Tonight if you have your Bible open and meet me in Exodus chapter 20 Exodus chapter 20 as we continue our look at our walk through Exodus with the Israelis Looking at the establishing of the covenant in where God is now giving his law to his people. He's giving them, he's beginning here with the moral law. He will follow that with civil laws and then ceremonial laws that are very specific for the Israeli people, especially in that period. theological climate in which they, the economy in which they existed then, many things in their prescribed practices are going to point forward to Christ that will only be possibly recognized from a New Testament post-cross perspective. Even the disciples that walked with him as As we read in Matthew and John's gospel, in John chapter 2, when Jesus turned over the money changers' tables and drove the extortioners out of the temple, his disciples remembered that the Old Testament said that zeal for your house has overtaken me. They would see these things after the fact, but God is giving them ahead of time here as depictions of what they need another to do for them, whether that other is the lamb that is taking their place, or the turtle doves, or the bullocks, or the goats, whatever the prescribed sacrifices are. They understand that there is something beyond what they can do that is desperately needed And finally, the final sacrifice that takes away the sin of the world will be the Lord Jesus Christ. And we see glimpses of that as we go through these passages in the Old Testament. But these people are hearing this for the first time. You and I have the privilege of looking back at it and recognizing in a deeper way what they most likely had no capacity to recognize in the moment. But they experienced it nonetheless, and we want to do our best to experience it with them, not merely hijack it and view it through our prism. What was going on in their life? What was going on in the progressive revelation of Yahweh to the world? How was this transpiring? And we've come to chapter 20, and this is where he begins to establish the covenant that he called them to back in chapter 19. He said, if you will keep my, indeed will keep my covenant, then you will be My treasured possession among all the peoples, for all the earth is mine. Brings them to Mount Sinai, they come. to the foot of the mountain, there's been some line of demarcation set, you can go this far and no further, or you will incur the wrath of Yahweh, whether man or animal, they are not to approach it, or they will be either stoned or shot through with an arrow, because they will be defiled in a very remarkable way, as he says, you're to put them to death, but no one can lay a hand on them, or they have to be put to death as well, ostensibly. So the people are there, and God begins to speak, And this is coming from, as it were, the mouth of God himself from Mount Sinai that is engulfed in, is surrounded by dark cloud and engulfed in flame. They're seeing this manifestation of Yahweh that is terrifying, horrifying to them. He has their undivided attention. And he's not gonna waste words. He doesn't waste a moment here. We read through all of them last week. I want to read, beginning in verse one, through verse six. Tonight we're looking at the second commandment, which begins in verse four and has something of an explanation that runs through verse six. But they all fit together, and I really see verse two being the preamble to all 10 of them. What you're going to see here, verses two and three, and then verses four, five, and six sit as two units. He's going to tell them in verse one, this is who I am, and because of who I am in verse three, you will have no other gods. In verse four, you will not make an idol. You will not worship or serve them. because of who I am. This is who I am, so you won't do this. Number two, you won't do this because of who I am. It's all, it's not standalone expectations. These all fit together because they are the commands and the communicable glory. of God, it is telling us, telling them and having been recorded for us, telling us who He is and how we are to approach Him, how we might approach Him in a way that will honor Him and benefit us. Verse 1, then God spoke all these words, saying, I am Yahweh, your God. who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, you shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above, or on the earth beneath, or in the water under the earth. You shall not worship them or serve them. For I, Yahweh your God, I am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and fourth generations of those who hate me, but showing loving kindness to thousands, to those who love me and keep my commandments. Now, the first command in verse Three is that you are to worship the one true God and worship Him alone. The second commandment is that you are to worship the one true God alone, but you are to worship the one true God rightly, correctly, acceptably. We began last time looking at the motivation. I think that the motivation for all of these can be captured in verse 2. I am Yahweh, your God. Why would you want to do this? Why would this be important? Why are you going to pursue any of this? Because I am your God. He speaks of a personal relationship. It is in the singular. This is you. You and God. I am your God. Not y'all's God. I am your God. You will have no other gods before me. You will not worship them. You will not take the name of Yahweh, your God, in vain. Honor your mother. You shall not murder. These are individual, personal things. And it begins with this personal relationship. I am your God. And there's a personal rescue, the God who brought you out, a personal release from the idolatry of Egypt and the slavery of Egypt. I brought you out and set you free. We come to the prohibition. that is given in verse four. You will not make for yourself an idol. You will not make for yourself a graven image. You see that there are many, or at least two different ways that idols are described. The physical depiction of something that represents God that we are to give homage and honor to. He's not excluding all artwork as we looked in 25th chapter of Exodus and first Kings when Solomon's temple was being built. There was much artwork involved in that. He's not forbidding all artwork. He is telling these people that nothing even in their imagination can compare to who he is. You are not even to attempt to create something that will depict my glory because nothing can. He's saying this to a group of people who are watching a mountain burn. They're terrified. How would you possibly render that in some graven or molten image? They're actually going to try that in just a few chapters here. They will make a calf out of gold and they will bow down and worship that calf, which is something of the idolatry that they brought out of Egypt. When God assaulted the cattle, it was one of the gods of Egypt that was the god of the cattle. They was depicted as a large black bull and they kept one around that had the stature and the look that perfectly resembled what they wanted in it. As those died off, they replaced them with new ones. Well, they just decided to carve, to make one out of gold and they would bow down and worship that. That's more along the line of what he is talking about. what is described here, what is expressed here, is you will not make for yourself an idol. It's not merely the idea that you can't have a carving, the idea is not have an idol. Now, if you remember, Jacob When Jacob left his daddy's house, he ran and he wound up at Laban's house. Remember? And he spent a whole lot of years at Laban's house. And he left Laban's house with two wives, two concubines, and a whole tribe of kids. You remember that? Had a whole bunch of spotted and speckled sheep. And he left in the middle of the night because he didn't want to deal with Laban, because all Laban would do is try to trick him into staying, and he had had enough of that. So they leave, and then Laban is told that they left. But if you remember, Rachel took something when she left Laban's house, and it infuriated Laban, and Laban chased them down and accused Jacob of stealing it. Remember what it was? It was their household god. It was a carved image that they carried around with them much like the your some of you probably did growing up and your your roman catholic friends are wearing on necklace with two little pieces of cloth on the end of it what what they call that That's what I thought. I didn't want to say the wrong thing I've seen that I had I've had friends that wore st. Christopher medallions when I was in high school because he was the Patron saint of the traveler to try to keep them safe on the road You'll see them with a rosary hanging off of their rearview mirror. It's going to protect their car. It's the same idea of Rachel leaving with her dad's household idol. He brought it with him. You see it depicted in Middle Eastern culture sometimes. They'll have a little corner of the house that is set up as a shrine, and they'll have a little carving in there. That is what's being prohibited here. Not artwork, but having an idol, a carved image that represents God to you, whatever it may be that you bow down to. And he said, you're not to create anything, nothing that you can imagine, nothing that you can come up with in your mind. There is nothing that is as high and lofty as I am. You can't even imagine it. But I think that his bigger concern in that is that they would not create anything if this is coming on the heels of the first commandment, that you will have no other gods before me. So that they, this kind of clarifies some of the point in the first one. It's not that he's saying you can have no other God that outranks me. He says you're to have no other God in my presence. There is nowhere that is not in his presence. And he takes it a step further. You can't have a God and you can't even have an idol. You're not to have a carved image of anything that represents me or anyone else. And the idea is that you would have something in your possession that was a representation of a rival power to him. Nothing that rivals my place in your heart, nothing that rivals my power in the world, my ability in the earth. I'll explain that in a little greater detail in a few moments here. As we look at the negative angle of the beginning of verse five. He says, nothing that you can imagine. The prohibition is against any imagination that you could have, anything that you can imagine. Secondly, the prohibition is against any creation. There has to be no creation or creature. He is above all of his creation. His creation declares his glory, but his creation is not even similar in glory. Nothing shares his glory. And they're coming out of Egypt, and they're going into Canaan, and they're moving from one idolatrous community to another. And in these idolatrous communities, people begin to worship anything that they can find. I can prove it to you. In India, a dung beetle can be something to worship. It can be reincarnated as anything. They worship cattle there. I don't worship cows. I like how they taste. Not the same thing. He is prohibiting the normal pantheons of gods that characterize every pagan society. They just left Egypt, where when he attacked the flies and he attacked the god of the frogs. Can you imagine a god of a frog? It was a god with the body of a man and the head of a frog. the god of the river, they worship, that was part of God's creation. They're just elevating anything that they can and ultimately they elevated Pharaoh as a god and he tells them you're not to have anything in the likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or the water under the earth. Nothing in all of the creation, nothing in the stars, nothing that flies in the air, nothing that walks the planet, and nothing that swims in the sea. There is nothing in my creation that is allowable for you. It is all prohibited from being something that you depict or use to depict who I am. Now, let's be honest. These things have a place in worship. They have a place in worship. We worship and adore the creator for his brilliance and glory when we look at the design and the creation that he has made. They have a place in worship. We don't worship them, we see the glory of God in them and we offer him the worship and the praise for it. Understand the difference? We're not worshiping animals, but it says that the heavens declare the glory of God and the earth shows his handiwork. Sometimes I'll go outside when it's blackbird season and you'll see flocks of hundreds of thousands of blackbirds that all do the same thing at the same time. They all move one direction and then move another direction. It's impressive to see. Every year the geese fly through here on their way to Mexico. Why do they do that? I don't like necessarily what they do while they're here. They're just a flying hog. They'll eat anything and tear up everything. But they do the same thing every year. They never get lost. They always wind up at the best place and they come back to the best place and they have this cycle. And this is all what God put into motion and what he is sustaining. There is reason to praise God when we see what his creation is doing. But we never hold a creature in too high of a regard. There's a difference. The prohibition is against creating anything in the image of one of his creatures. Then in the beginning of verse five, really, It really ties it into a nice bow, and it finishes the package here, and we really understand what he means by the idea of an idol or a graven image. He says, you shall not worship them or serve them. There is to be no devotion, the prohibition is against devotion to anything but him on his terms. You will not worship them or serve them. He has reached the heart of the matter, and he is looking at the heart. It is how you approach his creation. He is to have this very special and significant place that only he can have in the hearts and lives of his people. He is not to be set aside and our devotion to him is not to be corrupted by anything. We see this all over today. I think that very many people treat their animals better than they should. And I say that as a man who has prepared more for the coming cold weather by doing things like putting heaters in the doghouse for his dogs than most anybody that I know. At the end of the day, it's still a dog. And we're sad when they die. There is something of a reciprocal relationship that we have with our animals. And for something bad to happen to them, if I do something to them and wind up hurting them in some way, I'll apologize to them. I don't know that they have any clue what that means. But the Bible says that a righteous man takes care of his animals. But they're still animals. They're not my children. I don't run to the vet every time my dog has a sniffle. I really don't do that with my kids either, but I don't go to the vet for things that I take my kids to the doctor for. Those are my pets. They're animals. We live in a world today that will put you in jail for killing a cat, but celebrate you for butchering a baby in the mother's womb. If that's not putting the creature before the creator, I don't know what is. ASPCA commercials. Oh, these poor dogs need some food. Would you send us $30 a month? No, I need that $30 to feed my kids. but i'll give thirty dollars a month to a ministry that goes around parks outside of abortion clinics in all the poor neighborhoods around this country and shows these poor girls uh... the the these these poor deceived young women an ultrasound of the life that god has put in their womb and turn their mind around this is not a blob of flesh this is a person i can't murder this person i'll give those people some money But I'm not giving money to some tear-jerking group that wants money to save an animal. Because there's a difference between a human and an animal. We don't put them in too high of a place. Although, we can't put our children in too high of a place either. We never hold a creature in higher esteem than the creator gives them. Remember, he created all of the animals and he created Adam and then he set up a day where he brought all of the animals to Adam and he got to name them. And I really wonder what the relationship was that Adam had with the animals. It was far greater than what we have with our animals today. With the relationship that we have with animals today, it is It is unbelievable that Noah could have had a boat full of them for an entire year and that they all survived. But it's when they came off of the ark that God put Division between man and animals he put a fear in the heart of the animals and drove the animals away from man So that the animals would go out just like he did at the Tower of Babel when he dispersed the human population he dispersed the animal population from there with Noah and Pre-flood men had a different relationship with the with animals than we have today even as great a relationship as we have with some of the animals that we have and But we cannot hold them in higher esteem than the Creator gives them. He does give them a glory of their own. Not to give anything higher esteem than the Creator, whether it's something we imagine or something that's been created. Now that's from one angle. Let's look at it from a negative angle. That's from the angle of giving them esteem and holding them in a higher place in our affection than they should have. But let's come from a different angle, maybe from the negative angle. Maybe look at it from the negative view. Something that becomes a problem in worship by becoming a representation of a rival power. We don't want something that rivals God for our affection and worship in the creation, but there are other things that rival God's and really rob our affection and attention from him and put it on something that may or may not even exist. Most of the time it doesn't exist, but it comes in the form of things like superstition. Superstition produces rivals to the omnipotent one. Carry a rabbit's foot for good luck. wear a golden, some charm around our neck that's going to keep us safer than God could keep us. It's an addition to what God is doing, or in some way a fuller representation of what God is doing for us. The Bible doesn't give you the opportunity or any reason to do that. You're people worried about curses. Oh, well, you're gonna get cursed. We're gonna talk about that in just a few minutes here as we continue through this verse five. So you're telling me that there's something that can be done to me that God can't stop? Let's get real here. What if he puts a curse on me friends? My god is in the heavens and he bows to no one And he said he is at work at all things for my good. You can have your superstitious curse. Oh Well preacher you saying demons don't have power. I didn't say that Bible says they do Bible says that there is a real spiritual battle in the heavenlies going on all around us right now But God is in control of all of it Martin Luther was right The devil is God's devil The devil is not out there as some rival power to Yahweh. The devil has his people and Yahweh has his. And in the end, Yahweh is going to put the devil in his proper place and there will not be a battle. Says he's going to send an angel and bind him in a chain and put him in the bottomless pit. And then he's gonna be loosed for a season. And then the Lord is going to cast him into hell without even a fight from the walls of Jerusalem. Now, how is that being something that I need to walk around afraid of and give so much attention to that I'm focused on him doing something evil rather than basking in the glory of the God that holds it all in control? The devil assaulted Job's life, preacher. Yeah, he did, after God gave him permission. Oh, the devil sifted Peter and the disciples like wheat and almost ruined the whole thing. He did that after he had permission. The devil doesn't do anything on his own. Well, you know, preacher, I'm just having a string of bad luck. No, that's superstition. That's saying that something is happening to you that God either cannot stop or is not willing to stop. So either he is not omnipotent or he is not loving. Which one do you want to accuse him of by holding on to the idea of good or bad luck? Oh, a black cat crossed my path. That's superstition. Listen, a cat has no power. The only power a cat has is to make you sneeze if you're allergic to him. That's it. I don't even like cats, I don't know if you can tell. Oh, the mirror cracked. We're in Cajun country. There's no such thing as a gritty gritty. There is such a thing as a devil. There is. There are demonic powers. There are. But they are not above and beyond the power of God. They are firmly in the control of God. You understand that demons and God didn't coexist for all of eternity? It's kind of how we think about it sometimes. That's how it is in our mind that the devil is this spiritual cosmic being that's been there forever with God and he's been interrupting God's plans. No. The devil is a creature just like you are. And he is as dependent on God for his existence as you are. He has no room in your life that you don't allow him to have. But he has no capacity to invade your life in any way, except that God gives him the capacity and the opportunity to do so. And if and when he does that, he does for his own glory and for your eternal good. And at that point, superstition goes out the window. any inordinate fear of the devil or demons. And I say inordinate because listen, we know the hymn. For still our ancient foe doth seek to work us woe. His power is great and armed with cruel hate. On earth is not his equal. That's true. On earth, on earth is not his equal. I've got good news for you. God has earth in the palm of his hand. There is a power that supersedes the evil one to such an extent that you need not have any inordinate fear of the devil. The Bible doesn't tell you to fear the devil. What does the Bible tell you to do? Resist the devil and what will happen? He will flee from you. Take another angle here. what else can become something that is idolatrous in our life anyone anyone who we seek to please above god well, well, preacher, who would that be? you? how often do we set our own desires up against what God's desires are? I'll tell you how often you do it every time you sin. You decide I'd rather do this because this is what I want to do instead of this that God said to do. I want to avoid this when God said to do this and I want to cross this line when he said don't cross this line. Children. You can set our children up. More concerned with with our children's enjoyment and provision in this life than we are with worshiping God. We had testimony given this morning from Zach about his parents. Do you understand that how few parents are willing to take even what seems to be a, not some brave, courageous stand that they took against their son? It wasn't that. He didn't put them in that position, but to say, son, to be a believer is, Believer in Christ is important you you need to walk with the Lord you need to be concerned about your soul And no, we will not allow you to partake of communion in an unworthy manner Rather than offend their children some parents could very likely in same or similar circumstance say well You know, it's really not that big a deal. Go ahead. I don't really want to upset you. Okay, you've just put your You just put the satisfaction of your children over the satisfaction of God. In reality, you put the satisfaction of you over the satisfaction of God because I don't want to deal with the backlash of my children. I'll take whatever it is that God is going to do because he hadn't killed me yet anyway. And we take advantage of grace. And anything could fit that. a significant other of any kind, a spouse, a boyfriend, a girlfriend, just a friend, a close friend. It's not good for man to be alone. We need relationship, but we can't allow that to be put above the place of God. Yeah, I know that this person doesn't really fit anything scriptural in qualifying as a friend or an emotionally significant other according to scripture, but I really want this, okay? Again, it goes back to choosing for you. And this idea of idolatry is in many ways tied to the idea of covetousness because we're not satisfied with what God has provided and what God is doing. We want something different. That is really what sin is. Yes, this is what God said is best, but I want something different. I want what I think is best. We wind up setting up an idol in the heart. But then he gives an explanation. We've seen the motivation. He is this personal God that is personally rescued and personally released his people. We've seen the prohibition. Prohibition against anything that you can imagine, anything in creation. There is to be no devotion given to anything that begins to rival the devotion given to God. There is a devotion that you owe to your family. There is a devotion that you owe to the church. But none of these things are to be a rival devotion to the creator. In fact, those things become, You become devoted to those things in reality only after you have become devoted to the Creator. Because you're not going to give selflessly to your spouse and to your children until you've given yourself over to Jesus Christ, because you serve him by serving them. The best that you can hope to do prior to that, or outside of that, is you surrender yourself in a limited way and in a calculated way in the life of your family, your spouse and your children, in order to reciprocate, or for them to reciprocate and give you what you want. You're motivated by what you're going to get out of it. rather than being motivated by honoring the Lord by giving to my family and giving to my spouse and sacrificing my life for them regardless of what is reciprocated because this is what honors God in my life. You understand the nuance there? It is very significant. Well, why would anyone want to do that? Well, he gives an explanation beginning in the second portion of verse five and in verse six. I have another question. Why would anybody want or need another God? What other God, what other concoction of God is there in the world that you have ever heard of that begins to compare with the God of heaven who has provided of himself because of himself, sacrificing of himself for a people that will never deserve it. Did these Israeli people deserve to be the people on the planet that God gave this self-revelation to? Did they deserve that? Had they earned it? No, they had done the opposite of that. They didn't deserve it any less at Mount Sinai here in Exodus 20 than they deserved it in in the Gospels and in Jesus' life in the first century. They didn't deserve it less after they rejected the Savior on the cross than they deserved it here at the foot of Mount Sinai. Their position didn't change. But never did they or anyone else deserve this dispensing of truth to any group of people to the earth as a whole but this is what god chose to do he didn't have to do that he could have just held man accountable for what he already knew and destroyed everyone he he didn't have to do that he chose to do it because he is a loving he is merciful he is long-suffering as we're going to see he is personal he's personal we we had this idea in in religion that that god is up there and he's unapproachable Well, that's a problem, because the Bible doesn't say that he's not approachable. The Bible says that he is approachable, and he has given us the terms on which we can approach him. And he did it without being asked. Why did Noah get to build the ark? Because Noah found favor. Noah found grace in the eyes of Yahweh. God chose Noah therefore there was an ark What about Abraham From whom from whose loins these people in Exodus 20 have descended What what did Abraham do Nothing he found grace in the eyes of Yahweh God didn't owe it to anyone There was a a Personality exhibited here and we're going to see that he is he is offendable He can be offended. We don't have a lot of trouble believing that we believe that God is there and we can be offended He can be offended and now we're in trouble But he is also approachable Which is different from what religion teaches religion teaches that God is not approachable he is he is aloof and and and because uh... of who he is you you can get to him now the truth of the matter is you can get to him on your own you can get in the way that you are but he is provided the way and he is in the midst of providing that way here in explaining it to the world declaring it to the world through these people and and through what he's telling these people here at mount sinai he is announcing to them that he is personal he is a friend of all please approach We see his sensitivity first. Look at what it says here. You will not worship them or serve them. And you see this connecting word for, this is an explanatory word. This is the reason. I told you in verse two it says, I am Yahweh your God. Verse three, you shall have no gods before me. Verse four, you shall not make an idol. You shall not worship them. For I, Yahweh, your God. Am I am therefore you shall not you shall not because I am Well, I Yahweh your God am a jealous God Now people get twisted up with this term jealousy and and they want to make jealousy synonymous with envy and they are not synonymous They are not the same word You can be a jealous husband and be as righteous as Job And you can be an envious husband and be as sinful as Paul. You can be an idolatrous covetor. Covetousness is idolatry is what Paul says in the New Testament. Says that God is a jealous God. This word is used six times in the Old Testament and it always refers to God. This is not a normal word for jealousy. The people try to defend it, well, he's jealous in a righteous way as only God can be. Well, that technically is true, but that's not to say that God took what is a normally sinful disposition and turned it into a holy disposition. Jealousy and envy are two different things. You're jealous for what already is yours. You are envious of what is not yours. I'm jealous, I'm a jealous husband, but I'm jealous of my wife, not your wife. Now, I will stand up for your wife if you're not around situations, something like that, but it's still not my wife. It's different. I'm not allowing anyone to step into my place between me and my wife because there is an exclusivity between she and I. She is mine, I am hers. This says that God is jealous of his worship. That that worship belongs to me and I guard it. very carefully, guarded with great intensity. He is jealous for what is his alone, and what is his alone is worship. This is not envy. This is not that he looks down and said, oh, I wish I had your heart like that idol has your heart. That's not, God's not petty. That's petty. I see a lot of pettiness in little children in my home. Envy is kind of the first thing that really shows up in your child's sin nature when they're little. I hadn't touched that in six months, but as soon as you touch it, I want it. I forgot we even had that, but I gotta have it because you're touching it. And you know where they get that? From their mom. And she had a little help, a little help from some of you dads. A little farther along here in Exodus, in this same episode in the life of Israel, this episode is going to last, it begins here in Exodus chapter 20, it's going to last throughout the book of Exodus. It's right at a year. They're gonna spend a year here collecting and putting together all of the things that are going to be the tabernacle and all of the articles of worship that he is prescribing here. So you come to Exodus chapter 34, in verse 14, Let me start in verse 11. He's speaking through Moses. He says, be sure to keep what I am commanding you this day. Behold, I am going to drive out the Amorite before you and the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite. I'm going to drive them out. I pulled you out of Egypt. I'm going to drive these people out and put you in this land. Verse 12, beware lest you cut a covenant with the inhabitants of the land into which you are going, lest it become a snare in your midst Don't cut a covenant with these people. Don't go in and say, okay, we'd rather not kill you, so let's just decide to live and let live. He says, don't do that. Rather, you are to tear down their altars and shatter their sacred pillars and cut down their Asherim. Asherim were similar to a totem pole. They were idolatrous things that they used in worship. And you'll see Asherah poles in Asherah all through the Old Testament because they didn't drive these people out and they didn't fulfill all that God had told them. And exactly what he told them would happen if they didn't drive them out is exactly what does happen. says that they played the harlot after other gods. And it says, you're to tear down their altars, shatter their sacred pillars, cut down their asherim, verse 14, for you shall not worship any other god. For Yahweh, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous god. Lest you cut a covenant with the inhabitants of the land and play the harlot with their gods and sacrifice to their gods, and one of them invite you to eat in his sacrifice. He says, you are to push out all other idolatrous ways of worship because he is jealous. Deuteronomy 4, Moses, this is after the 40-year, the 38-year rebellion. Come to Deuteronomy, Moses knows that he's not going into the promised land with them because of his sin. God told him to strike a rock in Exodus chapter 18. Then in Numbers, he tells him to speak to the rock. Moses gets mad at the people because they're grumbling just like the Pharisees in John chapter six. They're just gnawed on Moses all the time. And Moses said, do I have to make water come from this rock? And Moses hit the rock rather than speaking to the rock. And God said, because you took glory for yourself from me, remember, he acted on what he wanted to do rather than what God told him to do. God says you're not going to go into the promised land. Seems from our perspective to be a pretty stiff find, but Moses didn't have any power to make water or anything else come out of that rock. Moses, knowing that he's not going into the promised land, in Deuteronomy, is giving the second law. He's repeating it to them. He's reminding them, like Peter in 2 Peter, as long as I am in this earthly tent, I intend to stir you up by way of reminder, so that when I am gone, you will remember the things that I've taught you. Moses is doing that here in Deuteronomy. And in chapter 4, in the very beginning, in verse 24, he reminds them. I will die in this land, verse 22, I shall not cross the Jordan, but you will cross and take possession of this good land, so keep yourselves, lest you forget the covenant of Yahweh your God, which he cut with you, and make yourselves graven images in the form of anything against which Yahweh your God commanded you, for Yahweh your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God. This defines for us the idea that is conveyed here that he is a jealous God. He is offendable. You know what a consuming fire is? It's like an out-of-control forest fire. You know what ultimately puts out a forest fire? When it runs out of stuff to burn. A consuming fire is extinguished when it has consumed all of the fuel. It is unappeasable. It must burn out or it will never stop. And he likens God's jealousy to a consuming fire. He is sensitive about worship. We are to worship him alone. That's the first part of the explanation, Yahweh's sensitivity. The second part of this explanation as to why you would want to give attention and heed this command. And verse four is Yahweh's wrath. Yahweh's wrath is part of this explanation. Look at what he says. I, Yahweh, your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate me. And we read this and we say, oh, oh, the wrath of God, that's the generational curse. generational curse I'm gonna tell you just flat-out. I'm gonna cut to the chase because time is gonna get away from me here That is a concoction of man a generational curse. That is not what it said here I'm gonna prove it to you in a minute What has caused people to hold to this idea of a generational curse that one man's sin is carried on to the third and fourth generation of his family and they can't escape the curse that their parents put on them, that's a problem. One, it's anti-biblical and it's extra-biblical. It is not said here. But what people have done is take this statement and this idea and they look at people's lives. And you will hear me, I've said it from the pulpit a few times, I say it to my kids all the time, you have a hard time fighting DNA. That is true. You can take a child. I have a friend who was adopted when he was very little, and he never knew his dad. And later in life, in his 30s, he met his dad for the first time. And he walked just like his dad, had the same facial expressions as his dad, the same mannerisms. If you would see them walking together, you couldn't tell which one was which because they were built and moved the same way, and they'd never met one another. What causes that? DNA. It's supposed to be like that. When I was a teenager, people used to tell me all the time that you're your daddy's son. They say that to my kids now. And it's true, because DNA is there. But that's not a curse. At best, what this is saying is that the sins of a father will have a ripple effect into the lives of his family. That is undeniable. You only have to look at the Garden of Eden. Adam sinned one time and cast all of his posterity into sin. You're born with Adam's DNA, therefore you are born a sinner with the same propensities for sin. Now, there are propensities for sin in life, and I stopped my sons as we were coming in tonight, we were talking about this idea of generational curse. I've got one of them that says that is totally antithetical to anything that I know about the scripture and one of them who has Spent some time studying Hebrew in school. He said but aren't there Aren't there commands and scriptural passages that say that no there are not And I'm gonna prove it to you the way that I proved it to them and then we're gonna look at a couple of passages here And then we're gonna look at the rest of this verse I have in my familial past on my mother's side and on my father's side very, very close to me in time, in my ancestry. A grandfather and a first generation relative on my dad's side that have a propensity for a very specific sin. And I asked my sons, I said, Their parents didn't necessarily do what these have done. It didn't go that far. On one side, I don't think that any of them ever even dreamt of doing that. But I have this immediate proximity ancestrally in my life that has this sin propensity. that I have too. I see it. I sense it. I experience the inner workings of it in its original area and line of temptation. And I asked my sons, I said, why did they do it and I don't? Do you see that in my life? You know me better than anybody at church. Do you see that in my life? No, sir. Why? Well, you must have outlived the curse? No, that's dumb. They didn't offer that as an explanation, by the way. They understood what I meant. Why? Because of repentance. To say that there is a generational curse that has you in a place that you cannot escape, you can't get out of it. That you're gonna do what they did because it's what they did and you can't get out of it. Whoever has hope to break that cycle. If every generation is going to suffer from the same thing and you can't get out of it, where is hope? You know what that says? That says there's something in your past that God can't overcome. That's creating an idol. Now, I told you that I would give you some passages of scripture. I'm glad you remember. We read in Jeremiah 31 this morning. You can write this down or turn it. It doesn't matter. We're not going to be there long. It won't take long. In fact, I had one of my boys turn to this passage and read it in the van on the way up here tonight. Now, if you hold to the idea of generational curses That Exodus 20 said that, well, you would come to Jeremiah 31 and say, well, here God lifted that. But I'm going to tell you that's not what he says here either. Remember we read from Jeremiah 31 this morning about the new covenant. Behold, days are coming, declares Yahweh, when I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man and the seed of beast. And it will be that as I have watched over them to uproot, to tear down, to pull down, destroy, to bring calamity, so I will watch over them to build and to plant. I'm going to, as I have brought destruction to them in very specific and intimate ways, I am going to watch the rebuilding and the lifting of them with such intimacy. Verse 29, in those days, They will not say again. Some of your translations say they will no longer say. I like that translation better. It does the same thing, just one is a little more clear. In that day, they will not say again. The fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children's teeth are set on edge. Do you understand the graphic of that? Have you ever eaten something that was sour? My grandparents loved to eat sour apples with salt. The only way you could eat the thing that came off of this tree was to cover it in salt because it would cut down on the bitterness. But if you got a sour apple that wasn't ripe enough, that thing would mess your teeth up. You'd bite it and your teeth would feel funny and it felt like your teeth were, the idea is that they're set on edge, that your whole mouth feels funny because you've eaten something sour. The fathers have eaten sour grapes, but the children experienced the consequence. The fathers did it, but the children received the consequence. That was a proverb in Israel, but it was not a proverb that came from scripture. It's much like people say today, well, if you do good, then good will happen to you. It's the same concept. Something good happens to a person, and you'll hear them in this culture say, oh, they must be living right. There's no place for grace in that economy, Chapter 32, Jeremiah. You see it in Ezekiel 18 as well, it says the same thing. It's not, he, let me see if I can find it. I think it's Ezekiel 18. Yes. Ezekiel 18, Ezekiel wrote after Jeremiah, but Ezekiel is approaching these people with this same concept that the fathers have eaten sour grapes and the father's sin and the kids are paying for it. That is not to say that there is not a consequence to your sin that will follow in the lives of your children. Your sin does not merely affect you alone. Sin is never alone. The consequences of sin are never, you may hide it from other people, but the consequence of sin goes out and you can't stop it. That is not what this is saying. And the idea of a generational curse goes above and beyond that. It says there's something happening that you cannot fix and that God's not going to fix. And it puts God as this unapproachable punisher who is unfeeling and unsensitive. and he's going to get his pound of flesh out of you. Ezekiel 18, then the word of Yahweh came to me saying, what do you mean by using this proverb concerning the land of Israel? What do you mean by using this proverb? You don't find this in the Proverbs. The fathers eat the sour grapes, but the children's teeth are set on edge. As I live, declares Yahweh, you are surely not going to use this proverb in Israel anymore. Behold, all souls are mine. Is that a new idea in Ezekiel? Nope, he just said that in chapter 19 in Exodus. All the earth is mine. And the soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is mine. The soul whose sins will die. The effect of sin carries over to our kids. Look at the life of Abraham. The effect of his sin was to commit adultery with Hagar and it produced Ishmael. Ishmael is still a thorn in the side of Abraham's people. Isaac was a pacifist who had a favored child and a wife that he didn't have a very good relationship with, who had her favorite child, and they put the two sides of the family at enmity to one another, and Jacob left as the schemer and raised a family as a man that schemed everything in life. And what did he produce? He produced 12 sons. 10 of them threw one of them in a hole to kill him because they hated him so much. That's Abraham having a favorite son in Ishmael. That's Jacob, or Isaac having a favorite son in Jacob. That's Jacob learning to get along without the relationship with his dad. Produced a guy named Judah that produced two sons in an incestuous relationship with his daughter-in-law, which I don't know what's worse, the incestuous relationship or the fact that he was knowingly with a harlot. This is your posterity? If the generational curse was a reality, Judah would have passed it to Perez. He would have passed it down. It would have come down through Boaz, through David. There would have never been a Jesus. There would have never been a King David. Well, you have to figure out how to break the generational curse. No, you don't. What you need to do is repent and turn to Christ for salvation. You come to God on his terms. That doesn't stop the curse. That stops you. That saves a person. That transforms a person. People come to this verse in Exodus chapter 20 and they make an idol because they forget the next verse. Look at the rest of this verse. Look at verse six. But you need to pay attention to that word. Yes. Yes, he is a jealous God, visiting the iniquities of the fathers on the children. When the children do what the fathers did, he's not gonna hold the fathers responsible, he's going to hold the children responsible. And your DNA and your sin is going to be passed down to your children, and God is not going to be satisfied with punishing you and letting your children go free. You're going to pass it down to your children, and they're going to continue in the same pattern that you set. It's not a curse, it's a natural occurrence. On the third and the fourth generations, not just the kids, but grandkids, great-grandkids, great-great-grandchildren, it's way down the line. But, ho-ho-ho, showing loving kindness. Friends, if there's ever anything that you want from God, it is loving kindness. It is a kindness that is flowing out of the heart of the Father, the loving heart of this God, and his kindness flowing out of his love is what you need. When you see loving kindness in the Old Testament, you can write above it the word grace. It is the unmerited favor of God. But showing loving kindness to thousands, thousands of what, class? What in this context could he possibly be referring to? End of the previous verse, to the third and fourth generation, but showing loving kindness to thousands of generations. Oh, there's a generational curse, the negative. Yeah, Yahweh's wrath is to be feared, but friends, Yahweh's grace is to be glorified, because where sin abounded, grace abounded all the more. Paul said, I did all of the work, but it was not me that did it, it was the grace of God within me. Showing grace to thousands of generations, to those who love me and keep my commandments. Friends, the only thing that's keeping you from loving God and keeping His commandments is you. It's not your mom and your dad, not your grandparents. It's not this generational curse I just can't break. No, you have propensities to certain sins that your forefathers had. Yeah, there's something to be said for certain types of addictions being in people's DNA. I have no problem believing that. I see it. I see it in my own life. I have propensities to sin that I'll never admit to you that have been that have come down to me through DNA just like you have propensities to sin that you wouldn't tell anybody that's why the idea that God is going to portray everyone's sin before the whole universe on the day of judgment that is why people are so terrified because the stuff you know about me is bad enough the things you don't know I don't ever want you to know Those things do not have to rule your life. They do not. Because there is the loving kindness of God, and the choice that you get to make is the choice to honor and obey God over what you have been taught, what you have been born with, what you have been indoctrinated with, what you've been taught. You need to understand that your sin will have an effect on your family, but friends, your repentance and faith in Jesus Christ and your love for God and the following and keeping of his commandments. Look at how he puts this here. Those who love me and keep my commandments. This is a circular idea. If you love me, you keep my commandments. And if you keep my commandments, you love me. How are we to love God? We keep his commandments and they are not burdensome. He says it here in the very beginning. If you want to love me, keep my commandments. and the loving kindness to thousands of generations will follow that. People put so much emphasis on the negative and completely ignore this insurmountable positive note that verse six ends on. Yeah, you can pass some stuff down to your kids and your sin will affect them, but friends, your repentance and faith and service to God will have an effect to thousands of generations. Pursue that rather than running from a generational curse. Run to the waiting arms of the loving Savior and bask in his loving kindness and pursue him according to his mandate and worship him and him alone. Worship the one true God rightly and righteously, acceptably. and leave that as a posterity, as an example to your posterity. We don't think so much about a legacy in this country as other countries do, but we're all gonna leave one. You really wanna leave one that honors the Lord. You and your family will benefit from it. Father, thank you for your word. Thank you for the clarity of your word. Thank you for the revelation of your heart to us in these words, in these verses, in these concepts that you have given. Lord, these are not the words of men. These are the words of Yahweh. I pray that they will have their effect in our hearts, that you will comfort and instruct us where needed, and that you would be honored in it, that we might worship you more acceptably. We pray it in our Savior Jesus's name. Amen.