The Sin Of Idolatry

The Sin of Idolatry

Last week, elder Jermaine preached the first sermon in our new series dedicated to the Ten Commandments. His sermon dealt with the First Commandment in which God makes it clear that we are to have no other gods before OR even besides Him; and today, we’re going to take a close look at the second commandment. So open your Bibles with me to Exodus 20. I’m going to read the first commandment as well because it will be relevant to our message today.

Exodus 20:1 And God spoke all these words:

2 “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.

3 “You shall have no other gods before me.

4 “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. 5 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, 6 but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.

As SDAs, we often hear how the Catholic Church has dropped this particular commandment which prohibits the making and worshipping of idols... But, did they literally remove this commandment from the official Catholic Bible? Is it nowhere to be found in their catechism? The answer may surprise you: it is actually found both in their Bibles and in their catechism. But where this commandment is obviously missing is in their summarized version of the Ten Commandments that is used for memorization.

Catholic Version of the Ten Commandments.

I am the Lord your God: You shall not have strange Gods before me.

You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.

Remember to keep holy the Lord’s Day.

Honor your father and mother.

….and they split the last commandment about coveting and made it number 9 and 10..

So, where is the second commandment? The answer is that they believe that the commandment forbidding idol worship is merely an elaboration of the first which prohibits having “any other gods” before Yahweh. That’s why they don’t include it in their summarized commandment; they believe it falls under the heading, “you shall have no other gods before me.” Again, they didn’t actually delete verses 4-6 from the 20th chapter of Exodus from the official Catholic Bible; you can look it up, this inspired prohibition against idolatry is still there.

And, I’ll have to admit, if I were to look superficially at these precepts, without the aid of the rest of Scripture, I think it would sort of make sense that what we call the second commandment forbidding idolatry is merely an expansion of the first. But this is God’s Word, not to mention His Moral Law, and I’m not about to be content with merely a superficial reading of it; and we do have the rest of Scripture to help give us the proper context and perspective; That said, I’m pretty confident that we protestants do have the commandments numbered correctly; but personally, I don’t believe it really matters how we number the commandments, what matters is that we have an intellectual and spiritual understanding of what they are saying, and that we obey them.

That’s why we are doing this series—because we realize that God’s Moral Law is a transcript of His Character, and His will for my life and your life. And to understand and live in harmony with these holy precepts is, in a sense, to understand and live in harmony with God; as well as our fellow man.

I think I need to pause right here and remind us that, when it comes right down to it, as Jesus Himself said, there are really only two great commandments, Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength; and love your neighbor as yourself…but in our sin-contaminated state, we can’t fully understand what love actually is, so God had to dumb it down for us..That’s why we ended up with ten Commandments rather than only two. And notice also, that the two greatest commandments are both positive in nature, not negative..

So let’s take a closer look at the second commandment of the Decalogue and see what it is and is not saying.

Exodus 20:4 “You shall not make for yourself an idol ( heb:“peh-sel” which means “graven image shaped or fashioned ‘as a god’ or “representing a god.” ) in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. 5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them....”