Exodus 20:4-6 The Message
4-6 No carved gods of any size, shape, or form of anything whatever, whether of things that fly or walk or swim. Don’t bow down to them and don’t serve them because I am God, your God, and I’m a most jealous God, punishing the children for any sins their parents pass on to them to the third, and yes, even to the fourth generation of those who hate me. But I’m unswervingly loyal to the thousands who love me and keep my commandments.
The Word of God for the Children of God.
Glory be to the Father,
and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost;
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and ever shall be,
world without end. Amen, amen.
I often wondered how the ancient Israelites could be so daft.
They took a rock or a piece of wood, carved an image on it, and then bowed down to it as a god. Really?
Then, on a whim, I checked my wallet. Money is made from paper, which is made from wood pulp. I looked around my neighborhood. The houses are made of wood and stone. Maybe the only difference between us and ancient idol worshipers is that our idols today could have a longer production process.
It is disturbing to realize how good we are at making idols. We can make them out of any physical thing. We can even create them out of thin air.
For example, we can claim to be righteous on the basis of our political views.
We can worship a sports franchise. We can devote our lives to the service of a corporation. Such idols are also known as ideologies, or “isms.”
Our ability to create such fraudulent gods is unlimited. Anything that we attach our ultimate desires into, whether physical or conceptual, can be an idol, a god.
But these idols are not the Lord God, the one who delivered Israel from Egypt, the one who freed us from our slavery to sin.
Only this God moves through history with his people.
This is the one who created us.
We cannot and must not create another.
No Image Engraved or in Mind
Exodus 20:1-6 The Message
20 1-2 God spoke all these words:
I am God, your God,
who brought you out of the land of Egypt,
out of a life of slavery.
3 No other gods, only me.
4-6 No carved gods of any size, shape, or form of anything whatever, whether of things that fly or walk or swim. Don’t bow down to them and don’t serve them because I am God, your God, and I’m a most jealous God, punishing the children for any sins their parents pass on to them to the third, and yes, even to the fourth generation of those who hate me. But I’m unswervingly loyal to the thousands who love me and keep my commandments.
If the first commandment—“You shall have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3)—deals with the object of our worship, the second commandment deals with the manner of our worship.
What the second commandment tells us is that it is not enough that we worship the correct God; we must also worship Him correctly.
The clear and immediate meaning of the command is that God is to be worshiped without any visual symbols of Him.
Why the prohibition? Because God is spirit: infinite and unfathomably great.
No physical representation could ever do justice to His glory and grandeur.
The problem with statues, shrines, and pictures is not that they don’t look good but that no matter how good they look, they will inevitably blur the truth about God’s nature and character.
Such images tend to distract us from worshiping the true and living God, instead leading them to worship whatever representation is before them.
Yet the second commandment takes us beyond mere images and idol-making and into our own thought life. Our hands may be innocent of making graven images, but our imaginations seldom are. Any conception of God in our minds and hearts that is not derived from Scripture runs foul of this command.
When God gave instructions for the building of the temple, He ordered that the ark of the covenant, on which His presence would dwell, should reside in the Most Holy Place (Exodus 26:34).
What was inside the ark? Perhaps most significant is what was not in it: it contained no visible representation of God.
Instead, there were the two tablets of the Ten Commandments.
It was as if God was saying to His people, as He says to us, Don’t look for Me in shrines, paintings, or statues. I’m not there. Look for Me in My word.
And so we take our cues from God.
If we want to worship Him—if we want to meet with Him and know what He is like—we must conform our minds to His word.
Our own attempts to conceive of God wholly apart from divine revelation will invariably fail.
He has published His truth in His word, and so we are to tether ourselves to what is revealed there.
What’s at stake in this is the integrity not only of our worship but also of our lives—because when people go wrong in their worship, they end up wrong in their living.
Anything and anyone that encourages us to worship the correct God incorrectly will prove to be a detriment to our spiritual growth.
What a tragedy it would be to embrace an image and miss the person of Christ, to sit at a shrine and miss the Savior, to worship a misconception and too, fail to know Jesus. Instead, resist the urge to reshape God in your image or conform Him to your own image, and be sure to know Him as He has revealed Himself.
In the name of God the Father, God the Son and God, the Holy Spirit,
Pray,
Psalm 24 The Message
24 1-2 God claims Earth and everything in it,
God claims World and all who live on it.
He built it on Ocean foundations,
laid it out on River girders.
3-4 Who can climb Mount God?
Who can scale the holy north-face?
Only the clean-handed,
only the pure-hearted;
Men who won’t cheat,
women who won’t seduce.
5-6 God is at their side;
with God’s help they make it.
This, Jacob, is what happens
to God-seekers, God-questers.
7 Wake up, you sleepyhead city!
Wake up, you sleepyhead people!
King-Glory is ready to enter.
8 Who is this King-Glory?
God, armed
and battle-ready.
9 Wake up, you sleepyhead city!
Wake up, you sleepyhead people!
King-Glory is ready to enter.
10 Who is this King-Glory?
God-of-the-Angel-Armies:
he is King-Glory.
Glory be to the Father,
and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost;
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and ever shall be,
world without end. Amen, amen.
Loving God, Living God, Loving Hope, Living Hope, Loving Living Life His Way! "Many things are possible for the person who has hope. Even more is possible for the person who has faith. And still more is possible for the person who knows how to love. But everything is possible for the person who practices all three virtues." - Brother Lawrence (1605-1691), Practicing the Presence of God (1692). 