So turn with me this morning to Exodus chapter 20. Exodus chapter 20, moving right along. Just a minute, we'll begin our lesson at verse one. Just to bring you up to speed, prior to the Lord's descent on Mount Sinai, Moses was instructed to establish a boundary or a cordon around the base of the mountain preventing the Israelites from getting too close under penalty of death. Those serving as priests were also instructed to consecrate themselves, lest the Lord should break out against them if they would be guilty of worshiping Him in an unworthy manner. And as we read, with great fanfare, with the blast of the trumpet, the Lord descended on the mountain in fire and smoke, and the earth quaked violently. Once again, he called Moses to come up to the top of the mountain so that he could remind him of the parameters that had been established. He tells Moses to go back down the mountain and make extra sure that everyone knew the rules of engagement, don't come close to the mountain, so on and so forth. Remember, Moses said, well, we've already told them all that, doesn't matter, go tell them again. So he goes back down the mountain, he does as he's told, and once that's done, Moses and Aaron return to the Lord on the mountain. This brings us to chapter 20. Now, before I begin unfolding this chapter this morning, or at least the portion that we're going to consider, As I mentioned last Lord's Day, I'm going to intentionally slow things down a bit. I think anytime we get to a very familiar passage of Scripture, such as Exodus 20 certainly is, it talks about the Ten Commandments, the Decalogue, I think we have a tendency sometimes just to speed right through because, yep, heard it, been there, done that. But, you know, just as we saw, Dana reminded me just this morning that as we saw in our studies of the Sermon on the Mount, there's a lot more that is here than initially meets the eye. And so we would do very well, I think, to slow down and do a very deliberate study of the Ten Commandments as they're presented here. Now, this is necessary because Again, the Ten Commandments are so familiar to us. You see them engraved in marble on at least some courthouse lawns. I guess those things still exist. You see them cross-stitched, hanging on people's walls. You see them as little magnets on the refrigerator. You see them as bumper stickers. You know, all these things are very familiar to us, at least on the surface, and we think we understand what they mean. But again, slowing down is going to enable us to really peel back the layers of the onion, as it were, and to see what's really at the heart of these Ten Commandments. First of all, let me make two quick points. The first point is, that we see the Ten Commandments not necessarily as a divine list of do's and don'ts or a foreboding list of God's righteous thrice holy demands, which again, they are those things. But equally importantly, I think we should see the Ten Commandments as an expression of who God is. And again, we sometimes miss that point. We hear the do's and don'ts, we know what we're supposed to do and what we're not supposed to do, and so on and so forth, but sometimes we lose sight of the fact that these commandments were given to us to express to us, in the clearest terms possible, who God is. Why does He demand what He demands of us? He demands these things because He is God. Now, what does that mean? Well, as we go through each of these Ten Commandments, we're going to get a deeper and deeper glimpse into what He's trying to teach us about Himself. As one theologian noted, it has been well said that the Ten Commandments are God's nature expressed in terms of moral imperatives. And so that's our first observation before even going into the study. Allow me to point out once again that the Ten Commandments were not given so that man could earn salvation if he were able to keep them. As we've been discussing recently in our studies of Romans, the law of God is simply that which cannot save. The law of God can't save us, it can't sanctify us, it can't do anything in terms of taking us from the domain of darkness into the kingdom of God's Son. It can't do that. The law does have a very important purpose, as we've been discussing. The law does point out our sin. The law does magnify our sin. The law does tell us who God is and what and why He expects what He does from us. But again, it can't save. And I say this because many of you grew up in dispensational environments where you were taught that the Old Testament saints were saved based on their ability to keep the Ten Commandments. It's just not true. Now let me say this too, all of the other 613 commandments that spun off of the Ten Commandments as they began to explore and try their best to obey them, all of those 613 commandments come out of the Ten Commandments in one way or another. But again, the fact that 613 commandments came out of the Ten Commandments is evidence of the futility that's attached with trying to obey the Ten Commandments unto salvation. Had they been allowed to, without the temple itself being destroyed in 70 AD, or without the constant interruptions to their ongoing status in the Promised Land, had they been able to, I'm sure they would have come up with 6,000 commandments. All that to say again, though, that the Ten Commandments themselves, God's moral law, were intended to create in man a sense of futility. Not a sense of wanting to give up, but a sense of I require affection. I can't do this perfectly. I do, well it drives me to look for someone who could, someone who did, and that's the Lord Jesus Christ. So, let's look at our text beginning at verse one. Here Moses writes, then God spoke all these words, saying, I am the Lord 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. There it is, the first commandment. But before we look more closely at what this commandment says, don't overlook Moses' first statement. He says, then God spoke all these words. Why would he say that? Well, he wants us to know from the very beginning that this is not Moses' Ten Commandments. This is not Moses simply interpreting for the people what God said to him. He wants us to know that this is the very breathed-out Word of God. God Himself has sent me to say this. He wants them to know that this is God speaking. And while they themselves could not go up on the mountain to receive it personally, Moses is simply a mouthpiece for this thrice holy God. He wants us to understand what Paul exhorted Timothy to understand in 2 Timothy 3.16, when he said that all Scripture is inspired or literally God-breathed and is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness. So what is the first commandment that God gives to the Israelites? Well, he says, I'm the Lord 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. Now, if you think about this carefully, this is actually two commandments in one. It's two commandments in one. It's one commandment simply because the same idea is conveyed in two different ways, but it is two commandments in one, as it were. First, God wants the Israelites to understand and acknowledge that it was Him, not Moses, not Aaron, both of whom were merely human instruments, but it was God Himself who had brought them out of the land of Egypt where they had been enslaved. You know, there's a tendency among we mere mortals to ascribe things to different people that benefit us. I was thinking this morning about how we get so enamored with heroes, those mere mortals who run into burning buildings and drag people out, and we credit the saving of those people to these heroes. Let me just say this. Any time your life is spared and there is human involvement, I want you to make sure that God gets all the credit. People say this about their doctors and their lawyers and even things like that. Yeah, I was in a heap of trouble, and then my lawyer got me out of it, and he's just worthy of the highest praise. Who got you out of that? when you go to the hospital with a terminal illness, and the doctors give you no hope, and then there's this one doctor who has this new, innovative, new treatment, and you go on this regimen, and you find out that you no longer have the disease that was gonna kill you. All praise to the doctor! Right? No. All praise to God himself. And Moses wanted the children of Israel to know that we're here, right where we're at, because this is God's doing. God delivered you. I didn't deliver you. And so I think that's a really important point for them to learn right off the bat. And don't miss how God refers to himself here. He says, I am Yahweh. I am Jehovah. That name Yahweh, we've discussed this before, that is God's covenantal name. That is the name that the Israelites were to use, recognizing that He had established a covenant through Abraham with the seed, which is Christ Himself. He wanted them to know that as long as they were of like precious faith as their father Abraham, they were indeed in covenant relationship with him. So whenever you read the word Yahweh or Jehovah, or as it's translated in many of our texts with capital letters, the Lord, this is his covenantal name, and it's very important. It's a very important way for him to designate himself. In these words, I am. There's also a lot bound up in that. He's declaring himself to be the great I am, the sovereign, almighty God, the supreme one, the self-existent one, the eternal and unchangeable God who bound himself in covenant relationship to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob with the unbreakable promise of the seed to come. It's very important. Names meant more then than they seem to mean now. Now we name our children things that are cute, things that are designed to invoke memories of certain people. Back then, names meant much more than they mean today, and especially when you're talking about God himself. I've told you before that the Tetragrammaton, the four-letter designation for the name of God, Yahweh, was not Yahweh. It was simply Yod-Heh-Vav-Heh, which is the four Hebrew letters. They would not insert vowels in between those Hebrew letters because they thought it improper to invoke God's real name. We only put the A and the E in there for ease of pronunciation. But they didn't do that. Why? Because they were so fearful that they might be in violation of another commandment to follow, which is taking the Lord's name in vain. They never wanted to use the name of God in an improper way. So, what would this declaration mean in terms of the Israelites' rebellion up to this point? Well, you'll recall from our studies back in chapter 17, remember the Israelites constantly complained to Moses. And they didn't only complain to Moses, they complained to Moses about Moses. Why have you led us here? Oh, so you've brought us out in the wilderness to kill us. You brought us to this place with bitter water so that we'll we'll thirst to death. Now you've brought us to a place with no water. Good job, Moses. Right. Well, how did Moses respond to that when he had enough? He said, look, you're not rebelling against me. You're rebelling against God himself. Because again, they lacked that fundamental understanding that wherever Moses went, I mean, I don't know how you could miss this. You have a pillar of cloud by day leading you in which the Lord himself is, and you have a pillar of fire by night to protect you and to illuminate your way. Why they couldn't figure this out, it just goes to show the stubbornness of man's heart and the depth of man's innate depravity. They can look at God's miracles right in the eye and not see anything really special about that. Or they might for a fleeting second, and then they're back to their rebellion again. Right? But again, Moses says, why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord? Here God Himself is explaining to the Israelites that if they had anyone to blame for how their journey out of bondage had progressed up to this point, it was Him. It was His fault. Thus, when they questioned Moses, they were actually questioning God's wisdom and God's providence. And the second part of the commandment follows the first, given that the one true God had consistently and faithfully demonstrated His omnipotence, His omniscience, His grace, His mercy, His longsuffering, His lovingkindness. And you can see all of these perfections of God coming to bear during their sojourning in the wilderness. even more in their delivery from slavery in Egypt, because of those things, he was alone worthy to be their sole object of worship, which meant that under no circumstances were they to have any other little g-gods before him. Now hold that thought because we'll talk about this more in detail in just a minute, but let's move on to the second commandment. You'll see this is all going to tie together. The second commandment is actually an elaboration on or an expansion on the first commandment. What is one of the best ways to avoid even the possibility of having any little g-gods before the one true God? Well, he explains in the second commandment, 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, the Lord your God, 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, before we examine what this commandment means, let me take a few minutes to explain what it doesn't mean. If you've been a believer for any appreciable length of time, you've no doubt heard people talk about Second Commandment violations. They even shortened it to 2CV. That's a 2CV, which just sounds corny as all get out. certain things are declared to be Second Commandment violations when they're actually not. Now, what am I talking about? Well, almost without exception, this charge is leveled against those who have the audacity to present Jesus in any pictorial or visual form. And that can be the simple little hippie-looking Jesus in the kid's coloring book, right? That can be even the more elaborate portraits that are drawn of Jesus or this person that they are portraying as Jesus. Let me say this about that. I don't like visual representations of Jesus. I detest those things. Why? Because it's a violation of the second commandment? No. Simply because man is not capable of capturing in any medium the glory and majesty of the second person of the triune Godhead. And any attempt to do so is automatically diminishing and insulting. But I'm here to tell you, these things are not Second Commandment violations. You can fight me all day long against this, but let me be clear on this. The Second Commandment tells us, now understand, let's read it again so that we are all on the same page here. Because I know there are going to be people who say, well, no, it is a second commandment violation because I've been taught all my life that it's a second commandment violation. It could be, very well could be, but guess what? So could a picture of a pineapple or a pomegranate. Now, where do I get that? Listen again. You shall not make for yourself an idol. There is the parameter. Don't make something that you intend to use as an idol. What's an idol? Anything that supplants the place that God alone has reserved in your life. Anything that would lessen the place that God has as the sole object of our worship. Anything that gets in the way of our worship of God is an idol. Okay, so again, going in, that's the first stipulation in the second commandment. Don't make for yourself an idol. Or, and this is not the or of referring to another thing, this is an or that joins the two, or in other words, any likeness of what is in heaven above, or on the earth beneath, or in the water under the earth." Period. Okay. If you divorce this, these two clauses in this one sentence, and you forget the idle part, what are you left with? You can't draw a picture of anything. There you have it. Artwork is sinful. You can't draw pictures of trees. You can't have paintings of animals or countrysides or rivers or fish or anything like that. You can't do that. Is that what the text is saying? No. You don't make images of those things that would then serve as idols. That's what the text is saying. Don't create idols. in the likeness of anything that exists. I mean, you tell me, is there anything... Okay, we got heaven, we got the earth, we got beneath the earth, we got water. I mean, does anything else exist? No. So as long as you're not making these things for idol worship, now, Obviously, the Lord thinks that we need clarification even on that point. So he elaborates, you shall not worship them or serve them. For I, the Lord, your God, am a jealous God. There it is again. He's jealous of what? Is he jealous of the pictures that your children draw at school and bring home? No. Is he jealous of the picture that you have of Spurgeon in the bathroom? No. unless people are idolizing that picture in there, right? It's not the point. I'm a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and 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, how do we know that God's not talking just in general about all forms of art? Well, we know that that's not true because, as we'll see later on throughout the Old Testament, God is always commanding His craftsmen to make visual depictions of things like pomegranates and pineapples and this, that, and the other thing, right? Without any fear of retribution. So, again, the whole thing that's bound up in the Second Commandment is we're not to make anything that would be an idol for us. Now, here's where pictures of Jesus are especially annoying to me, because I don't know that there's any way that you can have a picture of alleged Jesus. I don't know that you can have a picture of that without that picture itself invoking some type of worshipful desire in you. Right? That's dangerous. That's dangerous because while every one of us, when we think of Jesus, probably has some kind of image in our mind. I don't know about you, but I'm a very visual thinker. I can't think of things without creating images in my mind. but to create garden variety or stock images of what Jesus looked like, that's just dangerous. You have no idea what he looked like, much less what he looks like now. And again, any artistic portrayal of him would, just by virtue of what it is, would be a diminishing of his actual being. So again, if you're gonna, Disavow all of those pictures, you know, things that you see involving the alleged Jesus in artistic form. Do that, but not necessarily on the basis of the second commandment. The second commandment is a prohibition against creating anything for the purpose of worship. Don't do it. I used to collect G.I. Joes. the real ones, not the little fake G.I. Joes, right? I'm talking about the manly G.I. Joes, the big ones. It could very well be that somebody, some ancient tribe somewhere would find a G.I. Joe laying around that a missionary kid left behind and they would do what with it? Carve out a little portion of the tree and put that thing up in there and start the church of the G.I. Joe. Things like that have happened. There was a movie not too long ago, I don't remember what the thing was, where the Coke bottle fell out of the plane and hit a native on the head and they picked it up and they took it and it was perfectly crafted of what looked like crystals and they took it and they started worshipping it and they worshipped the god of the Coke bottle. Those things are prohibited. by God. Nothing takes the place of the one true God in terms of our worship. And nothing really should be a catalyst for our worshiping. This is what's meant when we're to worship Him in spirit and in truth. Remember the woman at the well? The woman's emphasis was on which mountain God was to be worshipped on. They saw Mount Gerizim and Mount Horeb, or whatever mountains she was pointing to at the time. She was indicating that there was some tangible value in the mountains themselves. Our people say we worship in this mountain. Your people say in that mountain we worship. And what did Jesus say in response? None of that matters. What God desires is to be worshipped in spirit and in truth. So, anyway, that's the way we need to understand the second commandment. And most of you are saying, okay, not going to worship man-made idols, got it. But this is where I really want us to slow down a bit and think about what God is actually saying. You know, sometimes when we read the word idols, our mind goes to these figurines made out of wood or metal. They go to these elaborate systems where people worship other things, and we say, well, we're not guilty of that. I don't have any little figurines. I don't have any altars set up in my home with little trinkets and things that aid me in my worship, so I'm good to go, right? No, maybe not. What else can be an idol? in your life? Self? The idol of self? Do you know one of the biggest industries in the world right now, the cosmetics and fitness industry combined, are the largest, most lucrative industries that the planet has ever seen? Why? Because we are in love with ourselves. Right? Now again, don't get me wrong. Somebody the other day when I mentioned something like this, somebody was like, oh wow, does that mean I can never go to the gym again? No, that's not what I'm saying. Be a good steward. There's a difference between stewardship and idolatry. Right? Stewardship says I'm just gonna go to the gym because it's good for me. I'm gonna take my vitamins because it's good for me. I'm gonna eat the right foods because it's good for me. And I do this in a way to honor the Lord who has given me this life. It's good stewardship. But that's far different from going to the gym every morning and eating nothing but bean sprouts and protein powder for the rest of your life, just so you can stand in front of the mirror and show off your guns to yourself every morning. Big difference. So yeah, that's good. We can worship ourselves. Anything else? Yeah, Ian. Careers. Yeah, there are people now, and this is another kind of fine line, right? We ought to do everything we do as unto the Lord. We ought to pursue our careers in a very serious-minded, very focused way, but only to honor and glorify the Lord who made it possible for us to be in that career. What do we not do? We don't use our careers as that which would impede our ability to worship the Lord. We don't pursue our careers in a way that causes us to not be good stewards in our families. You know, you can be so enamored with your own money-making ability that the Lord can get pushed out. So that career can become an idol for you. What else? Yeah, James. Family members. That's right. That's yep. Grandchildren, children, they can all be little idols. They really can. You know, we've talked before, not in a legalistic manner, but we've talked before about, you know, when, when family comes to town, you know, you wouldn't believe the number of people who have called me over the years and said, you know, pastor, we're not going to be at church on Sunday because we have family in town. Well, what does that mean? Well, we're going to spend time with our family. Well, what better place to spend time with your family than to bring them to church? Well, no, but I bought these tickets to Fiesta, Texas and, you know, for Sunday. And why'd you do that? Again, not to be legalistic, but where are your priorities? And one of the best ways of evangelizing your lost family members is to show them what a priority you place on the Lord's day. Leave them at home. There's milk in the fridge and cereal in the cabinet. We'll be back. Right? What's that going to cause them to think? Well, they're going to hate me. They're going to think that I just don't love them anymore. No, they're not. Remember, who's in control here? It's the Lord. The Lord's going to honor that by having them think, well, they really take this church thing really seriously. Maybe I should. You never know, right? But again, that's good, James. Family members can become idols. We can become idols in and of ourselves. What about the intellect? What about the intellect? We can be so full of even scriptural knowledge that we begin to lean on our intellect. We lean on our own understanding instead of leaning on the Lord himself to provide us the understanding that we need. Yeah. Yeah, your pastor can be an idol. There are tons of idols out there who are pastors. Again, I'm not gonna get on that bandwagon again, but I've said time and time again that people need to be careful to understand that I don't care how much you love the guy, guys, but John MacArthur's not your pastor. John MacArthur has not spent a moment this past week thinking about you and praying for you. John MacArthur could not care less for you because he doesn't know you. Alistair Begg's not your pastor. And yet, a lot of people will put their word above their own pastor's word. Why? Because they've made an idol out of this person. They reason that this person's successful and famous because they're really good at what they do. Now, some of them are horrible. It's just that their followers are too dumb to know the difference. And I mean that in the most endearing way imaginable. They're just ignorant of certain things that they think are true but are not. Yeah, Steve? Yeah. Our own false impressions or ideas can become idols. There are a lot of things that can become little g-gods to us if we're not careful. The whole emphasis behind the Second Commandment is don't allow anything to get in the way of your worship to the Lord Himself. Everything must be done for Him, recognizing that He is the source of all. A little later on in Exodus 32, we'll see how the Israelites, when they noticed that Moses' return from Mount Sinai was delayed, remember what they did? Moses went on the mountain to receive God's law. He's delayed in coming back down the mountain. And so what do they do in Exodus 32? Well, they approached Aaron and they said, come make us a God who will go before us. That's little G God. As for this Moses, the man who brought us out from the land of Egypt, again, they didn't understand. He just told them, you know, a few times, it's not me, it's the Lord who's done this. But they say, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him. And so what did they ask him to do? They asked him to prepare a golden calf. And the most perplexing thing there is that Aaron agreed to do that, right? As for both God and Moses in the minds of the Israelites, they could be replaced by Aaron if he had make them a God of their own design. We'll be reading about that soon enough, but in Psalm 106, 19-21, the psalmist kind of encapsulates that whole thing. He says, They made a calf in Horeb and worshipped a molten image. Thus they exchanged their glory for the image of an ox that eats grass. They forgot God their Savior, who had done great things in Egypt. And how did God react to the Israelites' idolatry? Well, again, we'll Read that account when we get to Exodus 32. But suffice it to say, the Lord was not pleased, causing half of them to go after the other half and kill them. Again, it was not a good thing. But why was the Lord displeased? Was the Lord displeased because they had broken His first and second commandments? Yes, but there's more to it than that. Again, God is displeased because he's a jealous God. God is displeased because he'll share his glory with no one or no thing. God is displeased whenever man seeks to replace him, because besides him there simply is no other God. Technically, this is known as the doctrine of God's exclusivity. God is exclusive. There is no other. Let me give you just six passages from only three chapters in Isaiah that support this teaching. You can jot these down. Isaiah 41, 4. Who has performed and accomplished it, calling forth the generations from the beginning? I, the Lord, am the first, and with the last, I am he. Isaiah 44, 6, thus says the Lord, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts, I am the first and I am the last, and there is no God besides me. Isaiah 45, 5 and 6, I am the Lord and there is no other. Besides me there is no God. I will gird you, though you have not known me, that men may know from the rising to the setting of the sun that there is no one besides me. I am the Lord, and there is no other." Isaiah 45, 14. Thus says the Lord. The products of Egypt and the merchandise of Cush and the civilians, men of stature, will come over to you and will be yours. They will walk behind you. They will come over in chains and will bow down to you. They will make supplication to you, saying, Surely God is with you, and there is none else, no other God." Isaiah 45, 18. For thus says the Lord who created the heavens, he is the God who formed the earth and made it, he established it and did not create it, a waste of space, but formed it to be inhabited. I am the Lord and there is none else. Isaiah 45, 21 and 22, declare and set forth your case. Indeed, let them consult together. Who has announced this from old? Who has long since declared it? Is it not I, the Lord, and there is no other God besides me? a righteous God and a Savior. There is none except me. Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth, for I am God and there is no other." This is just in Isaiah, and it's throughout the Word of God, both Old and New Testaments. There is only one God. When you hear people say that all roads lead lead to heaven. You know, you talk to people who are bound up in ecumenism who insist that all religions are valid because they all lead to God. Not many years ago, it was said that we all worship the same God. Muslims and Christians, Jews, we all worship the same God. And I've told you how that's just not possible. And some of you might be thinking even now, well, wait a minute, do we not worship the God of the Jews? We don't. How can I say that? Because the Jews don't worship the same God we do. Why? Ask a Jew, does the God that you worship have a son named Jesus Christ who is also God of very God? No. Now, we worship the God that was revealed to the Israelites. That's the difference. We worship the God of the Scriptures who was revealed to the Israelites later to become Jews. The point of the fact is that they don't understand who their God really is. Ergo, they worship a false God. They don't worship the God who is the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so by very definition, their God is not the same God as our God. People get uneasy when you say things like that, but don't be afraid to point things out like that. Because in this increasingly pluralistic world where everybody is wanting us all just to go along to get along, insisting that God is the same for all religions, it's just not true. That's like saying Steve is the same Steve to everybody. Right? I've told you before about, you can be in a conversation with somebody. Hey, I go to Grace Baptist Church. Oh, okay. Yeah, I know a guy there named Steve. Oh, I know Steve. Oh, you do? Yeah. You know Steve? I know Steve. Come to find out they go to a different church called Grace Baptist Church and there's a different Steve, Steve Smith. And through the process of, you know, peeling back the layers of the onion again, we determined that we're not talking about the same Steve. God is known by his perfections. There is but one God, the one true God, who exists in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and any other God that is acknowledged or believed apart from that one God is not the same God. But again, it's not God's fault. It's the unbeliever's fault. They've made a God of their own imagination. They've made for, just like almost every lost person, they have made for themselves gods of their own imaginations. They may think themselves to be worshiping the one true God, but they're not. Now, does this mean we need to be going around telling people, you worship a false God? No, it just means that we need to be careful to present the one true God as He is. in all of his perfections. And if at that point they reject you, I've talked to a Jewish rabbi on the base before who insisted that we worship the same God, and he wanted to get out of the argument free card from that. And I said, well, no, wait a minute, we don't. Do you believe that Jesus Christ is God of very God? Well, of course I don't believe that. Well, then you do the math, right? But again, our mission is to proclaim this one true God and to worship Him exclusively. Now, when we say that God's jealous, what do we mean by that? Does that mean the same thing as when we use the word jealous? When we're jealous, it's usually predicated on what? pride. It's usually predicated on our desire for something that someone has. God's not jealous in that way. God doesn't look at the little g gods that man creates for himself or the idols and say, wow, that idol has something I wish I had. That's impossible. I mean, look at what Paul said about eating meat sacrifice to idols. He said, I can eat meat sacrifice to idols because idols aren't real. God knows they're not real. Matter of fact, God created the very things that those idols are made of. And so God's not jealous in that way. So what does it mean? Well, a better word, I think, would be possessive. God is possessive over the glory that is his and his alone, and he'll not share that with anyone. You know, going back to false teachings, think about the Roman Catholic Church. Jesus very much shares his glory with who? Mary. And I would even go so far as to say he doesn't share glory with Mary. Mary has more glory than Jesus does, because Mary is to be revered as the mother of God. You talk about going way off the reservation. It's just not allowed. Anyway, as I was preparing for this morning, I stumbled across a really good explanation for God's possessiveness This commentator said, perhaps a practical example will help us understand the difference. If a husband sees another man flirting with his wife, he's right to be jealous, for only he has the right to flirt with his wife. This type of jealousy is not sinful. Rather, it's entirely appropriate. Being jealous for something that God declares to belong to you is good and appropriate. Jealousy is a sin when it's a desire for something that does not belong to you. Worship, praise, honor, and adoration belong to God alone. for only he is truly worthy of it. Therefore, God is rightly jealous when worship, praise, honor, or adoration is given to idols. This is precisely the jealousy the apostle Paul described in 2 Corinthians 11, 2, when he said, I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy. So again, jealousy with God is not a sin. Jealousy is one of his perfections. He's perfectly jealous, perfectly possessive. That's why he says, I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God. And he goes on to say, visiting the iniquity of the fathers 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, what does that mean exactly? Come back next week. We'll talk about what that means. Again, I wanna slow down, I want for us to think much more seriously about these things than the ways we've been taught or conditioned to think over the years. And again, please don't walk away thinking that I've given you a new meaning for the second commandment. I haven't. It's what it's always meant. And I understand the sentiment of those who say pictures of Jesus are a violation of the second. I get it. But again, that's only true if they become idols or objects of worship, because that's what the second commandment prohibits. We'll talk about the rest, Lord willing, in our next time together.