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)
[I’m thankful to Kevin DeYoung for help with this outline.]
This morning we are going to look at the
Rule
Reason
Warning
Promise
Rule
The commandment is very straightforward. We shall not make any visible representations of God crafted by any tool, carved out of wood, chiseled out of stone, or engraved in metal.
Moses recorded God’s words:
“Therefore watch yourselves very carefully. Since you saw no form on the day that the LORD spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire, beware lest you act corruptly by making a carved image for yourselves, in the form of any figure…” (Duet 4:15-16)
The King James Version translates this as “graven images.” God gets even more specific.
nothing in heaven/sky like birds.
The Israelites were very familiar with such images from their time in Egypt. Horus was often depicted as a falcon or a man with a falcon's head, associated with the sky, kingship, and hunting. Ra, the sun god, was sometimes depicted with a falcon head, particularly when traveling through the underworld.
We are not to worship the sun, stars, or moon.
on the earth
The Israelites would have known about Ammit: a female Egyptian god with the head of a crocodile, the body of a lion, and the hindquarters of a hippopotamus, who devours the hearts of the unworthy in the judgment of the dead.
We are also not to worship anything created, worshipping the creation instead of the Creator.
This week, Sotheby’s auction house dealt with controversy when they put up gems that once belonged to Buddha for auction. The auction was canceled and the gems were given back to India. Here is a picture of Buddhist monks bowing and praying to the gems.
or waters below
The Egyptian goddess Hatmehit is often depicted as a woman with a fish emblem or crown on her head, or sometimes as a complete fish.
It’s obvious that this kind of false worship is progressive. First, these idols are made, then the people “bow down and worship/serve” them.
Does this prohibit art such as painting or stain glass windows?
In the 17th century, the Reformers like John Calvin, were so concerned with breaking the second commandment that their churches were usually very sparse.
The Roman Catholic Church made the case that most people couldn’t read at the time so they had to use images and icons to tell the story of the Bible.
Dr. William Childs Robinson, a professor at Columbia Seminary, makes three distinctions when it comes to art. Art can be used for decoration, as a teaching tool, or for devotional purposes.
Obviously, our picture of Jesus in our sanctuary is not an object of worship, although it is incomplete as we’ll see in a minute.
The Westminster Confession of Faith answers the question, what is prohibited by the second second commandment:
“The making of any representation of God, or all or any of the three Persons, either inwardly in our mind, or outwardly in any kind of image or likeness or any creature whatsoever.”
Why is this so important to God?
First, God is Spirit (John 4:24). Writers in the Bible use all kinds of metaphors when describing God, like His arms or His hand. But God does not have a body, nor does He have feathers or wings like David describes Him in Psalm 91.
Any image of God created by humans would lessen His majesty and His holiness.
Maxine and I like Jack Reacher. When the books were first made into a movie they chose Tom Cruise to play Reacher. For those who know and love the books, you know why that was so ridiculous.
This is how Lee Child describes Jack Reacher - six foot five, 250 pounds, “biceps like bowling balls and a chest like a lumberjack, and abs like cobblestones.”
I think I am a couple of inches taller than Tom. Tom is a great actor but he was a terrible representation of Jack Reacher.
Alan Ritchson was a much better choice for Reacher. (By the way, he lived for a short time in Rantoul, IL)
When soccer star Renaldo’s bust was unveiled in the airport of his hometown of Mederia, people were angry at how much it doesn’t look like him!
Any version of God will always be less than God. It will always rob God of who He is and the worship He deserves.
This is why The Shack is blasphemy. God is portrayed as an African American woman named “Papa.” William Young said he wanted to make God more accessible and more relatable.
J.I Packer writes: “The heart of the objection to pictures and images is that they inevitably conceal most, if not all, of the truth about the personal nature and character of the divine Being whom they represent.”
In Exodus 32, Moses has been on Mr. Sinai with God for 40 days and nights. They don’t know when, or if, Moses is ever coming back. So they corner Aaron and say:
“Come, make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him.” (Exodus 32:1)
Aaron, who would constantly be a problem for Moses, relents:
"Aaron answered them, “Take off the gold earrings that your wives, your sons and your daughters are wearing, and bring them to me.” So all the people took off their earrings and brought them to Aaron. He took what they handed him and made it into an idol cast in the shape of a calf, fashioning it with a tool. Then they said, “These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.” (Exodus 32:2-4)
But Aaron wasn’t done:
“When Aaron saw this, he built an altar in front of the calf and announced, “Tomorrow there will be a festival to the Lord.” So the next day the people rose early and sacrificed burnt offerings and presented fellowship offerings. Afterward they sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry.” (Exodus 32:5-6)
One of the main gods of Egypt was in the image of a…cow! They wanted something they could see and touch like when they were back in Egypt.
Jen Wilken lists several lies of the golden calf:
The calf was small but God is immense.
The calf was inanimate, but God is Spirit.
The calf was location-bound but God is omnipresent.
The calf was created, God is eternal.
The calf was destructible, God is indestructible.
The calf was blind, deaf, and mute, but God sees, hears, and cares.
In Numbers, 21, the Jewish people again got discouraged, and in their unbelief they murmured against Moses for bringing them into the wilderness.
They had already forgotten that it was their own sin that caused them to be there, and they tried to blame Moses for it.
As a judgment against the people for their sin, God sent poisonous serpents into the camp, and people began to die. This showed the people that they were the ones in sin, and they came to Moses to confess that sin and ask for God’s mercy.
When Moses prayed for the people, God instructed him to make a bronze serpent and put it on a pole so the people could be healed.
It wasn’t the bronze object that healed them but their faith in God. But, by 2 Kings, the people had named this bronze serpent Nehushtan and were bowing down and worshiping it.
John Calvin wrote that our minds are idol factories. We see that in the life of the Israelites. Again and again, they turned away from the true God to worship gods made by human hands.
God is Spirit and we are called to worship Him in Spirit and in truth.
Before we move on, let me touch on something the Westminster Confession said was prohibited by the second commandment.
We are not to make any images in our mind of God. How do we do that? By making God in our image, by imagining Him as an old grandfather in the sky.
Matt Smethurst says, “If God never confuses you, troubles you, or disagrees with you, then you’re not staring at transcendence. You’re staring at a mirror.”
When I hear people say, “My God is a God of love” or “My Jesus isn’t like that” I tremble. We don’t get to cherry pick the parts of God that we like then make up a God that fits our theological and political opinions.
I took a group of students to my hometown of Memphis for a mission trip. We took them to Graceland and spent time just reading the wall outside of the house. Tens of thousands of people, from all over the world, have signed the wall.
One of the students found a message on the wall that read, “Elvis is my own personal Jesus.” These 15-17 year olds huddled up and then elected someone to come and talk to me.
They said, “I know you brought us here but we would like to leave. If this isn’t idolatry, I don’t know what is!”
By the way, when people would call Elvis, “the King,” He would often respond by saying, "No, I'm not the King. Jesus Christ is the King. I'm just a singer.”
But there is another reason that God is so serious about this commandment. He is a jealous God.
B. Reason
Look what He says, “For the Lord, your God, is a jealous God.”
God is Yahweh, the self-existent one. Because He is who He is, we must do what He says.
When we think of jealousy, we think of it from a human perspective.
The dictionary defines human jealousy as a “feeling of resentment against someone because of that person’s rivalry, success, or advantages. It is characterized by or proceeds from suspicious fears or envious resentment.”
Maxine will tell you that over the years there have been times that I exhibited the slightest bit of jealousy when I thought my little red headed girl was being hit on by other men.
This kind of jealousy is borne out of insecurity but also a deep love and desire to protect Maxine.
We all deal with jealousy from the time we are born. Just watch a bunch of preschoolers. Even our pets can be jealous. When Maxine and I hug, Luna will stand on her hind legs and try to get in between us.
In explaining why she left traditional Christianity, Oprah Winfrey tells of being in a church service listening to a preacher describe the attributes of God. She said:
Then he said, “The Lord thy God is a jealous God.” I was caught up in the rapture of the moment until he said “jealous,” and something struck me. I was 27 or 28, and I was thinking, “God is all. God is omnipresent. God is also . . . jealous? A jealous God? Jealous of me?” And something about that didn’t feel right in my spirit because I believe that God is love and that God is in all things.”
I would correct Ms. Winfrey here by saying God is not jealous of her, He’s jealous for her!
Contemporary Christian artist David Crowder, who my nephew toured as a guitar tech earlier this year, puts it like this:
He is jealous for me / Loves like a hurricane
I am a tree bending beneath / The weight of His wind and mercy
When all of a sudden
I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory
And I realize just how beautiful You are
And how great Your affections are for me
Kurt Wellum describes God’s jealousy as “His holy commitment to his honor, glory, and love that manifests itself in the salvation of his people and the just condemnation of all who stand in opposition to him.”
Wayne Grudem defines God’s jealousy as “God continually seeking to protect his own honor”.
For J. I. Packer, “it is his holiness reacting to evil in a way that is morally right and precious…it is a praiseworthy zeal on his part to preserve something supremely precious.”
Isaiah writes:
“I am the Lord; that is my name! I will not yield my glory to another or my praise to idols.” (Isaiah 42:8)
God describes our making, bowing down and worshiping anything other than Him, spiritual adultery.
Psalm 78:58: “For they provoked Him to anger with their high places; they moved Him to jealousy with their idols.”
Hosea was a prophet that was directed to marry a prostitute named Gomer. In time, they have three children and none of them look like him.
Gomer gets human trafficked and sold into slavery. In a beautiful word picture of what God did for us, Hosea makes his way to the slave market with all the money he has to try to bid and buy back his own wife.
Christopher Wright says,
“A God who is not jealous…would be as a contemptible as a husband who didn’t care whether or not his wife was faithful to him.”
God reminded the Israelites that He chose them and rescued them and brought them out on “eagle’s wings.”
They are His treasured possession (Deut 7:6), the apple of His eye (Duet 32:10) and He loves them extravagantly.
When they worship the gods it’s like they are eating bologna off the floor when God had a steak and lobster dinner waiting for them on the good china.
One commentator writes this:
“Godly jealousy is not the insecure, insane, and possessive human jealousy that we often interpret this word to mean. Rather it is an intensely caring devotion to the objects of His love, like a mother’s jealous protection of her children, a father’s jealousy guarding of his home.”
God is serious about this. So serious that this commandment comes with a warning and then a promise.
C. Warning
“…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…”.
The word sin here means, “twisted or perverse.” The worship of anything other than God can have negative consequences for future generations.
In the Old Testament, an ungodly king was usually followed by his ungodly son. One generation sets the spiritual tone for the next.
My friend Brian Bill writes:
“This is one of the most frightening verses I know because my unholiness can become contagious to my children and grandchildren. If you worship an idol your kids and grandkids and great grandkids may end up paying the price. Parents, the decisions you’re making right now will affect the next 100 years because there’s a spiritual DNA that is passed along to our offspring. Long after we’re gone, our children and great-grandchildren can suffer consequences linked to our sins.”
Brain gives some examples He then gives some examples:
* If a parent practices lying and deception, children can grow up to lie.
• If a child lives with criticism, he learns to condemn.
• If a child lives with hostility, he learns to fight.
• If a child lives with ridicule, he learns to be withdrawn.
• If a child lives with shame, he learns to feel guilty.
• If a child lives with superficial faith, he learns to view faith as insignificant.
• If children see parents bowing to representations of God, they will conclude that the representations ARE God.
If a child grows up in a home where worship is not a priority, worship will be an option seldom chosen.
The reasons I included these is because I resonate with all of them. But on Dec 31, 1990, I committed my life to Christ and learned He could break any generational curse or chains that held me. God started a new branch on my spiritual family tree that day.
We need to remember that God holds us each responsible for our own sin:
“The one who sins is the one who will die. The child will not share the guilt of the parent, nor will the parent share the guilt of the child. The righteousness of the righteous will be credited to them, and the wickedness of the wicked will be charged against them.” (Ezekiel 18:20)
When people say that this warning isn’t fair, I remind them that the verse says “of those who hate Me.” God never condemns the innocent but only the guilty.
If you come from a family who is characterized by their indifference or even outright hate of God, does that mean you have no choice in the matter? Absolutely not.
Committing your whole heart to God releases you from this generational punishment and makes you eligible for the promise.
D. Promise
This commandment ends with a beautiful promise:
“…but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.”
God shows, a better translation is “accomplishes,” His covenant love, not to three and four generations but to thousands of generations that love Him. The promise is more powerful than the punishment.
The Gettys write:
Praise the Lord, His mercy is more
Stronger than darkness, new every morn
Our sins they are many, His mercy is more
Before we move on to communion, let me go back and answer the questions I posed at the beginning:
Did the clay bust of Jesus that Ellen Leverett made in chapel break the second commandment?
No, it was to made for use to worship but to focus our attention on why they do the ministry they do.
Did the young couple bowing to Mary during their wedding break the second commandment?
I think it’s pretty obvious the answer is yes. Although that statue was made by a human hand out of plaster (?), they prayed to it and even gave it an offering of flowers.
How about the picture on our wall of Jesus? We certainly don’t bow down to it and worship but I believe it can be distracting.
For one, when you get to heaven you might walk right by Jesus because you think He looks like this.
But, more importantly, Jesus is fully human and fully God. How does this picture, or the actor on The Chosen portray the divinity of Christ?
Let me make another point.
The Bible is clear that we are not to communicate the Gospel by icons or statues or images but by the Gospel.
Paul writes to the Roman Christians:
“How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?” (Romans 10:14)
That’s why we believe in Sola Scriptura - it is the Word that changes hearts. That’s why we make the preaching of the Word our focus in our service.
Isaiah writes
…”so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.” (Isaiah 55:11)
Also, we learn who God is through His Word.
George Müller is said to have read the Bible more than 200 times, many of which on his knees. Before his death, asked by a reporter what he would still like to do, he, on his knees, replied, "To read more of the Bible because I know too little about the excellence of Christ."
Communion
We don’t need to make icons or images to know God because God has provide that for us!
“The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.” (Colossians 1:15-20)
The word “image” can be translated, “likeness” or “form.” It’s where we get our English word “icon.”
Jesus is the icon that God provided to show us what kind of God He is.
I heard a doctor tell this story this past week.
He was operating on a girl who was eight years old and she needed O negative blood. He explained to her eight year old fraternal twin brother that his blood was a perfect match.
The eight year old boy sat quietly for a minute and said okay. He got up and hugged both his parents and told them goodbye.
After they drew his blood, he whispered to the nurse, “How long before I die?”
He thought by giving her his blood, he would die. And he was willing to do that.
The doctor and nurse both began sobbing.
That’s what Jesus did. He willingly went to the cross and gave up His blood to reconcile you to God.
Also, God made us in His image, to image His love to a lost and dying world.
Communion
Ending Song: His Mercy is More
??? ???
