A Survey of the Old Testament Law--The Myth of the "Generational Curse"

“For I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the 3rd and 4th generations of those who hate Me...” People like Paula White and Benny Hinn and so many others on TBN make a whole lot of money by twisting this particular statement and showing you how to break “generational curses.” They teach that if your father was an alcoholic, then you'll be an alcoholic, and your kids will be alcoholics and their kids will be alcoholics, and so on and so forth—and there is nothing you can do about it, unless you learn the prayer that will “break that curse”--and send them a few dollars in the process. WRONG!! WRONG!! WRONG!! Just because our parents may have been notorious for some sin, that does not mean that God will say, “Well, that’s it! You were a thief and an idolater, so I will curse your entire bloodline for the next 4 generations!” What God is saying is that as long as the children are walking in their father’s footsteps, God will inflict punishment on those offspring—even if it is 3 or 4 generations. Now, will an alcoholic father probably wind up with children who will also be alcoholics? Probably. BUT, that is not a “curse from God.” That is simply children doing what they see their father doing. Deuteronomy 24:16—“Fathers shall not be put to death for their children, nor shall children be put to death for their fathers; a person shall be put to death for his own sin.” Now, it is quite common to see three or four generations of alcoholism or adultery or any other kind of sin—but that is not some "curse from God", that’s just sinful human beings doing what sinful human beings do. Dogs bark, ducks quack, sinners sin. And God will punish the children for their own sins—not for the sins of their father.


BUT—if those children walk according to the Law of God, He will be merciful to those offspring, even to the 1000th generation. As I said before, His anger is not like human anger. We get upset because somebody looks at us cross-eyed, and we can't control ourselves. But God’s anger is not like that. When someone stirs Him to wrath, He doesn’t usually just ZZAPP them. There are times in Scripture where He does that, but that is because those people were so severely disobedient and regarded God’s holiness and His commands so lightly. But, 14 times the Bible says that God is slow to anger, and ready to show mercy. Psalm 103:8—The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in mercy. Joel 2:13—“Return to the LORD your God, for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness.”


Nahum 1:2-3—God is jealous, and the LORD avenges; the LORD avenges and is furious. The LORD will take vengeance on His adversaries, and He reserves wrath for His enemies; the LORD is slow to anger and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked. He will not acquit the wicked, but He will give them a chance to repent from their sins. Those who do not repent, God will destroy. Those who do repent, and turn to the Lord Jesus Christ, He will spare, and reward them for the things they do in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Revelation 2:18-26—“And to the angel of the church in Thyatira write…‘I have a few things against you, because you allow that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, to teach and seduce My servants to commit sexual immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols. And I gave her time to repent of her sexual immorality, and she did not repent. Indeed I will cast her into a sickbed, and those who commit adultery with her into great tribulation, unless they repent of their deeds…Now to you I say, and to the rest in Thyatira, as many as do not have this doctrine, who have not known the depths of Satan, as they say…hold fast what you have till I come. And he who overcomes, and keeps My works until the end, to him I will give power over the nations.” And that is exactly what we see here in Exodus. God “visits the iniquity of the fathers” to 3 or 4 generations. That is, God says that those who commit idolatry hate Him. And He will punish as many generations of those children that continue to hate Him—up to 3 or 4 generations. But He shows mercy to how many generations of those who do His commandments? A thousand! The contrast couldn’t be much more striking!


In fact, we see in Ezekiel 18 that God will not punish children for their fathers’ sins. Ezekiel 18:2-4—“What do you mean when you use this proverb concerning the land of Israel, saying: ‘The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge’?” This was an old proverb, and it’s one that we hear even today in this country—“It’s my parents’ fault that I'm the way I am.” In other words, “Nothing is my fault.” It’s the same old story—we want to blame someone else for our trouble, when most of the time the blame lays at our own feet. “As I live,” says the Lord GOD, “you shall no longer use this proverb in Israel. Behold, all souls are Mine; the soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is Mine; the soul who sins shall die.” That’s pretty self-explanatory. If a person sins, that person will die. If you run a red light, you get a ticket. KPD will not send you a ticket because your mother or father ran a red light. You ran the light—you get the ticket.


If a righteous man begets a wicked son, then the father’s righteousness will not shield that son. Ezekiel 18:10-13--"If he begets a son who is a robber or a shedder of blood, who does any of these things and does none of those duties, but has eaten on the mountains or defiled his neighbor’s wife; if he has oppressed the poor and needy, robbed by violence, not restored the pledge, lifted his eyes to the idols, or committed abomination; if he has exacted usury or taken increase—shall he then live? He shall not live! If he has done any of these abominations, he shall surely die; his blood shall be upon him." If a wicked father begets a righteous son, then the wickedness of the father will not be counted against that son. Ezekiel 18:14-18--"If, however, he begets a son who sees all the sins which his father has done, and considers but does not do likewise; who has not eaten on the mountains, nor lifted his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel, nor defiled his neighbor’s wife; has not oppressed anyone, nor withheld a pledge, nor robbed by violence, but has given his bread to the hungry and covered the naked with clothing; who has withdrawn his hand from the poor and not received usury or increase, but has executed My judgments and walked in My statutes—he shall not die for the iniquity of his father; he shall surely live! As for his father, because he cruelly oppressed, robbed his brother by violence, and did what is not good among his people, behold, he shall die for his iniquity."


Now, God has set up these contrasts, and we see the conclusions we are to draw from these statements when we get to Ezekiel 18:19-23—“Yet you say, ‘Why should the son not bear the guilt of the father?’ Because the son has done what is lawful and right, and has kept all My statutes and observed them, he shall surely live. The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not bear the guilt of the father, nor the father bear the guilt of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself. But if a wicked man turns from all his sins which he has committed, keeps all My statutes, and does what is lawful and right, he shall surely live; he shall not die. None of the transgressions which he has committed shall be remembered against him; because of the righteousness which he has done, he shall live. Do I have any pleasure at all that the wicked should die?” says the Lord GOD, “and not that he should turn from his ways and live?” A person is not punished for their parents’ sins—they are punished if they continue to walk in the ways of their sinful parents. Likewise, a wicked child is not protected by their parents’ righteousness—if they turn away from that righteousness and live in sin, they are punished for their sins.


In fact, we see this again in Jeremiah 31:29-30—“In those days they shall say no more: ‘The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge.’ But every one shall die for his own iniquity; every man who eats the sour grapes, his teeth shall be set on edge.” So, this whole nonsense about “generational curses” is a bunch of hogwash, and is simply a way that TBN—The Blasphemy Network—fools a whole lot of people into sending them their money…for nothing.


Jesus Christ is Lord.
Amen.

A Survey of the Old Testament Law-"I am a Jealous God"

We saw last week that not only does God prohibit us from making idols to use in worshipping false gods, He also prohibits us from making a statue and claiming that the statue represents God. Because, if we do that, we are actually creating another god and worshipping that god. And it’s not just statues we have to worry about making—there are all kinds of things we are in danger of worshipping if we’re not careful. Exodus 20:4-6—“4 You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; 5 you shall 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 3rd and 4th generations of those who hate Me, 6 but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.” Whenever we create something and claim that it “represents God” we are committing idolatry. A person who practices idolatry is an idolater. Any time we create an image and say “This is what God looks like” we are changing the glory of the incorruptible God into an image like corruptible man and we are worshipping the creation rather than the Creator. It’s not a harmless practice; it carries with it grave consequences, and we see these consequences in Romans 1:22-25—22 Professing to be wise, they became fools, 23 and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man—and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things. 24 Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, 25 who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. Notice that—because people tried to make an image of the perfect, sinless, holy, invisible God using imperfect and sinful and visible stuff by way of their imperfect and sinful and wicked and visible hands, God will actually give them over to uncleanness. Right now, although it may not seem like it, God has His hand on all of creation, holding it back from being as wickedly sinful as it could possibly be. If He didn’t then all of creation would destroy itself. But for the one who tries to make an image of God and worship that image, He will pull His hand back from restraining those people and He will let them plunge into whatever depths of wickedness and sin they want. And believe me, that is not a good thing!


That said, it is possible to worship something that is not a statue and that we don’t think of as an idol—but that really is. That is this thing called “stuff.” We all like “stuff.” We all want “stuff.” We drive by billboards; we read ads in magazines and watch TV commercials that drill into our heads, day after day, the fact that we need more “stuff.” And don’t get me wrong; it’s not the “stuff” that’s bad. But, if we’re not careful, “stuff” can become our god, and we will wind up devoting so much time and effort to our “stuff” that the “stuff” takes the place of Almighty God. 1st Timothy 6:9-10—9 But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition. 10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. Paul does not say that money is the root of all evil; he says the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. There is a difference. Money is like a torque wrench—is a torque wrench evil? It’s a tool. Money is not evil—it’s a tool. But, how we look at money and how we use it is where we run into the danger. If we want a clear picture of how the rest of the world values “stuff” more than they value the things of God, we could take a trip on a Sunday morning during the summer and drive up to Norris Lake or out to Cherokee or Douglas, and find all kinds of people enjoying their “stuff” rather than enjoying the fellowship of believers and hearing the word of God. And many of those will be professing Christians.


I also want to point this out: there’s a reason the name of the show is “American…IDOL.” Something to think about. Those people that go on that show are saying, in not so many words, “I want to be an idol!” I remember seeing a picture in a magazine once, and I call Heaven and earth as my witness, it was a picture of Gloria Estefan, at one of her concerts, and this fellow managed to jump up on stage, and he’s on his knees, and he’s getting ready to bow down, and the caption read like this: “Johnny Jump-up worships his idol, Gloria Estefan.” Something to think about.


Which, oddly enough brings us to this little passage where God says “For I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God.” First, He is jealous for us. I want us to see why it is so important that we have a firm understanding of the Scriptures. Because if we don’t, it doesn’t take much to send us spinning in the wrong direction, and doing a death spiral into Hell. I'm not going to say that Oprah Winfrey is there, but she is on that path, and it is my hope that she sees that before it’s too late and she perishes. I hope that one day she will see the truth, and come to know God for being the Almighty and loving God—and Jealous God—that He is. We’re gonna see a clip from her show in which she explains how she got started down the road to her New-Age…… mystical……spiritual……whatever you want to call it beliefs and how she quote-unquote “reconciles” those beliefs with her beliefs about Christ—her false beliefs about Christ.



A couple of things I want to point out—did you notice the girl on the phone with her? Just smiling away and not questioning one iota of what Oprah was saying; just full of glee and fawning admiration. Oprah is a religion. Make no mistake, there are many who worship this woman. But, more than that, did you notice how Oprah thinks that God is jealous OF her? TIME OUT!!!!! What would make a person think that God is jealous OF that person? Do we have anything that God cannot create? He created this whole universe, we saw that over the last couple weeks. He didn’t ask for input on how He should do the creating—He did it according to His own will, and His own counsel. What could possibly make God jealous OF us? Well, that’s the thing. God is not jealous OF us—He is jealous FOR us! We do have one thing He wants—and that is our devotion, our worship. He will not share us with another god. We either worship Him and Him alone, in a way that He desires and which brings glory to Him—or we might as well not try to worship Him at all. He is jealous FOR us. In fact, one of His names is ‘Jealous’. Exodus 34:12-14—“12 Take heed to yourself, lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land where you are going, lest it be a snare in your midst. 13 But you shall destroy their altars, break their sacred pillars, and cut down their wooden images 14 (for you shall worship no other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God).” God is telling Moses, “The land you're going into—the people are pagan, they are wicked. And I want you to destroy every single shred of their heathen practices. Right down to the dust! Utterly and completely destroy it! Don’t leave anything standing; I won’t have it!” If this were today, He would have said something like, “Just carpet-bomb the whole place! Blow it to smithereens.”


What that means for us now we see in 1st Corinthians 8:5-7 (NASB)—5 For even if there are so-called gods…6 yet for us there is but one God, the Father…and one Lord, Jesus Christ…7 However not all men have this knowledge; but some, being accustomed to the idol until now, eat food as if it were sacrificed to an idol; and their conscience being weak is defiled. These Corinthians were coming out of pagan religions, where meat would be sacrificed to idols, and after the sacrifice that meat would be sold in the market. Some of the new Christians would be afraid to buy that meat and eat it, since it had been used in a pagan ritual, and their conscience would be troubled if they ate that meat. However, there were some more mature Christians whose conscience wasn’t affected one way or the other. But what happened was, we see in 1st Corinthians 8:10-12 (NASB)—10 For if someone sees you, who have knowledge, dining in an idol's temple, will not his conscience, if he is weak, be strengthened to eat things sacrificed to idols? 11 For through your knowledge he who is weak is ruined…12 And so, by sinning against the brethren and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ. In other words, the weak brother—that is, the new Christian—isn't quite sure of what do about this meat that was offered to idols. So he sees the more mature Christian eating this meat and the young Christian says, “Well, I guess it must not be that bad,” so he too eats the meat.


But what happens is, because he isn't mature, he falls back into his old ways and eventually returns to worshipping idols and winds up in Hell. And who does Christ hold accountable? The mature Christian. So, what is Paul’s solution to this? 1st Corinthians 8:13 (NASB)—Therefore, if food causes my brother to stumble, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause my brother to stumble. That is, if by me exercising my liberty to eat that meat, I cause my weaker brother to drift back into worshipping idols—then I will never eat meat again! I will cut it off, so that the person worships God and God alone! Because God is a jealous God, and He is jealous for us.


Second, He is jealous for our worship. He doesn’t want us worshipping other gods—He wants all our devotion and all of our worship to be to Him—as well it should be! After all, He is God! Joshua 24:19-23—19 Joshua said to the people, “You cannot serve the LORD, for He is a holy God. He is a jealous God; He will not forgive your transgressions nor your sins. 20 If you forsake the LORD and serve foreign gods, then He will turn and do you harm and consume you, after He has done you good.” 21 And the people said to Joshua, “No, but we will serve the LORD!” 22 So Joshua said to the people, “You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen the LORD for yourselves, to serve Him.” And they said, “We are witnesses!” 23 “Now therefore,” he said, “put away the foreign gods which are among you, and incline your heart to the LORD God of Israel.” To put it in context, Joshua is reminding the people of Israel about all the good things God has done for them—brought them out of Egypt, parted the Red Sea, destroyed Pharaoh and his army—reminds them of how they were always surrounded by people who worshipped pagan gods, and yet God was still with the people of Israel. But he also reminds them of the times when they strayed from God, served other gods, and that even now they weren’t right with God. And he tells them, “You can't worship God! He won’t put up with you trying to serve Him while you're still worshipping idols!” And he pretty much lays down the gauntlet, saying “put away the foreign gods which are among you, and incline your heart to the LORD God of Israel.” These people were swearing an oath that they would worship God and God alone, and Joshua tells them, “OK then, you are your own witness, it has come out of your mouth!” What he’s saying, in other words, is “Put your worship where your mouth is!”


It is completely irrational to worship idols. Are idols able to do anything? That scene in “The Ten Commandments” when God sends the Angel of Death to kill the firstborn in Egypt, and Yul Brynner lays his dead son in the arms of that big statue? And for however many days, just keeps calling on that god, “Oh, great Anubis, give life to my son!” Nothing! Because there is only one God who can do ANYTHING. There is only one God who can truly be called “The Living God”—which is what He is called nearly 30 times in the Bible. Psalm 42:2—My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. Jeremiah 10:10—But the LORD is the true God; He is the living God and the everlasting King. 1st Timothy 6:17—Command those who are rich in this present age not to be haughty, nor to trust in uncertain riches but in the living God. What happens to most people who win the lottery? What happens to all that money? As it says in Proverbs 23:7—Riches make themselves wings and fly away toward Heaven. “Jimmy Joe Crabshack won $137M in the Tennessee Lottery, and now he lives in a run-down trailer after blowing it all on…” Those people worshipped and served their riches and their human desires rather than serving the Living God. When we choose to worship someone other than God—and that includes worshipping our own self—we take the glory that belongs to God and we give it to another. Hebrews 10:31—It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. You could run afoul of any pagan god you could imagine. You could do everything to displease Allah or Buddha or whatever other false god you can think of—and nothing will happen to you because of it. BUT—we should take every precaution to not stir up the Living God to anger.


Because when God is angry—and His anger is always under control; He doesn’t just fly off the handle into a blind rage—considering how powerful He is, do you really want to be on His bad side? He doesn’t want to destroy anyone, Ezekiel 33:11—“As I live,” says the Lord GOD, “I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live.” He does not want us to die in our sins and spend eternity in Hell. He will send us there if He has to, but He doesn’t want to. He is jealous for our worship so that we may live eternally with Him. The apostle Paul expresses the same sentiment in 2nd Corinthians 11:2-3—2 I am jealous for you with godly jealousy. For I have betrothed you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. 3 But I fear, lest somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. Paul is saying “I don’t want to see you serve anyone but Christ. And I will do everything I can to see that Satan does not deceive you the way he deceived Eve.” That should be our attitude toward each other. We know how Satan is; we know how smart and how powerful he is. But we know someone who is even smarter and infinitely powerful, and will come to our aid when we call on Him—and He will help us because He is jealous for us, and does not want to see us worship another. I, for one, am glad that God is jealous FOR me! OK, so He is a jealous God. Next week we’ll take a couple minutes and talk about the rest of verse 6, and the MYTH of the “generational curse.”


Jesus Christ is Lord. Amen.

A Survey of the Old Testament Law------ "You shall not make any graven image"

Before we get to this commandment, I want to talk a little bit more about the 1st Commandment. God and God alone is worthy of our worship because God and God alone is God. We saw that He created all things through His mighty hand and through His Word—that Word (big-‘W’) that took on the form of human flesh and walked the earth and whom we know as the Lord Jesus Christ. It that idea that must be made clearest when one preaches or teaches. Even this pitiful little blog has, as its purpose, to make known the truth of God and salvation through the Lord Jesus Christ. One way to determine if a preacher or teacher is faithful to his calling, that,

“When we have gone from them, there must be no beauty in us that makes them long for us, the only remembrance must be, ‘That man was true to God’”
(Oswald Chambers, If Thou Wilt Be Perfect, p.31).

That is, when we listen to someone teaching or preaching, they have done their job if, instead of saying “Oh, what a wonderfully talented and gifted man he is”, the people walk out afterwards with all their thoughts being what they just learned about God and God’s glory. That is the truest mark of a teacher of God. I found a little pamphlet called “The Godhood of God,” by A.W. Pink. Mr. Pink was a very dedicated teacher and preacher of the Bible, and when you get done reading anything he wrote, you will have a better sense of who God is, and the last thought you will have will be about God and God’s glory. Well, listen to what he says in the section entitled ‘The Absolute Godhood of God is Seen in Creation’—

“With whom took He counsel in creation? Whom did He consult when He determined the various and manifold arrangements, adjustments, adaptations, relationships, equipments of His myriad creatures? Did He not do everything after the counsel of His own will? Did He not decide that birds should fly in the air, beasts roam the earth, and fishes live in the sea?...Did He not determine to create the exalted seraphim to stand before His throne throughout endless ages, and also to make another creature which dies the same hour it is born? Was He not undisputed Sovereign in all His creative acts?...Why should God take counsel? Could man add to His knowledge, or correct His errors?...God never consulted man about a single member of His body, or about its size, color, or capacity; instead, ‘God set the members everyone of them in the body, as it hath pleased Him’ (1 Corinthians 12:18).”

Amen! In fact, the only duty God gave to Adam was to name the creatures. But He did not ask Adam’s advice concerning how big the earth should be or how many stars there should be or how long a day would last. God said, “This is how it’s gonna be.” PERIOD. He didn’t ask our advice about these things. He did it—and that was that. And that is the God we worship. One whose knowledge and wisdom and power are infinite—but even more than that, the beauty of His Holiness is perfect.

To say that God is “holy” is to say that He is completely separate from His creation—and that there is nothing to compare Him to. Some people try to say that “God is like…” or “The love of God is like…” or anything about God “is like…” There is nothing that is like anything about God. His love is not like anything we could imagine. His power is not like anything we could imagine. His wisdom, His justice—nothing about God is like anything we could imagine. No one is holy like God is holy.

In the gospels, Jesus commands us, saying, “The first of all the commandments is: 'Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is one. And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.' This is the first commandment. And the second, like it, is this: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these” (Mark 12:29-31). Notice something. We are commanded to love our neighbor as ourselves. The love we have for our neighbor should be equal to—in fact, greater than—the love we have for ourselves. But, when Christ talks about the love we are to have for God, what does He compare that love to? Nothing! He does not say “You shall love the LORD your God as you love…” anything else! Because the love we are to have for God should be infinitely greater than the love we have for anything. We should even count the love we have for our family as being worthy of throwing in the dumpster compared to the love we have for God. John 12:25—“He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” The apostle John tells us, in 1st John 2:15—Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. We are to value and cherish God more than even our own life. But we don’t always do that. It’s easy to make other things our ‘god’. We put other things ahead of God, and we would rather serve those things that to serve Almighty YHVH. And that is actually a subject we will discuss more next week, in part 2 of our look at the 2nd Commandment.

That said, let’s move on to that 2nd Commandment. We are in Exodus 20, and let’s go ahead and read Exodus 20:4-6—“You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall 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, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.” The command here is quite simple—do not use statues of anything in worshipping God. The people had just come out of Egypt, where they saw all kinds of statues and pillars that had been built to honor their various little-‘g’ gods. And they very well may have in fact been forced into carving and erecting these things. So God obviously does not want the people making statues to worship pagan gods. But God is also prohibiting them from using statues—period. Not just to set them up as idols in the worship of false gods, but God was also telling them to not use statues to worship Him either. We see a couple passages that offer proof of this.

The first is in Exodus 32. Setting the stage. God is still speaking His Law to Charlton Heston, and before He can even finish giving it Edward G. Robinson has already convinced the people that God has forsaken them. They say, “God has forgotten us, Moses is dead for all we know. Let’s make our own god!” Exodus 32:1-6—Now when the people saw that Moses delayed coming down from the mountain, the people gathered together to Aaron, and said to him, “Come, make us gods that shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” And Aaron said to them, “Break off the golden earrings which are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.” So all the people broke off the golden earrings which were in their ears, and brought them to Aaron. And he received the gold from their hand, and he fashioned it with an engraving tool, and made a molded calf. Then they said, “This is your god, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt!” So when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it. And Aaron made a proclamation and said, “Tomorrow is a feast to the LORD.” Then they rose early on the next day, offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.

Their thought was, “Yeah, we know that YHVH brought us out of bondage—but that was then, this is now. And we’re all about the here and now.” Aren't we all? God does something wonderful and miraculous for us, and what do we find ourselves saying not too long after? “What has He done for me lately?” Not only that, we are a visual people. We need results we can see. We don’t want to have to simply believe something is so—or is going to be so. “Show me! Prove it!” And that’s what the people do here. Now, they weren’t forming a statue and making a new god—they were building this thing, and saying “This is YHVH! This is the god that brought us out of Egypt!” And God sends Charlton Heston down the mountain to put a stop to it. We’re gonna talk about this incident some more when we get to this particular passage. But we can already see that God is forbidding us from making any kind of carved image and saying “This is God!” For one thing, it reverses the order God wants. Man was created in the image of God—but we create a god in the image of man. Whenever we reduce God down to a statue or trinket, we are fashioning an imperfect image of the perfect God from imperfect materials. And we are fashioning a visible image of the invisible God.

Another reason I believe God gave this prohibition is because He wanted the people to be ready for when he would send His image to walk the earth. Which He did about 2000 years ago. Colossians 1:15—[Christ] is the image of the invisible God. Hebrews 1:1-3—God…has in these last days spoken to us by His Son…being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person. 2nd Corinthians 4:3-4—But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing…who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them. If I am making some little statue and saying “This is what God looks like” then I am denying Christ because the Bible says that the only thing that “looks like” God is Jesus Christ. But, until God sent His Son, He would not appear to the people in any form, except He would cover Himself in clouds and thick darkness. Which is exactly what Moses tells the people in Deuteronomy 4:11-18—“You came near and stood at the foot of the mountain, and the mountain burned with fire to the very heart of the heavens: darkness, cloud and thick gloom. Then the LORD spoke to you from the midst of the fire; you heard the sound of words, but you saw no form—only a voice. So He declared to you His covenant which He commanded you to perform, that is, the Ten Commandments; and He wrote them on two tablets of stone. The LORD commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and judgments, that you might perform them in the land where you are going over to possess it. So watch yourselves carefully, since you did not see any form on the day the LORD spoke to you at Horeb from the midst of the fire, so that you do not act corruptly and make a graven image for yourselves in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female, the likeness of any animal that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the sky, the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the water below the earth.” He’s saying, “You saw no form when YHVH spoke to you from the cloud that rested on Mt. Sinai—neither shall you carve anything and say, ‘This is what God looks like.’” Because, as we talked about at the outset, God is not like anything we could imagine—so how could we ever build anything that even allows us to come close to saying “This is what God looks like” since God does not look like anything we could ever imagine.

Think about it like this—suppose someone told you that they were going to make a statue of you, and that it was going to look just like you and they were going to bring it here next week and give it to you. Being humans, we wouldn’t have a problem with it. We’d be thinking that it was going to be some carving made out of wood or stone or whatever. But then they bring it in next week, and what you see is this big, honking lump of half-eaten chicken bones and chewed-up gum and bailing wire and lemon peels and mud. It’s a big ugly disgusting mess. And they look at you and say, “It looks just like you!” We would be appalled! That’s what God says we are doing when we try to make a ‘graven image’ and say “This is God.” Only with Him, it’s on an infinite scale.

Because as much as we would be disgusted with that clump of chicken bones and lemon peels, God is infinitely disgusted with anything we might make and say “This looks like God.” No matter how beautiful it may be in our eyes, and no matter how sincere we may be—there is nothing we could ever make that we could point to and say “This looks like God.” In fact, we have a perfect example of this thought in Judges 17:3—Now there was a man from the mountains of Ephraim, whose name was Micah. And he said to his mother, “The eleven hundred shekels of silver that were taken from you, and on which you put a curse, even saying it in my ears—here is the silver with me; I took it.” And his mother said, “May you be blessed by the LORD, my son!” So when he had returned the eleven hundred shekels of silver to his mother, his mother said, “I had wholly dedicated the silver from my hand to the LORD for my son, to make a carved image and a molded image; now therefore, I will return it to you”…In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes. Momma was gonna have the silversmith make a molten or graven image of YHVH in the name of her son. She did, and that son served that image. Now, he was serving the image—but was he serving God? No! He was serving this abomination that he called YHVH. Much like anybody does when they set up statues and say “We are worshipping God by giving reverence to this statue!”

John Calvin once said,

“Moses…had no other object than to rescue God’s glory from all the imaginations which tend to corrupt it. And assuredly it is a most gross indecency to make God like a [block of wood] or a stone. Some [explain the commandment as meaning], ‘Thou shalt not make to thyself a graven image, which thou mayest adore;’ as if it were allowable to make a visible image of God, provided it be not adored…as soon as any one has permitted himself to devise an image of God, he immediately falls into false worship.”
(John Calvin, Commentaries, Commentary on Deuteronomy 5:9)

He goes on to say, in that same section,

“They have always alleged the same [excuse] which now-a-days is [present] in the mouths of the Papists, viz., that not the image itself was actually worshipped, but that which it represented…they will immediately reply, that they offer to God that honor which they pay to pictures and statues. But this frivolous excuse comes to nothing; because to erect the idol before which they prostrate themselves, is really to deny the true God.” (ibid.)

Now, let’s say someone were to walk into your garden-variety Roman Catholic church. Not that I'm recommending it! But, suppose we do, what do you suppose we will see when we walk in? Statues. Statues of Christ; statues of…somebody else. Who might that someone else be? Mary! Gotta have our statues of Mary! Hmmm…now, the way your average Roman Catholic will try to get away with this is by saying (A) The 2nd Commandment is only a prohibition against making idols to false gods (we’ve seen already this is not true) and they will say (B) Oh, we don’t worship the statues, we use them in our worship (we’ve seen from Judges this is not true either). But when you ask them, why the Pope bows down to statues of Mary—when the Commandment says “You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above [that would be Christ], or that is in the earth beneath [That’s Mary]…you shall not bow down to them nor serve them” they will come back with “Oh, the Pope does not bow down to statues of Mary”—well, below are pictures of John Paul II and Benedict XVI bowing to statues of Mary. We’ll stop right there, and pick up next week talking about God being a jealous God.







Jesus Christ is Lord.
Amen.

A Survey of the Old Testament Law------ "You shall have no other gods before Me"

Last week we knocked at the door of the Law of God, but this week we are going to finally step over the threshold and study, in earnest, the commands in this Law, and what they mean for—not only us, but all of humanity. Because if a person is not in Christ, they must keep every last bit of this Law. We took a peek at the first commandment, and in this commandment we saw that God revealed Who He was, and reminded the people of What He had done for them and that He required their obedience to Him. What we’re going to do now is to open up that command a little further and see what it truly means to render all of our worship to God and God alone.

Exodus 20:1-3—1 Then God spoke all these words, saying, 2 “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 3 You shall have no other gods before Me.” Or, rather, “You shall have no other gods besides Me.” He’s not telling us that we put Him at the head of the line in front of our own little group of gods. He’s saying, “You worship Me and Me alone! I am God, and no one else is. You are not to give your worship to anyone other than Me. PERIOD. PARAGRAPH. END OF STORY.”

There’s a couple of big fancy words that we’re gonna look at real quick. The first is “monotheism.” It simply means believing that there is only one God—one God who is supreme over everything in creation. Then there is “polytheism” which refers to the belief in “[many] gods or invisible beings superior to man, and having [a role] in the [control] of the world” (Webster's Dictionary). God is commanding the people to practice “monotheism”—God is God and only God is any kind of God. That God is the only true God. This was a very unusual thing at this time, since nearly every “civilization” and every people group were worshipping their own set of ‘gods’—plural. To worship only one God was almost unheard of. But you know what? God doesn’t care. He doesn’t care how “unusual” it is—in fact, He’s telling the people to not be like all the other people around them. If that’s how God wants it—that’s how He gets it!

Not only that, He does not need any help being God. And this is the aspect of His Deity (or, Godness) that we’re going to focus on today. We could study any number of teachings about God’s power, but what we’re going to hone in on is His Sovereignty. The word “sovereign” is a fancy way of saying God is “Supreme in power. Superior to all others; chief, or predominant” (Webster's). We’re going to look at how God is Supreme and Sovereign over Creation. First, in His creating the universe. Second, in His sustaining the universe. Third, that He will be perfectly righteous when He brings this universe—as we know it—to an end. So, let’s begin.

God is Sovereign in Creating the Universe. Genesis 1:1—In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Who helped Him? No one! In the book of Job—we’ve all heard of the patience of Job? Well, he gets kinda whiny there towards the end. And finally, God reveals Himself to Job by asking Job a series of questions that show God to be the truly great God that He is. Job 38:1-11—Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said: “Who is this who darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Now prepare yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer Me. Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements? Surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? To what were its foundations fastened? Or who laid its cornerstone, when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy? Or who shut in the sea with doors, when it burst forth and issued from the womb; when I made the clouds its garment, and thick darkness its swaddling band; when I fixed My limit for it, and set bars and doors; when I said, ‘This far you may come, but no farther, and here your proud waves must stop!’” And God goes on for 125 verses, asking this man question after question asking the same thing—“Who are you? And Who am I?”

And this is the question we have to ask ourselves from time to time, Amen? You can go to the website of the Hubble Telescope, and see pictures from billions—even trillions—of light years away. And when you consider that a light year is billions of miles—I think you get the idea of how huge this universe is. You can see all these stars that make the sun look like a pimple. All these galaxies and swirly things that are millions of miles across. And these scientists will tell you these things “just happened. They just evolved over billions of years.”

WRONG!

All of those stars and galaxies and whatever else out there—not one of those things was not created by God. In the first chapter of the book of John, our Lord Jesus Christ is referred to as the “Word of God.” John 1:1-4—1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. 4 In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. It was by the Word of God that the first human being received his life. That Word of God created all the things we see—and everything we don’t see. Colossians 1:15-16—[Christ] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And it was God Himself who designed our bodies. These bodies did not evolve over “billions of years”—God put these bodies together. 1st Corinthians 12:18—But now God has set the members, each one of them, in the body just as He pleased. And God’s fingerprint is all over the universe, and the stars and the galaxies and our bodies and in fact all over this earth that He created. However, the man who does not want to believe that there is a God who is the Supreme King and Lord over all creation—that person will convince himself that the lie is the truth.

I like how Young's Literal Translation renders Psalm 14:1--A fool hath said in his heart, “God is not.” The fool looks at this huge universe, that is somewhere in the neighborhood of 800,000 gazillion miles in every direction and says, “Eh, it just happened. Luck of the draw and all that.” The apostle Paul said something about that person. Romans 1:18-25 (ESV)—For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools…For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. Catch that? Everything that was created by God points to God. It was not an explosion in the middle of a forest that caused this podium to exist—somebody fashioned it with their hands (and, maybe, a planer and a nail gun). A creation is evidence of a Creator.

Which brings us to point #2, God is Sovereign in Sustaining His Creation. Do we sometimes find ourselves in a situation seems almost impossible? And, sometimes our situation is overwhelming for us. It’s overwhelming for—who? US. But listen to this exchange between the prophet Jeremiah and the LORD God, beginning with Jeremiah speaking in Jeremiah 32:24-25—“‘They have come to the city to take it; and the city has been given into the hand of the Chaldeans who fight against it, because of the sword and famine and pestilence. What You have spoken has happened; there You see it! And You have said to me, O Lord GOD, “Buy the field for money, and take witnesses!”—yet the city has been given into the hand of the Chaldeans.’” Here’s this great man of God, this man who has spoken with God and that was told by God Himself that God had chosen him to be a prophet to the nations—and what is this man’s concern? What is he saying? He’s saying, “Excuse me, Lord YHVH, you told me to buy these lands and the fields. But all the land belongs to our enemies.” Do you think God might have known that? But don’t we sometimes feel like God needs our advice from time to time? Don’t we have a tendency to say, “Yes, God, that is good. But I think I've got an idea that might be just a little bit better”? Or, maybe, “Well, OK, Lord, but there’s all these obstacles in the way.” And He asks us, “Have you forgotten who you're talking to?” We need those little reminders sometimes.

And God gives the prophet one of those little reminders in Jeremiah 32:27—“Behold, I am the LORD, the God of all flesh. Is there anything too hard for Me?” What’s ironic about God asking this of Jeremiah is, back in Jeremiah 32:17, the prophet says to God Himself, “Ah, Lord GOD! Behold, You have made the heavens and the earth by Your great power and outstretched arm. There is nothing too hard for You.” So God reminds the prophet, “Hey, remember what you said about Me not too long ago? Do you really believe it? Then let Me show you.” Now, let’s put all of these pieces together. God created everything in the universe—by Himself. When God tells us to do something that may seem impossible to us, do you think He’s saying it, not knowing the whole situation? Soooo, what does that mean for us? It means this: that no matter what is going on in our lives, we can always trust God to know what He’s doing. It may not be comfortable for us—but is it ever about our comfort? No, never. So if He wants to put us under a bridge somewhere, He is perfectly righteous in doing so. I think all of us would say that isn't the first place we’d want to be. But if that’s where He puts us, then His will be done.

It’s His creation, He holds it together, and He can do with it as He pleases. Can He cover the planet with a flood? Genesis 7:19—And the waters prevailed exceedingly on the earth, and all the high hills under the whole heaven were covered. Can He cause the sun to stand still in the sky? Joshua 10:12-13—Then Joshua spoke to the LORD in the day when the LORD delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel: “Sun, stand still over Gibeon; and Moon, in the Valley of Aijalon.” So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, till the people had revenge upon their enemies. Can we do any of those things? Yet with all of His power, He still personally cares for His creation. God said to Job, in Job 38:35-41—“Can you send out lightnings, that they may go, and say to you, 'Here we are!'? Who has put wisdom in the mind? Or who has given understanding to the heart? Who can number the clouds by wisdom? Or who can pour out the bottles of heaven, when the dust hardens in clumps, and the clods cling together? Can you hunt the prey for the lion, or satisfy the appetite of the young lions, when they crouch in their dens, or lurk in their lairs to lie in wait? Who provides food for the raven, when its young ones cry to God, and wander about for lack of food?” This same God who sends the rain to fall on the earth, who provides food for the animals in the wild is the same God who provides all of our needs. Matthew 6:26-32—“Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them…Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not dressed like one of these. Now if God so clothes the grass of the field…will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’…For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.” Not only is God in complete control of every inch of creation, but He always takes care of the needs of His children.

Finally, God will be Sovereign in Re-Creating the Universe. Listen to 2nd Peter 3:10—But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up. One day, sometime in the future, all those who know Christ as their Lord and Savior will be in Paradise, in the presence of the Lord. And all those who do not know Him will be standing at the Great White Throne from which they will be cast into the eternal torment of the Lake of Fire. All the things we know will be done away with. 1st Corinthians 15:24-27—Then comes the end, when He delivers the kingdom to God the Father, when He puts an end to all rule and all authority and power. For He must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet. The last enemy that will be destroyed is death. The saints will be in Heaven. The lost will be in Hell. All sin will have been purged. And at this time God will cause the earth to burn up into a pile of ash. All the stars, all the galaxies will disintegrate, and all things will become new. Revelation 21:1-5—Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Also there was no more sea. Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God…There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.” Then He who sat on the throne said, “Behold, I make all things new.”

What can we make new? Ecclesiastes 1:9—There is nothing new under the sun. Anything we make can only be made from things have been contaminated by sin. When God created His universe, everything was perfect—who screwed it up? And when the time comes, God will take what is rightfully His, do away with it, and create a place that will never be touched by sin. A place that will never decay, where there will be no sickness or death since it is because of sin that there is sickness and death. Where there is no sin there is no sickness or death. And all those in the presence of God will finally give Him the full glory that He deserves because we will see Him in all of His perfection and glory, and we will see the scene that the apostle John saw in Revelation 5:11-13—Then I looked, and I heard the voice of many angels around the throne, the living creatures, and the elders; and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice: “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom, and strength and honor and glory and blessing!” And every creature which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, I heard saying: “Blessing and honor and glory and power be to Him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb, forever and ever!” Because He and He alone is God.

Jesus Christ is Lord. Amen.