and turn with me to Exodus chapter 20. Exodus chapter 20. Exodus chapter 20 verses four through six here now the word of the Lord you shall not make for yourself a carved image any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth You shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me, but showing mercy to thousands to those who love me and keep my commandments." This is the Word of God and we say thanks be to God. Let's pray. Lord, now we ask Your blessing upon Your Word as it goes forth. Help us to rightly understand from it both law and gospel, to be fed here at the close of this day by the truths of Your Word, to sit beneath them, to take them in even when they're difficult, and to see that Your commandments are not burdensome, but for the believer they are a beautiful delight. For as we take them in our hands, we may glorify the triune God who has saved us from all of our iniquities. We pray your blessing upon the preaching and the hearing of your word in Jesus name. Amen. Well for most evenings we've been walking through the catechism. It's printed for you on the back page of your bulletin. There are two commandments worth of questions listed there. The first and second commandment. And we as a rhythm over the last few years have gone through catechisms or confessions of faith as a guide for which texts we're going to use. And so we regularly come to the law of God. And this time we won't necessarily hit every commandment, but we will look tonight, Lord willing, at the second commandment, which is question 54 through 57. The second commandment which we've heard read. However, I want to begin tonight by asking a question of us. When we think of the worship of God, what do we think of? When we think about what we know about God, what do we think of? And then when we consider what we must do as Christians to worship the God who has saved us, what do we think of? Let me walk you through the pages of the Bible and give you a couple of answers to that question where it wasn't answered correctly. Let's go back to the Garden of Eden, to Adam and Eve. You remember the story. God created Adam and Eve, placed them in the Garden. Adam is the priest of this earthly temple, if you will, and he is to guard and keep And the tempter comes in and says to Adam and to Eve, did God really say? Of course, you know what happens. They give in to temptation. They sin against God. And then, the God that they had worshipped, the God that they had walked with, the God whose voice they knew, suddenly now that they had sinned, what did they do? They hid from God. And God comes into the garden and calls out, Adam, Adam. And they're hiding from God among the trees. Suddenly, what they knew of God was tainted, and they began to relate to God, the God whom they owed worship to, in incorrect ways. In their case, it was they had imagined that if they hid from this omnipotent, omniscient, glorious, beautiful, wondrous, eternal, holy, righteous God, that somehow God would not see them. Adam and Eve did not give God proper worship because they imaged Him incorrectly. Or turn over to Exodus chapter 32. Just a few verses past our passage. Exodus 32. Verses one through seven. Now when the people saw that Moses delayed coming down from the mountain, the people gathered together to Aaron and said to him, come, make us gods that shall go before us. For as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him. And Aaron said to them, break off the golden earrings which are in the ears of your wives, your sons and your daughters and bring them to me. So all the people broke off the golden earrings which were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. And he received the gold from their hand and he fashioned it with an engraving tool and made a molded calf. Then they said, This is your God, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt. So when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it. And Aaron made a proclamation and said, tomorrow is a feast to Yahweh. Tomorrow is a feast to the Lord. Then they rose early on the next day, offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings and the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play. Notice in our text in Exodus chapter 32 that at least twice the covenant name of God, Yahweh, is used. We often read this story in Exodus 32 and we think Moses has gone up the mountain, he's there communing with God as the type of mediator that ultimately Christ would be, and the people have so quickly forgotten God that they now have created completely new gods. But that's not actually what's happening in Exodus 32. If you notice, both the people and Aaron still have in view Yahweh God, the one true God, the living God. But how is it that they are worshiping Yahweh? with carved images. Notice what their leader, the second in command says, tomorrow is a feast to Yahweh. They hadn't completely forgotten the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. They hadn't completely forgotten the only creator. But here, they didn't give him proper worship. because they worshiped him according to their own imaginations. They're either symbolizing God, Yahweh, by a calf or they're adding the idol of a calf to the worship of the true God. Several months back we as a church went through the book of Leviticus so we won't linger here but turn with me to Leviticus chapter 10. Leviticus chapter 10. You remember the movement of Leviticus. God bringing us ultimately in Christ, in a prepared sense through Leviticus, back from exile. But in Leviticus chapter 10, the sons of Aaron, the priests, the leaders of the worship of God, what happens in Leviticus 10.1, then Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it, put incense on it and offered profane fire before the Lord, which he had not commanded them. Again, they're worshiping Yahweh. They're worshipping the one true God, the living God, the God who rules over all things. They haven't completely forgotten who God is. But they do not give God proper worship. Because they worshipped Him according to their own imaginations. Turn over to 2 Kings. 2 Kings. Much time passes. 2 Kings 10. The context here is that the worshipers of Baal are put to death. We pick up the story. In 2 Kings 10, the story of Jehu. Now it happened as soon as he made an end of the offering, v. 25, that Jehu sent to the guard and to the captains, go in and kill them. Let no one come out. And they killed them with the edge of the sword. Then the guards and the officers threw them out and went into the inner room of the temple of Baal. And they brought the sacred pillars out of the temple of Baal and burned them. Then they broke down the sacred pillar of Baal. and tore down the temple of Baal and made it a refuge dump to this day. Thus, Jehu destroyed Baal from Israel." Period. Wonderful. Good move. But look at the next verse. However, Jehu did not turn away from the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Naboth. who had made Israel sin, that is, from the golden calves that were at Bethel and Dan. And the Lord said to Jehu, because you have done well in doing what is right in my sight, and have done this to the house of Ahab, all that was in my heart, your son shall sit on the throne of Israel to the fourth generation. But Jehu took no heed to walk in the law of the Lord God of Israel with all his heart. For he did not depart from the sins of Jeroboam, who had made Israel sin. You can read of the sins of Jeroboam in 1 Kings 12, verse 25. What is it that Jeroboam did? He set up images to aid in the worship of Yahweh. He instructed the people to worship God falsely. So Jeroboam and Jehu did not worship God properly because they worshipped him according to their own imaginations. There are many other stories in the Old Testament which we could give as examples. Let's turn to one other example of how this fleshes itself out all the way in the New Testament. Acts 17. Acts 17. Acts 17, verse 29. Paul, of course, is at Mars Hill. He is proclaiming the Gospel. And he says, to those at the Areopagus. Therefore, verse 29 of Acts 17, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the divine nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man's devising. Truly these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now He calls all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by man whom He has ordained." The man Jesus Christ, of course. We could continue to walk through the Bible. We could look at 1 Corinthians and how one of Paul's major issues with the church at Corinth is that they were worshiping God in ways that God hadn't commanded. And this brings us to our text of the second commandment in Exodus chapter 20. False worship is worship wherein we worship God according to our own imaginations. Have you ever wondered what the difference is between the first and second commandment? I mean, there are branches of Christianity that kind of merge these two together. What does the first commandment say? You shall have no other gods before me. Right? Which we often take to mean, make me first. But God is not saying, have your other gods, just put me on the top. God is saying, before my face, in front of my face, have no other god. So the first commandment is not, make me first. The first commandment is, make me the only. But then in the second commandment, which we read from Exodus chapter 20, it seems like there's a repeat. I mean, look there in Exodus 20, Moses writes this, you shall not make for yourself a carved image. And he continues with some examples, calling God a jealous God, and saying you must not bow down and worship them. How is that different than the first commandment? And herein lies the answer. The first commandment is having only the true God as your God. The second commandment is worshiping the true God correctly and aright. Don't image God in ways that God hasn't given or commanded. Ultimately, we know, brothers and sisters, that the Ten Commandments is the moral law of God summarized for us. We see the moral law of God all throughout the Old Testament prior to Exodus 20, but there within the Mosaic Covenant, which if we had time, we'd talk about how covenants work. We're not under the Mosaic Covenant, but the moral law of God abides no matter what covenant you are in. The moral law of God is embodied and embedded in the Ten Commandments. And verse 4 in the Second Commandment gives us the outward expression. Don't make idols, images, representations of anything considered worthy of worship. Now this, brothers and sisters, is not a condemnation of art. Boys and girls, some of you are artists. You love to paint. You love to take photography. You love to sculpt. God in His Word even rejoices and calls people to art. Be careful with that. But look at Exodus 31, 1-10. God commissions Ohilob and Bezalel in the work of putting together the tabernacle and specific art that they are to use. This commandment, the second commandment, is not a condemnation of all art. What's being condemned here is any representation of God-ness that is not true. Why do I say God-ness? I'm not even sure that's a word. God-ness. Because we are not to represent the living God, the true God, himself, or his attributes in ways that he has not expressed in his word. Notice there, you shall not make for yourself a carved image. Do you see that this is a self-made appropriation of what belongs to God? That's the outward expression. But what about the inward expression? Each of these commandments has an outward expression. Things to do and things not to do. But there's also an inward expression. Verse 5, you shall not bow down to them or serve them for I the Lord your God am a jealous God. God is not to be worshipped in ways that he hasn't given. Verse 5 connects verse 4 to objects of worship or representation of divine beings. So the second commandment is not saying don't take any pictures. Don't visit the Grand Canyon and take pictures. Don't paint seashores. Don't make sculptures of trees. No. It's prohibiting the use of idols or any other image, both physical or mental, which God has not commissioned. Because He's a jealous God. Is God jealous of? Usually when we think of jealousy, we think I'm jealous of someone because they have something that I don't have. Jealous of you because you have money or I'm jealous of you because you have power or you have popularity or whatever it may be. But in God's case, he's not jealous of something that he doesn't have. God has a singular zeal for his own glory. So as we walk through the pages of the Old Testament and the New Testament, we begin to see all of these laws of God, this moral law of God summarized. And the second commandment is about the right worship of God. Well quickly then, let's make a couple points of application. For those of you that were with us a few years back when we went through the series on the Ten Commandments, some of these might sound slightly familiar to you, but let's just walk through a couple of points of application. Number one, when false images of God guide our worship, we are in idolatry. When false images of God guide our worship, we are in idolatry. Isaiah 40 verse 18, To whom then will you liken God? Or what likeness will you compare Him with? We often hear people, even in our own day, pagans, unbelievers, say God would never do this. Even statements like that are imaging God according to our own minds, our own imaginations. Our text in Romans a few weeks ago, Romans 1, 22 and following, claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Whenever we live lives as if God doesn't exist in His attributes, we are sinning. Those aren't my words, those are Joel Beeky's words. Whenever we live as if God doesn't exist in his attributes, we are sinning. Brothers and sisters, we might read the second commandment and think, okay, the first commandment, don't have other gods. The second commandment, it's kind of like that, just don't make any idols. So as long as I don't have any physical idols in my house, I'm good. But that's not what Jesus does with the law in the Sermon on the Mount, is it? He shows us that the law of God is about the heart. There are physical and mental ways that we can worship God according to our own imaginations. And this, brothers and sisters, is what the second commandment prohibits. When we image God falsely, physically, or even in our minds, it's idolatry. It's idolatry. But secondly, God, the object of worship, determines the right ways of worship. God, the object of worship, determines the right ways of worship. The reformers in the 15 and 1600s grounded their understanding of right worship of God in the second commandment. The second commandment for them became the place where God's moral law clearly showed that we must have only one God and we must image Him aright. We must worship Him aright. But it's not the only text that speaks to this. The Jews of the Old Testament. Numbers 15, beginning in verse 37. The Lord said to Moses, Speak to the people of Israel, and tell them to make tassels on the corners of their garments throughout their generations, to put a cord of blue on the tassel of each corner. And it shall be a tassel for you to look at and remember all the commandments of the Lord, to do them, not to follow after your own heart and your own eyes, which you are inclined to whore after, So you shall remember and do all my commandments and be holy to your God. I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be your God. I am the Lord your God." We could continue to skip through the pages of Scripture. And there are some very extreme examples for us. Let's look at one other example. 2 Samuel Chapter 6. 2 Samuel Chapter 6. This one almost seems innocent. 2 Samuel Chapter 6. God gives instructions for the removal and moval of the Ark of the Covenant And you remember the story. They're moving the ark. There is worship occurring. Verse 5 of 2 Samuel 6. Then David and all the house of Israel played music before the Lord, before Yahweh, on all kinds of instruments of fir wood, on harps, on stringed instruments, on tambourines, on cistrums, and on cymbals. And when they came to Nahon's threshing floor, Uzzah put out his hand to the ark of God and took hold of it. The oxen stumbled. Then the anger of the Lord was aroused against Uzzah, and God struck him there for his error. And he died there by the ark of God." In fact, the next verse says, David became angry because of the Lord's outburst against Uzzah. He called the name of the place Perez Uzzah to this day. Now, why was Uzzah in error? Because God had given instructions on how to move things in His worship that were holy to Him. And we live in a day, brothers and sisters, where much of the Christian world would not even entertain some of the larger general discussions of God regulating His worship. But here within this text, in the Old Testament, one is struck dead for disobeying God's direct order. Even though we are under grace, is God's instruction on how he is to be worshipped any less serious? If you read our statement of faith, it's in your hymnal in the back. A principle that is often discussed which again comes out of this particular text and all that are associated with it is called the regulative principle of worship. Some of you have joined Grace recently and you might have heard of that. The regulative principle of worship or what some reformed geeks like to call the RPW. I'm one of those geeks. The regulative principle of worship. It simply means worship is regulated by God in His Word. So maybe you came to Grace and you thought to yourself, their worship seems different. They just sing, they read scripture, someone preaches, there's either baptism of the Lord's Supper, And that's about it. And you might have started to like it because it was maybe simple or streamlined or you could follow it or maybe you could hear it because other places you'd been maybe it was too loud or whatever. But you might not have had an expression to say why it was what it was. But our attempt is to worship God in ways publicly that God has commanded. God is the one who said, let us make man in our image. We do not get to say of God, let us make God or his worship in our image. Well, thirdly, and this is probably a more literal application from our text. Many of you will remember several years ago, we discussed this as a church, but I think it's important. You shall not make for yourself a carved image. Any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth, you shall not bow down to them, nor serve them." In other words, you're not making representations of things that you're going to worship. Some of you know where I'm going to go with this. I hope you worship Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I would strongly encourage you, do not make representations of Father, Son, or Holy Spirit. You worship rightly this triune God. You may say, well, I understand you, preacher. Father, we don't know what he looks like. Doesn't even have a body. The Bible says he doesn't have a body. The Spirit, it's like the wind that blows where he will. How can we picture the Spirit? But Jesus, now Jesus is fully God and fully man. And because he became man, we can image him. And I would just try to lovingly and gently ask you, when you draw your pictures of Jesus the man, what do you do with his divinity? Or do you split him in half? And if you split him in half, you're imaging him incorrectly. So we should, number three, use caution. when we think about this issue of the members of the Trinity. And I know that there are debates on this, and good and godly brothers and sisters are on both sides of the issue. But I think, most literally, we're commanded not to use images in the worship that God has given. And so, take caution. I would just say to you, God has actually given us God-ordained images, pictures, for us to use, visible things. He's given us two in the covenant of grace, baptism and the Lord's Supper. These are God-ordained visible pictures for us to use. These are the symbols that God is pleased to give us. Well lastly, as we think about the second commandment, right worship of the triune God. There's something tucked away in this verse which we might often leave out. Look at verse five, the second part. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me. But, but, Showing mercy to thousands to those who love me and keep my commandments. I would just close with this fourth point, brothers and sisters. God graciously gives mercy. To repentant false worshipers. God graciously gives mercy to repentant false worshipers. If we had more time, we'd get into this text a little bit and see what's going on here. Are these consequences of familial sin that extend to generations? What is this phrase of those who hate me? Notice, sin that one adopts from his or her parents, including the false worship of God. We need N, but this is an important one for us, parents and grandparents. One of the practical reasons to get God's worship right. I said practical reason. The reason is because God says so. But one of the practical reasons is because our children and our grandchildren will do what we do. And often, they will move one step further. So it's important for us to get the worship of God rightly. But notice the last phrase, showing mercy to thousands. This number is greater than the previous number, third and fourth generations. But here, mercy, the mercy of God extends to thousands. God is a God who has mercy on those who love Him and keep His commandments. You can only love God. You can only keep God's commandments in the person of Christ. In your union with Christ, your heart can be changed. A circumcised heart that we spoke of this morning. And Christ will take all of the penalty for your false worship and make you a true worshipper of the living God. Turn with me to Exodus 34 verse 7. In this opening instance, we see this. Now the Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there and proclaimed the name of the Lord. And the Lord passed before him and proclaimed, The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long suffering and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands. There it is, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin. This is our God. And our God does this in Christ. So as we read through these commandments, pick a commandment, murder, adultery, stealing, Sabbath, wrong worship, wrong God. These things are ultimately forgiven, done away with, cleansed, blotted out by the person and work of Jesus Christ. But the Christ of the cross did not die so that we could then change the worship of God. into whatever we wish. One final passage of scripture and we're finished. Revelation 22. Let's close with this. Revelation 22, verse three and four. There shall be no more curse, but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and his servants shall serve him. They'll worship him. They shall see his face, and his name shall be on their foreheads. Brothers and sisters, until we see the face of Christ, Until we are there worshiping Him face to face, let us worship Him according to His voice. Let Him tell us how to worship Him. All right. Let's pray. God, we pray that Your people would be considerate and thoughtful on how to worship You We may not read your law and think of it as a condemnatory thing for the believer, but yet take it with seriousness that there is a call within the scripture from beginning to end to worship you according to your word. Help us to seek day by day to faithfully do that when we gather for public worship to worship you according to your word. to get to know you and your attributes more and more and more through your voice in your word that we may have right understanding of the living God and not the understanding of our imaginations. We pray this for your glory and ultimately as well for our good. In Jesus name. Amen.