If you’re from a Catholic or Lutheran background this morning, you may have been wondering why I’m going to preach about commandment #1 twice and about #9 and 10 together. That’s because those 2 particular religious systems split the Top 10 up differently, making the “no other gods” command and the “no idols” command one and the same. All we know for certain is that there are 10 commandments, and God means every one of them. So, this morning, we’re going to look at commandment #2 or #1a, whatever you’re “in the mood” for.
The Eastern Orthodox Church, which split from the Roman Catholic church in the 11th cent., has a way around this command. They actually use what they call “icons” as a very important part of their worship services – pictures of Jesus, of God, of Bible characters, saints, even angels. But they never have them in 3D – they’re always just pictures so that they’re not carved. And, if you look at them, you’ll notice these works of art that never quite look “right.” They’re not photo quality realistic. That’s on purpose. The faces are elongated because they’re not intended to be a replica, only a representation. That way, they feel they’re not worshiping graven images.
Graven. There’s an old-sounding word. In fact, have you ever heard that word used for anything else? It comes from a word that means “to carve,” so it came to refer to anything that was made by hand.
God clearly has hand-made idols in mind when He commands
Exodus 20:4-5 "You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me,
We’re going to see that idols can actually be 2 things:
1. representations of false gods
2. false representations of the one True God.
What about it? And what about the little “icons” we all seem accustomed to – the cross, empty or not, that we put up? The pictures of Jesus we hang around? The entire world of Christian art that is continually growing?
On Interstate 44, as you drive east from Joplin to Springfield, MO, if you watch on the right, you’ll read a billboard message brought to you by one group that says those are all an abomination.
Just how can we apply this 2nd command? Let me attempt to this morning by simply saying there are some problems when we try to make an image of God…
1. No one knows what He looks like!
Ill – 4-year old boy coloring in SS. Teacher asks him, “What are you coloring?” “A picture of God.” “But no one knows what God looks like!” “They will when I’m done!”
We have a problem when it comes to “coloring God”: No one has seen Him.
1 John 4:12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
Read through the Bible this year, and if you get to Exodus 33 soon, you’ll be reading 33:11 “The LORD would speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks with his friend.” Didn’t Moses see God?
And then there’s Isaiah 6:1 “In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple.”
So, can you imagine having Isaiah come and color us a picture of what God looks like? Or having Moses come and draw us a sketch of God? Moses is credited with writing the 1st 5 books of the Bible, including this passage. So where does he talk about the color of God’s eyes or whether or not God has a cleft dimple in His chin which would qualify Him to be a male model? Is His hair really long and white? Does He have a beard? About the best description Moses does write is
Exodus 24:9-11 Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and the seventy elders of Israel went up and saw the God of Israel. Under his feet was something like a pavement made of sapphire, clear as the sky itself. But God did not raise his hand against these leaders of the Israelites; they saw God, and they ate and drank.
“They saw the God of Israel…they saw God” – so what does Moses describe? The pavement under His feet!
The very people who have “seen God” don’t seem to be able, or willing, to tell us what He looks like! What? Were they disappointed?
I just have to keep going back to what John writes, “No one has ever seen God.” John knew about Moses! Moses and other people have had God reveal Himself to them, but no one has seen God in all His glory. No one can say they really know what God looks like!
Ill – Why is that? Try staring at the sun and describe it to me! What does it look like? Really, you can’t look at it – not without hurting yourself. Maybe that best describes why no one can make an image of God.
Not only does no one know what He looks like,
2. No one can look at Him to know what He looks like!
John 4:24 “God is spirit…” – So what does a spirit look like? Is that something you can necessarily even see? No.
Hebrews 11:27
By faith [Moses] left Egypt, not fearing the king's anger; he persevered because he saw him who is invisible.
1 Timothy 1:17
Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever.
No wonder God can’t be drawn very well. He’s invisible! It’s hard to see an invisible person!
Even beyond these qualities of God, there’s something that makes looking at Him more than hard. Dangerous would be a better word.
1 Timothy 6:16 [God] . . . lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see.
Maybe you’ve been to the point in life where you would just like to see God. Moses, who had “seen God” longed for it. Pay attention to this. In Exodus 33, just 7 verses earlier (v11) it says that Moses used to speak with God face to face. But there was something missing there. There was something held back there. Moses was getting only a partial view of God in those encounters.
Exodus 33:18-20
Then Moses said, "Now show me your glory." And the LORD said, "I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the LORD, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. But," he said, "you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live."
This is why we find people in the Bible seeing some manifestation of God and fearing that they were going to die! This is why Moses marvels as he says the 70 elders saw God yet “they ate and drank.” They didn’t die. They weren’t changed into just spirit beings. They didn’t just get hungry and thirsty. They encountered the presence of God, and lived to tell about it. And Moses makes a note of it.
We can’t accurately make an image of God if we don’t know what He looks like.
And we can’t really know what He looks like if no one is able to fully look at Him.
Ill – I love to go to the mountains of CO. How many of you have been able to visit there and see them? Aren’t they great? Suppose this morning, for the sake of those who haven’t seen them, I were to arrange some cups up here up front, stack them and what not, just to help you appreciate the hugeness and splendor of the Rocky Mnts.? You’re thinking, “That’s stupid, Sherm! That won’t even come close! In fact, you would have been better not trying to describe them at all than to give such a picture for people who haven’t seen them.”
Ill – Beethoven wrote a little ditty called the 5th symphony. It took him about 2 years to write it. Many of you here this morning have heard it and would recognize it if you heard it. But for those of you who haven’t, how would it be this morning if I had someone who has heard it come up here and play it for you on a kazoo just to help you appreciate the beauty and power of that piece of music? You’re thinking, “That’s stupid, Sherm! That won’t even come close! In fact, you would have been better not trying to play it at all than to give such an image for people who haven’t heard it.”
So it is with any attempt we make to image God. It will come up far short.
That’s another problem when we try to make an image of God:
3. Images of God are an attempt to limit or capture something that can’t be captured
Man has always sought to contain power and use it for himself.
Sometimes, we judge the value of good art by the way it’s able to “capture” some feeling or color or mood. We might say about a painting of a soccer game, “Wow, that really captures the feeling of being at a game. You can just hear the crowd, and smell the crowd for that matter. It really has captured the essence of a soccer game.”
We can’t, with our limited minds and means, “capture” the essence of God on canvas, on film, in marble, in music
Honest attempts at honoring God by trying to picture Him have really done us a disservice -- even Michealangelo’s work on the ceiling of the Sistine chapel. How small must God become for us to picture Him as a bearded old man?
In a work called “Christmas Oratorio,” W.H. Auden has Herod speak this satirical prayer:
O God, put away justice and truth for we cannot understand them and do not want them. Eternity would bore us dreadfully. Leave Thy heavens and come down to our earth of water clocks and hedges. Become our uncle – look after baby – amuse grandfather – escort Madame to the opera – help Willie with his homework – introduce Muriel to a handsome Naval officer. Be interesting and weak like us, and we will love You as we love ourselves.
There are 2 truths to remember about imitations: 1. often hard to detect; 2. rarely as good as the original.
Ill – suppose we were determined to represent Jesus here in the front of the auditorium this morning. What symbol would we use? We could use the empty cross. Then again, we wouldn’t be fully representing His suffering, so we’d need to add a crucifix with Jesus still on it. We might bring up a shepherd’s crook, since He’s the good Shepherd. We’d also have to have some bread, since He said He’s bread of life. We’d need a door, since He said he was the door too. We’d also want to bring up a little lamb, because the Bible says He was like a sheep before its shearers. Then there’s that verse in Revelation that calls Him the lion from the tribe of Judah…Maybe it wouldn’t be such a good idea to try that after all! No matter how thorough we tried to be, it would come up short.
For most of human history, people have been trying to reduce God to a comfortable size, box Him up, and use Him to do what we want. Ill - Remember “Raiders of the Lost Ark”? It’s a story taking place in the late 30’s. The Nazis are madly searching for the lost Ark of the Covenant. Their plan is to somehow secure it and then use it to gain the upper hand in war. They figure, whoever controls the ark somehow controls the power behind the ark. Wrong!
Just a crazy movie, right? Well actually, the same thing really happened many centuries before in Israel. I Sam. 4, the Israelites have taken a beating in battle, so they send for the Ark of the Covenant. Bring the Ark! So they do, and a great shout rises in the camp! They’ll show those Philistines! They have God in a box now!
Did it work?
*1 Samuel 4:10-11 So the Philistines fought, and the Israelites were defeated and every man fled to his tent. The slaughter was very great; Israel lost thirty thousand foot soldiers. The ark of God was captured, and Eli's two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, died.
Don’t think that you can have God in a box to use Him to suit your purposes. And every time we create an image of God, whether a physical image or a mental image, that’s what we’re attempting to do – to bring God down to a containable, usable, safe, captured level. We try to make God in our likeness, so that He’s more “ours.” He’s not!
While Moses was on the mountain receiving these 10 Commandments, the nation of Israel was getting tired of a God they couldn’t look at and contain. So Aaron took their gold and they made a golden calf. It was an attempt to image God. God wasn’t too impressed with the likeness.
So what are the images of God that we’ve created in our minds? There are many…
• Uncle Sam – God’s white, drives a GM car, and loves the USA more than any other country
• George Burns – remember? God’s a funny old guy Who likes to have a good time
• Donald Trump – God’s rich, isn’t He? And it makes sense that His people would be materially blessed people
• Vending Machine – all you have to do is save up enough quarters, and anytime you want something, you just put in the right number of quarters. Voila! It’s yours!
• Santa Claus – just a jolly ol’ guy who sees you when you’re sleeping and knows when you’re awake and is coming to bring you goodies
• Monte Hall – from Let’s Make a Deal days. You just bargain with him for what’s behind the curtain.
Any image of God may contain some truth in it, but nothing made by man can represent God as He really is.
Ill – Ladies, let’s say you decide to go to one of those Glamour Shots places and have your picture taken for your husband. They give you a makeover, pamper you, and by the time they take the picture, you’re looking really good. The pictures turn out great – although they’re not your clothes, it’s not your usual hairstyle, and not the way you usually do your makeup. Your husband opens the box you’ve wrapped it in. “Wow!” he says, “You look great!” Of course, it would have been nice if he had said that about the way you looked as he headed out the door this morning! And then, things turn a little weird. He puts up the picture in your front room, and you catch him staring at it several times a day. He comes home from work. You’ve arranged for the kids to be gone for the evening. As he comes in the door he sees a trail of rose petals leading back to the bedroom. You call to him, “Hey, Big boy!” But he doesn’t answer. Finally, when you come out, you find him staring at that picture again.
This is another problem when we make an image of God:
4. We have a tendency to replace worship of God with worship of the things that represent Him
Numbers 21, God was punishing Israel by sending snakes among them. Many Israelites died from the bites. As a cure, God had Moses set up a bronze snake on a pole. Whenever someone was bitten, if they would just look at the snake, they would live. It’s a beautiful preview of the way Jesus was lifted up on the cross, and the way that anyone who has been caught in Satan’s grip can look to the savior and live. Apparently, for Israel, it was kept as a reminder of God’s power and compassion among them. Later, in II Kings 18, good King Hezekiah has it taken down and smashed because the people had fallen into the practice of worshiping the bronze snake. They had replaced worship of God with something that represented Him.
It’s for this reason that God says He’s jealous (v5). For God to accept any inaccurate representation of Himself would be God accepting a lie. He won’t lie! So we should expect God to not only reject but to work against the things – even the good things - that we put in His place.
Paul gives an interesting insight into the downward spiral of people when they replace right worship of God with something else:
Romans 1:22-25 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator--who is forever praised. Amen.
While creation should be telling us about God and helping us to worship God, we tend to put it in God’s place in our lives. I can almost hear God saying,
“I gave you the lakes, so you go off fishing on Sunday rather than worship Me.
I gave you the animals, so you place pets and endangered species ahead of the homeless
I gave you the stars, and you turned them into a false guide for decision-making.
I gave you music, and you use it to fulfill your own desires.
I gave you trees, and the birth of My Son, and you sing “Oh Christmas Tree!” to the tree!”
Even good things can be given the wrong place in our life. And that’s especially true of the things that we create to help us worship God. God doesn’t want us to be in love with His picture, He wants us to be in love with Him.
Finally, there’s one more way to point out the problem with images of God – a highly theological technical phrase:
5. Ain’t nothin’ like the real thing, Baby!
Instead of looking at a snapshot of Him, God would rather you look through the whole photo album! That’s the only way you’re going to really get a realistic concept of Who God is. And as you do, you’ll realize right away that Jesus is the real thing.
(John 1:18) No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father's side, has made him known.
(John 14:8-9) Philip said, "Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us." Jesus answered: "Don't you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father'?
God has made it pretty clear what He wants us to look at to get to know Him. If you really want to get to know God, if you really want to know what God is like, you need to be looking at Jesus.
“Oh, but isn’t that just another image of God? Isn’t Jesus just one of the hundreds of ways that God reveals Himself?” Listen:
(Colossians 1:15) He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.
(Colossians 2:9) For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form,
(Hebrews 1:3) The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.
God isn’t the One with the image problem. We are! But praise God that can be changed!
(2 Corinthians 3:18) And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.
Conclusion:
I want to conclude with 4 practical actions to take because of the 2nd commandment:
1. Stop trying to capture God. Open up your box and realize that it’s empty. He wants to permeate your being, not populate your box.
2. Be conscious of “images” we have of God - whether those are physical or mental. Beware. There are too many problems associated with them.
3. Look through the whole photo album. Read it this year! Can’t you just hear God saying, “That’s Me creating the world! There I am making the first rainbow. That’s Me there, destroying Sodom and Gomorrah. And there’s one of Me as a human baby!
4. Invite God to build His image in You. Let Him be the Potter. You be the clay. He’ll do a much better job at remaking you than you will of remaking Him.
(prayer)
