We continue our studies today in the series on the Ten Commandments, coming today to commandment number two. I ask you to open the Word of God with me to Exodus chapter 20, verses four through six. Precepts have flourished by their system of laws, their liberty, being based upon these precepts.
George Henderson, a commentator now with the Lord, quotes an unnamed author as saying, "'Like the granite rocks of the mountain on which they were given, these precepts formed the immovable basis of the moral life of men and nations, the enduring groundwork of every lofty and stable civilization.'" I think we can also say that nations forsaking them have crumbled into decay and ruin. David testified in Psalm 19, the law of the Lord is perfect.
It is that, of course, because it reveals and reflects a perfect and holy God. And the law demands perfection while cursing the sinner. Woe to the one who seeks to be justified by the law and does not keep every part of it. The book of James says that if we keep the whole law and yet offend in one point, we are guilty of it all. In other words, one failure and all of the law falls, crushing the transgressor under its weight.
Woe to the one trying to be justified by the law, because as sinners it is impossible for us to do so. God did not give us the law in order for us to find a way to heaven thereby, but rather He gave the law in order that we might clearly see our sin contrasted with His holiness. The Lord Jesus Christ died under the curse of the law, not having been a sinner but taking upon Himself our sin. He died to deliver His people from the law's condemnation.
So let me make it clear that we are not studying the Ten Commandments so that we can find a way to heaven. We are justified by faith in Jesus Christ alone, but there is profit for us in studying the Ten Commandments. These commandments show to us the moral perfections of God in ethical terms which we can understand. But the law also reveals to us, in a sense, the love of God. For the law forbids activities that ruin and waste a life.
God does not want us to live that kind of a life, and so in love He has warned us of those kinds of activities, actions, and attitudes which ruin and spoil one's life. After establishing Himself in our Scripture as the only God, the only one whom they were to worship, God now instructs them further in how to worship Him. The first two commandments deal with worship, indicating that it is a priority. Worship is priority.
The second commandment does not repeat the first commandment, but rather it builds upon it and flows out from it. It tells us that how we worship God is as important as that we worship God. And it's interesting to see that God has more to say in connection with this commandment than any of the other ten. You shall make no idol, the Lord says. Let's look closer at the statement of God's command. There are really three parts to it.
We've already read it in our Scripture reading this morning, so I will dispense with that now. The first part of the command is, you shall not make an idol. The Hebrew word idol means a figure of carved wood or stone. Idols came also to be made out of other materials, but the idea is a man-made figure of worship of whatever substance. God says first, you shall not make an idol. And then He says, you shall not worship them. That is, idols made in the likeness of the things mentioned in verse 4.
Whether like the birds of the air or beasts or mankind on the face of the earth or fish that are in the sea, we are not to worship those things. Idols made in their likeness. The word worship means to bend before them. The idea is to invoke God's name in prayer while bending before one of these figures. The third part of the command is, you shall not serve them. The word serve suggests worship by means of sacrifice or ceremonial ritual. So God says, you shall not make an idol.
You shall not worship an idol. You shall not serve an idol. It is important to understand what God means by this. Let me say first that this is not a commandment against art. So all of you artists can relax. God is not condemning art. He is not making a commandment here against sculpture or painting. Nor is God forbidding the making of the representation of anything.
Indeed, it was not long after this that God commanded his people to make the likeness of cherubim as a part of the mercy seat in the holy place. So God himself commanded the making of the representation of something. So God is not outlawing the representation of everything. There are some people who look at this command and in the light of it refuse to have a picture in their home or they refuse to have the photographs of themselves made because we are not to make an image, it says.
I'd like to point out that such an interpretation is improper. It is improper because it is overly legalistic and superficial. It's not the right interpretation of this command. When we interpret scripture, we have to remember that it is to be interpreted literally. But that means that we interpret it within its grammatical context and its historical background.
In other words, we have to find out what the words mean here and there are biblical tools that we have, study aids that we have to find out. And once we ascertain what the words mean, then we have to look at them in their cultural usage in that time period so that we understand what is meant there. We have to interpret scripture literally but not legalistically and superficially so avoid that kind of thing.
Rather what God is commanding here is that there be no worshipping of himself, the true God, using any form or likeness of something or someone. God's point is not that we should have no idol worship of a false God. He made that point in commandment one. No other God is before me. So this is not a commandment against idol worship of a false God. This is a commandment of idol worship of the true God. God is saying here that we are not to make anything that would represent him to us.
We are not to make something which is an aid to the worship of him, the true God. That's the point that God is making in this commandment. Now why does God say this? There's a theological reason. Whatever is made is inherently limited. It is limited by its makeup. It is limited by the mind and the imagination of its creator. So anything that a man makes to be an idol is by its nature limited. And because it is limited it cannot represent accurately an unlimited infinite God.
Therefore whatever the idol is, it is a false representation of God who is infinite. It is impossible to make an idol that would accurately and adequately represent God. Therefore he commands no idols to represent me. Kyle and Delich in their commentaries say, whenever Jehovah, the God who cannot be copied because he reveals his spiritual nature in no visible form, is worshiped under some visible image, the glory of the invisible God is changed.
Or Jehovah changed into a different God from what he really is. You see that's the point. Any image distorts and perverts the glory of God. God has revealed himself without form. God is spirit. Therefore he says make nothing to represent me because nothing can. Whatever you make will be false. That's the theological reason. There is another reason, practical reason, really two of them. One first for the nation of Israel. In that day every nation had its gods.
And when an opposing army conquered a nation, it would destroy the gods of the conquered nation. In doing that they would seek to demoralize the nation and disrupt and destroy its unity because the unity was often built around the worship of the gods. Cyrus Gordon makes a comment about this. He says, it is worth noting that the defeated nations on seeing their idols dragged off or smashed tended to become demoralized and lose their identity.
Assyria, Babylonia, the Seleucids, and Rome could not destroy the Jewish religion partly because God and his people's allegiance to him were incorporeal and therefore indestructible. The second commandment thus paved the way for the historic survival of Yahwism, that is the worship of Yahweh, the one true God. They could not destroy the unity of the people, the spirit of the people by destroying their God because they had no representation of their God.
Their God was invisible, their God was spirit, and that cannot be destroyed. So that was a very practical reason. God said, make no images of me. Thus in later years when they would be destroyed there would be no images of God to be taken away and therefore the nation would not be completely demoralized. There's an individual reason that we need to look at pragmatically also. That is that we become like that which we worship.
And if what we are worshiping is a false representation of God and therefore false theology, we will become false. False worship leads to false living. False theology leads to false behavior. The one follows the other. So there's a practical reason for the individual as well. We are warned not to worship God after images because to worship Him in that way is to worship Him falsely and that will lead to corruption in us morally.
You follow any idolatry in the world and it will inevitably lead to immorality and corruption in the ethics of that culture because false worship leads to that kind of thing. So God's point is make no gods, no idols rather to represent me. Do not worship before them and do not do ceremonial ritual service to them and think yourself to be worshiping me. You see that was the problem with the golden calf really.
When the golden calf was made, the people said here is the God that brought you Israel out of Egypt. And what was Aaron's response? Let's have a feast to the Lord. You see they were not creating a brand new God in this golden calf. They were saying we don't know where this fellow Moses is. He hasn't come back from that mountain up there. So we need to make some kind of an image of the God who has revealed Himself. And so what they were saying was this golden calf represents Yahweh, Elohim to us.
And God judged them for that. Three thousand of them died in that day because they worshiped God improperly. We have not only the statement of God's command but the statement of His character in our text. He says in verse 5, I the Lord your God. We looked last week at the meaning of these names, Yahweh, Elohim. Yahweh comes from a root verb hava which means to be or being. It refers to eternal self existence. God is the God who says about Himself, I am. Nothing more needs to be said.
Dr. Merrill Unger writes these helpful words. The root idea is that of under-rived existence. When it is said that God's name is He is, simply being is not all that is affirmed. He is in a sense in which no other being is. He is and the cause of His being is in Himself. He is because He is. From the idea of under-rived and independent existence follows that of independent and uncontrolled will and action. A good comment about the name Yahweh.
There was a letter yesterday, perhaps you saw it in the Minneapolis paper from an atheist decrying the existence of God. His big problem is he can't figure out where God came from. Well that is a problem that all of us have. We can't understand a being having no beginning because we are created. We are finite. Infinity is beyond our comprehension. God is, He has always been and because He is, He is not accountable to us for His actions. He does not need our counsel to choose His way. He is.
He can choose to do whatever He chooses to do. He is limited only by His own nature. He is Yahweh. There is none like Him. And His name is Elohim. Two words really comprise the one name Elohim. El meaning unlimited strength and Allah meaning to swear or to make a covenant. And so in this name God is reminding us that He is the one who swears, who makes covenant by Himself. And with His unlimited strength and power He is able to fulfill His covenant. He is Yahweh Elohim to His people.
God says that's who I am. That's my name. Now He gives us three other statements regarding His character. He says that He is the God who is jealous. I am a jealous God. In another text He uses that as His name. He says my name is jealous, capital J. Now when we see that word we think sin immediately. Because the only jealousy that we can relate to is sinful jealousy. But there is such a thing as holy jealousy.
Once more the commentators, Kyle and Delich help us by saying it means He will not transfer to another the honor that is due to Himself nor tolerate the worship of any other God. That's what God means when He says that He is a jealous God. You can follow this theme through Exodus, Deuteronomy. God again and again reminds us that He is a jealous God who will not allow His people to give to an idol the worship that is due to Him alone. This is true today my friend as it was 3500 years ago.
God will not allow you and me to give our love and worship to another nor will He allow us to worship Him improperly. You see He is jealous for His glory. He will not allow His glory to be perverted by idols. He is the God who is jealous. He is also a God who punishes. How foreign that is to some people's idea of God. They see only a God who forgives and blesses and is kind and God is that as we will see in a moment. But He is also a God who is capable of perfect hatred and a God who punishes.
It says that He visits the iniquity of the fathers on the children on the third and fourth generations of those who hate Him. The heat of God's anger is expressed toward those who hate Him and the context that hatred seems to be expressed by idol worship. Even if the idol is intended to represent the true God or is intended only to be an aid to the worship of God. God says if you worship me this way you hate me. You are perverting my glory as the invisible eternal Yahweh Elohim.
Therefore I will visit iniquity of the fathers on the third and fourth generation. What does that mean? The language there in verse 5 is used in three other contexts in the Old Testament. What does it mean? Well let me say first what it does not mean because I think that this verse has been misused. It does not mean that God punishes children for the sins of their parents without any fault of their own.
It is a basic principle of God's justice and He states it elsewhere in the Old Testament that He does not punish innocent children for the sins of guilty fathers. Nor does this verse mean that a child must repent for the sins of his parents or be bound by them himself. That is not what the scripture passage is saying. What then does it mean? God is saying to us here that false worship is likely to be transferred to succeeding generations by the example of fathers.
Children then tend to pick up that false worship and to fill up the sins of their forefathers so that when judgment finally comes in the patience of God it results not only from that generation's evil but from the generations that preceded it as well. It is the accumulation which God judges. We see this exemplified in the Old Testament and I would simply give you a couple of references to look up on your own. Leviticus 26 verse 39 and Daniel 9 verse 16.
You will see that this is the meaning of this verse illustrated. God is a God who punishes those who worship Him improperly. But He is also a God, thirdly, who shows loving kindness. G. Campbell Morgan says, proceed to notice the gracious promise standing side by side with the warning. There is very little doubt that the rendering of this ought to be showing mercy unto a thousand generations of those who love Me and keep My commandments.
That is to say that if a man sweeps the idols away and gets into living connection with God, worshiping Him without anything between, the result will be that his child's child will most likely so worship. So just as there is a tendency for false worship to be passed down, there is also the tendency for true worship to be given from one generation to another. The contrast is that God allows the false worship to go on for three or four generations and brings judgment.
Whereas the blessing, He says, goes to a thousand generations to those who love and obey Me. What we see here is an example of grace abounding more. Loving kindness is the Old Testament word for the grace of God. So God, Yahweh Elohim, is a God who is jealous. He is a God who punishes. He is a God who also blesses with loving kindness. Before I go on, I do want to point out something that I think is significant here. That is that we parents have a great responsibility.
What we communicate to our children about the worship of the true God is vital. Not only is it important for them, but for their children and their children and their children. Do you realize that if the Lord carries and you are given great, great, great, great grandchildren, that there is something of the impact of your life that will be imprinted upon them? That's why it is so important that what we do, what we say, is an accurate communication of who and what God really is.
It is true that a child's initial understanding of God comes largely from the role of his parents in his life. It is absolutely crucial, moms and dads and grandparents, that we give to those generations after us an accurate understanding of Yahweh Elohim. Not just in content, but in the pattern of our lives as well. Douglas Byers, a pastor in California, has written a helpful book on the Ten Commandments.
He states, worship has been trivialized because people have no awareness of how it matters to the great Yahweh. We are so prone to think, well, as long as a person is sincere, it doesn't really matter how he worships God. That is wrong. It matters a great deal how we worship God. Not just that we worship Him, but how we worship Him. Cain and Abel both brought sacrifices to God, the true God. One was accepted, the other rejected. Why? Because Cain worshiped God improperly.
He did not worship God in the right manner. There's a very real sense in which worship is risky business. There's a sense in which it is truly dangerous to claim to worship God. Because how we worship Him matters so much. I would call to witness Nadab and Abihu, you recall them, sons of Aaron? One day they were going to do some duty before the Lord in the tabernacle and went to the wrong place to get the coals for their incense.
And when they brought this strange fire before the Lord, that fast fire came out of the Holy of Holies and killed them both. Because they were worshiping God in the wrong way. God said, take the coals off of this altar, not there. You say, that is so trivial. Not to God it's not, my friend. Because God said, do it this way. I call to witness Uzzah, a sincere man. A man who was so concerned about the ark of God getting to Jerusalem that he went with someone to bring it back.
But when the oxen stumbled and the ark seemed as though it was going to fall off the cart, he reached up to grab it. And the moment that he touched the ark, God killed him. Why? Because God said, don't ever touch the ark. But it was going to fall, was it? God said, don't touch it. It matters to God how we worship. I call to witness the 3,000 who died in Israel as a result of the golden calf. They worshiped God falsely.
And I call to witness Ananias and Sapphira, who in the early church, hypocritically, put their money in the offering plate. And God killed both of them because of their hypocrisy, claiming that they were giving more than they really were. That's all they did. But in doing that, they lied to God as well as to men. And God killed them. I would also call to witness some brothers and sisters in the city of Corinth who came to the Lord's table. I mean, the Lord said, come to the table, didn't He?
And they did. But they came in the wrong way. They came with the wrong attitude. And because of that, some of them died. God killed them. And others of them were sick because they worshiped God improperly. My friend, that's the New Testament. That's not just 3,000 years ago. So you're a member of an evangelical church, or you attend one at least. That's wonderful. It is good that you know the true God. Let me ask you, how are you worshiping the true God?
What is your attitude when you come to church? Are there grudges that are there? Do you have a sour, bitter attitude? Cynical? What do you do on Saturday night to get ready for Sunday? How do you worship God? That is an important question, so important that God gave one-tenth of His commandments to cover this. Pastor Beier also said, idolatry is not only the false image we hold in our hands, it's also the false idea that we cherish in our hearts. People ask, well, what about pictures of Jesus?
Should we have those? I'm sure there are some who would disagree with me about this, but I personally feel that just in and of themselves they are not inherently a breaking of this commandment. When they are used as an aid to worship, when they are used to stimulate one to think about God, or when one's concept of God is limited to that picture, then this commandment has been broken.
What we are commanded to do is not to make a likeness of the invisible God, what a picture of Jesus usually is, at least in my concept, is an artist's conception or portrayal of what God manifested in flesh looked like. It is only speculation. It had better not be a matter of worship. It is not a likeness of the invisible God, it is the likeness of God as He has manifested Himself in humanity. As I say, it seems to me, it is not necessarily a breaking of this commandment.
I will tell you this, we get so hung up over little questions like that that we fail to get the real point here, that when we really come to worship God, we had better come with the right attitude, and the right idea, and the right understanding of who God is. If we don't, we are putting ourselves in danger, because God is a jealous God. He is. And He punishes those who worship Him falsely. We say, well I've got to have the right mood music in order to get me into worship.
Be careful of that, my friend. Can music become an idol? If I have to have it to aid me in my worship of God? Again, music is not idolatry in itself, it cannot become that. God is jealous for our love, God is jealous for our worship. Do you love Him above all else? How are you worshiping Him today? God will not permit an idol in your heart or mind to remain untouched, unchallenged, because He demands that they be put away.
And He Himself, as the only true Yahweh El-Him, revealed in the person of His Son, Jesus Christ, be worshiped in spirit and in truth in our lives. Is He truly, truly worshiped in your life? Heavenly Father, I pray that it may be so. But to the extent we have false ideas about You, for we depend upon sensual aids for worship, to the extent that we come with wrong attitudes and a sinful heart condition, reveal it to us so that we can flee from idolatry. In Jesus' name, Amen.