No Idols! Series

Ten Words to Live By: No Idols

Exodus 20

Pastor Jefferson M. Williams

Chenoa Baptist Church

08–02025

Desire Street Ministries

In seminary, chapel was mandatory. That’s not a bad thing. It focused our hearts and minds and exposed us to many different kinds of speakers. Some of those speakers were very good at communicating to very busy, stressed out students and others, not so much.

One of my favorite chapels that I experienced at RTS was when Mo and Ellen Leverett visited campus. Mo had graduated from RTS and moved his wife and kids to inner-city New Orleans and started a ministry called Desire Street. He coached football, she volunteered at the school, they taught after school Bible studies, and started a medical clinic.

Desire was a very rough neighborhood and one of his students Mo was mentoring was shot and died in his front yard, in front of his young children.

Mo is a musician and brought his guitar and played several songs about Desire Street.

Ellen is an artist and while he sang and talked she worked a lump of clay into an amazing bust of Jesus with a crown of thorns.

As we walked out of the chapel, two guys in front of me were furious. I overheard them say, “Can you believe we just witnessed the second commandment being broken in our chapel today?”

Did Ellen break the second commandment by sculpting the Jesus bust?

Maxine and I attended a wedding at Catholic Church in Bloomington. During the ceremony, the couple walked over to a full size statue of Mary, knelt, prayed, and then “offered” her flowers.

Did we witness the breaking of the second commandment at that wedding?

I’ve made it clear that I dislike the Jesus picture on the wall in our sanctuary. That is not what Jesus looked like at all. [This is what Jesus probably looked like]. That painting looks more like Jared Leto, the actor and lead singer of the band 30 Seconds to Mars.

So are we breaking the second commandment by having that picture in our sanctuary? Or by watching The Chosen or The Passion of the Christ?

This morning, I’m going to answer all three of these questions. We are going to learn what the second commandment means and what it doesn’t mean and how it applies to our life.

Please turn with me to Exodus 20.

Prayer

Do not Make ?

God has a top ten list. We know them as the “The Ten Commandments” although that name is never used in the Bible.

In Hebrew, this top ten list is known as the “Ten Words,” or Decalogue, and we find them in Exodus 20.

They are less rules about what to do and tell us more about who God is to us:

1. One God - God is God.

2. No idols - God is Creator.

3. Revere His Name - God is holy

4. Remember to Rest - God is Rest

5. Honor Parents - God is Father

6. No murder - God is Life

7. No adultery - God is Faithful

8. No stealing - God is a Provider

9. No lying - God is Truth

10. No coveting - God is Sufficient

The first commandment tells us who to worship - “do not have any other gods before you.” We are to worship God exclusively and passionately. The second commandment tells us how God desires to be worshipped.

The first commandment covers idolatry generally. The second hones in on the specific relationship between visible things and the invisible God.

Before we dive in, let me make a couple of observations:

First, Catholic and Lutherans organize the Ten Words differently. They combine the first two and split the last one about coveting.

Second, this is the longest commandment. God is going to be very specific about how He is to be worshipped.

Third, this is the most repeated commandment - Leviticus 19:4, Ezekiel 14:6-7; Galatians, and I John.

Fourth, the Israelites had just left the land of Egypt, a country that worshipped thousands of gods. They are headed to the Promised Land that is filled with people who worshipped thousands of gods.

God wanted to drill this down deep into their collective soul. I’m not like the other gods, who are no gods at all, and you aren’t going to worship me the way that they are worshipped.

“You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me,  but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.” (Exodus 20:4-6)