They had been in cruel bondage for four hundred and thirty years. Then God freed them from that bondage. God reminds them of that in verse 2, we read, “I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.”
Isn’t it amazing, if I do you a big favor, you say, “Preacher, I owe you!”
Illus: For example, suppose John sees that Charles lost his job. Charles has five children home and there is not a can of beans in the house. John goes to the store and buys Charles and his family a sack full of groceries. Charles says to John, “I am debted to you. If you ever need anything, please do hesitate to call on me!”
In a few weeks John ask old Charles for a favor. But things are going well for Charles and now he acts like he does not even know John who helped him and his family when no one else would help them.
Look at what God has done for mankind.
To those who have accepted Him as their Savior, He has provided deliverance from the bondage of sin, and saved us from eternal damnation. What tremendous debt mankind owes to the Lord Jesus Christ, Who h provided redemption from sin.
In verse 2, God reminded the children of Israel that He is the who brought them out of bondage. His desire was that they would appreciate what He did for them enough to be willing to live in manner pleasing to Him.
BECAUSE OF WHAT HE DID FOR (delivering them from the powerful force of Pharoah of Egypt) HE GAVE THEM THE TEN COMMANDMENTS AND WANTED THESE COMANDMENTS TO GOVERN THEIR LIVES. How? Two ways:
• Toward Him.
• Toward their fellow man.
The first command was, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.”
But let us now look at_
1. THE SECOND COMMANDMENT
Look at Exodus 20:4-6, Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; 6 And showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.
God forbids man to make anything with his hands that would represent deity.
Illus: A little girl came to the preacher one Sunday and said, “Preacher, I drew a picture of you.” The preacher looked at it and immediately he knew that child had not talent for art at all. If she did, he was in trouble for sure!
In other words, as far as he was concern she could not create any thing that came close to his likeness.
• God's riches could not be represented by all the wealth put together that mankind could muster up.
• His greatness could not represented by anything that man could make and God forbids man to even attempt to make anything that represents Him.
The first commandment told WHO WE ARE TO WORSHIP, the second commandment WHO WE ARE NOT TO WORSHIP.
Why? Because God alone is the Creator. He created us, we can not create Him.
Illus: A lot of folks do not know this, but Abraham's father was an image maker in the land of Ur of the Chaldees.
The story is told that one day God appeared to Abraham and after He appeared to Abraham went through his father's shop and destroyed all images with a hammer, all except one cute little god.
He placed the hammer in the hand of this little god and his father walked into the shop and demanded to know who had destroyed all his images.
Abraham was supposed to have said, "Ask him, he has the hammer!' His father said, "He cannot talk” said, “That is correct Why waste your time making these things!'
God commands us not to make images because they cannot accomplish anything.
God is the Creator! He creates US, we do not create Him!
God commands us not to create gods with our hands for three reasons:
A. BECAUSE OF WORSHIP.
Look at Verse 5, we read, "Thou shalt not bow down thy self to them.”
The word “worship," comes from two words.
• One means “worth,” whatever a man worships shows what he considers to be something of value in his life.
• The second is the word from which we get our word “shape.”
For example, if I see man with his sleeves rolled up to his elbow and he has a shovel in his hand, we say he is designed for work.
The word worship come from these two words, and when we see a man who considers God greater than anyone or anything, he is (shaped), designed worship.
Notice in Exodus 32, what the Bible says happened while the people were waiting for Moses to come down when gave him the Ten Commandments, we read, And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down out of the mount, the people gathered themselves together unto Aaron, and said unto him, Up, make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him.
It is hard to believe that Aaron, the man who was so close to Moses, and who was exalted to such a high position among the people said in verse 2, we read, And Aaron said unto them, Break off the golden earrings, which are in the ears of your wives, of your sons, and of your daughters, and bring them unto me.
LOOK WHAT HE DID!
Look at verse 4, we read, And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf: and they said, THESE BE THY GODS, O ISRAEL, WHICH BROUGHT THEE UP OUT OF THE LAND OF EGYPT.
This molten (shaped) calf did not deliver them land of Egypt…God did!
Any time we worship anything or anyone, we are giving credit to that god WHICH BELONGS TO THE LIVING GOD.
Look at verses 5-6, we read, And when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation, and said, To morrow is a feast to the LORD. 6 And they rose up early on the morrow, and offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play.
Isn’t this ridiculous. But it is no more ridiculous than what sinful man today do.
Look at two things:
(1) Aaron did not make the golden calf to REPLACE THE WORSHIP OF THE LIVING GOD, THE CALF WAS TO WORSHIPPED WITH GOD.
That is, at no time did Aaron say, “We no longer will worship true and living God!
Illus: We do the same thing today. Many folks do not feel bad about having other gods in their lives, just so long as they worship the living God Sunday.
God is to be the undivided center of our worship. He will not stand for co-existing with other gods.
(2) Notice, the Bible says after they had that mixed worship “…and the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.”
Play here means they indulged in some of the most wicked and sins they could indulged in.
Illus: That reminds me of the story that is told of three Christian young who went to heaven at an early age. St. Peter saw these three men in heaven and said, 'Fellows, you died at an early age, I am sure there were some things you wanted to do before you died. How would you like to go back and live on earth for thrity more day and live out some of those dreams? They were all excited and told St. Peter that would be great!
St. Peter asked each one of them what they would like to go back on earth and do.
• The first young man said, “Well, I really looked forward to be a married man one day.” St. Peter said, “You have your wish!”
• The second young man said, “I have always wanted to grow up and be an office and command a battalion of soldiers. St. Peter said, “you have your wish!”
• The third young man said, “I am embarrassed to tell you, but I have always dreamed of being a “Stud” that women would swoon over. St. Peter said, “You have your wish!”
He said, “In thirty days I will send one of my angels to get all of you and bring you back to heaven.:
They all agreed and said, “Alright!”
When the thirty days had passed St. Peter called one of his angels to go and get the three young men and bring them back.
The angel said, “Where are they?” St. Peter said, “You will find:
• One busy fulfilling his dream of being a married man.
• One serving his country as a military officer.
• The third one you will find in that house over there.
The angel said, “I do not see him, where is he?” St. Peter said, “He is somewhat weird, he wanted to be a “Stud” for thirty days, so I granted him his request and for the last thirty days he has been a two-by-four stud in that house.”
One might smile a bit at that, but you would be surprised at the number of men who are convinced one woman is not enough them.
Could it be they have been watching too much television God made men in such a way that one woman is enough.
In fact one woman is more than enough for any man. You show me a m who is messing with more than one woman and I will show you man that is not doing his homework in his own home.
God made man so he can only have that one special person in his life, and God also made man to love and worship one God!
The reason many do not love and worship the one true God is because they are worn from committing spiritual adultery.
The reason they do not have time to worship and serve God is because they spend all their time and money on all the other gods in their lives.
The Bible tells us the children of Israel after they chose to “Shape” fashion a god with their own hands, they rose up and played.
God commands us not worship any other gods BECAUSE OF WORSHIP, but also-
B. BECAUSE OF SERVICE.
Look at verse 5, we read, Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me.
Notice the order which God has set up. Before a man will SERVE GOD, he must first WORSHIP GOD.
Illus: You can go into any Christian bookstore across this nation and find books that teach ministers how to motivate their people to serve the Lord. It a waste of money to buy most of these, and a waste of time to read because until a man loves God enough to truly lay aside all the other gods in life and decides to worship and adore the true God, he will not serve Him.
Any Pastor who has been pastoring for many years has learned that people are not going to serve the Lord until they first love Him.
If they do not love Lord they will offer tens of thousands of excuses, but the truth is that they just do not love the Lord nor do they consider Him worthy of their WORSHIP or SERVICE.
However, it obvious they love the gods of the world, so they give those gods benefit of their WORSHIP and SERVICE.
We who love the Lord are not to “Bow down” ourselves unto only the true and living God. Why?
• Because He is worthy of our Worship.
• Because He is worthy of our Service.
Also, because God is a jealous God.
C. BECAUSE OF IEALOUSL.
Look at Verse 5 again, we read, Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me.
Jealousy is defined as, “Suspicious of a rival or of one believed to enjoy an advantage.”
God is telling Israel, “I am the One who brought you out of bondage, and now you belong to me and to me only. And I do not want anyone or anything else to have that special place in your life or affection.”
God has that rightful position in our lives and the Bible says, “God is a jealous God!”
Illus: One man married a woman who was homely as any woman who ever lived. In fact, she did not have any redeeming features as far as outward appearence, but her husband was so jealous he would get angry if she would just speak to another man.
It was insanity for that man to be that way, because, in his case, he did not have to worry about another man taking her off his hands.
Listen, I do not know why the Lord loves us, but HE DOES. And he does not want ANYONE or ANYTHING to have that special place in our life.
Illus: Most of us have heard men say, “I am not iealous.” I seriously doubt they know what they are saying. If a man is really not jealous, it could be he is does not really love his wife as God intends, or else the wife has never given him any reason to be jealous.
Inside of every man who loves his wife is something called jealousy. It could be that that jealousy will never manifest itself because his wife loves him and never would give any other man any reason to believe she could be interested in anyone except her own husband.
Illus: My wife, next to the Lord Jesus Christ, is the greatest person in my life, and I believe she feels the same way about me. That is, I have a very special place her life that no other man on this earth has, but I can assure you that if I thought there was a rival for her love that green-eyed monster called jealousy would come out of me like the rage in the incredible Hulk!
The God Israel Who had delivered them from the bondage of the most powerful force on this earth at that time, Who made Israel His chosen people, says, Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: 5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;
He commanded us not worship any other gods:
1. Because He alone is worthy of our worship.
2. Because He alone is worthy of our service.
3. Because He is a jealousy God.
WHAT WILL HAPPEN IF I CHOOSE TO DISOBEY THIS COMMANDMENT?
III. THE SEVERE CURSE.
Look at Exodus 20:5-6 again, we read, Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; 6 And showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.
Life is to be taken seriously.
DID YOU KNOW THAT, WHAT I AM MY CHILDREN WILL BECOME! I do not know about you, but that sends cold chills up and down my spine.
Illus: The other day one pastor was talking to his youngest son. The pastor made a very negative remark about another brother in the church. That pastor had always prayed for his boys, and the Holy Spirit chided him for what he said. He had to go to his son the next day and call him aside and tell him, “Look, I want to a apologize for that remark that I made about so and so. I had no business saying such a thing.”
Do you know why the Holy Spirit of God made that pastor do that?” Because he God revealed to him, What he was, his son would become. And he did not want his son to grow up to be that kind of man.
God says we choose to bow down to the gods of this earth. But the curse of doing so will be visited down to the children.
Look at verse 5 again, “… the visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;
People are going to be surprised one day when they stand before the Lord to find how far their sins lived on after they were dead and gone.
But let us close on a good note. For those who will bow down only to the true and living God, the Bible says in verse 6, we read, “And showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.”
Mercy is loving and kindness.
God will bless a man or woman who put God first in their life.
I. THE SECOND COMMAND.
A. BECAUSE OF WORSHIP.
B. BECAUSE OF SERVICE.
C. BECAUSE OF JEALOUSY
II. THE SEVERE CURSE.
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