Deuteronomy 5:8-10
The Second Commandment

I. People Forget What Something Is For
1. A Bible college library in Ethiopia closed the library to preserve the books. What’s a library for?
2. What is the church for? Those inside, those outside or God above?
3. Some have an “as you like it” attitude. Whatever suits your tastes: traditional or contemporary.
4. People think that worship is “of the people”, “by the people,” and “for the people”.
5. There's a third option: looking up to the God up there. There’s an audience of One we should attend to.
6. In the second commandment God demands that all worship be done as He directs.
II. What Is Worship For?
A. Not For Yourself
1. “You shall not make for yourself a carved image.” Notice that, “for yourself.”
2. People make aids in worship which we think are good but are not really about worshipping God.
3. If it’s “for us” it’s about us. They express who we are, what we want, and our desire to control God.
4. Worship that comes from us, a product of our imagination, for our purposes, is not real worship.
5. Worship is not for us. It’s for God. And for it to be real, it has be done God’s way.
6. Idols stand for the way of life of the people who worship them. It was of, by, and for the people.
B. Worship Of, By and For the Lord
1. His worship is not merely an expression of culture. It is of the Lord, by the Lord, and for the Lord.
2. In Exodus 32, Aaron made a golden calf and declared it “the LORD” (Yahweh).
3. Aaron made an image of God. It was a violation, not of the first, but of the second commandment.
4. The Eastern Orthodox draws people to accept “icons” because people aren’t careful to avoid images.
5. The Lord Jesus said, “God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”
6. To those who don’t make worship for themselves, God commits that they get something out of it.
7. Images in worship diminish, insult God’s glory. They’re for us. Not for God.
C. Notice the Specificity
1. The command is not ‘Do not commit idolatry,’ leaving it up to us to decide what makes for idolatry.
2. Two elements are required: an image and bowing down.
3. It’s not wrong to have images, art, family pictures, decorations, etc, not if you don’t bow to them.
4. It’s not photos of passed family members that is wrong but joss sticks, prayers, hell money, etc.
5. What is prohibited is exactly described, not left up to us to decide whether what is idolatry.
6. Idolatry arises from an exchange of the truth for a lie; out of suppression of the truth (Romans 1).
7. People lie that they don’t serve the money god; they’ve just got bills to pay, a family to support, etc.
8. We always lie to protect our idols. How much more likely we are to lie about our (non-literal) idols.
III. Why Does God Take Worship So Seriously?
A. Jealous
1. “For — because — I the LORD your God am a jealous God.” He wants no rival to our affections.
2. We love other people or things because we see in them something of the goodness and glory of God.
3. The Lord is determined not simply to be our highest god but our only one.
4. The Hebrew word for “jealous” denotes an intense emotional reaction to any affront to God’s glory.
5. Boredom, with God, with His Word, is an insult to His passion for worship.
6. God equates violating this commandment with hating him. Failure to worship right is to hate Him.
7. God will bring the consequences of our failure to worship on the heads of our descendants.
8. We all sacrifice our children to some god or another. We have our children suffer for our values.
9. We’ll either teach our children to love the Lord, as far as we can, or we’ll teach them to hate Him.
B. Steadfast Love (Hesed)
1. He also shows steadfast love – devoted, committed, loyal love – to those who love Him.
2. People with God’s passion for worship, who love the Lord, those the Lord loves loyally.
3. If we love the Lord, it will show in our keeping His commandments. Love and (not “or”) keep.
4. The Lord Jesus said, "If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching” (John 14:23).
IV. Invitation: Those who love God, keep His commands, sacrifice their children to Him, teach their children in word and deeds that God is worth serving, worth passion and interest and attention. And so God blesses them. He blesses their children to the thousandth generation. He is over-flowing in His exuberant desire to do good to those who see that God is worth glorifying. Do you see that?