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GOD REVEALS HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS : TO CALL FORTH OUR WORSHIPEXODUS 20:4-6INTRODUCTION I mentioned last week that as we consider each of the 10 commandments I want to begin by describing one of the principles we must use in interpreting them. The first principle we stated is that the 10 commandments stand at the head of all God’s commands. Every other command that God gives derives from or is logically related to one of these Ten Commandments. The second principle is that whether the commandment is stated as a prohibition (You shall not) or as a prescription (You shall) we are to understand each one as both forbidding us from doing certain things and commanding us to do other things. Today I want us to consider this principle: these commandments can only be rightly understood and obeyed in light of the coming of Christ. Jesus said that he did not come to abolish the Law and the Prophets but to fulfill them. Therefore, each of these commandments can only be correctly understood if we ask the question: in what way has Christ fulfilled this commandment? If you do not ask and answer that question, in regard to each of the commandments, then you are going to have an incorrect understanding of what the commandment commands and what it prohibits. This is especially true for this second commandment. What this commandment required of a person living prior to the ascension of Jesus and what it requires now are two entirely different things in regard to external behavior. If the commandment only forbids the making and worshipping of visual representations of God then there is no difference between us. However, because the commandment also requires that God be worshipped in a certain way, there is a vast difference between what it meant to obey this command prior to 30 A.D. when Christ died and what it means now. Turn with me to Deuteronomy 12 on page 134. In vv. 1-3 God instructs Israel that when they enter the land of Canaan they are to destroy all the idols and the places where they are worshipped. They are to physically destroy every vestige of the pagan idolatry in the land of Canaan. Look at v. 4 which gives the motivation for this destruction: “You must not worship the Lord your God in their way.” Notice this is not a command to not worship their gods but to not worship the true God in the way the Canaanites worshipped their false gods. In other words, this is a restatement of the 2 nd commandment. God commands that we do not use visual representations of him, idols, in worship. Then in vv. 5-14 God commands how he is to be worshipped. What he says is that the only right way to worship the true God is to do it in one place in Israel, the place where he will choose to place his Name. We know that place is the city of Jerusalem on Mt. Zion. Then you are to worship God at this one place by bringing your animal and food sacrifices. We know also, this required the tabernacle and then the temple along with all its furnishings. It required the priests and so forth. In other words, in order to obey the 2 nd commandment you would have to engage in all the religious practices associated with the temple, the priesthood, the sacrifices, the cleanliness laws, etc. However, we do not practice these things, nor are we required to do so, because we know that Jesus has fulfilled all of these practices by his life, death, resurrection and ascension. While this command both prohibits false ways of worshipping the true God and prescribes true ways of worshipping the true God for us who believe in Christ, yet those practices are very different from those required prior to the ascension of Jesus Christ because Jesus has fulfilled this law. We are going to consider what this law requires and forbids in a moment but first I want to consider the relationship between the first and second commandments. The first commandment tells us whom we are to worship while the second commandment tells us how we are to worship. The first commandment tells us that we are to not worship false gods but to only worship the true and living God whose name is Yahweh and who is the Triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The second commandment tells us that we are not to worship the true God in a false way but to worship him only in the way he commands. The first commandment, as we saw last week, emphasizes the affections of our heart. While it clearly prohibits joining in the worship of false gods, yet its primary emphasis is upon whom we trust, love, cling to, worship, obey. In other words, who or what has our heart? The second command, however, while it talks about our love for God emphasizes our actions. We are not to make an image to represent the true and living God, nor are we to pray to, sing songs to, make offerings to the image. On the positive side, there are certain acts of worship that we are to perform as Christians. There is an assumption at the heart of this command that is absolutely vital for us who live in this culture to grasp. God, who is invisible and who is a spirit, wants human beings to perform physical acts of worship. He cares about whether or not you join in public worship. He cares whether or not you pray or read the Bible. Not joining with God’s people in the public worship of God is breaking the 2 nd commandment. Not leading your family in the worship of God is breaking the 2 nd commandment. Not engaging in personal worship of God is breaking the 2 nd commandment. While coming to church on Sundays for public worship doesn’t make you a Christian, all who trust Christ come to church on Sundays to join in the worship of God. All who say you can be a Christian and not engage in the public worship of God are lying. God wants you and I to worship him in certain ways. We Americans need the second commandment. It is a weakness peculiar to our age that we believe that if a person is sincere, if they have a “good heart”, especially in religious matters, then it doesn’t really matter what he or she does. It is an assumption of popular culture that you can be a good Christian and not participate in organized religion. That is a lie. We are prone to sentimentalize Christianity. That is, we would say that a person can obey the first commandment without obeying the second commandment and be OK with God. That is simply not true. We are going to consider the ways he commands us to worship him as we look at why it is that God cares how we worship him. MAIN POINT God cares how we worship him because…I. He is the LORD, the Creator and Redeemer Notice that this commandment is actually comprised of two prohibitions followed by three reasons as to why we should obey. First, we are commanded not to make a carved image, an idol of the invisible God. We are not to make an idol to represent God in the form of anything in the heavens above, the earth beneath or in the waters under the earth. In short, we are not to make a visible representation of God in the form of anything in all of creation. The second prohibition is that we are not to worship or bow down to any visible representation of the true God. We are commanded to not make an idol representing the Triune God and we are commanded not to worship such an idol. The first and perhaps the most famous violation of this command occurs less than a month after God gave this command to the people of Israel gathered at the foot of the blazing mountain. Aaron, after Moses had gone up the mountain for about a month made a calf out of gold that. When he finished making the calf he said to the people, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt.” Aaron and the people would have argued that they were not worshipping false gods. They were keeping the first commandment. However they were breaking the second commandment because they were worshipping the true God in a way that he forbids. They were using the methods the Egyptians and Canaanites used to worship their false gods in order to worship the true God. Why is it that God does not want to be worshipped through the use of visible representations of him? In vv. 1-2, which is a summary of Genesis and Exodus 1-19 God describes himself as the God who is the Creator of all things and the Redeemer of his people. It is this God who commands that we not use a visible representation to worship him. The image of any created thing as the representation of God is always a degrading of God for God is the creator of all things and thus to represent him by any part of his creation is to make him less than he actually is. Thomas Watson, the Puritan pastor, says it this way, “If anyone should make images of snakes or spiders saying he did it to represent his prince, would not the prince take it in disdain? What greater disparagement to the infinite God than to represent him by that which is finite; the living God, by that which is without life; and the Maker of all things by that which is made?” The prophet Isaiah denounces the use of idols in the worship of God in some of the most humorous language in the Bible. "The carpenter measures with a line and makes an outline with a marker; he roughs it out with chisels and marks it with compasses. He shapes it in the form of a man, of man in all his glory that it may dwell in a shrine…. It is man's fuel for burning; some of it he takes and warms himself, he kindles a fire and bakes bread. But he also fashions a god and worships it; he makes an idol and bows down to it. Half of the wood he burns in the fire, over it he prepares his meal… From the rest he makes a god, his idol; … He prays to it and says, 'Save me; you are my god.'" The Psalmist says, "The idols of the nations are silver and gold, made by the hands of man. They have eyes but cannot see, mouths but they cannot speak. They have ears but cannot hear, nor is there breath in their mouths." The God who exists is the Savior of his people. He delivered them from their slavery in Egypt and he parted the Red Sea. He sovereignly rules over all things. All of his purposes are accomplished. When he acts, no one can reverse it. He is a God who is always acting, always knowing, always listening and seeing. What a great dishonor it is to represent this powerful Redeemer by a lifeless image that cannot see or hear or act. What does this mean for us? First, let me give you a little historical perspective. One of the reasons that we are not all Roman Catholics is because the men who led the reformation were convinced that the Catholic Church had made the breaking of this commandment a mark of spiritual virtue. The ubiquitous presence of crucifixes throughout Catholic churches and homes, the use of statues of Mary and Jesus and the saints in churches and homes, Michelangelo's painting of God the Father as an old man on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, all proved that the church was corrupt and beyond reforming. It wasn't only that the church made and used these but that they defended their position as being what God wanted. They argued that the statues and pictures helped them to worship the true God better. It was one of the main things against which Calvin, Luther and all Protestants since have protested. The Reformers were absolutely correct in their criticism of the Roman Catholic Church's manufacture and use of statues and pictures of God and the saints in worship. Protestants have been unanimous in their refusal to have pictures or statues of God the Father, Jesus or the saints in the church sanctuary or set up as objects of devotion in the home. The Roman church is in grave error at this point. They break this commandment by their making and using crucifixes and statues of Mary, Jesus and the saints. However, Protestants, since the beginning of the Reformation have not been in agreement upon the making of pictures of Jesus for educational purposes and artistic expression. The reason for the disagreement arises from the fact that while Jesus is the eternal Son of God, yet the Son took on human flesh and became visible. Calvin and his descendants within the Reformed churches strictly prohibited pictures of Jesus for any purpose. They argued that since Jesus is both God and man any picture of him is necessarily incomplete and dishonoring to him as it cannot represent his divinity and thus making or possessing a picture of Jesus is a breaking of this command. However, Luther and many others argued that since Jesus is human it is appropriate for artists, like Rembrandt, to paint scenes from the gospels or like Mel Gibson to make movies with a human portraying Christ. Sunday school materials and children's books have long pictured Jesus for the purpose of educating the young. Quite honestly I've never thought deeply about the appropriateness of pictures of Jesus until this week. I am currently divided in my thinking. I'm not prepared to say all pictures of Jesus break this command. However, I would caution all of us to not just presume that having a picture of Jesus is no big deal. We've discussed how the invisible Creator and Redeemer forbids us from making or worshipping visible representations of himself but that doesn't answer the question as to what does he want us to do to worship him? What physical actions are we to take in our worship of the invisible God? As I said before how God answered that question for Israel is different than how he answers it for us. For Israel it meant they had to build a tabernacle and then a temple according to very specific instructions. They were to make the descendants of Aarons to be priests and the rest of the descendants of Levi to be their assistants. The priests had to wear special clothing and symbols and could only eat their food in certain places. They could only marry certain women. There were particular kinds of animal, grain and drink sacrifices for certain reasons and at certain times of the year. There were festivals to observe. Only certain kinds of people who were "clean" according to certain standards could participate in the worship. There were specific punishments to be meted out to those who broke any of these laws. What the NT says is that all of these religious practices were ended by Christ because all of them were merely symbols which pointed to Christ and his work of redemption. As Paul says, "The law is our tutor to lead us to Christ." Jesus is the priest and the offering the priest makes. Jesus entered heaven itself, not a physical temple which is merely a copy of heaven. Jesus is our Passover Lamb. Jesus makes us clean and fit for God's presence. We are not made fit for God by not eating certain foods or not touching dead bodies or not washing our bodies with water. Therefore, the first and most important thing that must be said about the kind of worship that God wants from us is that it must be done in the name of Christ. We don't offer acceptable worship to God in our own name but only in the name of Christ. If you are not a Christian, every prayer you pray, every song you sing, every religious act you perform is a breaking of the second commandment. If you are trusting in Jesus Christ than every act of worship that is according to God's word that you perform is acceptable to him through Christ. The NT says this over and over again. Listen to what Peter says in his first letter: "As you come to him the living Stone, rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him, you also like living stones are being built into a spiritual house, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ." All of my religious acts of worship are offered in the name of Christ, on the basis of his shed blood and resurrected life. I know that nothing I offer to God by way of worship and devotion is acceptable to him because of me but only because of Christ. The songs I sing, the money I give, the prayers I offer are not acceptable to God because I am sincere but because I offer them in the name of Christ by the work of the Holy Spirit. Let me say this as clearly as I can: the main way you obey the 2nd commandment is to believe in Christ and to offer worship to God through him, by the Spirit. What are the specific, physical acts that God wants us to perform through Christ? I don't have the time to show you the biblical warrant for what I am about to say. This Friday is pizza with the pastor and so if you want to talk about it more, then come join us. Gathering together with God's people for the purpose of worship on a regular basis is commanded by God. That public worship is to be expressed through baptism, communion, the singing of psalms, hymns and spiritual songs, accompanied by a variety of musical instruments, prayers of intercession and thanksgiving, the giving of money for the care of the poor and support of God's work, the reading of Scripture, preaching and teaching of God's word by called and duly ordained elders/pastors/overseers, and the building up of one another's faith through the use of the various gifts of the Holy Spirit. In addition to God's calling us to regular public worship he commands that we maintain his worship in our homes through at least daily prayer and reading of Scripture. Not participating in these forms of worship is to break the 2nd commandment. God cares how we worship him because…
II. He is the LORD, a jealous God What does it mean to say that God is jealous? Generally, we use jealousy in a negative sense. To be a jealous person is to be insecure, suspicious, demanding, and vindictive. The Hebrew word translated jealous can also be translated zealous. When God says that he is jealous he is saying two things. First, it is an expression of his commitment to his own reputation and glory. He will not give his glory to another. He will not permit himself to be defamed and mocked. He will not tolerate betrayal and slander against him and his reputation. That is why he so clearly declares that he is going to punish all those who worship false gods or who worship him in a false way. His jealousy is first the expression of his commitment to the glory of his own name. However, his jealously is also an expression of his love for us. There is an occasion when we will use jealousy in a good sense. When a husband discovers his wife is having an affair, how does he feel? He feels jealous. If a husband discovered his wife was having an affair and he said, "I don't care. She can do what she wants," what would we say about his love for his wife? We would say that he doesn't love her. Jealousy for the affections of the one I love is evidence that I love. God wants to be "married" to his people. He wants to be in a covenant relationship where he loves us and we respond to his love by faithfully loving him back. Therefore, like a good husband, he is jealous for our love. It's easy to understand why God's jealousy would be the reason he commands us to not worship false gods but why is it the reason for his prohibiting the use of idols to worship him? First, as we've seen, an idol slanders and mocks God because it represents the infinitely glorious Creator and Redeemer with a lifeless image of a finite and limited creature. God is zealous for his glory and does not want to be represented by such an inglorious object. Second, God does not want our devotion and affection and faith, which belongs only to him, to be given to a physical object. He does not want us to love or depend upon or serve an object. The fact is that humans are prone to have feelings of devotion for and to serve physical objects, especially physical objects that are associated with or representative of God. I know that all of us have experienced this. When you enter a church, especially an older cathedral, you feel reverent. You have religious feelings stimulated by a building that should only be aroused by the knowledge of God himself. I remember when I was a child helping my dad get the communion trays ready. I felt that the wine we poured into the little glasses and the wafers we put on the trays and the trays themselves were somehow holy. After communion we would take the empty glasses down to the kitchen and before we would wash them we would pour the drop of wine out of each little glass into another cup and then go pour it on the ground rather than simply wash it down the drain. That reverence that I offered to the wine was a breaking of the 2nd commandment. It's at this point I think that we can evaluate whether or not the pictures of Jesus in art and in educational materials are sin for us. If we find awe or fear or love or reverence in our heart when we observe the picture then we are breaking the 2nd commandment and should throw away the picture, not go see the movie. The rest of this verse is difficult and troubling. God says that because he is jealous he visits the sins of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate him. The first thing to note is that God says that those who use images or other means of worshipping him that he has not commanded are hating him when they do this. This is a shocking thing to say because if you were to ask a person who has a statue of Jesus or if you were to ask a church that uses drama to excite religious fervor in the congregation, they would say that they do this in order to worship God better. People say that they use forbidden methods of worshipping the true God because they love him. God says they do it because they hate him. Thomas Watson uses this helpful illustration to show how this really is hatred for God, " For (those who use images in worship) to say they make use of an image to put them in mind of God, is as if a woman should say she keeps company with another man to put her in mind of her husband.” What are we to make of the fact that God visits the punishment due to fathers for their idolatry and their failure to worship God as he commands upon their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren? This isn't saying that God punishes innocent children for the sins that their fathers committed. There are no innocent children as all men by nature are God's enemies. As David says by the Holy Spirit about himself and thus about us all, "I was sinful from birth; sinful from the time my mother conceived me." All men by nature hate God. This is saying that God leaves the children of those who worship false gods or worship him in false ways in their sins. God is not obligated to save those who hate him, nor is he obligated to save the children of those who hate him. John Calvin says, "...whenever God blinds the children of the ungodly, casts them into a state of reprobation and smites them with a spirit of madness or folly, so that they give themselves up to foul desires and hasten to their final destruction, in this way the iniquity of the fathers is visited on their children." When you worship God wrongly or when you do not worship God at all you are not only consigning yourself to an eternal hell but you are going to bring your children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren to hell with you. Sin, especially the sin of false worship or no worship, is a social disease that spreads rapidly through families by God's decree. God cares how we worship him because…
III. He is the LORD, a merciful God The word that is translated "love" in the first part of v. 6 is one of the most important words in the OT. It is the word for God's grace, his free, unmerited kindness and mercy to undeserving sinners. Moses sang a song of praise to God after the parting of the Red Sea. In it he said that God's leading and redeeming Israel was due to his love for them. As we have repeatedly seen, God's love for Israel was not a response to anything they did but his free choice to be kind to them in spite of who they were. In Exodus 34 it is one of the key words in God's description of himself. In Numbers 14, when Israel rebels against God for the 10th time, by refusing to go into the land of Promise and so God threatens to wipe them out, Moses asks God to forgive Israel according to his love. He doesn't ask God to forgive Israel because they are so valuable but because God is a God of mercy and grace. I want you to remember with me the situation in which God is giving these commandments for the first time. Imagine you were an Israelite standing in front of the blazing Mt. Sinai. You've just heard God say that all who use idols to worship him and who do not worship him in the way he commands are going to be punished by God along with their children, grandchildren and great grand children. If you are listening to these commands as God wants you to listen to them you will be filled with terror because all you've ever done is worship idols. Also, you've never worshipped God the way he wants you to worship him. Therefore, after hearing vv. 4-5 you will be looking for some place to hide from the wrath that you know is going to come upon you. But then you hear this word of hope. God has mercy available for thousands, for those who love him and keep his commands. So hope is born in your heart that this fierce God is also a God of grace. And you won't miss the contrast between vv. 5 & 6. His desire to be gracious is far more abundant than his desire to punish. He visits the sins of the fathers for only four generations but has mercy upon thousands of generations. The point is that God's grace is higher and greater than his wrath. There is hope for sinners. This God who commands that we worship him rightly is a God of grace, who longs to be gracious to us. So, if you were a believing Israelite, standing before this mountain, what would you do? You would determine to throw away your idols and to worship only the true God in the way he wants you to worship him because you are amazed that he would love you in spite of your idolatry. This is the word of the gospel given to us as well. There is not a person sitting here who daily offers to God the worship he demands and of which he is worthy. All of us regularly have our hearts stirred in devotion to created objects rather than to the true God who made us and redeems us. So we also must confess our sins and turn to this God who has mercy on thousands. Who are the people upon whom God has mercy? All those who love him and keep his commands, are the ones upon whom he has mercy. This is not teaching that I earn God's love by loving him and obeying him. There are three reasons right here as to why this is not saying that we merit God's love by loving him. First, as I've just said the word for God's love is the word that describes God's grace, his free, unearned love for unworthy sinners. As the apostle John says, "We love because God first loved us." God's love for us is what creates our love for him. Second, true love for God is not motivated by getting something from God but merely out of delight in God. True love is not mercenary. When you love a person, you do it out of a delight in the person, not because you're trying to get something from the person. A man who marries a woman because of her money does not love her but a man who marries a woman because he cannot imagine being without her is acting according to love. Bruce Yungerman had a surprise birthday party for his wife Jo yesterday. If you were to ask Bruce why he did it he would not say because it was my duty or because he was trying to get Jo to let him buy a new truck. He would say he honored her with this party because he loves her and loves showing her how much he loves her. In the same way, love for God is not motivated by a desire to escape punishment or to gain some benefit from him but is motivated by delight in God himself. We don't come to worship God in order to manipulate him into being good to us. We come here to express our delight in him. Third, the grammar used here is not the grammar of cause/effect but the grammar of relationship. All who are loved by God love him and love to obey him. These things always go together because God's grace irresistibly produces these effects, love and obedience. The Bible from beginning to end puts these things together at all times. "Grace to all who love the Lord Jesus Christ with an undying love." "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble." "If you love me you will obey my commandments." The evidence that I am loved by God, that he has had mercy upon me is that I love him and obey his commands, especially his command to worship him in the name of Christ by the power of the Spirit through the means he has appointed. God cares how we worship him because…
© Copyright
2005 John Swanson.
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