where am I at? Not that I'm saying where I'm at is where you should be but I've wrestled with these things.
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I have some background in art I love art. I love art museums. I love the history of art
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I love following and studying certain artists and I've had to wrestle with this I've had to wrestle with what does the
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Second Commandment forbid? What is the nature of the portrayal of Christ the incarnate
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Lord? Is this something that is? Forbidden. Well, the
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Second Commandment teaches us that images are not to be used as an aid in the worship of God And we have to be very careful
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Just because we don't have images that we're using here this morning We might go home and have images and we don't intend them to be aids in our worship
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But they may become aids nonetheless, maybe even unwelcome aids You go and watch a movie or a
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TV series about Jesus You come away. You're not looking at as an aid to worship. I want to know how to worship
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God. It's just amusement It's just entertainment. You're interested in the Bible. You're interested to see how this will portray some of the events of the
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Gospels But now you come to Sunday and I'm preaching out of Mark's Gospel and you can only think of the actor and every time
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I say Jesus the image of the actor flashes in your mind and The certain artistic licenses and freedoms that come with that portrayal have become an unwelcome aid to your worship
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Now you're trying to purge. I don't want to be thinking of Jim Caviezel when I'm reading the Gospel of Mark Thomas Vincent said he's a
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Puritan and I think this is well said It is not lawful to have pictures of Jesus Christ because his divine nature cannot be pictured at all and because his body is now glorified and Cannot be pictured as it is now.
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I would quibble with some of what he said, but here's where I think he's right on If an image does not stir up devotion, it's vain
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But if it does stir up devotion, then it becomes worship of an image In other words, he's saying what do you gain by the image if it doesn't stir up anything in you?
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Why have it? What good is it? What benefit is it to you? But if it does stir something in you now, you're on the thin ice of the second commandment
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Here's where I'm at the words of JG Voss and and I fully agree with this JG Voss Of course, there's a difference between using pictures of Jesus to illustrate children's
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Bible storybooks. That's what we're all here for, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah Council of Nicaea blah blah blah blah just tell me can
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I have this book that I read to my five -year -old every Night, or do I have to start tearing out pages?
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Here's JG Voss. There's a difference between using pictures of Jesus to illustrate children's Bible storybooks or lessons and Using pictures of Jesus in worship as Roman Catholics use them.
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I Believe the second commandment makes that difference What is the second commandment forbid the use of images in worship or as aids to worship?
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Okay Admittedly, the former is not an evil in the same class with the latter.
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I also agree with that In spite of this distinction, however, there are good reasons
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For holding that the fathers in the Reformation were right to oppose pictorial representations of the
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Savior Do I think that? Children's storybooks are on the same level as what the second commandment is forbidding not necessarily, but I still think there's a good reason not to Endlessly adopt and use these kinds of materials
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Voss says we should realize that the popularity and even the almost unchallenged prevalence of a particular practice does not make it, right?
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These things were harder to come by in the past century They're becoming a lot more prevalent almost year by year to prove that our practice is right
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We must show that it's in harmony with the commands and principles in the Word of God I'll go a step further than Voss really just lay it down here the second
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Helvetic confession There's a lot of confessional statements. We have our own on the
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Proper accounting for the second commandment I don't think any hit it out of the park quite like the second
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Helvetic confession a Swiss confession coming out of the early Reformation Although Christ assumed human nature yet He did not on that account assume it in order to provide a model for carvers and painters
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As we said yesterday morning we have very scant details about what Jesus looked like What we can assume is he was not a handsome six -foot -three
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Australian model Isaiah says he did not have a form that we should desire after him not in that way
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It wasn't like Solomon hiding by the luggage this handsome tall man You wouldn't even really notice him
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But he had a certain buzz because of the authority of his teaching and the nature of his miracles Christ assumed human nature yet not on account
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For us to provide a model for carvers and painters He denied that he had come to abolish the law and the prophets and images are forbidden by the law and the prophets
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He denied this is Brilliant. He denied that his bodily presence would be profitable for the church
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He denied that his bodily presence would be profitable for the church. It is better that I go he said
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Lord we finally have you Now I can hold you again All right, the cross is in the rearview mirror.
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How finally I can see you. It's better that you don't It's better that I go because if I go what
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I send is what you need even more than be able to see me He denied that his bodily presence would be profitable for the church promised that he would be near to us by his spirit
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Who therefore would believe that a shadow or a likeness of his body would contribute any benefit benefit to the
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Saints Since he abides in us by his spirit. We become therefore the temple of God, but what agreement has the temple of God with idols?
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And so as Jay Packer says all man -made images of God whether molten or mental Are really borrowing from the stock and trade of a sinful and ungodly world and are bound therefore
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To be out of accord with God's own Holy Word to make an image out of God It's a take one's thoughts of him from a human source rather than from God himself
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Where has God made himself known in his word by his spirit? And so we worship
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God, but not by images of God now third and last We worship God not by images of God, but as image bearers of God.
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Here's a dimension. I think is often lost in this discussion Bob Inc said in our treatment of the doctrine of the image of God We must remember that we don't merely have the image of God.
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We are the image of God James 3 would imply that every individual
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Has a likeness to God were made in the likeness of God In other words every individual is made in the image of God and yet as Bob Inc goes on to say
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No one human can contain that image or reflect that image In all of its richness
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Since God is infinite No individual no society or culture can actually inhabit what it means for humans to bear that image well
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Nathan Grace Atanto who writing on Bob Inc said embedded in the creation of humanity is this orientation?
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We were meant to spread and cultivate Creation toward God no one community can possibly reflect the richness of that image
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It's too rich to be realized in a single race in a single ethnicity in a single form of culture
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All right, so Bob Inc has this view that the image of God is something that comprises all of humanity
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Part of what it means to be human you are the image of God if you remember
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Is it? Monty Python and the quest for the Holy Grail when they first begin their quest and they go to the castle
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And they're like we're looking for the grail and the guards in the castle go we've already got one
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I was thinking of that this whole week because it's like is it okay to have an image? Can we make the image or not should these images be here or not and what
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Bob Inc is saying? You've already got it What is the image of God?
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You are You are the image of God That's what it means to be human now the fall enters into that with a tragic consequence
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The image becomes deformed Marred serves the creature rather than the
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Creator begins to Spread darkness to the glory of God rather than expose the brilliant light of his glory
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But that hasn't totally effaced the image or erase the image of God Every human being is is called to be the image bearer in the perfection of that reflection
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Which of course is to say the second Adam if Adam was created as this perfect reflection of God He's meant to inhabit that reflection in the created cosmos and bring the order and glory walking as the representation of God on the earth as it were bringing his dominion the dominion of God to the glory of God and everything that he set his hand in his heart to If that was what the first Adam was created to do and yet the fall
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Took that tragically off course and the second Adam comes to as Our representative head take all of us who are redeemed back toward that Course back toward that and that goal that tell us of our humanity
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The second commandment then the bobbing is so good on this. The second commandment is a positive command
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For us to look to Christ as his image bearers not only in creation
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But in our redemption in other words God is saying you will find no image of me in any creature
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That dishonors me But if you want an image go look at Adam before he fell look at human beings who are created in my likeness
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But above all look at them through the risen Sun the image of the invisible God my only firstborn whoever sees him has seen the father as Christ so he is
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God the perfect likeness the adequate image the fullness of the deity dwelling in him bodily
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That is what we're to be satisfied with You see what he's saying. There is no adequate representation.
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There is no adequate image that can somehow inhabit the glory of God But we were created to be that Christ is that and as the express image of God we are being conformed to his image grace restores nature
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We will become that representative that the second commandment forbids anything else to be
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God -desired that his glory his infinite beauty would be reflected and represented by us and That's what the redemption of Christ has brought about So human beings themselves are to be
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God's image. He makes his image in us, but we are not to make images of God When Christ appears we shall be like him because we shall see him as he is
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So that's a vital dimension that's missing missing as we come to the end of it, what does that mean for us now?
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The Great Commission does not Negate the cultural mandate for man as image bearer to exercise dominion
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According to the glory of God's purpose. The Great Commission is actually the way toward that This is how we'll fulfill this mandate.
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This is how grace will restore nature But it's only as we're transformed by the gospel that we can again image and represent
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God. All right We're always reflecting something because we're always worshiping something and you become like what you worship.
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So, what are you worshiping? What are you becoming like? What are you conforming to?
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Sanctification is conformity to the image of God This is the image that God has allowed all other images are forbidden
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Christ is the express image It's in looking to him that express image that were conformed to him.
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He is the perfect representation of God So we cannot do this apart from Christ. We must we must do this toward Christ through Christ by Christ for Christ What does that mean for us now as we come to a close here?
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What does that mean for the time in between? Jesus says Thomas Because you've seen me you've believed
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Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believed There is a place for us in this life that we are awaiting to see to behold the glory of the
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Lord 2nd Corinthians 3 says that sort of with this unveiled face We're looking we're beholding the glory of the
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Lord and we're being transformed from one degree to the next as we behold it But it's sort of like beholding the
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Sun during the eclipse. It's beholding but it's not really beholding. It's it's as revealing as it is blinding
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To see it is to lose sight of it There's a there's a revelation and a hiddenness in this veil of our flesh on this side of that Consummation and Jesus says to Thomas like he would say to all of us blessed are those who do not see and yet believe
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We're not meant to have handhold images. I believe Appetizers to hold us over for that great day
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We're meant to hear by faith and believe walk by faith and not by sight not because the sight doesn't matter
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Because the sight is so Overwhelmingly glorious that when your eyes open to actually behold him not just here
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Not just live by faith, but actually see him that vision that beholding is so Overwhelmingly glorious that you are rendered like him just by looking upon him
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Just to open your eyes and see him the radiance the glory the beauty
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The presence of God in the face of our Savior you're made like unto him So notice that Thomas does not separate the person of Christ from the worship of Christ when he sees
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Jesus He falls down and worships Jesus And the Lord says blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe
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He doesn't say Thomas go make a little image or tuck this little carving into your pocket.
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You'll always have me with you to look at He says believe me even when you don't see The day is coming when we will see the day is coming when every image of God every image bearer will finally be vindicated venerated honored and all those image bearers who were
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False images false reflections false portrayals like the false idols in the first commandment.
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They'll be torn asunder. They'll be ground to powder So we're awaiting for that true dimension of being human the perfect reflection of the image of God to be revealed on That great day in the meantime, what are we we're a bride
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The church is a bride what does Rutherford say the bride eyes not her garment, but her dear bridegrooms face
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We're not even there we're not even quite there We're like the bride
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Who separated from her bridegroom? Not for lack of love, but because of love she's yearning to be joined to the bridegroom and her face is veiled and She's awaiting for the day for that for that moment for that hour for the veil to be lifted
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When she stands in the presence of the bridegroom That day of consummation and that's what we're awaiting
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So we're being prepared we're waiting to behold the face of our Savior We're not meant to see him any likeness of him until we actually see him
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We're to hear him abide by faith and live by faith rather than sight Hebrews 928 now.
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I'll stop here Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many To those who eagerly wait for him.
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He will appear a second time apart from sin
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For salvation, amen Let's pray a father help us to be those who eagerly wait
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Being adorned as a bride Lord being fitted in her bridal dress as you by your own blood
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Cleanse every spot every blemish every wrinkle Lord May we keep our lamps full for that great day may it
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Elevate and exhilarate all of our hope Lord. May there be a certain sense of yearning in our walk
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Lord Because we hear of and believe and know by your spirit this one that we love as Peter says
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Though having not seen him yet. You love him Lord, it's by your spirit that we love you and yet how greatly we long to see you
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Lord The sight that goes beyond all words
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Lord The day when that old adage that a picture is worth a thousand words will become more true for the sight of you is more than Scriptural revelation entire when we're made like you
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There'll be no word no speech no commentary adequate for that sight When every last vestige of our flesh and fallenness is
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Is eradicated by the brilliance of that day of Beholding you of being wed to you of redemption being perfectly complete
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Father we pray that even now we would understand how the second commandment
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Calls us to understand you as you've revealed yourself rather than how we want you to be Rather than how our flesh would portray you to be
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Lord May we be those who are bound to your word, whatever the cost Lord that you would be true every man a liar and every invention of man a liar
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We know we cannot do this by our own efforts Lord It must be by your own spirit Lord. So illuminate your word to us show each one of us here this morning
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Is there any way that we have transgressed this commandment Lord? We have not understood you we have not known you rightly
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Is there some idolatry that we've attached your name to far be it from us Lord Help us then
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Lord. We pray for those who are strangers to your grace in this room even this morning May they understand that there is no neutrality and they are serving after other gods
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Lord show them their bondage Give them a groaning crying to be delivered and in that cry