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. This is Alan Kern saying hello to you once again and welcoming you to another Let the Bible Speak broadcast. Today we continue our treatment of the second commandment. This is the commandment that forbids all uses of images or likenesses to deity in our worship. It's one of the most neglected commandments. Most Bible-believing Christians and churches have found a way to evade its plain teaching. Thus, they can have pictures of the Lord Jesus or plastic dolls representing the incarnate Son of God in manger scenes, and they can support such blasphemies as Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, conveniently ignoring the fact that the film is a visual commentary in the Romish mass and that an actor who would just as quickly make his living acting a drunk or a killer presumes to portray the sinless Son of God. The Second Commandment still stands in all its original force. So let us pay good heed to it. However, before we get to that message, I must give you our contact information and bring you some music. First, the contact information. If you'd like to receive any of the resources that I've mentioned here in Let the Bible Speak, or if you'd simply wish to comment on a program, you may write or call us. The mailing address is LetTheBibleSpeak, 1207 Haywood Road, Greenville, SC 29615 or you may call us toll free at 866-877-LTBS 866-877-5827 and don't forget to visit our website 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 making contact with us. And now let's hear from Pam Dunbar singing Strong in Salvation. Dawn of the morning and stars of the night Show forth thy wonder and tell of thy might By thee consisting of kings thou hast made Lord of creation in glory arrayed True are thy judgments and holy thy ways, God of the ages, Ancient of days, Mighty in power, Lord of creation, Settled in heaven, the Word shall endure Trusting thy promise, the soul is secure Sinless, forgiven, shall look on thy face Praise thee forever Wonder of wonders, I'm cleansed by the blood in the Beloved. Now there is therefore no condemnation Faithful is he and strong in salvation True are Thy judgments and holy Thy ways, God of the ages, Ancient of days, Mighty in power, Lord of creation, Here in South Carolina, the Education Oversight Committee is currently reviewing science standards and is entertaining the, to some, revolutionary idea that students should not only be taught the usual evolutionary theory, but should also be introduced to scientific evidence that challenges it. As expected, there has been a barrage of criticism. This is caving in to the intelligent design movement, or worse still, to the biblical creationists. These ideas have no place in a science classroom. So goes the by now outworn dirge of the evolutionary elite. Evolution is science and anything else is not. Enter Professor Philip S. Skell, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and the Evan Pugh Professor of Chemistry Emeritus at Penn State University. In January 2006, Professor Schell wrote to the Education Oversight Committee as follows. To voice, he said, my strong support for the idea that students should be able to study scientific criticisms of the evidence for modern evolutionary theory along with the evidence favoring the theory. The professor can hardly be put down as a fundamentalist, for he's not. He does not write as a biblical creationist. He holds that evolution is, quote, an important theory and students need to know about it. Then he proceeds. But scientific journals now document many scientific problems and criticisms of evolutionary theory, and students need to know about these as well. scale averts that many of these criticisms are well known to scientists, and then drops this bombshell. I have found that many of my scientific colleagues are very reluctant to acknowledge the existence of problems with evolutionary theory to the general public. They display an almost religious zeal for a strictly Darwinian view of biological origins. This is strong stuff. But the professor hasn't finished. He goes on. For those scientists who take it seriously, Darwinian evolution has functioned more as a philosophical belief system than as a testable scientific hypothesis. This quasi-religious function of the theory is, I think, what lies behind many of the extreme statements that you have doubtless encountered from some scientists opposing any critical analysis of the neo-Darwinism in the classroom. It is also why many scientists make public statements about the theory that they would not defend privately to other scientists like me. Now let this sink in. Professor Skell charges that scientists who admit to their peers that there are difficulties with their pet theory refuse to let the public know of such concerns. The obvious question is, why? And the equally obvious answer is, because evolutionists know well that every evidence against random undirected mutation is an argument for intelligent design, which brings us back inexorably to the reality of a creator. And that is what evolutionists are desperately trying to escape. But escape from God is impossible. He is, and not all the vain theorizing in the world can change that. Evolution is a theory whose time has come and gone, a secular religious dogma that would-be atheists espoused to free themselves from the fear of God. Their hysterical protests against every new exposure of the bankruptcy of their system shows how unsuccessful they have been, for evidently they are still haunted by a fear of God. As expected, evolutionists have mounted a virulent assault on Professor Scale's scientific credibility. They admit that he's an expert in chemistry and biochemistry, but assert that he has zero knowledge of biology. On the face of it, the criticism is self-contradictory. But even if it were true, it would not lessen the force of his argument. However, just for good measure, we'll return to this subject tomorrow, God willing, and cite someone whose credentials in biological science cannot be questioned, and whose work underscores the necessity to realize that the old evolutionary ideas just don't measure up to the findings of modern investigation. O Thou in whose presence my soul takes delight, On whom in affliction I call, My comfort, my day, and my song in the night. Where dost thou, dear Shepherd, resort with thy sheep? to feed them in pastures of love. Say, why in the valley of death should I weep, or alone in this wilderness roam? Dear Shepherd, I hear and will follow thy call. I love the sweet sound of thy voice, which far and deep has been for long. As I noted at the top of the broadcast, we continue our study of the second commandment, and today we note the stubborn resistance that men have shown toward it. What we discover here is is that idolatry drives out the light of the Lord's presence? Notwithstanding that, we must notice the stubborn persistence that the Scripture speaks of in men ignoring this prohibition. In the days of Hezekiah, the people even took the brazen serpent that Moses had raised up in the wilderness, and they made it. an idol, so that Hezekiah had to destroy it. After their Babylonian captivity, the Jews seemed to get comprehensively purged of such idol worship. But idol worshiping hadn't really lost very much, because after a few centuries, even so-called Christian churches adopted image worship. In the year 787, there was the Council of Nicaea. Not to be confused with the council that produced the Nicene Creed, also at Nicaea. But in 787, this is what they promulgated. Like the figure of the precious and life-giving cross, venerable images of our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ, and in violet lily, the Holy Mother of God, and the venerable angels, and all the saints and the just, whether painted or made of mosaic or another suitable material, are to be exhibited in the holy churches of God, on sacred vessels and vestments, walls and panels, in houses and on streets." That was 787. The Council of Trent, Rome's answer to the Reformation, endorsed that council statement. And indeed, it went further, and it cursed all who denied it. So according to Trent, I doubt that Moses could be in heaven, because anybody who doesn't agree with this image worship is under the curse of Rome. Indeed, Trent went on to say that these images were to be worshipped as if the persons represented thereby were present. Then Rome has the audacity, the lying audacity, to say, we have two kinds of worship. We have Latria, which belongs only to God. We have an inferior form of homage, which belongs to the image, to the creature. But the Council of Trent says they are to be worshipped as if the person they represent were actually present. The Second Vatican Council endorsed both of those. The latest Vatican Catechism quotes both of those ancient councils for maintaining the worship of images. Rome's idolatry is in every hand. Her crucifixes are breaches of the second commandment. Her holy pictures are breaches of the second commandment. Her images of saints and of Mary, most blasphemous of all, even of the blessed Son of God Himself, are breaches of the second commandment. Though she denies it, there is no escape. But even Protestants are far from guiltless. What shall we say of all those crosses? Look around you. As long as I'm the minister here, you'll see no Popish cross. Look around you coming up to this Easter time, and look at your Baptist churches, and your Presbyterian churches, and various other supposedly Protestant churches. And on Good Friday, they have a cross with a black veil, and on Easter Sunday, a cross with a white veil. What are these crosses? What are these holy pictures of Jesus? Of angels? Most ludicrous! Man, the devil must be laughing. Most ludicrous when the mighty angels of God are painted as nude little babies, with dimpled cheeks and fat buttocks. An insult to God. What are these things? What are the means you're seeing? Sheer, rank, rampant, idolatry. Now, I'm a Puritan. I suppose if I had lived in ancient times, I would have been an iconoclast. It's a big word for those who believe you go in and you destroy out of your churches all the remnants of popish idolatry. I do believe that religious art has the freedom to represent many scenes from Scripture. As I pointed out, this is not a prohibition of all sculpture, all painting, all art. It is no such prohibition. Were I an artist, I would see no grave or indeed no real difficulty at all. Am I representing Moses leading the children of Israel, or Elijah on Mount Carmel, or some such thing? Though I think it would be better kept out of church, given the propensity of man to turn anything artistic into more than it ever should be allowed to become. So let's grant. Let's grunt that religious art may represent many scenes from biblical history. Let me ask a question. Can a Christian look on any representation of his Lord in his birth, in his death, in his resurrection, in his ascension, or in his return? Can he look on any representation of his Lord without reference to worship? Can a Christian think of Christ apart from all context of worship? Indeed, should a Christian ever be invited to think of Christ apart from any context of worship? And I would defy any man to take God's Word. And remember what I said about will worship? Let's keep it in mind now. I would defy any man to take God's Word and find me the slightest evidence from Scripture that I am ever meant to contemplate Christ apart from worshipping Him. When God brought His Son into the world, He said even to the angels, Worship Him! How can we do less? When you have a picture of Jesus Christ, I don't care who the artist is or who the sculptor is, when you have a representation of Jesus Christ, you have an object, not only the statement of a man's opinion, But you have an object that is deliberately intended to bring your mind into the channels of worship. And in this connection, God has said, no matter what the logic of man says, no matter what the value of the artwork may be, God says, thou shalt not make unto thee any image, male or female, in heaven, earth, or under the earth, any image, No images, pictures, or icons of any place in the public or private worship of the people of God. Now, of course, there are many reasons given for these images. Really, they're only excuses. And what amazes me, well, it shouldn't amaze me, but I expect more from Christians, what amazes me is that the excuses given for these so-called Christian images are the very same excuses given by the heathens for their images. We're told, well, we're not worshipping the actual image. Well, hold a second, neither did the heathen. I mean, the heathen, the pagans, are not such fools that when they went out, as we read from Isaiah a couple of weeks ago, and they cut down a lump of a tree and they burn part of it and they make part into a god, they didn't believe that that actual lump of wood was their creator or their benefactor. They believed that it represented that god. The heathen would say, we are not actually worshipping the wood. The image merely represents the abstract concept. Or the image is commemorating some great thing that our God has done for us. Isn't that the excuse for Christian images? And then there is this great one, the image is a help to devotion. the Roman Catholic theologian John of Damascus. Eulogized images because they helped his devotion. You go to any pagan country and any idolatrous religion and the heathens will tell you the same thing. Actually, it's a lie. We should draw a distinction between the carnal stirrings of fleshly emotion and true spiritual worship. You have 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 freeprez.org. Or if you'd prefer, you may write us at Let The Bible Speak, 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 Allan 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.