The war on terrorism. The impending attack on Iraq. An economy that can’t quite seem to get back on track. How are you handling the uncertainty of all that?
Add this to the typical stresses in life. Problems with relationships at home, work, or school. A fear of not getting the job done well at work or at school. Financial pressure. Health challenges. How are you handling these things?
I’ve noticed that some people handle these problems really well. They have a sense of joy and confidence and peace no matter what the trial might be. And other people don’t. They live in a constant state of stress and anxiety.
What’s the difference? Well, for some people, their problems look small because their God is big. But for others… I want to talk to you today about…
When problems look big and God looks small
Text – Exodus 20:4-6, p. 56
Series – God’s Top Ten: 10 Timeless Truths for Life
Last week we started a new series designed to help us look carefully at God’s strategy – His blueprint – for living life to the fullest. After all, He designed you – created you. It’s safe to assume He has a pretty good idea how to live the good life. The Ten Commandments are a blueprint for max-ing out in life!
Each week, we’re considering some overall truths about the Ten. Last week, we learned that…
1. The Ten do not restrict our freedom; they restore our freedom. A 2nd truth is…
2. The Ten are not to be isolated; they are to be integrated.
If I were to steal, I would not only break the commandment against stealing (# 8), I would also be dishonoring my parents and their reputation (breaking # 5). I would also be coveting something that doesn’t belong to me (breaking # 10). I would also be putting some material possession above God (breaking # 1). I would be doing something that hurts another person and damages his or her life (breaking # 6). You get the idea? That’s why James says…
For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all.
James 2:10
With only a little thought, we can see how almost any sin violates the principles behind each and every one of the Ten. God’s laws are a unified whole and reflect the integrated oneness of His nature. The Ten are not to be seen as isolated; they are integrated.
Now, open your Bibles to Exodus 20.
Commandment 1…
Commandment 2…
Did you know that there are disagreements about how to section this scripture into ten commands?
It seems clear that Commandment #1 is “You shall have no other gods before Me”
and that Commandment # 2 is “You shall not make for yourself an idol.”
Commandment # 3 is “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.”
But some spiritual leaders teach that the second commandment ought to be included with the first. For them, Commandment # 1 is “You shall have no other gods before Me.”
The second commandment is not included in their list of the Ten.
It’s tacked on as a subset of the first commandment and
the people move on quickly to number 3.
Commandment # 2 becomes “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.”
So, if Commandment #2 is skipped, how do they still end up with Ten?
Well, the 10th Commandment is about …
not coveting.
These people still manage to get 10 Commandments by splitting up the last statement about coveting into two parts.
They have taken the Tenth Commandment (about not coveting your neighbor’s wife and , goods) and made it into two commandments.
Why bother thinking through this? Well, walk inside some church buildings and look at what’s going on. Prayers being said to icons of this biblical character. Prayers being prayed to a statue of that person from church history. The lighting of candles in front of statues. Because of the religious practices in some churches it’s no wonder that they want to downplay the issue of images and, therefore, virtually ignore this 2nd Command.
Some leaders think they are trying to help people worship God by using imagery and intermediaries. Millions of people, some right here in our own neighborhood, are breaking commandment # 2 without really thinking about it.
It’s possible to worship the wrong god. And that’s bad – that’s breaking the 1st Commandment. But it’s also possible to worship the right God in a wrong way. It’s not enough that we seek to worship God. We must worship Him His way.
Last week we thought about the first commandment. It’s focus addresses the question of who we worship. There is only One is worthy to be worshipped: the LORD your God who made heaven and earth. The second commandment addresses the question of how we worship the One true God.
In the 1st command, worshipping a false God is forbidden; in this, worshipping the true God in a false way is forbidden. Why is this so important? Think with me…
My wife’s birthday was last month. I could have booked a trip to Chicago to watch the Cubs play baseball for Maryanne’s birthday. I might like that for my birthday since I’ve always wanted to watch a game at Wrigley Field. Isn’t it enough that I remember her birthday and get her a gift? No. It is good that I remember her birthday, but I must come to her with a gift that fits her – a gift that’s right for her – if I expect her to be pleased with me and my remembering her day.
It’s important to do the right thing, but it’s also important to do the right thing the right way. Now, with that in mind, let’s read the passage for today.
4 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.
5 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 the fourth generations of those who hate Me,
6 but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.
Exodus 20:4-6
At first glance, it might look like this commandment would be the easiest of the 10 to keep. “After all, this isn’t the jungle in Africa or South America. We don’t have little carved images of stone and wood in our homes that we bow down to every night. We can handle this one. It’s the other ones that we need lots of help with – the ones that talk about not lying, and not committing adultery, and not wanting what my neighbor has. Those are the hard ones. Those are the ones that I need help with. This one I can handle.” When we think of idolatry, we can think of a remote tribe dancing around a campfire in front of a stone statue.
Why would anyone bow down to a piece of rock, or light a candle to a statue, or make a pledge to a painting, or say a prayer to a medallion around their neck? If a human being can create it, then it certainly didn’t create humans and it makes no sense to worship it.
But the truth is that idolatry can creep into our lives in unusual ways. When we are guilty of idolatry, our problems look big and our god looks small. That’s why we need this commandment.
I see three verbs verses 4 and 5 that God gives us to make sure we don’t miss the point. Let’s look at them one at a time.
To keep my problems small and my God big…
1. I will not make an image. v. 4
4 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.
The word “make” refers to producing something. We are not to fashion or produce anything that might get in the way of our worship of God.
A few people have taken this to an extreme. They don’t allow any artwork or even photographs in their churches or homes. But that’s not the point here. In fact, in Exodus 25, God instructed Moses to make 2 golden angels to cover the mercy seat of the Ark of the Covenant. So, artwork – making representations of God’s created world is not forbidden. But producing an image to that represents God is forbidden.
Any image of an infinite, eternal, invisible God is limited. It can only be a false image, a bad picture, a poor representation of who God really is. There is no limit to His power. And any effort to picture Him limits Him.
I’m betting that you wouldn’t want a bad picture of yourself in circulation. We want our pictures to look like us – even better! (I heard about a photographer who advertised this way: Where there is beauty, I take it; where there is none, I make it!) No one wants a bad picture of himself in circulation; and especially not God! He does not want a misrepresentation of Himself.
Any image degrades God – misrepresents Him. An image can lead a person to have false ideas about who God is. Any reduction of God to an image would be so radical a misunderstanding, that the god who would be worshipped would no longer be the God of the universe. That’s why…
I must be on guard against…
… physical images.
Several years ago, I called the pastor of a church in our community where images, icons, and statues are very prominent. I asked: “Why the images?” His answer: “Well, for centuries, the people couldn’t read. Therefore pictures in church windows and icons were used to teach the Bible story.”
Here’s the assumption: It’s hard for simple, illiterate people to remember and think about an unseen God. Let’s make it a little easier for them. Let’s make images to remind us of God – to represent God. When people look at the images, it will help them focus their thoughts on God.
That sounds innocent enough. What could be wrong with that? Here’s what’s wrong: bit-by-bit, the image can cease representing God and can begin to take the place of God and become an object of worship.
Take careful heed to yourselves , for you saw no form when the LORD spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire, lest you act corruptly and make for yourselves a carved image in the form of any figure…
Deuteronomy 4:15-16a
Images can’t help but detract from God’s glory, majesty, and transcendence.
But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain you. How much less this temple which I have built!
I Kings 8:27
Reducing God, who is all powerful, all present, all knowing, robed in splendor, the creator of the universe to a carved object or cast image detracts from his glory, majesty, and transcendence
A little icon – a little image, no matter how exquisite or impressive, is not big enough for our awesome, majestic, powerful God! Any image puts God into a box. An idol shrinks God down to fit into someone’s concept of God.
About 5 years ago, I recall seeing an ad for the movie Godzilla. The Taco Bell people and the Godzilla people teamed up. The Chihuahua had set up a little trap to try to catch Godzilla. It was just a box with a twig propped underneath it so that when the prey got under the box, he would knock out the stick and be trapped inside. The box was just big enough really for an animal the same size as the dog to fit inside of it. The Taco Bell Dog called: “Heeeere, Leezard, Leezard.” As Godzilla got closer, and you could here his footsteps pounding on the pavement, the dog’s eyes got wider and wider. Then the dog gets just a little glimpse of the size of the monster and turns his face to the camera and says, “Uh-oh, I theenk I need a beeeegger box!”
We can’t make an image of God that’s big enough? You can’t fit Him in any box!
Any attempt to limit God to an image of our own creation will only give us a small god. When we have a small god we’ll have big problems. But if we worship the God of the Bible, we’ll have a big God. When we have a big God we’ll have small problems!
I must be on guard against physical images and …
… mental images.
False idols are not only made of wood and stone, they can be formed in our minds too! Be careful about creating pictures of God in your mind that somehow assist you in your worship. Why? You’ll make Him too small.
The second commandment prevents us from making any kind of image of God, either out of wood or stone or even out of our own ideas or concepts! We must resist the temptation to define God by making a mental image that makes Him less than He is. Far too often God ends up looking more like us than like Himself!
It’s tempting for us to develop an unbiblical view of God – one that’s out-of-balance. We can view God as the One who will prosper us and keep us healthy. And yes, God is a healer and the One who does prosper us, but over-emphasizing those attributes can cause us to lose the full picture of God. We tend to define God based on what we want Him to be. But we can’t pick and choose a god for ourselves. We can’t turn God into some comfortable, fictional character of our own design.
Some of us don’t mind worshipping a god who’s so merciful and forgiving that He allows us to sin as we please. But we don’t want to accept the God of the Bible that would confront us with our sin – a God who says, “Pursue holiness… without which no one will see the Lord.”
If we’re not careful we can begin to worship an image of God in our own mind that may be quite different from the real God of the Bible.
Ask yourself this morning, “Is the God that I worship the God that is presented in the Bible, or have I reshaped God to be a god of my own making?”
God is who He is. We must worship who He is, not just who we want Him to be. Anything else – any shadow of reality that we might conjure in our minds or craft with our hands – is idolatry.
To keep my problems small and my God big, I will not make an image…
2. I will not bow to an image. v. 5a
5 You shall not worship them…
This word “worship” literally means to bow oneself down. Refuse to worship or bow before any image. Don’t show any reverence for any image by any gesture of your body!
Every statute of a biblical character, every pendant of a dead figure from church history, every crucifix with an image of Jesus on it, every icon in a religious building is dangerous. What do the people do with all the statues and pendants and crucifixes and icons? People light candles in front of these images. People pray in front of these images. People cover these images with kisses and tears. It’s worship, but not the worship that God has commanded or accepts.
I know that people say that the images are not idols but that they are simply teaching aids or helpful focal points in the worship of God. People say that they are not “worshipping the object” but merely using the object as a way of connecting with God.
Commandment # 2 says that’s not the way God sees it. He strictly forbids such things.
I read a quote this past week: “When a person says they are helped to get nearer to God in such ways it is nearness to a false god, not to the true God.” People that truly know God, who live in daily communion with him, don’t need a picture or image of Him to help them pray.
Jesus made it very clear what God expects from us in worship.
A time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.
John 4:23-24
When we come to know God – really know God – then we don’t need a picture of Him to help us pray. Why bow down to an image of God when God Himself is present?
In a few weeks, I’m taking a mission trip to El Salvador to visit the ministry started by Rachel Sanson. Hopefully, we’ll be able to find out how we can assist in planting more churches there. Now, suppose I come home, enter our house, rush right past Maryanne, grab one of her pictures and give it a big kiss and said to the picture, “Boy, I really missed you!” Maryanne would be wondering what I started smoking in El Salvador! Why hug a picture when I can hug the real thing? And why would she even let me hug her if I seemed so insistent on hugging a picture of her?
This is why we don’t bow down to an image of God when He Himself is present!
To keep my problems small and my God big, I will not bow to an image.
3. I will not serve an image.
5 You shall not worship them or serve them…
Did you notice the logical progression of the verbs here? “Made” to “worship” to “serve.” An image made will eventually become an image worshipped. And an image worshipped will eventually become an image served.
How could a person serve an image? The great English pastor, John Gill, explained: “By offering sacrifice and burning incense to them; by praying to, or praising of them; by expressing love to them, faith and trust in them, hope and expectation of good things from them.”
Let all those be ashamed who serve graven images.
Psalm 97:7
When the Lord’s Supper becomes more than just a memorial service and is said to have some special influence – that’s idolatry!
To keep my problems small and my God big, I will not serve an image.
We need to be on guard. The possibility of idolatry exists if…
… you can’t worship God without a certain style and quality of music.
… you can’t worship God without a certain ritual or liturgy of a church.
… you can’t worship God without a being in a certain church building – a particular place.
… you can’t worship God without a certain spiritual leader guiding you or preaching to you.
… you can’t worship God without reference to a certain system of theology.
Don’t make an idol out of music, rituals, buildings, leaders, or theologies.
Why not make or worship or serve any image?
I see a negative reason and a positive reason in verses 5 and 6. Do you see them?
1. God shows His jealousy if we worship the wrong way. v. 5b
5 … for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me…
Notice that God is called “jealous” here. This is a good jealousy. God expects us to give Him exclusive and devoted worship. He will not share the glory and the honor due to Him. When we are unfaithful to Him he responds as a jealous lover. He deserves our exclusive attention and affection.
Ladies, imagine for a moment that your husband is looking through your purse for the keys to your car. He pulls out a picture of another man. He kind of looks like your husband. It’s obviously not him, but it’s close. Similar hair and eye color. They both have the same smile. And it even looks like the other man shares the same taste in clothes. So your husband marches in and pushes the picture in front of your face and says, “Who is this guy?!” Is your husband supposed to tolerate the look-alike substitute in your life? Is he supposed to say, “Well, she fell in love with me. I suppose I can understand her falling in love with someone who kind of looks like me.” With that picture in your purse, do you think your husband ought to believe you when you say that you love him with all your heart? Of course not! That’s because your husband has every right to expect you to show an exclusive devotion to him.
In the same way, God has every right to expect your exclusive devotion to him. He won’t tolerate a substitute in your life, no matter how similar it might be to him.
If we have distorted, self-created impressions of God, how can we pass along an accurate impression of God to our children and grandchildren? If God is not the center of my life, how can I expect my children to make him the center of their lives? If I make God out to be some vengeful, thunderbolt-throwing, cosmic policeman to my kids, they’ll live in constant fear of him. Likewise, if I worship a god that is all warm and fuzzy and never holds us accountable for our actions, my kids will never know what the true fear of the Lord is all about.
Now, notice what happens when the jealousy of God kicks in. He visits iniquity to the generations to come. If we worship wrongly, we won’t just harm ourselves, we’ll harm our kids also. When God is misrepresented by an image, that can confuse kids. They end up with a faulty view of who God is. It’s a terrible thing to lead children to have a wrong concept of God.
You see, the way we worship communicates to others what God is like! We teach when we worship. If we worship wrongly, we are teching wrong lessons about God. We teach our children by how we worship. Wrong worship will cause our children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren to suffer.
God has given us an illustration of how that works in the life of an OT Hebrew king, Uzziah. Uzziah sinned. Did he commit adultery? No! Did he steal? No! He sinned in worship. He worshipped the right God the wrong way!
In II Chronicles 26:16-19, he basically said, “I can worship any way I like.” And the father suffered for his own sin. He became a leper!
Wwhat about Uzziah’s son? He was Jotham, the next king. He was a good man, but he didn’t worship. He didn’t go to church. You can read about that in II Chronicles 27:1-2.
Jotham died. Now we can look at Jotham’s son, Uzziah’s grandson, king Ahaz. His grandfather, Uzziah, was guilty of misguided worship. His father, Jothan, was guilty of neglected worship. And Ahaz himself was one of the worst kings in Israel’s history. He was guilty of corrupted worship. You can read about this in II Chronicles 28:1-3, 24.
The father worshipped the right God in wrong way. That’s misguided worship. The son didn’t even enter the temple. That’s neglected worship. The grandson shut the doors of the temple and corrupted worship. And the great grandchildren were sacrificed to false gods. Wow!
I hope that none of our children, grandchildren or great-grandchildren will suffer spiritual ruin because we failed to worship God in the right way. Don’t underestimate the importance of how you worship!!
Some of you have struggled to leave behind you a kind of “worship” that uses images and icons. But you have found it hard to make a change. Why? Maybe you’re worried about what your parents, your friends, or your family might say. You don’t want them to be hurt or angry.
Listen! It’s better to offend your parents, your friends, and your family than to move God to jealousy. Their anger cannot cause you as much pain as God’s!! His jealousy can break into a fierce wrath!
Why not make or worship or serve any image?
Negative reason: God shows His jealousy if we worship the wrong way. Positive…
2. God shows His mercy if we worship the right way. v. 6
6 but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.
Some scholars say that this should read “to the 1000th generation” – not to 1000’s of people but to the 1000th generation! Iniquity goes only to the 3rd and 4th generation, but God is super-gracious in showing His lovingkindness to the 1000th generation. That’s a big God!
When the images have been removed; when we experience a living contact with God; when we worship without anything between us and the Lord; then God is pleased to show love, kindness, grace, mercy to us and to the generations that follow us.
If we worship the right God in the right way, God will be pleased to work in our kids’ lives to help them worship Him in the right way, too.
Blessed are the children of those who are born to godly parents who worship the right God in the right way. Godly parents do all they can to teach their children to worship and adore God in the ways He has said are right in His sight. And because of godly parents children experience the “run off” blessings of God in their lives
Why not make or worship or serve any image?
Negative reason: God shows His jealousy if we worship the wrong way.
Positive…God shows His mercy if we worship the right way.
* * *
Alright, what am I supposed to do?
1. If you have any idols in your house or any statues of gods from other religions or any occult items, get rid of them.
2. Make sure you are in a church environment that facilitates the true worship of God in spirit and in truth.
3. Dedicate yourself to know God. Get to know Him better every day. We need to spend time with God, cultivating our intimacy with Him, and truly knowing Him, not just knowing about Him.
4. Get to know Jesus. Hebrews 1:3 says…
The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being…
Hebrews 1:3
So if you want to make sure that you’re worshiping the genuine article – if you want to make sure that your focus is on God as he really is (rather than on God as you understand him) – then get to know Jesus better. Receive Him into your life as your personal Savior and Lord. Spend time with Him.
I’m standing on the stage under some bright lights. I look down and can see my shadow. In many ways, that shadow looks like me. It’s the same shape, it follows my movements. You might even recognize my profile. But it’s not me. It’s not real. It’s just a shadow. It can’t help me with my problems.
And when we settle for an image of God – physical or mental – instead of “God as He really is” we’ve made an idol out of his shadow. There’s enough resemblance that we might feel comfortable with the shadow, but there’s no power. And who really wants a powerless God?
Are your problems big and your god small? Stop the idolatry! Away with the images of God! I want to see my problems as small because my God is so big. It will happen when we make sure we are worshipping the right God in the right way. Let’s pray!
