The Ten Commandments Part 4
Scriptures: Exodus 20:4-7; Proverbs 14:12; Acts 15:19-20
This is part four of my series on the Ten Commandment. This morning we will examine the second commandment as found in Exodus 20:4-6. I will cover this commandment in two parts as there was too much information to do it justice in one. The second commandment says, “You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.”
Before I go further, I want to level set us on what it means today to worship an idol. Let me share with you the definition of the word “idol” and what it means to “idolize” something or someone and the definition of worship. Idol is defined as “an object of adoration (somebody or something greatly admired or loved often to excess).” It is also defined as “an object worshiped (e.g. a statue or carved image).” To idolize means to “admire fanatically or to worship something or someone as an idol.” Now let’s look at the definition of the word “worship.” Worship is defined as “revere, reverence, adore; to honor and admire profoundly and respectfully; an act of religious devotion usually directed towards a deity; reverent honor and homage paid to God or a sacred personage, or to any object regarded as sacred.” Worship is a verb; it is an action. It is something that we choose to do. Worship is not forced; comes from the heart; and we can go through all of the motions and still not be in worship because our hearts are not aligned to God. Worship starts in and comes from the heart. You can sing loudly, shout and raise your hands to God, but if those motions are not generated from your heart you are not worshipping God. Likewise, someone who sits quietly in a service without movement can be in worship. Like I said, it comes from within. I want you to understand these definitions because our society loves to worship but it is often not focused on worshipping God even though we go to Church.
Case in point, American Idol, a show that I personally do not watch but have heard people talking about, is in its 12th season making it one of ABC’s longest running programs. People tune in each week to see their favorite contestant whose talent is on display for all to see. I’m sure there are people who schedule their activities so that they can be home to watch. No date night with the spouse that night. No relaxing on that patio and quietly holding hands as you look at the stars. They can do those things on another night but tonight is American Idol night. Maybe American Idol is not your thing. But admit it, we all have our thing. How many you will arrange your schedules so that nothing will interfere with you going to Bible study? How many of you will arrange your schedules so that it will not interfere with quiet time alone with the Lord? What about your schedules for Sunday worship? Do your protect it? Just to be clear, when we value (revere, reverence, adore or pay homage to) a TV show or whatever “our thing” is in this way, that my friends is worship by definition.
As a society we tend to “idolize” actors, entertainers and even some well-known preachers. How many of you have heard about the “Beyoncé Mass”? Clarissa sent me the link to that event. Grace Cathedral, a church in San Francisco, held the event, and I quote, “for people to find God through secular music”. It was attended mostly by people of color and members of the LGBT community. One of the pastors said, and I quote, “We have a community that is youthful and loving and looks to the world as a partner, not an enemy.” However, James 4:4 says something different. It says, “You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.” The minister who organized the event said, “Beyoncé is a better theologian than many of the pastors and priests in the church today. And that is not an exaggeration.” I don’t think you heard me. Let me read that again: “Beyoncé is a better theologian than many of the pastors and priests in the church today. The video on the church’s Facebook page included examples of Beyoncé’s “religious symbolism” in her music and performances, from dressing as African deity, the Virgin Mary, and scenes in her videos that reference the Last Supper. I can’t speak for you but for me that borders on worship and not worship of God.
The whole program was built around one person, her music and her views of religion. I’m not sure the Lord was found in the “Beyoncé Mass” but this is where we are today Church. Too many of us are allowing the Beyoncé’s of the world to tell us, yes, tell us, what is acceptable and what is not acceptable when it comes to the things of the Lord. Let me clue you in on something: if an entertainer has more influence on what you believe about God than God has, that is idol worship. If what that person says carries more weight than what the Bible actually says, that is idol worship. This last statement by the minister who organized the event said that when she is asked “Why Beyoncé?” her response in part was “I believe she reminds us that you have to do your thing your way….” I can’t tell you how much it saddened me to read that because that is where the Church is today. There’s not a week that goes by that I don’t hear or read of someone saying something about doing things their way or that God is speaking directly to them about something they want to do. I read just this week about another televangelist who is asking his followers to purchase “another” jet for him. The reason, the new jet will allow him to fly to any place in the world non-stop. He said God wanted him to believe for this jet. The cost of the jet is $54 million dollars. This new jet is his way of doing it “his way” and blaming God for it. And do you know what’s truly sad? There are Christians who idolize and worship him to the tune of giving donations to help him buy a jet that they would not be allowed to step on! When it comes to worship the Bible says something very different than what we see the church today and draws a very clear line in the sand.
First, Proverbs 14:12 says, “There is a way which seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.” The death King Solomon is talking about is spiritual death, missing Heaven and burning for all eternity in the lake of fire. Second, Jesus said, “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, (another way to say this: “This is my truth” or “I’m doing my thing”) and there are many who enter through it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.” (Matthew 7:13-14) Jesus was talking about the path that leads to eternal life with Him. The wide path that leads to destruction is that path where we do it our way because we “know” what’s best for us. There are many, many people who are walking down that path without understanding where they will end up. The narrow path that leads to eternal life with Christ is walked upon by those that do it His way. There are very few that’s walking along that path even though many say they are believers. After saying this Jesus warned the people about false prophets. We really need to raise our spiritual antennas to what is happening around us because in truth, idol worship is nothing more than us worshipping ourselves (doing what pleases us) even if the object of our focus is on someone else.
Why do you say that Pastor? Worship is all about the choices we make. We either worship God in the choices we make or we don’t. For example, if you are a football fan and after church, which takes up less than two hours of your day once a week, you spend the rest of the day, six, seven or eight hours watching football and then three more hours Monday Night and yet another three more hours on Thursday Night, you tell me, isn’t that worship by definition? Let’s be honest, many of us enjoy a sporting event a whole lot more than we enjoy being at Church. This is why people will show up hours early to tailgate for a game and yet be late for Church. Don’t get mad at the messenger! If you don’t believe me, ask yourself when was the last time you gave the Lord 12 to 15 hours of your week? Many people think that worship only happens in Church so they do not think about their actions as worship when they are not at Church. Well I want you to know that whatever (or whomever) you have in your life that’s more important to you than God based on your responses to it (or them) you are in worship. You have an idol, whether it is a person, a thing or yourself!
I know I know, for some reason I keep bringing everything back to how much time we spend with God versus the other things we like to do. But if we truly take a step back and look at what we worship we will discover that the things (people) that we truly worship we give our time to it (or them). We make time for the things (people) we worship. We worship ourselves, our possessions, our jobs, etc. If you put your job, sports, people, or anything else you treasure before God, you are worshipping something other than God. I’m sure many of you had not thought of it this way. All of us say “we love God” but do we really? When you love someone that person gets a lot of your attention, am I right? How much of your attention is God getting? Now let me get back to what God said to the Children of Israel. Exodus 20:4-6 says, “You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.”
I want to make an observation. In the first message of this series I read all of the Ten Commandments. Did you notice how each of them was introduced? With the exception of honoring your father and mother and keeping the Sabbath, the commandments are put in the negative form (“you shall not”), implying that being disobedient, not obedient, is natural to us. When God gave the Ten Commandments, He gave them to spiritually dead people whose natural tendency was to disagree with Him. In other words, He gave the commandments to people who wanted to do things their own way while desiring/expecting the same results as if they did it God’s way! You see, we love the blessings and the movements of the Spirit, but not the accountability. We want God to bless us always without our having to do anything other than receive the blessings. Have you ever noticed how people always believe God is speaking to them when it is something they want to do or when He is supposedly telling them something pertaining to someone else? I find it interesting that for these people God does not speak to them about anything they do not want to do? All of this is really tied to who we are worshipping. I want you to remember this because we’ll come back to it.
After declaring He is the true God in the first commandment, God commands that He alone should be worshipped. Now in the commandment we just read He is now defining what “lawful worship” is to Him and must be to us. When we read the first part of the commandment, “You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness” many of us may come to the conclusion that the making of image is sin. Do you remember when Moses commanded the people to build figures of cherubim, brazen serpents, oxen, and many other things in the earth beneath? Based on our reading of the first part of this verse, they would have been condemned by God as sin. Is this not true? How many of you have a painting of Jesus hanging in your home? “You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness.” Are you starting to feel a little concerned about that painting of Jesus? Or how about the cross you have hanging around your neck? I know what you’re thinking. “But Pastor, I didn’t make it. I just bought it.” The word “make” also carries the meaning of “someone making the image for purchase.” When you purchase “a likeness” you’re guilty of violating this commandment. In fact, I guess we’re all guilty. Do you see the image of Jesus behind me?
Here’s my point: the meaning of “You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness” is only understood in the context in which God gave it. Verse 5 provides the context. Let’s read the first part of verse 5 again: “You shall not worship them or serve them.” God is telling Israel, and us, that if we make or purchase anything with the intent of worshipping it and not Him, then we’re violating the commandment. When we read this commandment we must remember that the Children of Israel have been brought out of Egypt, a nation that had an idol for virtually everything. And when we read Exodus 12, we read how God is coming against some of the idols Egypt viewed as the most sacred. Throughout their deliverance from Egypt God proved that He was the one and only God worthy of their worship and that did not change with the New Covenant. Turn with me to Acts chapter fifteen.
This chapter records the first great controversy that agitated the Church. The dissension was caused by some Jewish Christians from Judea who taught that the Gentiles had to be circumcised in order to be saved. After much discussion, Paul and Barnabas were sent to Jerusalem for an answer from the Apostles. After hearing and discussing the issue, James, Jesus’ brother who was led the church at Jerusalem, made a decision. Acts 15:19-20 records the following: “Therefore it is my judgment that we do not trouble those who are turning to God from among the Gentiles, but that we write to them that they abstain from things contaminated by idols and from fornication and from what is strangled and from blood.” As it relates to idols, they were to have nothing to do with them and all other immoral acts as part of those festivals. While circumcision was not a requirement for salvation, as part of their salvation, they were to only worship the God who saved them.
I want to close the first part of this message by answering the question “What happens when we worship and praise God?” The answer is found in Psalm 22:3 – “Yet You are holy, O You who are enthroned upon the praises of Israel.” That phrase “enthroned upon the praises” paints a picture of God picking up His throne in heaven and sitting it down in the midst of those who are praising Him and worshiping Him from their hearts. When New Light praises and worships God, He is here with us! And we know that when God is with us, no one, not even the devil, can stand against us! Can I get an Amen! I will continue this next week as we will look closer at the primary idol we worship – that person we see when we look in the mirror.
Until next time, “The Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make His face shine on you and be gracious to you. May the Lord lift up His countenance on you and give you peace.” (Numbers 6:24-26)
(If you are ever in the Kansas City, KS area, please come and worship with us at New Light Christian Fellowship, 15 N. 14th Street, Kansas City, KS 66102. Our service Sunday worship starts at 9 a.m. and Thursday night Bible study at 7 p.m. We look forward to you worshipping with us. May God bless and keep you.)
