Second Commandment (2 Of 12)

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.