Let's turn now to Psalm 115. Psalm 115. Let's hear the Word of God. Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name give glory, for thy mercy and for thy truth's sake. Wherefore should the heathen say, where is now their God? But our God is in the heavens. He hath done whatsoever he hath pleased. Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men's hands. They have mouths, but they speak not. Eyes have they, but they see not. They have ears, but they hear not. Noses have they, but they smell not. They have hands, but they handle not. Feet have they, but they walk not. Neither speak they through their throat. They that make them are likened to them. So is everyone that trusteth in them. O Israel, trust thou in the Lord. He is their help and their shield. O house of Aaron, trust in the Lord. He is their help and their shield. Ye that fear the Lord, trust in the Lord. He is their help and their shield. The Lord has been mindful of us. He will bless us. He will bless the house of Israel. He will bless the house of Aaron. He will bless them that fear the Lord, both small and great. The Lord shall increase you more and more, you and your children. ye are blessed of the Lord, which made heaven and earth. The heaven, even the heavens are the Lord's, but the earth has he given to the children of men. The dead praise not the Lord, neither any that go down into silence, but we will bless the Lord from this time forth and forevermore. Praise the Lord. thus far the reading of sacred scripture. Dear church family, imagine walking into the palace of a king, with a king sitting on his throne, and you had opportunity to face him and speak with him. And instead of looking at him and speaking to him, You took a picture out of your pocket of him, and you talked to the picture. Wouldn't he be insulted? And the longer it would continue, the more irritated, perhaps even angry, he would become. Well, God is a spirit. We can't see him. He is Lord of lords and King of kings. And he's present everywhere. Everywhere. He's present in church right now when we worship. He's present in our homes when we pray. He's present in our cars while we drive. Can you understand how this great God would be not just irritated, but even angry if we would worship Him by looking to a picture of Him, a mere picture or some image or some likeness to Him. He's so much above all of this. He's God after all. The Spirit. He who worships God. must worship Him in spirit and in truth. We want to look at that today, this morning, with you from the second commandment, which is our text, Exodus 20, four through six. It's a long commandment. And we're going to look at three things in this commandment this morning. There's much more that could be said, but I want to focus on the three main things of the text. Exodus 20 verse 4, the first is God's glory. Listen to verse 4, that lies behind, lies behind this commandment. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. The second thing the second commandment teaches us about God is that he's a jealous God. Verse 5, thou shalt not bow down thyself to them nor serve them for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me. And the third thing the second commandment stresses about God and his character is his mercy, verse six, and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments. So our theme this morning, with God's help, is what does the second commandment teach us about God? Number one, it reveals God's glory. Number two, it stresses God's jealousy. And number three, displays God's mercy. The second commandment prohibits the worshiping of images, and that's what's addressed in the Heidelberg Catechism in Lord's Day 35 in questions 96 through 98, the focus is here, but notice the focus goes beyond this to how we worship God and the word-centeredness of our worship. Let me just read those questions a moment. What does God require in the second commandment? That we in no wise represent God by images, nor worship Him in any other way than he has commanded in his word. 97. Are images then not at all to be made? God neither can nor may be represented by any means. But as to creatures, though they may be represented, yet God forbids to make or have any resemblance of them either in order to worship them or to serve God by them. 98. but may not images be tolerated in the churches as books to the laity. No, for we must not pretend to be wiser than God, who will have his people taught not by dumb images, but by the lively preaching of his word. Well, the first question we need to ask this morning is, How does the second commandment really differ from the first? The first spoke of idolatry, and the second speaks of image worship. They are closely related. The Ten Commandments begin with two commandments that really focus on God and how we are to relate to Him. The first commandment, however, speaks more about who God is, and the second commandment, how God is. In this commandment we're told He's a jealous God, which means He will not allow people to trample His infinite glory underfoot. He will not give His glory to another, and certainly not to any animate object, or any ideas that we might have about God that are foreign to Scriptures. So we can say that behind the second commandment lies really the foundational principle of God's glory. Now what is God's glory? What does glory mean? And what is God trying to do when he says that his goal is the Bible and in our lives is to manifest His glory. In all that He does, He wants to display His moral excellence. He wants to display the magnanimity, the glory, the beauty of His character. But what does that word glory actually mean? Well, in Hebrew, The word glory is kabat, and it derives from a root word that means weight. W-E-I-G-H-T. Weighty. For example, the value of a gold coin in Bible times was determined by its weight. To have weight, therefore, in the ancient cultures of this world was to have value. We still have it a bit today, but in those days, even the currency, you see, the more it weighed, the more value it had, the more worth it had. So when we speak of the glory of God, we're speaking of someone who is weighty, someone who has infinite value, someone who is very precious. God is greater value than anything in this world. Now the Greek word in the New Testament for glory is daksa, which originally meant opinion. And this word refers to the worth or value which we in our opinion assign to someone or something. So the Hebrew idea speaks of what is inherent in God, His intrinsic value or worth. The Greek idea speaks of the response of intelligent and moral beings like us to the value or worth that God's Word teaches us that God has. So in both Testaments of the Bible, The word glory means a display of excellence and praiseworthiness of God. That's the glory shown, as well as our response of honor and adoration to that display. God's glory, then, is the beauty of His manifold perfections, and the awesome radiance that breaks out from those perfections in every direction, so that true worshipers give Him glory by praising Him, by thanking Him, by worshiping Him, by obeying Him, by showing, pledging total allegiance. Now, the whole earth, Isaiah 6 tells us, is full of God's glory, whether we see it or not. The importance of our lives, since we were created for God's glory, is that we do see that glory, and that we, by faith, receive that glory as evident in everything because God is omnipresent. And thus our chief end, our chief purpose in life is to glorify God. Boys and girls, that's why God puts you here in this world, for one purpose, to glorify this weighty, valuable God. So in all that you do, in all that you say, in all the words you speak, in everything you think, the goal is that you might glorify your Creator, your Redeemer. And this is the heart of what we call the Reformed faith. When you interpret the Bible in a way that brings God all the glory, you're really being reformed in your theology, because that's the keynote of the Reformed faith. John Calvin, of course, said that already, that the one goal in life is to live for the glory of God. It's not just to get saved. That's important. That's critical. You can't glorify God when you're not saved. But once being saved, The big question of life is, how can I live to the glory of God? And of course, Calvin himself was a wonderful model of this, wasn't he? When he was getting older and his body was wracked by dozens of diseases and he was dying and his friends asked him to stop working, this was his reply. What? Would my Lord find me idle? You see, he just wanted to live to God's glory, to his very last breath. He lived by this model, which became known as the model of Calvin. My heart I offer to thee, Lord, promptly and sincerely. To be reformed, to be a Calvinist, is to want to learn to live to God's glory with all that is within you. And so, our chief purpose in life ought to be to glorify God, and our chief delight ought to be in this praising of God, this glorifying of God. Westminster's Shorter Catechism puts it so well. It's its most famous question. It says, man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. You see, when you want to glorify God, and you may glorify God through His Word, you just want to enjoy Him. And you don't want any image of Him in the earth or under the earth or in the heavens. You just want God. God the Spirit, and you want to just praise Him, that your whole life will be a reflection, like a mirrored reflection of His glory. So, when you become a fairly mature Christian, you could say this in all sincerity, though I come far, far short, God help me, but I want people to be able to see in me the glory of God reflected from Jesus Christ. Can you say that this morning? Is that your life? Is that your passion? Not a self-centered passion, but a God-centered passion. You see, this is to reflect the true God, to be filled with His glory. And a lot of people don't realize that. Thomas Watson put it so well. He said, God's glory is such an essential part of His being that He cannot be God without His glory. And so once we understand that, you see, Then you'll understand what Jonathan Edwards said. The greatest moments of my life have not been those that have concerned my own salvation, but those when I have been carried into communion with God and beheld his beauty and desired his glory. I rejoice and yearn to be emptied and annihilated of self in order that I may be filled with the glory of God and Christ alone. That's really what the second commandment is getting at, behind all the images. Are you living for the glory of this Spirit we call God? It's 1 Corinthians 6 verse 20 all over again. You are bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's, whether therefore you eat or drink or whatsoever you do, do all to the glory of God. For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things. That's the beauty of the Christian life. You bow with everything before this God, before this great and glorious God. Of Him indicates that God's the source of all things. Through Him indicates that He's the sustainer of all things. To Him indicates that He's the goal of all things. So under this paradigm of of Him and through Him and to Him, this paradigm of living a God-centered life to the glory of God, what still, we haven't gotten to the heart of this yet, what exactly does it mean then to live to the glory of God? Tell me, Pastor, exactly what it means. Well, I'll give you several things. To live to the glory of God means, number one, to confess your sins to God, to flee to Christ for forgiveness, and to have God's nature imprinted upon you, restored in you, so that you can live to His glory. Number two, it means to praise Him and worship Him and delight in the triune God as your creator, as your provider, and as your redeemer. And number three, it means to surrender all things in your life into His hands. And number four, it means to be zealous for Him, for His cause, for His glory, His honor, And number five, it means to walk humbly and thankfully and cheerfully before God and to become increasingly conformed to the image of His Son. And number six, it means to know and to love and to live the commandments of His Word. In other words, obedience. to do what God wants me to do and not to do what He doesn't want me to do. And finally, it means to be heavenly minded and to cherish the desire to be with Him forever in that land of ultimate glory we call heaven, to praise Him there spotlessly, sinlessly, forever. solideo gloria, glory to God alone. Is this your desire? Is this your longing? Is this the way you want to live? Do you love God? Do you want to live in doxology toward Him? Can you sing with our Psalter? Praise ye the Lord, ye saints below, and in his courts his goodness show. Praise ye the Lord, ye hosts above, in heaven adore his boundless love. Praise ye the Lord, all creatures, sing the praises of your God and King. Let all that breathe his praise proclaim and glorify his holy name. This is obeying the second commandment, glorifying God. Now, the second commandment teaches us then that God is too glorious, too weighty, too valuable in all his attributes, in his person, to be represented by anything in this earth. No picture, no image. Because he's way, way, way above all of that. He's the creator. He's separate from the creature. You can't represent God. He's too glorious. And so it's an insult to God to represent God. He's God alone. He's a heavenly one. And even though it's tempting, it's tempting to represent him. It's tempting to have pictures of Jesus because we are so visually oriented. It's tempting to teach our children with those pictures because they are so visually oriented. But the second commandment says no. no physical representations of God, because that dishonors God, that demeans God, that robs God of His glory. For He is a spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. And so our instructor puts it this way, God neither can nor may be represented by any means. You can't possibly make a visible image of the spiritual God. He's the timeless, spaceless One, in distinction from all His dependent creatures. He's the infinitely glorious One. He's immeasurable, omnipotent, omnipresent Jehovah, who's unchangeable from eternity to eternity. To Him belongs all the power. He's full of glory. That's what Psalm 115 is all about. We give him all the glory, says the psalmist, because he's the living God. All the things we make, they are no gods. They have eyes, but they don't see. They have ears, but they don't hear, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. You see, we've got to stop thinking about God in visual terms, as tempted as we are in that direction. not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto Thy name give glory for Thy mercy and for Thy true sake. Because our God is in the heavens. He hath done whatsoever He hath pleased." Now, at this point you might say, well, It's nice to be reminded of all this. I know this very well, but I don't make any images. I'm not a Roman Catholic that does my rosary beads looking at an image. We worship the plain building without images. I don't see why I need this second commandment too badly. We need to go deeper. We need to look at the roots of sin that lie in our heart. Question 96 says that we in no wise represent God by images nor worship Him in any other way than He has commanded in His Word. Well, I'll grant you that. I'll grant you. You don't worship Him with physical images. But image worship It's not just physical. Image worship is an old sin, as old as paradise itself. Image worship is a sin that also religious people, sometimes especially religious people, are guilty of. Think of Israel at Horeb. There, this sin God's chosen nation overcame them the Lord warned Israel as he spoke the law I'm the Lord thy God which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt therefore thou shalt not make any graven image but they went right ahead when they're in camp by Horeb they wanted to see their gods which brought them up out of Egypt they said to Aaron up make us gods which shall go before us And when Aaron had a calf made, Aaron said, these be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. And tomorrow is a feast to the Lord. You can offer burnt offerings and peace offerings to this God. And the people sat down to eat and drink. So what was Israel really doing here? Well, she was depriving God of his glory. You see, that's what image worship is. You are depriving God of His glory. It's the making of a lie about the invisible God and then worshiping that lie. That's what the heathen nations do. Hinduism, for example. One book I read that says they have now developed 350 million gods, an average of six per family. I don't know how you could possibly do that. But you see, it comes from the heart. Because we want to identify with things we can touch and see. And so, as John Kelvin put it, our hearts are by nature a factory of idols. We churn them out. By nature, actually, we are all image worshipers. We're all inclined to lie about God, to deprive Him of His glorious attributes, to make images of Him in our mind or false conceptions of Him that are not according to His Word. That is an image as well. And that's why the whole gist of Lord's Day 35 is around this, that we've got to worship God exactly as He has revealed Himself to be in the Bible. That's it. That's it. So we have to make no images of anything in heaven, on earth, under the earth, our text says, or in our hearts. In our hearts. were to think of him in terms of exactly who he says he is. And who is he? Well, Moses asked him that question. Exodus 34, 6 and 7. And the Lord passed by before him and proclaimed, here's who I am, the Lord, the Lord God. And the Lord is in caps, that means the Jehovah God, the unchangeable, the faithful, covenant-keeping God. The Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, that will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, upon the children's children to the third and fourth generation. And Moses made haste and bowed his head toward the earth and worshipped. You see, what do you think, how do you feel about the glorious God of Scripture? In your prayers when you approach Him, in your family devotions, in your daily life, do you live with a consciousness, the daily consciousness of the greatness of God's amazing grace, the greatness of His all-seeing eye? Or do you make an image of God in your heart that you demean Him somehow and you act like you can tell God what to do or what God should be doing? Or do you bow under this weighty, glorious God Do you have a God who is able to do only what you think He can do? Or do you have a God of whom you can say what is impossible with man is possible with God? Do you believe in His sovereignty? Do you believe in His glory? Do you believe in His might and His grace and His mercy and His jealousy and all His attributes as being supreme and exclusively belonging to Him? in their fullness, in their deity. Well, I'm afraid that many of us believe in a sleeping God. We can go ahead and sin, hardly think, well our conscience might speak a bit, but hardly think about what we're doing. That's why Stephen Charnock, the Puritan, said, every time we consciously sin, we are saying at that moment, God is not. God is not. We're being a practical atheist. We're making an image, an imagination of who we think God is, that he can just kind of wink at sin. Or we can make an image of God when we think He's only love, or He's only justice, or when we think of Him in one or two of His attributes and exclude the others. A lot of people do that. They can't imagine a God who would send anyone to hell. Because they're imagining a God different than the God of Scripture. Or they can imagine a God who would be merciful to someone so great a sinner as they are, because He's too holy. But they forget about the magnitude of His mercy. So they're imagining a God who's not the God of the Bible. You see, when we conceive of God, existing only to bestow all kinds of blessings on us and to fight our battles and solve our problems and heal our sicknesses. A God to whom we come only when we are in trouble. Then too we're guilty of worshiping an image. If we don't walk in God's ways, but go our own way and still pray to God for his help, we deny God's greatness and weightiness and sovereignty. You see, there's a thousand ways we make images of God in our mind, even if it's not a physical image. But our instructor says we must not pretend to be wiser than God, who will have his people taught not by dumb images, but by the lively preaching of his word. We must let God tell us who he is, and we must worship him as he is through the Bible. And that's what the doctrine of Revelation is all about. When we speak of God revealing Himself, the word revelation in the original Hebrew means to make yourself bare. It's like someone rolls up the sleeves on their arm and you can see their arm. They're making bare their arm. Well, God has no physical parts. But in the Bible, what God is doing is He's revealing Himself. He's making Himself bare, as it were, so that we can see with spiritual eyes who He is. God reveals Himself through His Word. His written Word and the living Word, Jesus. Now Jesus, God reveals Himself in the incarnate Jesus, who is the sum and substance of all true preaching of the Word. Listen to what the author of the Hebrews says. God, who spoke, Hebrews 1, 1 through 3, in time past and to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, who is, notice this, the brightness of his glory and the express image of his person. So in the Lord Jesus Christ, we find, may I say this with reverence, the only true image of God that there is. In Christ, God reveals himself in his glory, in his wisdom, in his might. All the attributes of God are fully reflected in Jesus Christ, purely and perfectly revealed in Jesus Christ. Colossians 1.15 says, Jesus Christ is the image, the image of the invisible God. In Him, God has become flesh, and in this way has made himself visible. It's an amazing event. Samuel Rutherford said, it's the greatest miracle the world has ever known, that God became flesh. It's a fundamental thought of the Bible that all the occasional and fleeting Old Testament visions given by God of Himself and the symbols chosen to represent Him are all designed simply to serve and submit to this one image of the invisible God which was yet to appear in Jesus Christ. Everything in the Old Testament that seemed to be picturesque in relationship to God was a type and symbol of Christ to come. So the image we have of Christ identifying himself with sinners at his baptism or meeting with publicans and outcasts or prodigals, as we'll hear about tonight, is a true image of the seeking love of the eternal God for sinners. Or the picture we have of Him praying to the Father, communing in love with Him, finding comfort and strength in Him, is a true image of the fellowship which is and was and ever shall be within the very being of His own Godhead. Or the sight of Him healing the sick and stilling the storms, and raising the dead, and overcoming enemies with love, exercising dominion and power over forces of evil, rising again after seeming defeat, and using the work of the devil to further his own purpose. All of this is a true image of the omnipotence of Almighty God. So, when we speak about who God is and what God is, We discover that through the Word, peculiarly from what we find Jesus to be. For Jesus says, He who has seen Me has seen the Father. And John 1.18 says, No man has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him. In Jesus Christ, we've been given the image of what lies deepest in the heart of the being of God himself. This is a beautiful reality. He who has seen me has seen the Father. So God gives us this image of his Son, not simply that we might think of him properly, and become stirred up with good and warm devotional feelings toward Him, but also in that through Christ we may meet with God by faith, and commune with Him, and know Him, and find salvation in Him. This is life eternal, to know God in Jesus Christ, whom He has sent. Boys and girls, there was once a young boy from Ireland when the teacher asked the class in his Christian school, is there any image that we should ever worship? And the teacher wanted the answer of no. And the boy raised his hand and he said, please, teacher, I think there is one image we should worship. Oh, what is that? The teacher said. And the boy said, we're told to worship Christ, who is the perfect image of God. You see, we are to approach God only through his perfect image, his express image, Jesus Christ. all other man-made mediators, all other approaches, things physical or mental, insult, insult the righteousness of God the Father, despise the salvation of God the Son, and resist the teaching of God the Holy Ghost. So are you a worshiper of the living triune God of the Bible? through the express image of Jesus Christ. Well, in the second place, we're told now that we are not to bow down ourselves to any idols, to any image worship, or serve them for, verse 5, Exodus 20, verse 5, for I, the Lord thy God, am a jealous God, a jealous God. Jealousy. This is jealousy, divine jealousy, rooted in love. See, we're not jealous of strangers who bear no relationship to us, but only those who stand in love relationship to us. That's what we need to understand here in terms of God. It's as if God is saying something like this, I'm thy God, O Israel. And if you turn to your images, if you turn to worship of God of your imagination, you are turning yourself away from me. You're rejecting me and I will see that and I will punish it. I cannot tolerate it. I'm a jealous God because I love you. Image worship is an attack. and God's love that therefore promotes his jealousy. I, the Lord thy God, am a jealous God. Now, jealousy between people, of course, can be a very negative thing. In fact, the Bible says jealousy is as cruel as death and as strong as the grave. People can kill each other even over jealousy that is rooted in some kind of human affection, human love. But God is different, you see. God has a right to love Himself supremely because He is the perfect God. And He's created all things for His glory. And when we contradict the purpose for which we're put here on earth and worship other gods, this is the height of folly. This is the height of anti-godness. God has every right to be jealous. Hebrew and Greek words for jealousy in the Bible could also be translated zealous. God is zealous for his own honor, his own glory. And there's three word pictures to help us to understand this May I call it zealous jealousy of God in the Bible. First and foremost is the picture of a husband zealous for his exclusive relationship with his wife. Ezekiel develops this in the two parables of Israel as God's adulterous wife in Ezekiel 16 and again in chapter 23. You see this marital picture communicates God's zeal for His exclusive claim on our worship and our supreme love, because He says to us, if we're true believers, I am married unto you. And you're not to go whoring after other lovers. The second picture of God's jealousy is the fierceness of a warrior rushing into battle. Isaiah 42.13 puts it this way, The Lord shall go forth as a mighty man. He shall stir up jealousy like a man of war. He shall cry, yea, roar. He shall prevail against his enemies. So Isaiah is saying, and again in chapter 59, God's like the divine warrior who clothes himself in righteousness and salvation and zeal. And he goes out conquering to conquer. He conquered you, didn't he, if you're a believer? Because he's zealous slash jealous for your love to respond to his love. Then the third picture is that jealousy is like fire. Either the fire of love or the fire of anger. Song of Solomon 8 verse 6, the fire of jealousy is God's very being. For the Lord thy God is a consuming fire, even a jealous God, Deuteronomy 4 says. So this fire connects divine jealousy to a major biblical sign of God's presence. The fire, the pillar of fire that gave light to Israel. So God's jealousy is a whole complex of various things, affections on the part of God. We can define God's jealousy, therefore, as His limitless, fervent zeal. His limitless, fervent zeal to glorify Himself in the lives of His people. So God's not half-hearted about this, about how you treat Him. He doesn't just say, well, well, I'll just forgive your sin. No. His very essence is an eternal act of immeasurable love. He wants a relationship with his people. A pledge of allegiance from his people's hearts. He's jealous to have your soul, my friend. Not just your external obedience. He says, that he will visit iniquities of the fathers upon the children to three or four generations. That's how jealous he is. And what does that mean? Well, it can't mean, it can't mean that he's going to punish righteous children for the sins of their wicked fathers. Ezekiel 18 makes clear, as for his father, lo, even he shall die in his iniquity. But the father shall not bear the iniquity of the son, nor shall the son bear the iniquity of the father. But what happens, of course, is if a father does not love the Lord, a father does not serve the Lord, does not glorify the Lord, actually hates the Lord, which is what we all do by nature, you see. then that hatred, that example, that will normally rub off on the children. And they will see that their dad does not love the Lord, does not serve the Lord, and they don't see any value in serving the Lord either. They have no example for it in their own father. And so the Lord says, this can go on for three or four generations of them that hate me. The best way to destroy your children is not to love God's glory yourself, and not show that with your attitudes, with your words, with your convictions, with your prayers, with your tears, with your family worship. You see, all of our lives are like a mirror. And children grow up looking at the lives of dad and mom to see whether God is worth serving. That's just natural. It's subconscious in their heart, in their life, in their mind. The example of a father and mother is paramount in the upbringing of a child. It's not just a matter of coming to church. It's not just a matter of saying a little prayer as you open a meal or close a meal. It's a lifestyle. It's a conviction that children pick up. And blessed are those children who can say, well, my mom and dad, they have faults and weaknesses, but one thing I know, they love the glory of God and they know the value of a never dying soul. They love my soul. This is critical. Dear fathers and mothers, what a tragedy, what a tragedy when our iniquity gets carried on to other generations because we don't fear and love and serve and glorify God. But now I've got good news for you, point three. Verse six, and showing mercy, mercy unto thousands, and in the original Hebrew, it could best be translated here, thousands of generations of them that love me and keep my commandments. I want you to grasp the picture here. So sin will often be communicated for three or four generations to children. And you'll see, you'll see. You've all seen examples of that, right? When parents live a sinful lifestyle and how they impact their children, and then those children bring up their kids in a godless way, and it just goes on and on. Three or four generations. But God says, I'm a covenant-keeping God. And when I work in souls, and they come to love me, they come to have understanding and love for my glory, for my weightiness, and they serve me, and I'm the center, I'm the center gravity of their lives, and they orient their lives around me, and around my word, and my son, and my truth. Oh, if they love me, I will be their God for a thousand generations. Now the other day I was thinking, I never thought about this before actually, I was thinking, wow, if you do the math, a thousand generations, that's at least 20,000 years. And if the world's only 6,000 some years old, what God is really saying here is I will be your God forever. Forever. For as long as this world stands. What a difference! What a blessing! to be a God-fearing father and a God-fearing mother. I will show mercy, mercy. Oh, God knows that's what we all need, friends. We're all sinners. We all desperately need mercy every day. Mercy is that wonderful attribute of God of which Micah 7 18 says he delights in mercy This is God's natural character. He wants to show mercy to sinners. He loves to show mercy Mercy is compassion to those who don't deserve it Mercy. By God's mercy, He makes things right for His people, saving them. And He keeps things right within His people, keeping them saved by the intercessions of Christ. Mercy pities them in misery. It relieves them in affliction. It comforts them in distress. It counsels them in difficulties. It enlightens them in darkness. And of course, it pardons sin forever. God, this holy, weighty, perfect, divine being, who is antithetical to everything sinful through the sending of His Son, and having His Son die for sinners, is willing to receive sinners in His superabundant mercy. This is the gospel, right here, embedded in the law, showing mercy, not because we deserve it, but unto thousands of them that love Me and keep My commandments. God says, I will save you and I will make you a people who have a heart for My glory. A heart to love Me and serve Me. Truly, God's mercy is overflowing and ever flowing to His own. His vial of wrath drips. His fountain of mercy runs. His anger lasts a moment, but His mercy endures forever. Eternally, God's people shall bathe themselves in their triune God's ocean of mercy without ever diminishing its infinite abundance to a thousand generations. What a beautiful promise that is in Isaiah. Or rather, in the psalm at the end of Psalm 128, verse 6, I think. that we shall see our children's children and peace upon Israel. Here's God's mercy. Three generations. Yourself, your children, your grandchildren. shall know peace, because my covenant, I will keep working, I will keep working. And I will use as a means, yes, the preached word, of course, but I will also use as the means the very lifestyle, the very heartbeat of the father and the mother. When the father and the mother feel the glory of God and convey that to their children, I will bless that. I will do it for a thousand generations. Oh, dads and moms, be encouraged that when you walk in the ways of the Lord, you will be a blessing out of God's storehouse of mercy to your children and your grandchildren. And even if right now they've wandered away, even if right now you've got all kinds of worries and fears about them, and even if right now you'd even say they're prodigals, the covenant mercies of God can follow them, can bring them back, as we'll hear tonight in the sermon. He's a covenant-keeping God to a thousand generations. And so he mercies us all our lifetime, all our lifetime. Day in, day out, day after day. I was down in Florida, you know, last week and a man after church said to me, I said, how are you? He said, I'm just so grateful to be alive. I said, what exactly do you mean? Oh, he said, I don't deserve to live. But it's just the mercy of God. See, everything is the mercy of God. In one slice of bread, you can see the mercy of God. In an ice cube to moisten your lips post-surgery, you can see the mercy of God. Our whole life is a stream of mercies. Psalm 136, 26 times in a row, the psalmist says, His mercy endures forever, and there's no repetition. Each one is a new experience. Mercy, mercy, mercy, mercy. It's always fresh. It's always new. It's always real. Mercy is just wonderful. Just give me one minute here to read you something from Thomas Watson. It's just amazing. He says, mercy is God's darling attribute which he most delights in. The bee naturally gives honey. It stings only when it is provoked. So God does not punish till he can bear no longer. Mercy is God's right hand that he's most used to. Inflicting punishment is called his strange work in Isaiah 28. There's no condition in our lives, but we may spy out mercy in it. In all our afflictions, we may see some sunshine of mercy. That outward and inward troubles do not come together is mercy. Mercy sweetens all of God's other attributes. Mercy makes His Godhead appear amiable and lovely. God's mercy is His glory. His holiness makes Him illustrious. His mercy makes Him propitious. His mercy and election makes him justify, adopt, glorify. One act of mercy always engages God to another act of mercy. He's a God full of mercy to a thousand generations. So the second commandment. The second commandment. reveals God's glory, stresses his jealousy, and displays his mercy. Now we got to live, we have to live in the consciousness of this. And when we lose the consciousness of God in our daily lives, in his glorious attributes, you see, then we are breaking the second commandment. What we need to do is we need to go to God now and confess our sins against the second commandment and take refuge in Jesus who obeyed the second commandment perfectly and is himself God and the express image of God and is willing to receive broken sinners who come to him just as they are to receive His mercy. There's hope in Him. He's the end of the law. He has fulfilled the law. He is the image of God. Flee to Jesus Christ. Amen. Gracious God, please bless this sermon. Forgive our shortcomings. but help us to leave this place today with a real vital consciousness of thy glory, thy jealousy, thy mercy. And may it teach us to live in Coram Deo, that is, in the face of God, in the face of God, conscious every day of our relationship with Thee and of our need for an unending stream even to a thousand generations of Thy mercy. Help us, O God, in the midst of this crazy world that is so focused on non-God things to focus on Thee, the living God of heaven and earth. In Jesus' name, amen.