“THE OBJECT OF MY AFFECTION”
(Exodus 20:4-6)
You hear a word like the second commandment, and think “C’mon preacher, this is twentieth century America. We don’t have totem poles and fetishes here. Be relevant.” Did you see the comedy film, Cool Runnings? It’s about the first Jamaican bobsled team to go to the Olympics. John Candy played a former American gold medalist who becomes coach to the Jamaican team. He wins the team’s loyalty and they affectionately dub him, “Sled-god.” Later in the movie, his dark history is revealed. After his gold medal performance in a subsequent Olympics, he broke the rules by weighting the U.S. sled, bringing disgrace on himself and his team.
One Jamaican bobsledder could not understand why anyone who had already won a gold medal would cheat. He nervously asks Candy to explain.
“I had to win,” says the coach.
The bumper sticker reminds me just how relevant this commandment is. You’ve seen it—”HE WHO DIES WITH THE MOST TOYS WINS!” And God said, “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” (Exodus 20:4-5).
Some think this commandment prohibits statues or pictures in places of wor-ship. But God Himself placed images of cherubim above the mercy seat in the tabernacle. God is not against artwork; He’s against artificial worship. This commandment doesn’t stifle artistic talent. It censures idolatrous substitutes that turn our hearts from genuine worship.
I continue to contend that God gave the Ten Commandments to release us, not to restrict us. He desires to set us free. These statutes are “a release order from the prison house of sinful selfishness.”
My best guess is that you cannot walk twenty-five feet in any direction from your front door without stumbling over an idol. We substitute many things for the worship of the one true God. Idols never satisfy for long, but we continue to craft with our hands things that we hope will satisfy the longing of our hearts.
Idol making is more than making shapes of wood and stone before which we bow. Many worship at the shrines of prosperity and personality. We have come to tolerate many gods. Let us consider three.
I. THE GODS WE TOLERATE
A. Money
George Barna, the Christian research specialist says, “The average adult be-lieves they need another $8,000-$11,000 per year to live comfortably. Tracking studies show, however, that even when adults reach or exceed the income levels to which they had aspired, they still claim that they need another $8,000-$11,000 to live comfortably.
After the captivity the Jews were never again overt idolaters. Jesus spoke only once of idolatry, but it had to do with this subject of money. He said:
Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also (Matthew 6:19-21). No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money (Matthew 6:24).
When I was a boy, the slogan on Cracker-Jacks treats was, “The more you eat, the more you want.” That is the dilemma of a materialistic culture. Material things, bank accounts, property, stocks and bonds, or expensive jewelry can never satisfy. When he was the richest man in the world, John D. Rockefeller was asked, “How much money does it take to make a man happy.” He replied, “Just a little bit more.” He had made an idol of money.
George Bernard Shaw said that it is easy to find people who are ten times as rich at sixty as they were at twenty; but not many will tell you that they are ten times as happy. Solomon said, “Whoever loves money never has money enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with his income” (Ecclesiastes 5:10).
Another writer says, “Money is intoxicating. It is an opiate that addicts as eas-ily and as completely as the iron grip of alcohol or narcotics. Its power to change us is close to that of Jesus Christ. Money possesses the power to rule our lives, not for good and forever, as Christ; but to lure us, like a moth, too close to the flame until, finally, our wings are set ablaze.”
Today the idolatry of possessions afflicts even the very young. I was appalled to read in the Los Angeles Times:
When 15-year-old Michael Thomas left home for school last May, he couldn’t have been prouder. On his feet, thanks to his mother’s hard work, were a pair of spanking new Air Jordans—$100 worth of leather, rubber and status that to today’s youth are the Mercedes-Benzes of athletic footwear.
The next day it was James David Martin, 17, who was strolling down the street in Thomas’ new sneakers, while Thomas lay dead in a field not far from his school. Martin was arrested for murder.
For the Baltimore school system, Thomas’ death was the last straw. He was the third youngster to have been killed over his clothes in five years. Scores of others had been robbed of name-brand sneakers, designer jogging suits, leather jackets and jewelry.
Today’s youngsters, from New York’s poverty-ridden South Bronx to Beverly Hills have become clothes fixated. They worry over them, compete over them, neglect school over them and sometimes even rob and kill for them.
This obsession with clothing, say those who study it, is fueled by the visual media and advertising, is nurtured by overindulgent parents and is reinforced by youthful peer pressure and the child’s overriding desire to fit in.
You cannot serve two masters. You cannot serve God and Money.
B. Sex
A father asked his eight-year-old son at dinner one evening, “What did you learn at school today?” The boy replied, “We learned how to make babies.” Struggling to keep his composure, Dad asked, “And how do you make babies?” The boy said, “Oh, it’s easy, you just drop the Y and add I-E-S.”
Fathers may still feel uncomfortable talking to their children about sex, but it is discussed openly almost everywhere else. Sex is out in the open. Top actresses put their nude and even pregnant bodies on display. One bumper sticker asks: “Remember when air was clean and sex was dirty?”
A desperate need of our day, especially among those who say they belong to Christ, is the courage to be sexually pure. Our society has ignored or scoffed at a high standard of morality. It has been called “so obsolete it’s laughable.”
We have sowed a sexual wind and we reap the whirlwind of abortion, abuse, perversion and pornography. Human sexuality is a wonderful gift from God that Satan seeks to pervert into something shameful and demeaning. God placed two beautiful naked people in the Garden of Eden. They only became ashamed of their sexuality and covered themselves because of sin.
Satan advertises sexual freedom, and pays off in bondage. When perverted and illicit sex becomes an idol, you will experience Satan’s bondage, rather than the liberty that God has designed for His gift.
C. Happiness
There is a happiness cult today. Bookstore shelves bulge with titles on self-esteem, and being your own best friend. One man got up to make a speech and said, “I want to talk to you about psycho-ceramics.” Someone raised his hand and said, “Excuse me, don’t you mean to say, “Psycho-cybernetics.” He said, “No, I want to talk about psycho-ceramics—about ‘crack pots.’”
The disastrous end of this happiness cult is illustrated by the death of a sky-diving cameraman a few years ago. He jumped from a plane for the live telecast of a skydiving event. The jump, descent and parachute opening of other skydiv-ers were shown. Suddenly the picture on the screen went black. The announcer reported that the cameraman had fallen to his death. The man was so intent on the goal of filming other skydivers, that he neglected something crucial for saving his own life. It was only when he reached for the ripcord that he realized that he had jumped out of the plane without a parachute. You can get so wrapped up in following the crowd to happiness that you forget the one thing that is necessary to genuine happiness.
The prophet Jeremiah warned about the worship of idols:
Hear what the LORD says to you, O house of Israel. This is what the LORD says: “Do not learn the ways of the nations or be terrified by signs in the sky, though the nations are terrified by them. For the customs of the peoples are worthless; they cut a tree out of the forest, and a craftsman shapes it with his chisel. They adorn it with silver and gold; they fasten it with hammer and nails so it will not totter. Like a scarecrow in a melon patch, their idols cannot speak; they must be carried be-cause they cannot walk. Do not fear them; they can do no harm nor can they do any good (10:2-5).
II. AN INTOLERANT GOD
The first commandment prohibits the worship of false gods. The second prohibits the false worship of the true god.
Idolatry tends to replace the Creator with what is created. Even in worship we can emphasize methodology and lose sight of God Who is to be worshiped. Forms of worship become ends to themselves! When few people could read, the church developed liturgy to help them memorize Scripture. As time passed, some became more concerned with preserving liturgy than worshiping God. Stress on certain styles of music disfocus our worship. We easily become more interested in our surroundings and comfort than in God. When this happens we break the second commandment. We have allowed a form, a method, or a building to become an idol.
When Solomon built the Temple, the magnificent building dazzled him until God entered it. Then he worshiped! A physical building was not as impressive as the God Who filled it. He questioned, “Will God really dwell on earth? The heavens, even the highest heaven, cannot contain you. How much less this temple I have built!” (1 Kings 8:27).
Too often we try to cut God down to our size. If we can confine Him to a building (God’s house), maybe we can keep Him there all week. We can visit him once a week, like a sick sister, but then we can live without His interference the other six days. We only think we can size God down, and bring Him under our control.
The cost of controlling God is terribly high. The burden of idolatry is almost unbearable. Isaiah warned Israel about this strain. Speaking of the Babylonian idols, he said:
Bel bows down, Nebo stoops low; their idols are borne by beasts of burden. The images that are carried about are burdensome, a burden for the weary. They stoop and bow down together; unable to rescue the burden, they themselves go off into captivity. “Listen to me, O house of Jacob, all you who remain of the house of Is-rael, you whom I have upheld since you were conceived, and have carried since your birth. Even to your old age and gray hairs I am he, I am he who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you. (Isaiah 46:1-4).
Whatever your idol, it becomes an increasing burden and a drain on your re-sources. God promises a better way. He says, “I will sustain you; I will carry you; I will rescue you.” I recently met a beautiful young lady I hadn’t seen in over twenty years. Then she was a 13 year-old student in my Junior High School group. Her second marriage has ended in divorce. She is a jeweler’s represen-tative and travels all over the world in high style. Her husband is a yuppie busi-nessman, and also travels the world over. They live in an expensive home in Newport Beach, but their good life has left them empty, spent, and bowed beneath the burden.
We must carry the idols we worship. I control the god of my making. I make him small, and put him where I want him, so he can’t intrude on my life. When I remain true to the real God, He carries me and sustains me through the times of disappointment and despair. You may have seen the greeting card that is titled, “One Set of Footprints.”
One night a man had a dream. He dreamed he was walking along the beach with the Lord. Across the sky flashed scenes from his life. For each scene he noticed two sets of footprints in the sand—one belonging to him and the other to the Lord. When the last scene had flashed before him, he looked back at the footprints and noticed that many times along the path there was only one set of footprints in the sand. He also noticed that this happened at the lowest and saddest times of his life. This really bothered him and he questioned the Lord, “Lord, you said that once I decided to follow you, you would walk all the way, but I noticed that during the most troublesome times of my life there was only one set of footprints. I don’t understand why when I needed you most, you de-serted me.” The Lord replied, “My precious child, I love you and would never leave you. During your times of trial and suffering when you see only one set of footprints, it was then that I carried you.”
This loving God Who offers to carry us declares Himself to be jealous as He warns us about idolatry in the second commandment. That may offend you because jealousy as we know it is often so unreasonable. God’s jealousy is pure, unlike that jealous husband who represses his wife, and cuts her off from all outside contacts. God is not indifferent; He is moved by the feelings of our in-firmities. He wants the very best for us, and wants to guard us from that which will bring us harm.
He warns: “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, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments (Exodus 20:5-6). God does not delight to punish children for the sins of the fathers. The Bible teaches that each person is ultimately responsible for his own sin and not that of another. But there are inevitable consequences of all sin, and what we do today will affect our children and their children for generations to come.
Early in America’s history there was a great preacher by the name of Jonathan Edwards. There was also a terrible profligate named Max Jukes. Edwards was an outstanding Christian with 1,394 descendants. Among them were three college presidents, sixty-five professors, sixty prominent lawyers, thirty-two noted authors, ninety physicians, two hundred ministers of the gospel, and three hundred good farmers.
Max Jukes was the very antithesis of Mr. Edwards, a notorious crook without principle or character. Of His nine hundred three offspring there were three hundred delinquents, one hundred forty-five confirmed drunkards, ninety prosti-tutes, two hundred eighty-five with “evil diseases”, and over one hundred spent an average of thirteen years in prison. The crimes and care of that one family cost the state of New York over one million dollars. Jonathan Edwards family never cost the government a single penny, but made contributions of incalculable worth.
In Cool Runnings John Candy tells his team why he cheated to win a gold medal. Then he says, “I learned something. If you are not happy without a gold medal, you won’t be happy with it.”
Make God the object of your affection and future generations of your family will rise up and call you blessed.
Third Message in a Series on the Ten Commandments
