The Second Commandment

I would invite you to take your Bibles and turn with me to the

book of Deuteronomy. In the Old Testament book of

Deuteronomy, we're going to be looking at a portion of chapter

5 today as we continue on in our summer sermon series going

through the 10 commandments. Last week we looked at the first

commandment and that we saw that in Deuteronomy chapter 5, verse

Deuteronomy 5:7

7. You shall have no other gods

before me. Today we move on to the second

commandment, which we'll find in verses 8 through 10.

However, if you have come from a Lutheran or Roman Catholic

background, you might be wondering why we're talking

about the first commandment again today.

Those church traditions generally have understood verses

7 through 10 all to be about the first commandment.

Our tradition has been more that verses 8 through 10 is talking

about something substantively different than the first

commandment in verse 7. So let's look and see what we

read in verses 8 through 10 of Deuteronomy chapter 5.

Deuteronomy 5 · chapter mention

You shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness

of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth

beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.

You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I, the Lord

your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the

fathers and the children to the third and 4th generation of

those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of

those who love me and keep my commandments.

Let's pray together Father, as we come to this portion of Your

Word today, we pray that You would open our hearts, our eyes,

our minds that we might see what You desire us for to see.

We pray for the Holy Spirit to be at work as we read your word,

as we meditate upon it, that you would take your word and and

cause us to be changed through the work of the Spirit by using

of this word. We pray this in Jesus name,

Amen. Some of the best illustrations

come right out of the Bible. When Solomon, the king of Israel

died through some unfortunate events that took place, the

Kingdom split into two kingdoms. The northern Kingdom was called

Israel, it contained the 10 most northern tribes, and the

southern Kingdom was called Judah indicate it was made-up of

the two southern tribes. The capital city of Jerusalem

was located in the southern Kingdom of Judah.

That's where the temple was. That's where people traveled as

pilgrims to go and to worship the Lord.

The king of the Northern Kingdom was a man named Jeroboam.

Jeroboam was afraid that because the temple, because of the place

to worship was in the Southern Kingdom, that the people in the

Northern Kingdom would be travelling down to Jerusalem

into the Southern Kingdom, and they might start giving their

allegiance to the king of the Southern Kingdom of Judah.

So he was afraid he might lose his throne.

So Jeroboam made a political move.

He decided to set up two places of worship in the Northern

Kingdom so that the people wouldn't have to go to

Jerusalem. He put one in the city of

Bethel, and he put another in the city of Dan.

Now that in and of itself was nothing that the Lord told him

to do. That was purely Jeroboam trying

to protect his part of the Kingdom.

But it got worse in both of these new places of worship.

Jeroboam had a golden calf placed.

And then Jeroboam declared, Here are your gods, O Israel, who

brought you out of Egypt. Jeroboam was not instructing his

people to worship some foreign God like Baal.

He was telling God's people to worship the one true God, but

through the means of these images, these, these calves that

he had set up. Sounds like Exodus 32.

The Lord called it an abomination.

It was a violation of God's word, of God's law, of the

second commandment. Jeroboam didn't tell his people

to worship a false God. He didn't tell his people not to

worship the Lord. But what he did was to cause the

people to worship the one true God in a sinful way.

He was seeking to reshape God into something that best served

himself. The calves were in place in

Bethel and then Dan for over 200 years.

And we read over and over and over again that one of the

primary evaluations of whether the kings of of Israel, the

northern Kingdom, whether the kings were ones who honored the

Lord and followed the Lord or not.

The way that they were evaluated was whether or not they walked

in the ways of Jeroboam or not. The first commandment is about

only worshipping the one true God.

The second commandment is about worshipping the one true God,

rightly, correctly, the way that God has called us to do so.

We're not allowed to just use images or idols to fashion God

into who or what we want Him to be.

We must worship Him and serve Him as He truly and eternally

is. Jeroboam may have had good

intentions, but his actions were condemned and considered an

abomination to God. And it's a reminder to all of us

that we need to pay attention to the purpose of the second

commandment and seek to be keepers of it.

So let's take a few moments and consider a few things.

First of all, why does breaking the second command?

Why is it? Why is breaking the second

commandment such a problem? Secondly, how we break it today

and lastly, how we can what we can do to help us to keep the

second commandment. So first of all, why breaking

the second commandment is a problem?

There are a number of reasons why it's a problem.

The 1st is this, we are instructed in the Bible that God

is Spirit. As Jesus was speaking to the

woman at the well in John chapter 4, he specifically tells

John 4 · chapter mention

her God is spirit. If you have either grown up or

you're using the Westminster Kids Catechism, then you know

that question 9 says what is God?

And the answer is God is a spirit and has not a body like

men. To create an image of God is to

deny what God Himself has told us about Himself.

He is a spirit and no image, no idol can capture that truth or

that reality. Another reason why the

commandment, why breaking the commandment, second commandment

is such a problem is that it's an offense to the sovereignty of

God. Making an image is an offense to

God's sovereignty. It's an attempt to make the

infinite finite, to make the limitless limited, to make the

incomprehensible comprehensible. It's attempt.

It's an attempt to make the one with unlimited power something

that can be controlled and manipulated.

God is sovereign. He's not able to be manipulated

or controlled. He is the Creator.

He is the Maker of all things seen and unseen.

He is the one who owns 1000 cattle or cattle on 1000 hills.

It's an offence to his sovereignty.

It's also an offence to His glory.

In Deuteronomy chapter 5 verse 9, God declares Himself that He

Deuteronomy 5:9

is a jealous God. As we talked about last week.

He's not jealous like we get jealous.

His is not a sinful jealousy. His is a holy jealousy.

And what is God jealous for? He is jealous for His own glory.

He will give His glory to no one or no thing else.

There's no possible way for the full glory of God to be

represented in an image or an idol, and to try to do so as an

offence to God. Another reason why breaking the

second commandment is such a problem when we create images

ourself is because we're not recognizing the fact that God's

already given us authorized images to help us understand who

He is. What has He given us?

He's given us His word, He. He's given us the proof and the

demonstration of His work. He's given us names by which we

can call Him and call on Him. And more than that, He has given

us the ultimate image by which we can understand God, and that

is His Son. Colossians chapter one verse 15.

Jesus is the image of the invisible God.

Hebrews chapter 1 verses one through 3.

Hebrews 1 · chapter mention

Long ago, at many times and in many ways God spoke to our

fathers by the prophets, but in these last days He has spoken to

us by His Son, whom He appointed the heir of all things, through

whom also He created the world. He is the radiance of the glory

of God and the exact imprint of His nature.

That word imprint there means image or character.

Jesus is the exact image, imprint, character of God.

And think of it this way as well.

God's also given us ourselves. We are made in the image of God.

As you look around at your fellow human beings, you are

seeing the image of God. We are made in the very image of

God. We are told in Genesis chapter

one. We have no need to create images

by which to know or to worship God.

He's given us authorized images to use.

And the last reason why we break, why breaking the second

commandment is such a problem, is that the Bible instructs us

that we are to see by hearing right.

Deuteronomy chapter 4, verse 12. Moses is speaking to the people.

Deuteronomy 4:12

He's reminding them of when they stood at the foot of the

mountain and the Lord gave them His word.

And then this is what we read. Then the Lord spoke to you out

of the midst of the fire. You heard the sound of words but

saw no form. There was only a voice.

The New Testament puts us this way in Romans chapter 10.

Romans 10 · chapter mention

So faith comes from hearing and hearing through the word of

Christ the way that we see, the way that we grow, the way that

we mature in faith. It's not by creating images by

which we might try to understand God.

It is by hearing the Word of God, which is what we are doing

at this very moment. Breaking the second commandment

is a problem. These are the reasons why it's a

problem. And notice it's a significant

problem in the eyes of the Lord. Consider the seriousness of the

curse that he mentions here. He says, I, the Lord your God,

am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers and the

children to the 3rd and the 4th generations of those who hate

me. Kevin Deyoung and his little

book on the 10 Commandments. Take some time to reflect on

what this is saying, what this means, what this curse is

saying, and what it is not saying.

This curse doesn't mean that a righteous child will be punished

for the sins of a wicked father. This curse is talking about

God's judgment on those who choose to walk in the wicked

ways of their parents and their grandparents and their great

grandparents. Notice we read at the end of

verse 9. This is a curse for those who

hate the Lord. It says future generations who

walk in the wickedness of their relatives will share in the

punishment of their relatives. The Lord is speaking to His

people and saying, if you, if you keep sending like your

parents, like their parents, like their parents before them,

then you get the same judgement that will be brought upon you.

This is how significant of a problem it was in the mind of

the Lord to break the second commandment.

These are the reasons why breaking it is such a problem,

But we need to own up to the fact that we break the second

commandment as well. So let's think about this for a

moment. How, how do we break this

commandment today? Now, it's certainly the case

that there are places and people today that continue to use kinds

of literal images to worship the Lord.

They they actually use images to to worship, assuming that's not

as much of a big deal for us here today.

But what probably is more of an issue for us is making images of

God in our minds, making God into the God that we want Him to

be or who we think He should be. This is more of what was

happening in Exodus chapter 32, that the people created this

Exodus 32 · chapter mention

golden calf or this golden bull in order to be thinking about

the power of God, the strength of Yahweh.

The people were afraid, where was Moses?

They wanted to wield the power of God for themselves and to

provide for themselves and to protect themselves, and so they

fashioned an image. This is more about how we break

the second commandment today. We fashion God in our minds and

focus on perhaps just one aspect of God's character or God's

attribute, right? We think about God as a God of

love, but that's all we think about God.

We turn him into a sort of cosmic Santa Claus, losing sight

of his righteousness, of His Holiness.

Or perhaps we think of God as a tyrant, A dictator, A harsh

king. We lose sight of his grace, of

his mercy, of his steadfast love and care.

Or maybe we think of God as my good friend, my buddy.

We lose the sense of God's majesty and glory and

transcendence. And when we when we do this in

our minds, it can have a negative impact on how we live

our lives. We, we, we can justify or excuse

or ignore our sin because God has got a God of grace.

He's a God of mercy. He'll forgive me, he'll

understand. But when we think of God as only

being a hard tyrant and could lead us to living a life of

feeling oppressed and judged and even depressed, or maybe we

think of God as a God of quid pro quo.

This for that, as if God says to us, as long as you obey me, I'll

give you what you want. And so we try to manipulate God

by our non genuine superficial obedience to try to get what we

want from him. The Westminster divines, the the

the folks that wrote the Westminster Standards, they felt

so strong about the way that we break the second commandment in

our minds that they wrote in Westminster Larger Catechism 109

that the question there is what are the sins forbidden in the

second commandment? Let me read to you just the

first half of their answer. The sins forbidden in the second

commandment are all devising, counselling, commanding, using,

and any wise approving any religious worship not instituted

by God Himself, tolerating a false religion, the making any

representation of God of all or of any of the three Persons,

either inwardly in our mind, or outwardly, in any kind of image

or likeness of any creature whatsoever.

Now they go on for several more sentences and explaining what

they believe means of breaking of the second commandment.

Did you hear what they said? The sins forbidden in the second

commandment? It's making any representation

of God of all or any of the three persons inwardly in our

minds or outwardly in any kind of image or likeness of any

creature whatsoever. Now I will tell you, there are

differing opinions about what how far that goes in our

circles, in our denomination. But the point is that the

Westminster Divine's felt that God's Word and what he says

about the second commandment is so significant and important

that we should not dare to break it by doing this, by fashioning

God in a certain way in our mind.

We can break the second commandment by worshipping the

right God the wrong way. During the summer of the year

2000, I visited Portugal on a work trip.

I was working at Mission to the World at the time and I took a

group of pastors on what we called a vision trip.

We went to Portugal to look at how God was at work in that

place through the MTW team in Portugal and at the end of our

visit the the MTW missionaries that we were visiting took us N

to a town named Fatima. It was location of one of the

highest religious sites for the Roman Catholic Church.

The story is told that the the mother of Jesus, Mary appeared

to three small shepherd children in the year 1917 in Fatima.

These children became heroes. They became Saints of the

church. An enormous cathedral was built

on the site, also including a hospital that was near some

trees where the event was said to have taken place.

Now this visit was fascinating for a lot of reasons, but

probably the biggest reason was what we saw out back of the

cathedral. As you exited the back of the

cathedral and as you walk into this enormous courtyard made of

stone bricks along the ground and down the middle of this

courtyard, right up leading right up to the cathedral was a

single person with stone walkway.

As you walk out into the courtyard and you turn around,

you see 3 enormous pictures at the top of the cathedral.

One of each of the children, pilgrims from all over the

world, would come to the cathedral at Fatima every year.

They would start at the furthest end of the courtyard, forming a

single line in the middle of that walkway, get down on their

hands and knees, and crawl toward the cathedral, looking up

and focusing on the three pictures of the children as they

did so, worshipping the Lord through the images of these.

Children Now perhaps it's the case that some go to Fatima to

actually worship the children. They would be breaking the first

commitment. But what we've when we visited,

what we saw most was people going to worship the Lord, but

doing so through the images on the back of the cathedral,

attempting to get God to bless them, to heal them, to rescue

them by giving devotion to these images.

And so they were breaking the second commandment.

Now that seemed outrageous, so obvious how it was wrong to be

doing that, how clearly it was a violation of the second

commandment. The brothers and sisters in

Christ, we do it too, albeit in different ways.

Fashioning images of the Lord in our minds, trying to fashion Him

into being what we want him to be, who we think he should be.

Failing to take the Lord on His own terms as He has revealed

Himself in His word. Worshipping Him through some use

of means that He has not given to us to worship Him.

And so we need to reflect. Lastly, how can we?

What can we do to help us to keep the the 2nd commandment?

3 things as we finish today that can help us.

The 1st is this. We need to see Jesus.

We need to see Jesus go back to the story of Exodus 32 and the

story of the golden calf. A little bit further in that

story than what we read earlier in the service, we find Moses

addressing the people who had sinned by seeking to worship the

one true God with this image, with with this idol.

And we read in chapter 32 verses 30 to 32, this this, the next

day Moses said to the people, you have sinned a great sin.

And now I will go up to the Lord.

Perhaps I can make atonement for your sin.

So Moses returned to the Lord and said, alas, this people has

sinned a great sin. They have made for themselves

gods of gold. But now if you will forgive

their sin. But if not, listen to what Moses

says. But if not, please blot me out

of your book that you have written.

Moses asked the Lord to forgive the sins of the people, but he

says if not, then put their sins on me.

What is this if it's not a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ

who would come into this world as the exact representation, the

exact image, the exact imprint of God and live a life of of

perfect love and obedience to His Father?

He would live in the midst of a people who worshipped false gods

and people who worshipped the one true God wrongly.

He would live his life in the midst of Breakers of the 1st and

the 2nd commandments, but He would never break them Himself.

He would never break any part of God's law.

He perfectly loved and obeyed His Father, and then He

willingly gave His life as a payment for those Breakers of

the second commandment. He stood before his Father and

asked the Father to put the sins of His people on Himself on His

account. It was as it were that Jesus

said, Blot me out so that my people can have eternal life and

eternal inheritance. Brothers and sisters in Christ,

when we see the beauty and the grace of the gospel, when we see

the extent of God's love demonstrated for us in the

cross, it should move us more and more to want to keep the

second commandment to honour the Lord with our lives and in our

minds. To make sure that we are not

only focusing on just one aspect of who God is, for our own

benefits, to alone worship him as he desires and commands.

Because as we reflect on the gospel, we look and we see.

Look at what Jesus has done for us.

Look at his love for us. Look at how much he cares for

us. Let's be keepers of the second

commandment to honour him. Secondly, we should see the

wisdom of the regulative principle of worship.

Now, if you're not from a Presbyterian or Reformed

tradition, that's probably a very foreign phrase to you.

The regulative principle of worship.

What in the world does that mean?

The the regulative principle of worship?

It's a theological idea that says we will only do in worship

what God has said to do in worship.

We will be regulated by the Word of God in terms of what we do in

our corporate worship together. If God has not told us in His

Word to do X, then we will not do X in our worship service.

Now, that's different to what most of the rest of the

evangelical world holds to which would be what probably called

the normative principle of worship.

And that idea is, if something's not forbidden in the Bible to do

in worship, then we're free to do it.

The problem with that is it can be taken too far.

We can end up with things in corporate worship that have no

business in the worship service. There is wisdom to adhering to

this regulative principle of worship.

It helps to guard US against worshipping the one true God in

wrong ways. We only want to worship the Lord

God Almighty as He has instructed us to worship Him in

the ways that He has provided, that He would receive glory and

praise that He is due and that He desires right.

We're not told to use cookies and fruit punch with the Lord's

Supper. We're told to use bread and

wine. We're not told to show an entire

short movie in the place of a sermon.

We're told to hear the word of God preached.

Now, those are some ludicrous examples perhaps, but I've heard

examples of that happening before over the years.

I'm occasionally asked why? Why don't you do more or

different kinds of things in worship?

And This is why in our church, in our denomination, we are, we

are bound by the wisdom of this regulative principle of worship.

Now certainly it's the case there's flexibility for how we

do things in our worship service, but what we do in our

worship service is bound by what the Lord God Almighty has told

us to do to worship him rightly. So the wisdom of this regulative

principle can help us to be keepers of the second

commandment. Thirdly and lastly, something

that we can do to help us to be keepers of the second

commandment is to root out the images and the idols as a way of

worshipping the Lord. When we find ourselves making

use of images or idols of the Lord, whether externally or

internally, when we find ourselves only focusing on

isolated aspects of who the Lord is, His nature and His

attributes, we need to take the step of rooting it out of our

hearts, out of our minds, out of our lives.

It's too dangerous to let that fester and linger.

Things like the prosperity gospel movement or the Moral

Therapeutic Deism movement, or even the deconstruction movement

all have substituted images of God that lead them away from who

God truly is. Breaking the second commandment

and not doing anything about it. That's dangerous to our souls.

So when we find ourselves doing it, we need to ask the Lord to

forgive us and then turn away from breaking the second

commandment and turn back to Him and loving obedience, moving

toward intentionally, proactively seeking to be

keepers of the second commandment.

What can help us to keep the second commandment?

We need to see Jesus. We need to see the wisdom of the

regulative principle of worship. And then we need to be

intentional about trying to root out those images in idols, in

our hearts and our minds and our lives as a way of worshiping the

Lord. Let's pray together.