From Greenville, South Carolina, we present, Let the Bible Speak. Let the Bible Speak is the radio ministry of the Free Presbyterian Church of North America, preaching Christ in all His fullness. Thank you for joining us today this is Alan Cairns saying hello to you and welcome to another Let the Bible Speak broadcast. It's good to be with you as we continue our study of the Ten Commandments. This week we are looking at the second commandment which is of course the Lord's prohibition, His utter prohibition, of the use of all images and physical representations of deity in our worship. Now this is a vital commandment, one that all too many Christians blithely ignore, but it's one upon which the Lord places tremendous emphasis. It stands out as a truth that we ignore at our peril. So stay with us as we look into the Word of God. But first it's time once again for me to give you our contact information. If you'd like to receive any of the resources that I have mentioned here in Let the Bible Speak from time to time, or if you simply wish to comment on a broadcast, you may write or call us. Our mailing address is Let the Bible Speak, 1207 Haywood Road, Greenville, SC 29615. or you may call us toll free at 866-877-LTBS 866-877-5827 and of course don't forget to visit our website letthebiblespeakradio.com or if you prefer the abbreviation ltbsradio.com and there you'll find audio files of our broadcasts and printable text files of all our commentaries. We look forward to your visit. Come ye o'er, come ye o'er, Come ye o'er, come ye o'er, Come ye o'er, come ye o'er, Come ye o'er, come ye o'er, Come ye o'er, come ye o'er, Come ye o'er, come ye o'er, Come ye o'er, come ye o'er, Come ye o'er, come ye o'er, Come ye o'er, come ye o'er, Come ye o'er, come ye o'er, Come ye o'er, come ye o'er, Come ye o'er, come ye o'er, Come ye o'er, come ye o'er, Come ye o'er, come ye o'er, Come ye o'er, come ye o'er, Come ye o'er, come ye o'er, Come ye o'er, come ye o'er, Come ye o'er, come ye o'er, Come ye o'er, come ye We at His feet may fall, We at His feet may fall, We'll join the everlasting song, Rick Warren, he of the purpose-driven life and the purpose-driven church, has a vision for revival. Now that sounds good. That is, until you discover what Warren means by revival. Toward the end of last year, Warren described his vision. And I quote, you know, 500 years ago, the first reformation with Luther and then Calvin was about beliefs. I think a new reformation is going to be about behavior. The first reformation was about creeds. I think this one will be about deeds. I think the first one was about what the church believes. I think this one will be about what the church does. The first reformation actually split Christianity into dozens and then hundreds of different segments. I think this one is actually going to bring them together. Now, you're never going to get Christians of all their stripes and varieties to agree in all of the different doctrinal disputes and things like that. But what I'm seeing them agree on are the purposes of the church. And I find great uniformity in the fact that I see this happening all the time. Last week, I spoke to 4000 pastors at my church who came from over 100 denominations in over 50 countries. Now that's widespread. We had Catholic priests, we had Pentecostal ministers, we had Lutheran bishops, we had Anglican bishops, we had Baptist preachers. They're all there together. And you know what? I'd never get them to agree on communion or baptism or a bunch of stuff like that, but I could get them to agree on what the church should be doing in the world. And that's where I end my quote from Rick Warren. From all this you may gather that what divides Bible-believing Protestants from Roman Catholics and others is really a matter of only secondary importance, something that ranks far behind the really important things such as joint action in the name of Christ. In answer to a question from a reporter from the New Yorker, Rick Warren labeled the things that divide Christendom as non-essentials. Thus he cavalierly dismisses communion, baptism, and a bunch of stuff like that, as if they were not worth separating over. Now in a very restricted sense this may be so. Christians shouldn't needlessly divide over their interpretations of secondary issues. But in the context of Rick Warren's statement, his position is dangerous and will open the door to rank heresy and apostasy. You see, what we call communion is in Roman Catholicism the dogma of the Mass. Rome holds that in the Mass the sacramental bread and wine are transubstantiated into the very body and blood of Christ, which the priest then offers to God as a true propitiatory sacrifice for the sins of the living and the dead. Now this is no merely small difference of interpretation. This goes to the heart of the gospel. It denies the finished work of Christ. It is pagan, not Christian. Yet Rick Warren is looking for a revival that will stitch together a unity between Bible believers and the proponents of this paganism. On the matter of baptism, I recognize that men equally committed to scripture as the sole rule of faith and practice have come to different views as to the mode and proper subjects of baptism. We should be able to cooperate in fellowship across such divided opinion. But when Rick Warren lists those who teach baptismal regeneration as participants in his grandiose scheme of united Christian action, his purpose-driven church, he is again betraying the fundamental integrity of the gospel. The bottom line is that there can never be a genuine scriptural revival that is not faithful to what Thomas Chalmers, the famous 19th century Scottish theologian, called the cardinal essentials of the gospel. Anything else will lead to ruin, not revival. Blessed assurance Christ hath given I prepare for you a place But the gate to promised mansion Swings above the hill of grace All my prayers provide no key. But it opens to the past world, see the flower of Wales there near. Sweet hope planted in that city, song before the throne of God. gathered and the song is of the blood. Not my works and not my goodness, for there is no All my righteousness is worthless from on in eternity. Only this a sure convention, only this acceptably With her lock and broken pen, she that's not the only king. No accusing word of Satan's, and no charge, though prune and true, still remain upon my record, and no payment more is due. My sin hath covered, from all years my soul is free. Unencumbered I may enter, Jesus' blood doth perfectly. Swing a few feet nearer, dearly, Than before the throne of God. I will sing so gloriously and love so. of the blood and that song is of the blood. When the tool of man's art or man's skill is raised whether to chisel out an image, or to paint a picture, or to make an altar. God says that tool of man pollutes the worship of Jehovah. In Deuteronomy 27, we read of that great occasion when the children of Israel Moses, of course, was prophesying this. We studied some time ago in Joshua how it came to pass in history, in the days of Joshua. But he was prophesying how when they would come into the land, they would come to Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal. And six of the tribes would stand at Mount Gerizim and six at Mount Ebal. And there the blessings and the curses of the law would be read out. And those in Mount Gerizim would say, Amen, to every blessing. And those in Mount Ebal would say, Amen, to every cursing. Now Deuteronomy 27.15 says, Cursed be the man that maketh any graven or molten image, an abomination unto the Lord, the work of the hands of the craftsman, and putteth it in a secret place. And all the people shall answer and say, Amen." Notice the force of this. Until now, the emphasis has been on public worship. Now the Lord comes into the secret chamber of the home, and He says the same rule is in place. And it is an abomination. to practice this in the secrecy of the home, not only in the public place of worship. Through the Old Testament, there are many multiplied expressions of this law of God. In the New Testament, we find it reiterated. Paul writes to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 10 verse 7, Neither be ye idolaters, as were some of them. As it is written, the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play. Verse 14, Wherefore, my dearly beloved, flee from idolatry. Doesn't it seem strange that he's writing that to a Christian church? He said the Jews, even in the days of Moses, because of their imagery, were guilty of idolatry. And in the Christian church, he's warning, it is possible to be guilty of idolatry. And he says, flee from idolatry. In Colossians chapter 2, there's a difficult but very significant passage from 18 through to verse 23. And if I may sum it up, Paul is warning against all worship that originates in man's self-will. And however wise it seems, will, worship, always and only serves the flesh. It is never spiritual. It is never ultimately beneficial. It is never glorifying to God. has its origin in the self-will of man, even though it does not give birth to a physical idol, is as much idolatry as the carving of wooden figures, or the chiseling of stone sculptures, or the painting of idolatrous icons. In 1 John 5, 21, I suppose you've got the summary statement to the people of God, little children, keep yourselves from idols. There is a sweeping prohibition in the text. Let me say a word about the specific purposes for this prohibition. Very clearly in the text, The purposes of the Lord here are first, to maintain His own honor, and second, to preserve the purity of His worship. And those should be two things of great importance to any Christian. To maintain the honor of Jehovah, and to maintain the purity of His worship. That's why the Lord is prohibiting All art of man, whether from his hand or merely from his brain. Whether the invention is an idol, or whether the invention doesn't have any such physical form, but it imports him to the worship of God. Some of the things that we find today, because they appeal to the masses. Is it legitimate for a church on a Sunday morning to say, well, the people don't relate to preaching anymore, so we're going to have a play about lesbians and the difficulties they have, or about broken homes and how children relate to parents in a divorce situation? I'm not saying those are not important subjects for people to tackle. I'm asking the question, is this legitimately part of the public worship of God? Where do we find the rationalization behind this? The rationalization is that it reaches people, it touches people, people understand. It is, to use the buzzword of today, it is relevant. My suggestion would be that it is an exercise of will-worship. Something that has its origin in the self-will of the fallen mind of man, the logic of a mind that pays little attention to what the Scriptures have really said about the worship of God, and therefore, is an attack upon the Lord's honor and the purity of the Lord's worship. Images of whatever kind replace revelation, divine revelation, with human imagination. And there's no telling where that imagination will end. Images confirm man in his depraved and lost estate. They ultimately shut out the light of redemption. They strengthen man in his rebellious sense of autonomy, that he can come to God as he wants, as he has directed, not as God has laid down. In other words, imagery of one kind or another makes man the master of God. And indeed, that's the basic aim of all images. If you study ancient religions and ancient idolatry, or indeed modern idolatry, you'll discover that the image was always a way for the pagan to come to terms with the vastness and the fearful greatness of the deity He is worshipping. When He can bring the thunder and the lightning and the blazing sun down to some sort of an image, He is in some way contained His God. He is able to deal with the power of His God. Images always. seek to handle and control the power of the gods that they represent. So images actually just confirm man in his depravity. And of course, they usurp the worship that belongs to God, breeding superstition, so that they transfer the veneration that belongs to Jehovah to some powerless, idols or holy pictures. And so there's not only a prohibition here, but there are certain specific purposes of the prohibition. You'll notice that there are severe punishments for ignoring this prohibition. Obviously, nothing stirs the wrath of God more than this. He says, I, the Lord thy God, am a jealous God. Notice the conjunction of terms. The word God is the Hebrew word El, which signifies strong or powerful. Notice how strength and jealousy are brought together here. It reminds you of the words of Paul in 1 Corinthians 10.22. Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than He? The Holy Ghost again brings the two ideas, strength and jealousy, together. Archbishop Leighton, a great Scots preacher of a bygone age, spoke of this name of God as meaning here, able to right myself. We would say today, able to avenge myself on the mightiest and proudest offender. When the Lord says, I, the Lord thy God, am a jealous God, He's saying He has power to judge all those who provoke Him to jealousy. And that's what breaking the second commandment does. Exodus 34 verse 14 says, Thou shalt worship no other god for the Lord whose name is Jealous. Is it Jealous God? Deuteronomy 4.24, the Lord thy God is a consuming fire, even a jealous God. Now, what is jealousy? I read one writer who defined jealousy as wounded love. There's a lot of truth in that. Wounded love. The Lord loves His people. And He's rightly jealous. when they give their hearts to another. So, wounded love is true as far as it goes. But jealousy is more than wounded love. Jealousy is a reaction against anything or anybody who steals the object of our love and our desire, or who destroys our enjoyment of it. One old preacher said, the cause of it is love, but the effect of it is revenge. That's the word the Lord uses. I am a jealous God. You've been listening to Let the Bible Speak, the radio ministry of the Free Presbyterian Church of North America. I hope that you found today's broadcasting a blessing to your heart. If you'd like to email us, our email address is ltbs at freepres.org. Or if you'd prefer, you may write us at LetTheBibleSpeak 1207 Haywood Road, Greenville, South Carolina 29615. We would love to hear from you. If you'd like to know how to be saved and how to be sure you're saved, we'd like to send you my booklet, A New Beginning, and I think that you'll find it very helpful. Each quarter we publish a free full-color magazine, Let the Bible Speak Quarterly, with a good variety of Bible teaching and testimony. It's available to all who request it. If you'd like to receive more information about the Free Presbyterian Church of North America and its ministry, we'd like to send you our booklet, Separated Unto the Gospel. Or if you'd like to have tape or CD copies of the messages here in Let the Bible Speak, you may have them by contacting us. Or you may visit us on the web at letthebiblespeakradio.com. Now that's a lot of information to digest all at once, but you can find it all on our website, LetTheBibleSpeakRadio.com. There you'll be able to listen to and download our programs, visit our online bookstore, and read a text version of each day's commentary. So visit us today at LetTheBibleSpeakRadio.com. This is Alan Kern saying, thank you for listening. I trust that you'll join us each day at this time, Monday through Friday, as we let the Bible speak.