Before we actually begin to consider the second commandment this morning, I just want to relate an incident to you that I saw and heard this past Thursday. I was at the St. John's Senior Community Nursing Home in Detroit. We have a Bible study there on Thursdays, and as I went into the room where the Bible study was being normally conducted, The residents were listening to the radio, and they were listening to one of the televangelists that has an international ministry. And this person was saying that, stop thinking negative thoughts, because God is not negative. God is all positive. And before I started the lesson, I told them, I said, listen, But that person says it's not true. And then I turn to the Ten Commandments, and I show them that eight of the ten are stated negatively. They begin with the words, you shall not. And I don't see how anybody can read the Bible and come to the conclusion that God is all positive, that there's nothing negative about God. That is a caricature of God. That's not the God of the Bible. And we've been seeing that so far. In the first commandment, we're going to see it again today, in the negative commandment, the second commandment rather. God has a positive and a negative dimension to his nature. He's not all positive. He's not all negative, as this person was saying. I'm not going to say who it is, but it's a very famous and internationally known televangelist, has a worldwide ministry. And wherever this person goes and preaches, it's always done in a big stadium. Well, not a stadium, an arena, like a sports arena. And as the camera spans around the arena, every seat is filled. And these people that are in these seats, they are hanging on the words of this person. And this person is not telling them the truth. And that's the tragedy that we have today in professing evangelicalism in the Christian church. There are many that say they represent God. There are many that say that they are preaching the word of God. But when you listen to them, you see and you hear that they are not really representing the God of the Bible like he's supposed to be representing. Now here in this church here, we are not a perfect church by no means, but we do seek by the grace of God to represent God, the God of the Bible, as he has revealed himself in his Word and in his Son. Now, let's come to the second commandment this morning. And it's stated like this, you shall not make for yourself an idol. Stated negatively. When I wrote it originally and sat down I realized that I had left out this word right here. So I had to come back and put that word in there. Because the second commandment does not say you should make for yourself an idol. It says you shall not make for yourself an idol. Eight out of the ten are stated in that way. And as with the first commandment, the second commandment is also a word of grace. And it involves loving the God of special revelation, not some image that we've dreamed up in our imaginations and hearts, or some idle fashion by our hands about the hands of another person. And as we have seen in our previous sessions, the launching pad for the Ten Words was the overarching and the undergirding context of God's marvelous and sovereign grace. The preamble to the ten words contained in verse two sets before God's people the gracious nature of God, God's gracious actions on behalf of His people, and the call for gratitude by God's people for the grace of God that they received. The second gracious word is a definite and clarion prohibition to idolatry. In verses twenty-two and twenty-three of this chapter, God solemnly reemphasizes the importance of the first two words for his people, verses 22 and 23 of Exodus 20. Let's read those right quick. Then the Lord said to Moses, Thus shall you say to the children of Israel, You have seen that I have talked with you from heaven. You should not make anything to be with me. or before me or before my face, gods of silver or stones or gold, you shall not make for yourselves." In other words, he's reminding them that when I spoke to you, you didn't see me. All you did was you heard my voice. There was no image portrayed before your faces. I didn't come down in a form, in a visible form. I spoke and you heard my voice. And implying that don't make an image. Images are not allowed. You can't portray me by an image because you don't know what I look like. You haven't seen me. And God was reemphasizing this to his people in these verses. He says, you have seen for yourself what I did. I spoke. You didn't see me. And this momentous event was followed by God's giving to Moses the details of the social and civil laws of his people recorded in Exodus chapters 21 through 23. which culminated in the confirming of the covenant of the law in Exodus chapter 24. And in verse 7 of chapter 24 we read, Then Moses took the book of the covenant, and read in the hearing of the people, and they said, All that the Lord hath said we will do, and be obedient. Moses read the book of the law before them, and when he had finished reading it they said, All these things that the Lord has said and commanded us, we will do, and we will be obedient. But incredibly, in 40 days, we see them at the foot of Sinai, worshiping a golden calf, completely oblivious to the solemn vow they made in Exodus 24 and verse 7. In 40 days' time, they had forgot what they said when Moses read the book of the law to them. All that the Lord has said and commanded, we will do and obey. And here, forty days later, here they are worshipping before two golden calves. Sadly, the second command is broken today as frequently and flagrantly as at any time in history, even by recipients of God's grace, those that have been delivered from sin. You know, as believers and as Christians, we are not entirely free from guilt when it comes to the second commandment. And if we're honest with ourselves, we will admit that. The second commandment has everything to do with our spiritual well-being, because if it is obeyed, it eschews a continued stream of God's grace in our lives. And as we come to the second word this morning, we see that it contains a gracious prohibition. It contains a gracious prohibition. And it forbids and prohibits the making of figures or objects representative of God as objects or aids to worship. Now, it's not a blanket prohibition against the making of sculptures and pictures and art. It doesn't forbid that sort of thing. But what it forbids is the making of objects or pictures or anything that we think can aid us in worshiping God. This is what it forbids. J. I. Packer has said, this categorical statement rules out also the use of pictures and statues which depict God as the highest created thing we know, a man. It also rules out the use of pictures and statues of Jesus Christ as a man. Although Jesus himself was and remains man, For all pictures and statues are necessarily made after the likeness of ideal manhood as we conceive it, and therefore come under the ban which the commandment imposes." The second word forbids the use of pictures and statues of Christ or his Father in private and public worship because they limit God. They limit God. God's instruction to his old covenant people in Deuteronomy chapter 4. Let's turn there, Deuteronomy chapter 4. Deuteronomy 4. Deuteronomy 4, beginning at verse 15. Take careful heed to yourselves, for you saw no form when the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire, lest you act corruptly and make for yourselves a carved image in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female, the likeness of any animal that is on the earth, or the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the air. the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, or the likeness of any fish that is in the water beneath the earth. Going on in verses 19 and 20, And take heed, lest you lift your eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun, the moon, and the stars, all the hosts of heaven, you feel driven to worship them and serve them, which the Lord your God has given to all the peoples under the whole heaven as a heritage. But the Lord has taken you and brought you out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to be his special people and inhabitants as you are this day." So God is reminding them, listen, when you were in Egypt, you saw what was going on. There was the worship of false gods and idols. But I have delivered you from that. I have taken you out of Egypt, I have delivered you from the furnace, and I have delivered you from this culture of idol worship. Bowing down to idol worship and worshiping false gods. I delivered you from that. You are my people. I am your heritage. You have me. You possess me, and I possess you. I am your God. You are my people. And there is no need for you to be bound down to some idol made out of wood or stone or silver or gold. There's no need for you to be worshiping the sun, the moon, and the stars, or the fish in the sea. These things are not God. I am God, the one that brought you out of the land of Egypt. I am the eternally self-existent, almighty, supreme God. And only I could do what I did for you. There is no other God besides me. And so, worshiping these idols, you're putting another God before my face. This is an abomination. This is what God was saying in effect to His people. And when we allow anything, any person or thing or whatever it is, to come between us and God as God's people, We are doing an abominable thing. The second commandment forbids it. God's instruction to his old covenant people in these passages, these verses in Deuteronomy 4, was that he is infinite and limitless, and images are finite and confining. God is without bounds. He's infinite in his being and in his person and in all of his attributes. He's not limited. And so when we make an image, or we, out of wood or stone or gold or silver, whatever it's made out of, there it is right there. It's limited to the place that it is. That's not God. God is without limit. God inhabits eternity. He transcends his creation. But at the same time, he fills with his entire being every nook and cranny of creation. He's eminent, and he's transcendent. This is the God of the Bible. And so, the second commandment teaches us and tells us to make images limits God. It confines God to a place which we cannot do. It's wrong to do that. To make an image is to limit God. and thereby deny the true and living God. Through the making of images, we confine and pervert our thoughts of God. God has revealed himself in the Bible as being infinite, that is, without bounds, unlimited, and when we make an image of God, we have perverted our own thinking about God, contrary to the Bible, to what God has revealed about himself in his Word. That is the perversion of the deity. Not only are pictures and statues of God limiting, they are also obscuring. They obscure, that is, they darken and they hide. They don't reveal, they don't make plainer. They reveal and they cover and they hide. They claim to reveal aspects of God, but in doing that, they end up, what they really end up doing is covering the true nature and character of the living God. an image, just like those two calves that Aaron made for the people. And they said, well, Moses had been gone for a long time, and we don't know what happened to him. And by implication, they were saying, we don't know what happened to this guy. What about this, where's this God that Moses was talking about? Aaron, make us some gods to go before us and lead us. And so Aaron made those two golden calves. And in doing so, he and they perverted God. the image of God. They perverted the image of God, and they perverted their own hearts in thinking about what God had taught them through Moses. This is what we do when we allow something, an image. It could be a person, it could be something, a career, a job, or whatever. It could be anything. To come between us and God, we are perverting God, and we are perverting the knowledge that we have of God. They claim to reveal aspects of God, but they end up covering the true nature and character of the one only true and living God. When Aaron made those golden calves, undoubtedly he thought he was honoring God by using such a symbol of power, but he was unwittingly making, masking and degrading God for whom For how could a bull reveal God's moral excellence, God's gentleness, God's love, and God's grace? An object can't do that. An idol can't do that. God has a moral excellence that is without bounds. He has a moral gentleness that is without bounds. And his love and his grace are infinite as well. And objects, images, and idols, they can't reveal that. And the human tendency is to become like the gods we worship. If we habitually tailor our thoughts and prayers to fit an idolatrous image, we will begin to mentally imitate that image. If we habitually tailor our thoughts and prayers to fit an idolatrous image that we have concocted in our own minds about God or formed with some object, eventually we will become like this image. we will begin to imitate it. Images of God are also localizing, they are confining, they are restraining. I remember, and you remember as well probably, that in the Old Testament, God's people were marching to the land of promise, and they were dispossessing these nations, these heathen nations. And these heathen nations, they had false gods. They worshipped idols. And their gods were localized. Their gods were confined to the place that these people put them. And wherever they took their god, that's where their god was. Their god was not everywhere, like the god of Israel. Images are localizing. they confine and they restrict God. And the subtle teaching behind statues and paintings and other objects is that God is a local deity. Whereas the teaching of Scripture is that the true and the living God is here, he's there, and he's everywhere. There is no place in creation where God is not. And this is what the psalmist said in Psalm 139. Psalm 139, verses 7 through 10. Remember what David said. David's idea and conception of God was framed by the Word of God. He knew that God was not just a local God. He knew that God was not confined or restricted to one particular area. He says, where shall I go from your spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there. If I make my bed in Sheol, you're there. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there, your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me." David understood that God was not like the gods of the heathens, a local god, a local deity, and he was not restricted to this locale or this location. God inhabits eternity. And this is what David is saying in Psalm 139 in his verses. If I go out into heaven to the farthest point that I can go out there in space, God is there. God is everywhere. He's here, he's there, and he's everywhere. This is the way he's revealed in the Bible. Not only are images of God obscuring and localizing, they are also subtracting. That is, they take away something, and they take from us. It has been said that the real horror of idols is not merely that they give us nothing, but they take from us even that which we have. They corrupt and pervert what precious revelation we have of the true and living God through nature, conscience, and scripture, thereby effectively robbing our souls of the true knowledge of God. We have the Bible, the Word of God. It's inspired by God. And in the Bible, God reveals himself. He shows us who he is and what he's like. And this is the only source for the knowledge of God, the Bible. Now, I'm not saying that there are not good books written about God from which we can glean knowledge about God, but the Bible is the primary source of the knowledge of God. and books about God, they have to be based upon what the Bible says about God. And if they are not based upon what the Bible says about God, they're not good literature. We have no business with them even in our house. Worshiping of idols, whether they be mental idols, pictures, or objects, or wood, stone, or something else, is one of, if not the main strategy used by the devil to deceive and murder the souls of countless men and women since the fall. This is a big weapon in the hand of the devil, to deceive and to destroy souls of men and women made in the image of God. And he does that because he hates God, and he hates men and women that have been made in the image of God, especially those that have been delivered by God from sin and violence. Christians, believers, They are the primary targets in Satan's gun, and idolatry is one of the big guns that he uses to deceive even God's people. And the reason that he can do that to us is because we're not perfectly sanctified. We're living in a sinful world, and we have sin that remains in us, and the sin that remains It longs and it pines to be free from the restraint of God's grace. It longs and it's chomping at the bits, as it were, to be free, to be set loose so that it can have its full free reign. For by the grace of God, it's held in check. We have been delivered from that. We have God's Word in our hand. and God's Spirit in our hearts. And these are the two primary tools that God has given us to fight the good fight of faith, to do battle with Satan, and to mortify the sin that remains in us, that we won't be guilty of committing the sin of idolatry or any other sin. But the sad reality is that we do sin, we still sin. And let us not deceive ourselves like some professing Christians have done into thinking that we're perfectly sanctified. You'll never meet a perfectly sanctified saint down here on planet earth. Those are all in glory already. And those that are still down here, they're wrestling and they're fighting and they're struggling against the sin in the world and against Satan and his demonic hopes and the sin that remains in them. There's this unholy trinity that we're fighting against, brethren. We are engaged in a great war, a war by the way that has already been won. The outcome is certain. The outcome is certain. Jesus has gained the victory. But there's fighting for us to do. There are battles for us to fight and win all along the way. And the main battle is called mortification of sin, mortifying the sin that remains in us, putting it to death by the power of the Spirit that indwells us. And this is what all of God's people are doing, to a greater or lesser degree. And if they're the person that professes to be a child of God, and he or she is not mortifying daily the sin that remains in them, then when they say they are Christians, they are speaking a lie. Jesus said in the parable, one of the parables, that his disciples, his true disciples, they bring forth fruit, some thirtyfold, some sixtyfold, some a hundredfold, but they all bring forth fruit. In other words, they all mortify sin. And they are not keen in observing the sins of their brethren, and pointing those sins out to their brethren. I'm not saying that it's wrong to do that, but if you're going to do that, it should be done in love and gentleness, considering ourselves, lest we also be tempted and fall. But they are keen to mortify their own sins, particularly their own besetting sin or sins. And one of the things we have to be very careful about is idolatry. When John the Apostle closed one of his epistles, he said, little children, keep yourselves from idols. They're all around us. They're in our homes. They can be our spouse. They can be our children. They can be our grandchildren. They can be our great-grandchildren. They can be my career. They can be whatever I feel like is important. Anything can become an idol to us. And that's why John says, little children, keep yourselves from idols. They're all around you. And there's something in you, in your heart, that is drawn to this sin of idolatry. Keep yourselves from idols, he says to us. And this is one of the main strategies that the devil has used for thousands of years to murder the souls of countless men and women. This command also contains in the second place, a gracious depth, a gracious depth. We are finite and God is infinite. Thus, any mental images we have of God If they are not derived from the special revelation of God in his Word and in his Son, they are a breach of the second command. Therefore, negatively, we must avoid all subjective imaging, image-making of God. We must avoid the tell-tale, those unholy words that say, well, I think that God is like this, or I think that God is like that. I see God as a God that is loved. And I don't particularly care about the God that you say is a God of judgment. I don't like that God. The God that I like is a God of love. He loves everybody. And everybody's going to be saved. Just do the best you can. And in the end, God is going to receive you and accept you. I remember one day I was in the barbershop, and There was a preacher in there. I can't remember whether he was in the chair getting his hair cut or sitting on the side waiting. But one guy said to him, I'm having a problem with the commandments, keeping the commandments. And being a man, you can just probably imagine the command that he was having a problem keeping. But anyhow, the preacher said, well, if that's the only one you're having a problem with, You're doing okay, that's good. Don't worry about it. Now here's a man that's supposed to be a preacher. Who is he preaching for? Who called him to be a preacher? If that's the way he thinks, I can assure you that God didn't call him to be a preacher. Negatively, we must avoid all subjective image-making of God. Positively, we must understand that God is transcended infinite and eternal, therefore he is beyond human comprehension. With our purely finite minds, we can't conceive or we cannot comprehend God. His being and power are revealed in creation, but his eternally holy will and character can only be known by special revelation in the Bible and in his Son, Jesus Christ. The only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, he has revealed God. When he came into the world, that's what he did. He was revealing God. He was showing and teaching us who God is and what God is like. And he said himself, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father. You're looking at incarnate deity when you look upon me. And the way that I think is revealed by the way that I speak and the way that I act. And it's absolutely and perfectly consistent with the nature and character of God. You want a picture of God? He said, well, here it is right here. I'm God's son. I'm the Messiah. I am the incarnate God. His word and his son are the source of the special revelation God has given to mankind. And the second commandment restricts us to these sources for our knowledge and understanding of God and his will for mankind. We don't have to go to Tibet or someplace else to see some guru to find out the meaning of life. Here it is right here. You got a Bible. The Bible contains the meaning of life for all men without exception. But we have it. And we know that. We are blessed. Blessed beyond comprehension. Now, what do we really understand, and how blessed we are? To know God. To know the one, only, true, and living God, and His Son, Jesus Christ. That is a tremendous blessing. Everyone has not that knowledge, but we have it. Not that we deserve it. Not that we are better than those that don't have it. We're no better than them. But God has favored us, like he did the nation Israel, among all the other nations. He has favored us. He has drawn us to himself. And he has given us the knowledge of himself and his Son, Jesus Christ. What are we doing with that knowledge? That's the question. What are we doing with that knowledge? Is it making us be a people that love God more and more and are determined and resolved that we're going to serve God? We're going to be more faithful in our service to God. That come hell or high water, we're not going to desert God. We're not going to become idolaters or some other kind of wicked person. It doesn't make any difference what the world is doing or what people say about us. We love God. because he first loved us. And we're going to serve him, and we're going to obey him. We're going to fulfill the words that the nation of Israel spoke, what they said in Deuteronomy chapter 4, all that the Lord has said, we will observe and obey. That's the sentiment of our hearts. And by God's grace, day by day, bit by bit, we're doing that to some degree, to some extent. some 30-fold, some 60-fold, some 100-fold. Now, the people that are doing it 100-fold, that doesn't mean that they are perfect. It simply means that they are more mature than the 60-percenters and the 30-percenters. But the 100-percent is something that we should be striving for as disciples of Jesus Christ. In the third place, this command contains a gracious warning. In verse 5, it of Exodus chapter 20, our gracious warning. Verse 5 of Exodus 20 says, You should not bow down to them, nor serve them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me. He warns us, first of all, that he is a jealous God. And the word jealous is close to the idea of being zealous. So the idea is God is ardently devoted to his own glory. First of all, this is the thing that God is consumed with primarily, his own glory. And he's ardently devoted as well that his people keep themselves from idol. That's why he's given us the commands, so we can know who he is and what he's like and what he doesn't like. He's not all positive. There's a negative aspect to our God. God hates sin, especially the sin of idolatry. And he's ardently devoted that we as his people keep ourselves from idols. God then warns us that there will be divine punishment. There will be divine punishment. In Exodus chapter In verse 24, where God says, passed before Moses and he declared his name, that God is merciful and loving and long-suffering, then at the end he says, who were by no means clearly guilty. He were by no means clearly guilty. This is an aspect of God that a lot of people don't like. They lack a God that allows them to be what they want to be, to think the thoughts that they want to think, and to do the things they want to do. And there are, the majority of people in the world have that kind of God. A God that is no God, really. It's a disgrace. It is an abomination to even call something like that a God. Because the God of the Bible is not like that. He's not indulgent. He doesn't permit us and allow us to go on living in our sin and at the end receive us into his kingdom and into his glory. He will by no means clear the guilty. God's zeal for his own glory will cause him to go to great extremes to keep us faithful, punishing, as he explains, the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me, and essentially this means God leaves a man's offspring as it is, in a state of nature, and the curse just goes on. This is what happens. God visits the sin of the fathers upon the children to the third and the fourth generation with graces, with help from the father, because that's what he wants. He's bucked God all his life, and that's what he wants. He wants to go that way, and so God lets him go. And he also lets his offspring go. And generations like that, they go on serving sin, serving their lusts, without God in the world and without hope in this world and the world to come. In the fourth place, this word contains a gracious promise. And we have that in verse six. For showing mercy to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments, though God will not clear the guilty. He will show mercy to thousands to those who love him and keep his commands. The gracious promise with which God puts this word is, I will show mercy to thousands who love me and keep my commandments. God's gracious promise to those who keep his command is, he will pity them in their weaknesses, he will shower them with his loving kindness, and they will be recipients of his gracious favor. Now, the reason that they are like that is because of God's grace to them in the first place. They didn't make themselves to be like that. It's all a grace. We can't brag and boast and pat ourselves on the back that we're better than those heathen out there in the world. We're no different from them. The only difference is that the grace of God has come to us, saved us, and extracted us from that culture. It's all a grace. Paul says, I am what I am by the grace of God. And if it were not for the grace of God, we, many of us, would be worse than the worst of men. God only knows where we would be if it were not for his grace. Obedience to God's commands brings blessing upon the righteous and upon thousands of their descendants. This is the promise. that if we are righteous by God's grace and we serve God by God's grace, keeping his commandments in an evangelical sense, God promises that his grace and favor will be upon our descendants as well. As he says, showing mercy to thousands, to generations. But that doesn't mean necessarily that all of our children are going to be converted. All of our grandchildren, great-grandchildren, that doesn't mean that. But God is going to continue to show grace to our family, to our descendants. Some of our descendants are going to be the recipients of God's grace. They don't deserve it, just like we don't deserve it, but God has promised to do that. This is the gracious promise with which the second commandment closes. So let us not despair for ourselves or our loved ones. Acts of severity are forced from God. Judgment, the prophet says, is God's strange work. He delights in mercy, and He is more inclined to mercy than to punishment. The psalmist said, He is slow to anger, but ready and willing to forgive. That's the God of the Bible. That's the kind of God we need, and that's the kind of God we have. May the Lord be pleased to make us to be more and more appreciative of who He is. and what we have as His people. Let's close in prayer. Father, we do praise You and thank You, Lord, for Your Word. We confess and acknowledge that it is a lamp to our feet and a light upon our path. In Your Word, Father, we have the clear revelation of who You are in Your written Word and in Your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. We thank You, O God, for that. Lord, help us to love and esteem Your Word even more than our necessary food, to give ourselves to the reading of it, meditating in it and storing it up in our hearts that we might not sin against you. Give us grace and strength, we pray, from the Spirit that indwells us, that we may walk in holy obedience to you each and every day of our lives. Be with us, O God, as we come to the hour of worship. Be with Pastor Bart as you stand before us to proclaim your word. And may, O Lord, he be used by you to impart blessing to your people. and conviction, and even conversion to the lost. And if there's glory to be had, Father, we pray that you would receive it all. And we ask these mercies in Jesus' name. Amen.