Idols
Today I get to talk about the 2nd amendment, I mean commandment. I mean covenant
You know, it’s funny, when I wrote that corny joke, it was just an “icebreaker” to start this talk with, then later I started to think about it and saw that there were many parallels between the two and I could probably do this whole study on them.
Not today, maybe some other time.
Remember, the purpose of this covenant was for the Israelites not to follow the traditions of the Egyptians from whom they escaped or follow the practices of the inhabitants of the lands to where they were going.
[Leviticus 20:23 ESV]
23 And you shall not walk in the customs of the nation that I am driving out before you, for they did all these things, and therefore I detested them.
So, what does the second covenant say:
[Exodus 20:4-6 ESV]
4 “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.
5 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 on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me,
6 but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.
Or “the readers digest version from Leviticus”
[Leviticus 19:4 ESV]
4 Do not turn to idols or make for yourselves any gods of cast metal: I am the LORD your God.
Now, every time I prepare for a study, I learn a lot of things, one of the first things I learned this time was that the Catholic’s have a different set of the ten commandments.
They go from:
[Exodus 20:3, 7 ESV]
3 “You shall have no other gods before me. …
Straight to
7 “You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.
I toyed with the idea of us just voting to declare ourselves Catholic for today and then we wouldn’t have to do todays lesson, then I remembered one of “Dave’s” commandments, don’t mess with GOD
[Deuteronomy 4:2 ESV]
2 You shall not add to the word that I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the LORD your God that I command you.
By the way the Catholics are based around Rome, that is in Italy, the place where Ferrari’s come from
Ferraris and Catholics aside, haw hard can it be,
Don’t make any carved images and don’t worship them, shouldn’t be that difficult, it’s not like:
[Genesis 6:14-16, 19-21 ESV]
14 Make yourself an ark of gopher wood. Make rooms in the ark, and cover it inside and out with pitch.
15 This is how you are to make it: the length of the ark 300 cubits, its breadth 50 cubits, and its height 30 cubits.
16 Make a roof for the ark, and finish it to a cubit above, and set the door of the ark in its side. Make it with lower, second, and third decks. …
19 And of every living thing of all flesh, you shall bring two of every sort into the ark to keep them alive with you. They shall be male and female.
20 Of the birds according to their kinds, and of the animals according to their kinds, of every creeping thing of the ground, according to its kind, two of every sort shall come in to you to keep them alive.
21 Also take with you every sort of food that is eaten, and store it up. It shall serve as food for you and for them.”
That’s hard, it’s not like Noah could just pick up the phone and say, “hey lumberyard, can you send over like 50 tons of Gopher wood”
The people in Kentucky, that reproduced the ark from the above description used over 3.1 million board feet of lumber, so that is more like 6000 TONS of wood, that is hard, building an ark.
Why do we have such a hard time with simple easy things, you know, Don’t eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, don’t make any idol’s
Maybe before the great flood, GOD should have told everyone, “don’t build an ark” there would probably be one on every corner.
Even better, if GOD said, Do not chip in and buy Dave a full size running Ferrari in perfect condition, man I would probably be up to my ears in Ferraris
Why do we find it so hard to not do something we are told not to do? If Yasmin tells me “don’t do the dishes” I don’t do the dishes, as a matter of fact I don’t do them whether or not she tells me not to do them.
Don’t hit yourself in the head with a hammer-
Not doing stuff isn’t that tough, doing stuff is tough
I can not do things all day long, so:
How tough was it to not worship an idol?
[Exodus 24:18 ESV]
18 Moses entered the cloud and went up on the mountain. And Moses was on the mountain forty days and forty nights.
[Exodus 31:18 ESV]
18 And he gave to Moses, when he had finished speaking with him on Mount Sinai, the two tablets of the testimony, tablets of stone, written with the finger of God.
[Exodus 32:4 ESV]
4 And he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden calf. And they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!” …
[Exodus 32:7-8 ESV]
7 And the LORD said to Moses, “Go down, for your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves.
8 They have turned aside quickly out of the way that I commanded them. They have made for themselves a golden calf and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it and said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!’
So, if Moses was on the mountain forty days, there are sometimes I wish that Genesis told us how long Adam and Eve were in the Garden before the fall, I would like to know, are we getting better or worse
What is the big deal about Idol’s, aside from GOD saying don’t make and worship them. And he does take that seriously:
If you fashion something to represent GOD and you worship the thing, then by definition you are not worshiping GOD, but are worshiping just the representation you fashioned
[Psalm 78:56-60 ESV]
56 Yet they tested and rebelled against the Most High God and did not keep his testimonies,
57 but turned away and acted treacherously like their fathers; they twisted like a deceitful bow.
58 For they provoked him to anger with their high places; they moved him to jealousy with their idols.
59 When God heard, he was full of wrath, and he utterly rejected Israel.
60 He forsook his dwelling at Shiloh, the tent where he dwelt among mankind,
GOD’S wrath seems like a good reason, to me anyway, to abide by this covenant, maybe you need more convincing.
You remember GOD, Created the universe and all that is in it, breathed life into us.
How can you take an infinite being like GOD and make a finite representation of him? And then worship the thing we created instead of him.
When we make an idol, even one that we have deluded ourselves into thinking represents GOD, what we have really done is demeaned and diminished an all-powerful, sovereign, all knowing, incomprehensible (by us) omnipresent entity and confined him into something our comparatively simple minds have fashioned, and I use fashioned to make this point:
We can’t create anything, only GOD can create, we can take matter GOD has created and fashion or rearrange it, but we cannot create.
[Acts 17:29 ESV]
29 Being then God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man.
Also, we do not understand the true nature of GOD
[Isaiah 55:8-9 ESV]
8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD.
9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
There is a five-year-old furiously drawing a picture, the mom askes, what are you drawing? The child answers, I am drawing a picture of GOD, the mom says, silly, no one knows what GOD looks like, the child says, they will when I’m done
Does that child know what GOD really looks like, did Michelangelo when he painted the Sistine chapel? Does the Pope know, do you?
Of course not, we are not sovereign, GOD is sovereign, we can’t take GOD and fit him into what we think he should look like, GOD can take us and make us look like whatever he wants, remember:
[Genesis 1:26 ESV]
26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
Made in his image, not him made in ours
But you know what, we don’t just idolize things we fashion to look like we think GOD looks like, no, we idolize many other things, like:
Money, people worship money, they think that it is the answer to their problems, it’s not
People, ever heard of people that worship other people, like Hollywood actors or sports figures.
The government, it will take care of us
Only GOD is worthy of our worship, why would you worship the created things as opposed to the creator of the things.
Which is greater, the scalpel that is used to cut or the surgeon that knows how to use it to cure you?
Be in awe of GOD’s creations, I am every day when I see a tree or blade of grass, or a cloud or anything else that he has created, but don’t worship the things, worship the one that created it.
As for the things man fashions, some are quite cool, not something to worship, and when man makes things to try and replace GOD
[Habakkuk 2:18 ESV]
18 “What profit is an idol when its maker has shaped it, a metal image, a teacher of lies? For its maker trusts in his own creation when he makes speechless idols!
Who is worthy of your trust, and worship GOD or man?
Who is worthy of your love and devotion, GOD the creator of all things, or the things that were created by him, or created by him and refashioned my Man
Where is your focus and perspective, on the world or on GOD?
[Mathew 6:19-24 ESV]
19 “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal,
20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.
21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
22 “The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light,
23 but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!
24 “No one can serve two masters, for 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 God and money.
For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also
Where is your heart today, is it focused on GOD, or you worshiping the things of this world?
By the way I don’t worship Ferraris, I covet them, but that is a different commandment.
If something isn’t to or for the glory of GOD, and our time is consumed by it, not only are we excluding God, we are in fact giving it the worship that belongs to God alone.
For those of you with a mathematical bent, try this simple formula:
Nothing of man can equal GOD, only GOD is deserving of our worship
The world loves the creation more than the creator.
The truly blessed love the creator above all and want t keep the covenant
