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Calvary Baptist Church Heidelberg, Germany Deuteronomy 5:8 (NAS) Commandment # 2 _____ Deuteronomy 5:8 Thou shalt not make thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the waters beneath the earth:_____ Introduction/Application_____ What does this commandment deal with? The manner of our worship - No image or likeness; no self-willed worship of God
What is required? (the positive)
How is this done?
What is forbidden? (the negative)
No Graven Images
_____ Last time we were together, we asked the question, "Who do you serve?" "What are you passionately following after?" It was a confrontation with other gods, which are not really gods, but substitute for Yahweh/Jehovah. "In the first commandment worshipping a false god is forbidden in this, worshipping the true God in a false manner is forbidden." The first commandment recognizes the one true God while the second commandment recognizes true religion. It deals with the One true God, but doing so in a way that is unacceptable to God. The first opposes foreign gods, the second opposes self-willed worship of God. Israel was to get rid of all their religious foreign gods, but in their place they were not to erect an image of Yahweh. You may serve no other gods; but the Lord in turn wants to be serve in no other way than how He has commanded. When we think of graven images, we often think, "Why would any one think that piece of something was a god?" The answer is, they don’t. They are not worshipping that statute. They believe that the statute is their link to their god. Ex. Acts 14:11-12 And when the people saw what Paul had done, they lifted up their voices, saying in the speech of Lycaonia, The gods are come down to us in the likeness of men. 12And they called Barnabas, Jupiter; and Paul, Mercurius, because he was the chief speaker.Don’t you think that they already had statues of Jupiter and Mercury? Yes, but they didn’t believe those statutes were the gods, but it was the representative for that god—and so when they saw all that Paul and Barnabas did, they figured that Jupiter and Mercury came down in Paul and Barnabas. It was their link, their connection to god. The image represents deity. One who has an image meets the deity himself in that image. The power of the deity is collected and channeled by means of this image. Without this image, people never notice a god, for the image signifies the god’s presence. The reverse is also true: if people have no image of their god, then his power cannot be represented, and they are deprived of his blessing. In other words, the image is the avenue of contact between the god and the worshipper. Question: Why does God say to us, "you will not worship me this way?" 1. Worshipping God by use of an idol is an attack upon God’s Freedom. Ask yourself, "what is the purpose of the graven image of a god?" It attempts to make the unseen, seen; the incomprehensible comprehended. But in this, it is an attempt to make the god something that it isn’t. God is a spirit—he is not wood, steel, or any other substance. This is an attempt to control God, when the reverse is in fact the case. The goal is have that idol do something for the worshipper, when God is in control of the worshipper. This is a gross misunderstanding of our relationship with God. God is the Creator, we are the creature. God controls man and will not allow man to control Himself. Paul said in Acts 17:28, "In Him we live and move and have our being." It is often asked, then, what about having crosses, art, carved angels and even stain glass windows and other religious objects-—is this prohibited? All we have to do is take a quick look at the temple, the ark, the ephod, tabernacle and even a bronze serpent to understand that all of these occupied a divinely ordained spot in Israel’s history. However, their function was clearly far different from that of humanly invented images of idols. Man used his own images to aid people in manipulating the power of the deity. Such use of holy buildings and objects were never permitted by God. For instance, the bronze serpent in Numbers 21 was used to thwart a plaque of serpents among the Israelites in the wilderness. There is nothing her to indicate an image devoted to worship, paraded in processions or made to form a ritual. It simply took a look by a person that God used to underscore their faith. Later, when idolatry was committed with this bronze serpent, Hezekiah destroyed the bronze serpents in pieces (2Kings 18:4). No object remains holy if it is used in a pagan manner. Ex - Moses in the mountain receiving the law. The people said to Aaron, we need an idol—they did not want to replace God, but simply wanted a representation of God because Moses had been away for such a long period of time. It was a wrong way of worshipping God. It is like Windows 95 - the computer is a deep dark hole—very difficult to understand. Gates came up with an operating system that shows pictures—"icons" that lead to the real computer that when you click, it sends a message to the computer to do what the dummy up there doesn’t know how to tell you to do. The image links us to the computer. This is what happens when we say "I don’t care about the God, I just want to click the icon and the God will come running to do my bidding." You say, "We don’t do this." Why do we have larger attendance at Easter or Christmas? People clicking the image. In our giving, it becomes an image that we click—that if we do good, God will reward us. God will not be at our beckon click. In 1Samuel 4 Israel suffered a heavy defeat by the Philistines. So, they brought the ark into the camp, hoping that the ark would generate God’s protection. But instead of winning a victory the next day, Israel suffered a second defeat and the ark was captured as booty by the Philistines. The ark became no more than a wooden box as soon as the Lord no longer was associated with it. 2. Worshipping God by use of an idol is an attack upon God’s Majesty. The question here is when you reduce God to an image, what image is there that covers all God is? When Aaron made that image, it was the image of a bull. It offers a picture of God’s power and strength, but is that all there is to God? An image, as incomplete as it is, also evokes ridicule and sarcasm. Isaiah 40:18 To whom then will ye liken God? or what likeness will ye compare unto him? In 41:7, Isaiah points out the foolishness of making images and having to nail them down so they will not fall over. God stand in all of His majesty as Creator of the world and even the materials by which man forms the image. Nothing is comparable to Him. Isaiah 43:10-11 …before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me. 11I, even I, am the Lord; and beside me there is no saviour. It was a mockery of God when after Israel made the calf, they exclaimed "This is your god who brought you out of the land of Egypt." Every human being lies open and naked before the eyes of God, but God does not lie open and naked before human eyes. The majesty and might of God will not be compromised and cheapened by man’s imagination. 3. Worshipping God by use of an idol is an attack upon God’s covenant with
His people. The bond of God with His people was a very private and personal,
intimate agreement. God had revealed Himself to them by this covenant and did not need
their help by their imagination to come with up with a better plan to see and know God.
Yahweh have covenanted Himself in faithfulness to Israel and the people did not have to
look far to know what He was doing. Yahweh was not as tangible as Baal, but there is no
god as close to his people as God was to Israel. A cloud by day, a pillar of fire by
night. They did not see a form at Sinai but they did hear His voice. He made His covenant
known, and people could know that His commandments—obediently received—would
ring properly to Israel. In closing, it is important there is another side of this coin. We are not to make any image of God, but God has created an image of himself—man! God created man in His image after His likeness. When man sinned, that image was marred. It was like taking a fine piece of furniture and taking a claw hammer and gouging and ripping at the piece. You will still see the resemblance of the furniture, but it will be greatly marred and ruined. I am convinced that we are not saved so that we will escape hell. Ephes. 2:10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. We were made in His image to express and communicate His glory to all we come into contact with. In John 14, Philip came to Christ and asked to see the Father. Jesus said, "Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known me? He who has see Me has seen the Father." From the words and works of Jesus, Philip could have concluded who the Father is. This is the essence of worship—to show proper worth. Christ in his humanity showed the Father—Negatively, this command demands that we purge out wrong thoughts of God’s worth and positively fill our minds with the knowledge of God as revealed in His Word. In a recent survey taken on the Internet, the question was asked what people thought about the Christ and then what they thought about the church? There was a disparaging difference between people who like Christ, but didn’t like the church. This is due primarily, I believe because of a failure to obey this command. We live our own lives imagining that God will automatically approve; instead of believing that God created man after His image, man creates God in his own system of belief and demands that God serve his own ambitions. We imagine God as a big Santa Claus who is not really that mean to naughty children; we make God more friendly than He is, or more strict than He is; As long as human understanding continues to be the workshop where images are made and crafted of our likeness to God and our image of God, we are commanded by this commandment to return to the Word of God—the image that will continually destroy and cast down and reshape our image to the true image of God and who He is. Heidelberg, Germany www.calvary-baptist.com Copyright © 1999 Calvary Baptist Church All Rights Reserved |
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