Thou Shalt Not Make Thee Any Graven Image

Written With the Hand of God

Deuteronomy 5:8-10

1. Turn to Isaiah 44:8-20

2. In this passage, the prophet illustrates to utter foolishness of idol worship.

3. Here’s a good definition of god: the supreme or ultimate reality as the Being perfect in power, wisdom, and goodness who is worshipped as creator and ruler of the universe

4. How can a god come from something he created?

5. a man cuts down a tree, intending to use it for fire wood. He gets the tree all cut up and starts to stack it and realizes that he has room for all but a couple of pieces. Not wanting to waste the wood (and not needing it to cook or heat anything) he carves out and image that his mind tells him is a god.

6. Does this make sense?

7. Ancient Romans would have an altar in the corner of one room with statues that represented their ancestors, and the ancestral patron god or goddess that the family worshipped most.

8. God didn’t want the people to focus on a physical thing to worship.

9. Here’s the principle.

10. John 4:23-24 (KJV) 23 But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. 24 God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.

11. –Passage—

12. In looking at this commandment, remember that we laid the foundation first. We decided last week that God has to be first in our lives. The first law is that God is first, have no others before Him.

13. Today, we take it one-step farther. Today, we remove all doubt about whom we worship. We say without reservation that God is first in our lives and He is the only one we worship.

14. People Must Worship God Alone.

I. By Avoiding God’s Enemy

1. Verse 8

2. God hates anything that steals His worship.

3. God was specific when He made this law.

4. Make no images of anything in the air, on the ground, or under the water.

5. That covers everything that exists, did exist, or might have existed.

6. It was common practice to have a god that you could see, touch, and actually bow down to and worship.

7. An idol doesn’t have to take all of God’s worship, but maybe it’s only part of God’s worship.

8. What could be on the earth, in the sky, or under the water that we might worship, even for a little while?

9. Ourselves – There are times when we don’t think WWJD. We think about the best reaction for us.

10. We do not want to listen to the Bible.

11. 1 John 3:13 (KJV) 13 Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hate you.

12. We’d rather get upset and hurt when people mistreat us. We feel cheated when people are nasty to us for our faith.

13. Jesus wasn’t too good to suffer at the hands of men.

14. Our families – Rather than acting in a biblical and consistent way, we decide to make our kids like us so we cut them some slack. Rather than being a biblical husband, we let our wives guide us in the direction they think we should go.

15. TV, money, cars, prestige…all of these can be idols that rob the worship that only God deserves.

16. Whatever will steal God’s worship becomes God’s enemy.

17. If there is something that is out of the right perspective in your life, you have to cut it out and give God back His worship.

18. The principle is not to see how close we can come to having an idol in our lives, but to recognize those things which can become idols and to cut them out of our lives as much as possible.

II. By Accepting God’s Jealousy

1. Verse 9

2. We normally think of jealousy as a bad thing.

3. ILL: I know of someone who once was talking to a guy whose ex-girlfriend was so jealous that she bombarded this girl with text messages until she decided that the guy wasn’t worth the trouble and stopped talking to him.

4. In this case, God’s jealousy is something that we should accept as a good thing. He doesn’t want to share us with anything else.

5. ILL: Christie and the boy at Enchanted Forest Water Safari…the reaction of me and the boys…

6. If we accept the jealous nature of God, we will understand that He wants all of us. He doesn’t want part or the leftovers.

7. The rest of this verse can be troubling. How can a just and holy God visit one man’s sins on his children and grandchildren out four generations?

8. This is the same thing that God said to Moses after He gave Moses the second set of tablets to him.

9. Exodus 34:5-7 (KJV) 5 And the LORD descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD. 6 And the LORD passed by before him, and proclaimed, The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, 7 Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.

10. Yet in Deuteronomy, Moses writes something that seems to contradict these verses.

11. Deuteronomy 24:16 (KJV) 16 The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers: every man shall be put to death for his own sin.

12. How can we reconcile these verses?

13. The first thing that we have to realize is that we are not qualified to hold anyone responsible for the actions of others.

14. Especially in the eyes of the law and other people, people can overcome their family’s past. It doesn’t matter if dad was a murderer and mom was a harlot. The children all have a fresh chance to overcome.

15. Yet, in God’s economy, there is still the principle of sin being visited upon the children, grandchildren, etc.

16. He does the visiting. He allows the sins of my life and of my parents’ lives to impact my sons and their sons and their sons.

17. The world doesn’t justly judge me because of my parents, but my life is still a product of what they did in their past.

18. According to the Bible, if you are a drunk, it could take three or four generations for all of the consequences of that sin to be played out.

19. Pick the sin. Maybe it’s lust. You may be less tempted by those temptations, but it may still affect your sons.

20. God forgives sin and He does not hold our sins against us when we’ve confessed and repented of those sins.

21. Yet He will allow us to feel the repercussions of our actions for generations to come. He is a jealous God.

III. By Enjoying God’s Mercy

1. Verse 10

2. God wants to show mercy to people. He says so.

3. 2 Peter 3:9 (KJV) 9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

4. In our passage here, He says that He shows mercy to thousands who love Him and keep His commandments.

5. Isn’t it interesting how those two ideas are always connected?

6. Daniel 9:4 (KJV) 4 And I prayed unto the LORD my God, and made my confession, and said, O Lord, the great and dreadful God, keeping the covenant and mercy to them that love him, and to them that keep his commandments;

7. John 14:15 (KJV) 15 If ye love me, keep my commandments.

8. 1 John 5:1-3 (KJV) 1 Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: and every one that loveth him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of him. 2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments. 3 For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous.

9. This takes us back to what love really is. Is it an emotion? Is it a state of mind? Do we fall in love? Can we fall out of love?

10. Love is an action word. Love requires something of us.

11. Look at 1 Corinthians 13 – the great chapter on Love.

12. By the way, lest you think that charity is a poor translation here, go back to the fact that love is an action word. This is the Greek word agape, which speaks of a benevolent, giving love.

13. If we love Him, that love should be worked out in action by obedience to His commandments.

14. God wants to be merciful to us. Let’s make it easy and love and obey Him.

Making God the sole recipient of our worship is a lofty and worthwhile endeavor.
It would mean that we’ve set aside all of those things that turn our hearts from Him.
It would mean that we’re committed to keep Him first in our lives.
Jesus said it best.
Luke 16:13 (KJV) 13 No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.
Worship God alone.
By avoiding God’s enemy – the idol
By accepting God’s jealousy – He wants all of our attention
By enjoying God’s mercy – He loves to lavish upon people