Deuteronomy 5:8-10, The Second Commandment

The Second Commandment and the Purpose of Worship

Deuteronomy chapter 5 starting verse 8 hear the word of the Lord You shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is on 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 fourth generation of those who hate me. But showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.

May the Lord add his blessings to the reading of his Holy Word. Well when we were when we were in Mary and I were in Ethiopia. We spent about six months in a small Bible College in a town called southern Ethiopia called Dilla.

The the Bible College had a small library full of donated books. I'm actually not bad-sized library for small college. But it was closed because the students or whatever. I'm not exactly remember the reason something.

They weren't keeping the books in order. Is that it? Yeah, okay Mary's not her head she remembers and so no one was Keeping overseeing the library. So the students can use them. They closed the other way people gave to stock this library in rural Ethiopia, and it was totally closed.

No one use it. So I volunteered to be the librarian so the students could come and read and I thought it didn't make much sense. I have a library that no one can use. I mean, what's a library for? It's for keeping in books.

Or is it for helping readers? And I've heard stories like that over and over again even Christian organizations Churches and others Bible Colleges and so forth having raised. Often having raised money for something and built something or maybe a library or haven't gotten a VCR.

You know can't move the VCR from upstairs to downstairs so we can show the Jesus film to the poor kids because he might hurt damage the VCR and Chairs. Folding chairs and well, maybe you know the youth ministry those rambunctious kids might damage our chairs that we might have to shut down the whole ministry and churches, I've heard in this even in this area that other churches have built gyms and.

Then guess what the kids come they play ball and guess what happens they get the gym dirty. We can't have that so they closed down the whole gym and the whole ministry shut down and and I want to know on like that.

The people Christians they they do something they raise money for something and then they forget what it's for. This is amazing how easily people forget what or who? Something is for and get more caught up in protecting it.

You know, whatever it is the books I'd rather have all the books to get stolen. You know out there least someone someone's likely to read more likely to read them if they're out there. Then they are locked in a library that no one can get into our VCRs or chairs or gyms or vans or buses or gym, you know gyms.

They are they get caught up in protecting that stuff and really it's about then Protecting our status. Look what a nice gym. We have look what a nice library we have, you know, and nice electronics nice chairs.

Rather than.

You know what the ministry was supposed to be for. We forget to let them do but you know, maybe what the gym is supposed to be for they come in. They'll scuff up the place. At the YMCA the GW swim team has to come practice late in the evening like, you know, sometimes 8 p .m.

Because the old folks have to have their water aerobics earlier. Got another Y member here. He may object. I don't know what he thinks of that. But I wonder though if they've forgotten what the Y and YMCA stands for.

What about. What about church. What about what about worship? What or who is it for? Well, there are in my opinion basically three types of churches. At least those are among around us those first who think the church is for themselves.

They may never say that but you can tell by the way they live. So the hymns they sing the suits and ties and dresses they wear. The the things they preach on the old translation they use the style of preaching is what makes them feel comfortable.

It's what they're used to it's what they grew up with. They're comfortable with it. Maybe it's the old-time religion or Whatever. I mean we sing a lot of. Hope anyone notices seeing a lot of kind of 70s.

And 80s choruses in this that in this church often. That's because I'm the one choosing the songs and that's what I'm most comfortable with. I love you Lord good old 70s.

And.

But if that's all you do that's all about us. Well, that's a problem then others though. The second time is that the church is for those outside. Whatever draws in the crowds. So everything is geared toward attracting people outside.

Making them more comfortable. You gotta you know, you gotta have the jeans and the untucked shirt. It's kind of the uniform these days. Certain style of church. Yeah, I won't tell that story and Preaching is replaced by a talk from a guy sitting on a stool.

With in jeans and an untucked shirt, of course. And a lot of attention is played to two graphics and lights and multi. I'm not putting down untucked shirts. Okay, you can wear untucked shirts if you want.

There's just such a uniform among the stuff. But a lot of tension again is the multimedia. You got of course contemporary music that's taken for granted. You got to engage all the senses with with images and drama and skits and dance and all that kind of stuff.

Everything else that is exciting and appealing to our culture today because it's for those outside church. They say and some of them say this explicitly. Churches for those outside out there and then there are a lot of people who have got to have a as you like it attitude about worship.

You know, it's talking about the about what's right worship for them. Those people that that's as ridiculous as talking about the right kind of food, you know. You might like Chinese food or you might Italian or you might like Mexican or you know, American or whatever.

It's whatever you like. It's to your taste what suits you and so the same mentality comes to church. You you might like traditional you might like your hymns or you might contemporary. Are you like expositional preaching or maybe you're like seeker sensitive kind of topical messages or maybe you like liturgical, you know Justin these old Robes and chanting and incense and all that whatever it's up to you.

Worship is to paraphrase Abraham Lincoln of the people by the people and for the people. Then there's a third option. The worship is not first about the people in here about us or the people out there.

But the God up there maybe. Just maybe.

There's an audience of one.

That we need to attend to in the first commandment. God demands to be the only one we serve to give worship that is worth Ship to in the second commandment. God demands that all worship be done as he directs and This makes the second commandment one of the most widely And blatantly disobeyed of the commandments one frequently Violated even by religious church-going people and perhaps the most incomprehensible of the Ten Commandments to many people especially today.

The Lord tells us you shall not make notice the way that commandment is put. You shall not make for yourself a Carved image and it goes on notice that for yourself. Now if you omitted that phrase For yourself, it would it would still mean the same thing.

You know, you shall not make a carved image and so on. But but it wouldn't have the emphasis that the commandment is about that phrase is there for a reason. Because that I think is the essence of the commandment for yourself worship is not about yourself.

But as soon as we're unable or unwilling to worship God in spirit and in truth, we start making worship.

This for ourselves.

To make us feel comfortable whether it be the old hymns or the new songs exciting contemporary songs or the ways that will draw in the crowds or Ways that just remind us of the good old days the good old seventies.

If it's for us, it's about us. They express who we are. What we want and our own perverted desire to control God to kind of put him on our short leash. When we worship God the way we think God should be worshiped.

We become the arbitrators over his worship we become Then gods. We take to ourselves the right to stand over God and tell him this is the right way. That you are to be served God. We're gonna tell you God how you are to be served and That very attitude the very arrogance that would come to God in the way we think best.

Is it the heart the opposite of worship and it really doesn't matter how you do it whether your traditional contemporary or liturgical or Positional Puritan life if that's your attitude, he's gonna be done my way.

Your worship is all wrong. Worship is a humble reverent bowing of the knee accepting his attitude. His say is his guilty verdict on our sins. Accepting that the only way that we can be saved is if God does something for us that we can't at all do for ourselves.

So worship looks to the cross and accepts that sacrifice and says you are Lord. But when we make worship for ourselves. We say we think we know we know better About what we need to get to God about how he should be worshiped.

And so to put a fine point on it worship that comes from us. It's a product of our imagination our planning out for our purposes to suit our needs to make us feel the way we want to. Feel that is not real worship of God at all.

It's not even something innocent and intolerable. It's not an optional way of doing things, you know. Just for people who are kind of into that kind of thing worship if it is to be worship of God at all must be of God by God and for God.

Otherwise, it's nothing other than damnable idolatry. It's our own self worship. Notice that phrase you shall not make for yourself. It's very difficult for people in our day to understand even sympathize with a day in which we talk about worship styles.

It's a common phrase out there worship styles when the reigning idea of in many even in many churches seems to be that worship is All a matter of preference with our taste being the final judge of what's acceptable and what it's not.

God says you shall not make for yourself. We say go ahead make for yourself a worship experience that suits you that appeals to Seniors or Millennials or bikers or cowboys or white people or black people.

Or Chinese people or whatever group you're trying to appeal to we talk a lot about worship and then forget. The very one it is supposed to be about. In the second commandment then come screaming to us.

Worship is not for us. It's for God and for it to be real. It has to be done God's way period. Second commandment tells us you can't determine how God is worship, but idols. Don't make the carved image.

Don't bow to it idols. They stand for the way of the life of the people who worship them they stand for the people. In that day in Moses's day that the gods were worshipped, you know, according to their Their way of life their their culture from the appearance of the temples to the altars to the role of the priest it all reflected as an expression of the values of the art of the aesthetics the ideals of the culture of the people.

It was of by and for the people. It's a celebration of them. That's what their religion was. So like in Roman days when the Christians would not sacrifice a pinch an inch a pinch of incense to the Emperor and say What are they what would a hail hail to the Caesar?

A sacrifice to the genius they call it the spirit of the Emperor. When Christians refused to do that the Romans saw that now he's irreligious, but just unpatriotic. You're a traitor. You're not joining with us, but the Christians couldn't do it and In idolatry whether it's like that or any other it the worship meets the needs of the culture.

Maybe of the state of the society maybe to hold them together of the patriotism and and surely we think there isn't anything wrong with that. And maybe there's not if he's you know, saluting a flag before a football game.

This is a fine place to do salute a flag. But what about the worship of God? People say well, there's not anything wrong with that in worship of God. But oh, but there is God tells the Israelites it is worse.

But worship is not merely an expression of their culture. It's of the Lord by the Lord and for the Lord. He is worshiped by me teachable hearts who come to hear God's Word. Have their sins exposed by it and offer their lives as a living sacrifice to him.

It is not Self-expression that God wants out of us. It's submission. That God's after you know in the book of Exodus when the Lord describes how to make the tabernacle. You never read through all that and you think oh I start to glaze over so many details well, I had to read this is the hard part to get through the Bible and about the tabernacle and the altar and the Ark of the Covenant and all of that other decorations and Other things you don't even know exactly what they are.

He has very detailed instructions. He leaves nothing to their imagination you think of that. Why are there so many details? God is like a control freak there even to the colors of the threads. You know, he describes the this these threads are supposed to be these colors.

It's as though he is communicating to them that their worship is not something they can just kind of concoct out of their own. Creative thinking that they should not think for themselves how to create the best worship experience.

To visitors to the tabernacle. I mean you want to draw in as many visitors to the tabernacle as you can. No, that's not what they were thinking but that this will all be done as the Lord determines. This is why it's so seriously wrong to think you can worship him in any way of our choosing.

Something that as long as people are sincere. Well, they're sincere. It's okay but you know when Moses was on Mount Sinai getting the Ten Commandments Aaron was sincere he was sincerely making a golden calf and Declared that made that he sincerely makes this golden calf and declares sincerely This is your God over Israel and then they call a feast sincerely I assume.

For the Lord, you know, and if you read the passages all capital letters Lord means Yahweh. It's not just any God he means and he means the very God who this is the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt.

Aaron says This and this image that he made this golden calf was was to represent this God. Now many people assume that Aaron was making another God to worship and so violating the first commandment. But no, he made a image a golden calf and then called the image the Lord Yahweh.

He said this was the God that brought us out of the land of Egypt that the people remember they were getting nervous because where's Moses he had been gone for so long. Moses is God Prophet had represented God.

To the people and their faith is so weak that they needed they needed something that they could see. Someone that something they could look at before I've been Moses and now we need someone to remind them of God.

And so Aaron made another image of God for them, but the problem is it was for them for a human purpose. It was a violation not of the first but of the second commandment. Here in Deuteronomy chapter 4 verse 15.

We saw a week or two ago. They were reminded that you saw no form on the day that the Lord spoke to you or they heard his word. But they saw his works not in not him himself so and they said so don't make an image to use in worship and Again, we need to be careful because this we need this to think what does this have to do?

We don't make idols. That's not in our culture anymore. That's all gone. This is we be careful. We don't think this is an old Irrelevant warning really doesn't apply to us anymore. We're past that stage in human evolution.

No, we're not but you know, the Eastern Orthodox Church draws in evangelical Christians today. Just a couple this was last year. The so-called Bible answer man Hank Hanegraaff converted supposed to be evangelical Christian converted to Eastern Orthodoxy and now burns incense to Images.

Okay, so that's going on now to icons. They call them because and this happens to among evangelical Christians because people aren't careful about images in worship. Now the Eastern Orthodox claim to have perfectly preserved the practices of the Apostolic Church.

Unchanged unaltered from the very beginning, but they use icons images in worship. And the truth is that the early church strictly prohibited icons. They knew that the second commandment set them apart from a pagan culture with its all its images.

And so they allow the early church allowed no images in the church. No likeness of any figure whatsoever. To be used in worship even as late as the mid 300s the 4th century a man named a puffin is Right his name all the time, but I don't hardly ever say it.

Papa nice is a bishop and from Salamis. He was traveling and Called it Israel or Palestine and he comes again to a church to pray and there's a curtain there with the some kind of Image on it. He said he didn't remember exactly what it was up a Christ or some other perfect curtain Decoration and he was angry this bishop he tore it down tore it to shreds gave it to the deacon there in the church and so told him to go give the Rags now to some poor person who needed them and that's the way the early church was about images in the church.

Okay, you get stories like this when you have a pastor as a PhD in church history. But that's what the consensus of the early church for the first four centuries. So this this claim that you know from the early we preserve the practices of the early church.

From the beginning and now we're just like they did we're bowing before icons. Okay, that's that's false. If you stronger terms than that, but it's just false. So and Worship again must be done God's way and it prohibits images and even the words of the Lord Jesus.

Show that God demands that he be the Lord over his worship. In John chapter 4 a Samaritan woman. Remember that story as they at the well tries to debate with him. I have a debate about worship. I'm a Samaritan.

He's a Jew. Let's debate worship. What's the best place to worship and Jesus tells her God is spirit and those who worship him. You know, she didn't say well you should go to Jerusalem do that thing. But he doesn't also say it doesn't matter where you worship either.

He didn't say that either is he no matter how you worship you worship must worship must worship in spirit and truth. Maybe we're not good. That's not our passes for today. But you know, some people have gravitate toward the spirit.

Well, it's in your heart. It's sincere. But notice the insistent kind of irksome immovable word Jesus put in there must. You must worship God's way in Spirit and in truth the second commandment is still alive and it still tells us that God demands that worship must be his way.

This is what makes the second commandment so hard for people to understand. God is saying that worship isn't really for people at all. It's for him and when there is a group of people who understand that Who assemble in worship not just for the socializing or the familiar music or the sense of having fulfilled an obligation a weekly ritual?

But out of love for him those people he says in the commandment. Remember he will bless them. Those thousands he will love them. On the other hand, it's the people who don't seek to make worship. About him.

That he is.

Angry against but it's the people who don't seek to make worship for themselves. They aren't making it for themselves. Those God commits to make sure They will get something out of it. Sort of the irony.

You come to worship. Wanting really sincerely to worship God. You're not thinking I want this for myself. You want to worship God you get something out of it. God make sure he blesses you those who come.

I want something out of the shirt for myself. I want to feel my way or whatever there those God opposes. So while they while those people who think they can bend worship for their purposes God says he will pursue.

He'll be against them generation after generation. So God reserves the right to himself to to describe how he will be worshiped first. He says use no images in our worship. Any use of an image to pray to or through or kind of help us focus our our prayers our devotion or to somehow bring a blessing on us is.

Absolutely.

Forbidden and it's amazing how often we make Something we can see into like. Some image that gives us power. I saw some guy on some YouTube video. I know his name Bob Larson. Yeah. Supposed to be casting out demons out of someone and he's using the Bible like it was a magic wand.

Waving it over people's heads and the book itself became an image that has the power that brings God's blessing. Not the words just the book. You understand the difference and. No, that's what the second commandment is against.

Don't use Objects that you can see somehow as conduits of God's power. Doing that because there are our attempts and they always fall short of his glory. They diminish they insult his glory. They make him something look like well.

He his power can be controlled with the waving of a Bible or some got him whatever magic wand. Of a cross. I just last night we see it a movie Tom Cruise movie. It was a American made I think it was and a drug smuggler, right?

From Columbia just planes and trying to dodge the American DA agents and to get drugs in the u .s. And he of course he put a cross on his Cockpit window. There is a lucky charm to help him in his drug smuggling.

That's the way people think God will help me if I put the the object ensures God's blessing.

Well.

No, it doesn't. In fact, it may ensure God's opposition. You notice something odd about the commandment as we've read about it. It makes it stand out from all the rest. There's something odd about this commandment is different.

I think from all the other Commandments. Notice how specific it is. The rest kind of the rest of the commands leave it up to us convert with to define with integrity. What what makes the you know, what violating the means?

You know, we can define for ourselves. What does it mean to take the name of the Lord in vain? You know, so he doesn't have a long when he comes to that doesn't have a long list. Don't use these two words.

Don't use these terms. No, he just says don't take the name of the Lord in vain define for ourselves what it means to not work on the Sabbath or what it means to honor your parents or To not murder or not commit adultery or are not stealing or not slandering.

You know those commands are very do not do that. He doesn't have to exactly describe the action that is required or prohibited in those other commandments if you think about it. This is you know, like do not murder.

What's murder? We have a couple law. We have one lawyer I guess it's right and a law student, you know law is all about you got to define exactly what these things mean. And so often a lot of boring detail, but here but most the commandments don't do that.

Say with murder what we can figure that out for ourselves with the help of other scripture. When is a killing or a murder or not? But with this commandment, it's not like that. It's not like the others.

It's not you think about what God could have done is he didn't say do not commit idolatry and Be done with it. It's very short like many most of the other ones are Leaving it up to us to decide for ourselves what makes for idolatry.

No, what is prohibited is Exactly described. So that are interesting, you know, he didn't do that with murder. He didn't say don't sneak up behind your enemy with a club and bash him in the head until he's dead.

Or and then go on don't stab him in the back. Don't you didn't do that? He just has to not murder because we can figure out what murder is here. He didn't say do not commit idolatry. Why is that? Why is he described specifically what not to do?

And Here what not to do is don't make an image and bow down to it. You have an object something you can see and you worship to or through or with that thing. Don't do that. And those are two elements notice the two elements that are required.

There's an image and bowing to it now. Is it is it wrong to have images? To have art on your walls to have pictures of your family. Maybe of your ancestors who have passed away. Is that wrong. Not necessarily.

No, it's not not if you don't bow down to them if you're not using them in worship somehow. It's not the photo of your past family members. That is wrong but the Jostics. The prayers offered to them as though they can hear you the food offered to them.

As though they can eat it the money burned to them as though they can, you know spend it somehow that transfers it to them. Decorations photos pictures on your wall to remember past people ancestors art.

It's not prohibited. God even tells Moses to make carvings of cherubim to decorate the Ark of the Covenant. That seems strange doesn't in light of this commandment, but it's not but some people look at that and say, oh, yeah, he made art carvings of cherubim see.

Icons are acceptable just like we bow to images of Mary and Saint whoever. But no. Nowhere are those images of the Cherubim used in worship. They're never bowed to or before and used in any way in worship.

They're just decorations and in the in the tabernacle in the temple decorations. Are fine. Nothing wrong with decorations with art icons. Really idols are not. And what is prohibited is exactly described.

Why did he do that you think it's not left up to ourself to decide whether we've committed idolatry because people always lie to protect their idols and Romans 1 Paul describes How God's invisible. God's invisible attributes his eternal power that he could create this whole universe that there is a God have he says have been clearly perceived.

People know that but people suppress the truth and They exchange the the worship of the true God he says for images for idols for icons. That that is idolatry Arises from an exchange you have the truth already because it's there.

You have that truth, but you exchange it for a lie that you prefer instead you like the lie rather than the truth. So that's where idolatry comes from. It's out of a suppression of the truth. It arises from lying.

We always lie to support our idols. And I've seen this literally and dealing with Eastern Orthodox people who will claim with straight face I guess a straight because most time is through the computer.

I can't really see their face but Straight words on the on that screen that they're bowing to an image. They're doing exactly what is clearly described and prohibited in the second commandment. I mean they're doing exactly what the second commandment says not to do.

That that's not violating the commandment. I Mean, how do you get away with that? Well? Because they're suppressing the truth. They're worshiping they'll say though. Well, we're not worshiping idols. We're venerating icons and that's an entirely different thing.

Sure, it looks the same but it's entirely different they say but the second commandment doesn't say. Don't commit idolatry. No, it describes exactly what not to do don't make any image and then bow to it.

But they lie first to themselves. So they can do what the commandment says not to do and I'll say all that not to condemn them make us feel better. Because if they'll do that with their literal idols, no matter what they call them.

Think how much more likely we are to do that with our non-literal idols. Oh, we don't idolize our spouse we say we love them. We don't live for our kids. We say we are just focusing on the family. We don't I like sports we say.

Just make sure you're out by 12 so we can get the whole game. We don't you know, we'll miss church to go on traveling teams. Because it's only for a few years. We don't serve the money God we say. We've just got bills to pay we got responsibilities a family to support.

We'll come back to church when we have a big enough a bank account. We always lie to protect our idols. Why does God take his worship so seriously? What's the what's the reason that this makes it into the Ten Commandments?

Of all the things this is probably the one commandment most even secular people or not even. Specially secular people. Well in the middle verse 5 he says for. Or because so here comes the reason this is why he's commanded this.

I the Lord your God am a jealous God. He is jealous. That means that he wants no rival to our affections for him. Just like a husband or wife rightly jealous that his or her spouse not have another boy or girlfriend on the side.

You know, it's not good enough just a spouse places. Okay, honey. Yeah, sure I got a few on the side, but you're my most loved so don't worry about it. Okay, that doesn't fly with anybody I know. It's not good enough to be the most loved.

Oh, honey, you're you're 51 of my love. Maybe even a little bit more and divide the rest among other affections among other lovers. No, that didn't work. Don't work with your husband or wife. And the second commandment God demands that he be our only love our only object of worship that we have no other gods and if We do love anything or anyone else.

Like a like a wife or a husband. We love them for the ways. They bring us closer to God. We love other people or things. Because we see in them something of the goodness of God. They're God's gift to us something of the glory of God if we are not to be an idolater.

Everything that we love we love for God. We love God through loving them and Like any normal husband or wife the Lord is determined not simply to be our highest God not to be our favorite. Our favorite among that our harem of lovers.

He determines to be the only one he's monogamous and he's jealous. God wants no competition for our worship. We are not to worship the angels who help him or the Saints who have been especially close to him in the past.

All such attempts to make other objects of devotion. No matter what you call it whether praying to or through them seeking their aid to get to the father. You know if you really want the father to listen to you.

Talk to Mary because Mary is Jesus's mother and and so, you know Jesus will definitely do what his mother tells him to do and then Jesus is close to the father. So so, you know, you got to have connections right connections.

Everyone knows you want to do well in society got to have connection same with God go through him connections. No, he blows all that away. The only connection you need was right with God himself. Don't seek intermediaries.

Venerating people who were think we're close to the Lord. All of that is forbidden. It is idolatry. The people who do that may think they have good intentions. But they're making something for themselves not really for God and the Lord is jealous and does not tolerate it.

The Hebrew word for jealous denotes an intense Emotional reaction to any affront to God's glory. This prohibition is not something that's cold and stern some just restriction. Legalistic like not like some policeman telling you not to litter you don't really care.

But it's just his job or some teacher telling you do your homework. This is something God is passionate about. He is intensely Passionate about worship that he'd be done his way for his glory. He expects passionate obedience passionate worship in return so that means boredom with God boredom with his word.

This is y 'all. I.

Got a read. I gotta do. I got a concert. Oh. It's an insult to his passion for worship. We saw in the first chapter of Isaiah last fall. You remember and read it again Isaiah 1 that the Lord told the Israelites that their worship that their offerings they were vain.

Their incense they offered in worship even they did it according to the law. But even if they did it the right way was an abomination. That he could not endure. Their assemblies and they're off. They're supposedly for him, but he didn't.

He hates it. His language is heated white-hot with the intensity of his feeling God hates.

Hypocritical.

Worship, he hates worship that disgraces him. He hates worship that makes people think that he really isn't that important. He's just something you got to endure for an hour until we can get to them to the restaurant and before the Methodist do.

That other interests are loyalties like the nation or to the family order. Whatever, you know, whatever's on TV at noon. All of that is more important than he is. It's not a light thing. It's something the Lord deeply angrily despises and so he says in the second half of verse 9 that he visits the iniquity of the fathers on The children to the third grandchildren and fourth great-grandchildren generation of those who turn away From right worship.

He equates violating this command notice. He says he calls it that he calls that hating him notice that. They they think now these people think well I just prefer this way of doing things or I'm just not into that kind of thing.

But God is saying you hate me. That's what's going on when you're turning away from right worship because you hate me. And at the end of verse 9 those who disobey this commandment who degrade the worship of God who promote rivals to him.