important topic. Lord, we ask that you would be present in this time and that you would guide our hearts and our understanding into this matter. We pray this and give you the glory and the honor in this time. In Jesus' name, amen. All righty, so we are looking at questions 49 and 50 of the shorter catechism. So I will begin by reading those again. We read one of them this morning, but we'll repeat them for our edification here. So which is the second commandment? The second commandment is, thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image or any likeness of anything living that is in heaven above or that is in earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth. 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 generations of them that hate me, and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments. Question 50, what is required in the second commandment? The second commandment requires the receiving, observing, and keeping pure and entire all such religious worship and ordinances as God hath appointed to his word. So this week and next week, we will be covering this topic. Next week, there will be two more questions on this same commandment. So this half of it will more focus on what God calls us to do. How are we to worship him? So the first thing I wanted to bring up is that there is, in fact, a second commandment. This is actually something that's a bit of a controversy. The Roman Catholics have combined that as part of the first one, that we should love the Lord our God. So the Catholic Church will split the 10th commandment, thou shalt not covet, and they make that into two, which is a little bit redundant. but they combined this one into the first one. That is something of a misrepresentation of the 10 commandments that God gave us, 10 commandments. And so both the Catholics and the Lutherans, they've combined those two into the one, into the first one. So what we want to consider today, though, is that this second commandment, have no graven image, It's a matter of first we saw in the first commandment that we are commanded to love the Lord our God. And that is who we should worship, the Lord our God. Now we come to question number two is how do we worship the Lord our God? And so this is the beginning of how and teaching us how we are to worship. So as we have read through scriptures, we know that the easiest one is the graven images. No carved statues, no statues to ball, no statues to animals. That seems like, in our minds, that's kind of a no-brainer. We understand that. I don't bow down to a statue of a deer, or a fish, or whatever. Many other pagan religions do so. But there is only one God, and he is to be worshipped. And so we look at this. This is, again, we're trying not to get too much into the what we should not do, but we'll get into that next time. But this is more about what does God command us to do? How are we to worship? And he gives us this, this is in a basic principle. And that is that the duty of, our duty is to worship God as he commands. It's a matter of how he commands. not as how we want to worship him. And that's a key distinction. That's the basic principle of the second commandment. We are to love God how he commands. And there's basically two competing thoughts. The reformed view is that we are to worship him only as he commands us. That's it, that's all. And then the opposite side is, well, that means whatever is not commanded is therefore forbidden. And so unless he specifically tells us what we are to do, then he is, that's the way we are to worship him. That's the way we are to honor God. And the opposite side, the non-reformed view tends to be, well, we'll do what's commanded and we'll add some things. will do what's commanded and things that are not neither commanded to or told to abstain from, we can mix those in. We can attach other things that we like. And then there's the opposite side of that coin is that only what is expressly forbidden is not to be done. But that can encompass a litany of things. There is, I mean, we can make up all kinds of fanciful stories of how we, the Bible doesn't say anything that we shouldn't bow down to our televisions. It's not in there. So does that mean we should? That's the question. which view of the commandment are we going to take? Are we going to do expressly and only what God has commanded us to do or are we gonna take it to our own side of this and do what we want to do or what we feel is our expression to God? And that's something that is, I'm glad I had the opportunity to discuss this because I've watched this in my life be an issue. I grew up in an Arminian church, as some of you know, that it was all about what you feel. Worship God how you feel. If I don't feel, if I'm not worshiping, I don't have an emotional response, it's not a good church service. And so you're always chasing that emotional response. You're always chasing that, well, I didn't feel like I worshiped the Lord today because I just didn't, I didn't feel it. I still have siblings that are in this camp that are, well, we just can't worship that way because it's just, it's too dry, it's too hard, it's hard to sing, or it's, I don't feel it. And I keep pushing back on them and saying, who are you worshiping? Is this about you? Is this about, or is this about God? And as this second commandment, God gives us commandments, we are to obey him, we are to worship him as he has appointed us to do. It's not the other way around. We can't just make up our own stuff as we go along and say, well, now I need smoke machines in the worship service. I've been to services that literally have them. And we promptly left. Is this about me? Is this about my entertainment? Am I not entertained? We get caught up in that. We've all stumbled in that way. We can stumble that in every church across America because we like to feel that whatever that is. And something so that we know that this gets twisted. It's something of a controversial issue. If you wanna split a church, you just mess with the worship. It shouldn't be that way. But all throughout the churches that I've been through, it's a divisive matter. And God is clearly outlining, no, this is my commandment to you. And as it specifically speaks to the images, we'll get into that, like I said, next week, but this is how we are to worship. It's the question that we need to ponder. Do I need to feel good about the worship or is this my obedience to God? Is God's pleasing, is our worship a pleasing aroma to him? And that's something that we all have to judge because we're gonna sit in our seats and think to ourselves, well, I just, I don't like that song. I don't like that way of doing it. I don't like having just a piano. I mean, there's quite, like I said, there's a litany of extra rules. Jordan mentioned there is 1,200 rules that the Pharisees added to scripture. We like to do the same. We add our own little rules to what we see as worshiping. And so we see that message played out across all of the different churches, but we need to focus, what are we doing? How do we, we need to look at ourselves and ask ourselves what, are we honoring God with our worship? Is my worship of God about me and how I feel or about him? And so we see this view in a lot of different ways. The views that things are commanded by God constitute only a small part of what is considered to be true worship. We see this taken even steps further as we go not just worship but into the sacraments. There are other churches that add a lot more sacraments than two. That's not in scripture. God has not commanded other sacraments. There is baptism and there is the Lord's Supper. There are not more. But because it has not been expressly stated that it's not a sacrament, well then we can add to it, leave room for more to be added to it. We need to add to our worship. And so we can look in this as a, a basic principle is, I guess, the best way to put it. And that God has not given us a long list of possible things we ought not do. The Bible would be very large if that was in there. So he gives us a basic principle of how we are to worship God. Not a list of thou shalt not, thou shalt not, thou shalt not, thou shalt not watch TV on Sunday, thou shalt not go do this on Sunday, thou shalt not do that. Worship the Lord your God. And apply this principle as to what has he commanded. We can't go wrong if we do what he has commanded. We go wrong when we add to it. We add to God's commands. In our own sanctimonious self-righteousness, we think we can do better. But if God has simply said, here, this is how you are to worship me. It's not a complex issue. He's made it straightforward. He's given us psalms. He's given us songs. He has allowed us to be, it's made plain to us. But that's the simplistic part of it. It's not a complicated matter. It's not a complicated thing that we need to try to, add more to what God has had to say. The graven image thing can kind of go even further. What does a church need to look like? Does it need to have stained glass? Does it need to have a steeple? Does it need to have a big cross up in front and back behind the pulpits? Most churches have that. Is it, are we adding to that? Do we need a physical representation of something so that we can worship God better? And God is clearly in this commandment saying, no. You don't need something else to make yourself worship me. I am enough. He is enough of what we need. We don't need a, an icon or I sometimes struggle with people that like to wear crosses around their necks and don't really know what that even really means. Are we looking at that? I often see that as possibility of that being a graven image. I'm worshiping God because I have a cross. Well, you don't need that. God is enough, we are to worship him in spirit and truth. We don't need an icon, we don't need an effigy, we don't need a statue that we can direct our worship through. That's the common feeling is that, and Christians, we don't do it as ostentatiously as, I don't know, a big golden calf. That seems, that's easily wrong. We know that to be wrong. But we do it in much subtler ways. We do it in much ways that are, again, we're recreating God and our worship of him in our own image. We're creating images for us to worship or to focus on God, if you will. And that's something that we're all in danger of. We can all get caught up in it. And oftentimes, and this is something that I've run into as well, is that Christians in a church that just simply sing the hymns, sing the psalms, maybe just with a piano, or even just a cappella, some of them. And there's almost an inferiority complex that we have about worshiping him. A lot of we don't have the smoke machine and the electric guitar and the bass and the drums and the whole thing. And we feel like we are not as cool as those churches. We're missing the really upbeat tempo music. We're missing all the icons that are standing before us as we try to worship around the people that are performing for us. It was something that kind of challenged me one time. I went to a secular concert. It was a... concert where it's just, yeah, it was a country music, Kenny Chesney was the guy. And I remember feeling convicted because it was, all of the music was directed to create emotion. I was like, I was tempted to want to worship the music, to get into the mood. And then I realized, this is not godly worship. Why am I tempted to worship this? It's because the music is set right. It's geared towards our emotions to give us an emotional response. I was feeling moved because of the way the music was set. It wasn't trying to be a godly thing, of course, but I felt like that was a lot like some of the churches are doing. That we want that feeling of being moved by the spirit or by the Lord as he's directing our worship. And that's a dangerous path to travel. Because I've heard it many times said, we'll walk away from a church service, and it's just like, oh, the worship just wasn't there. I didn't feel it. And therefore, the whole church service was thrown out in their mental, emotional state. We reject it because I didn't feel it good enough. Because why? Is it our sinful response to our own desires, our own joy? we're worshiping ourselves in many ways. We are worshiping what we feel is God's best. But God is specific in how he needs to be worshiped. So, the reform view here is I feel like the best one. And it's a basic, the one basic reason why we worship is not that it is not commanded by God. What is not commanded by God is because we know ourselves to be sinful in nature. We recognize our total depravity. And that's a good, good thing. We recognize our inability to improve upon God's worship. We can't add to it. That is an arrogant stance before an almighty God when we are there saying, no, Lord, I can do it better than you can. Let this not be. Let this not be said of us. Let us not add to the worship of God, but only do what he has commanded us to do. When a man has a little appreciation for this truth, then he can maybe invent something to add to the Christian worship. And that's a sinful stance. That is our own sin rising up, our own flesh rising up saying, I can do it better. But when we come to singing and to worshiping God and how we are to worship him, we need to look to him and how we are to do it. Like I said, there is that dangerous inferiority complex that we're not as cool as the other churches. Be wary of that because it's attractive. That was one of my biggest problems with the church that had the smoke machine specifically. It was attractive. I mean, I literally walked out of there feeling entertained. because I like myself, and I like to feel what I wanna feel. And it wasn't anything about God. It wasn't drawing me closer to him. It's the same way that I would not try to love my wife in a way that she does not appreciate, or to love my children in a ways that they don't appreciate. Why would I do that to my God? Why would I worship him in a way that, in another way that he doesn't appreciate, is not pleased with, does not want to hear, and probably most likely wants to spit it out? I've seen that in churches all over the place. This second commandment here, that would be to, It's an interesting connection as I was studying this. Notice the second part of question 49. It says that thou shalt not bow down to them, thyself to them, nor serve them, for I am the Lord your God. I am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generations. This is the commandment that iniquity is transferred to children. This is the commandment that God has put his warning here, that this is about our children. And I was pondering, now that's an interesting thought. Well, why didn't God put that passage at the end, after the 10 commandments? No, he added it to this commandment, that he visits the iniquity of the fathers to the third and fourth generations. Well, why is it placed here? Why is it placed now? And the answer is back to how we are to love our God with our children. Maybe we as adults can interpret and reject the notions that come at us that are, oh, that was heresy, that was inappropriate worship, that was, I could take the church that I went to with the smoke screen and reject that knowing that, yeah, that's just wrong. That's not the way to do it. But when we worship God in a different way, our children pick up on it. Our children, all children, love to be entertained. We and children don't have that same filter that as adults that maybe we do to say, oh no, that's not right. They start to follow that path. then they start thinking that church is about them and about their joy and about how much they like the service and how much they are entertained by the service and not truly about God. And we're all guilty of it. And like I said, by training and growing in maturity, we do learn to understand and differentiate what is right and what is wrong. But I find it very interesting. that this is the passage that talks about those sins of the fathers transferred to the children. And we see that lived out, don't we? How the church has changed even just in the last 20 years, much less generation to generation. we see a changing of scripture in the way that we are worshiping God. It's getting more upbeat, it's more getting peppier, getting more electric guitars and drums and all the instruments and it's all entertainment. Why do we think that to be the case? God hasn't changed since he wrote this. We have. Our culture does. It's always trying to evolve itself into the church. And the church is oftentimes, regrettably, going along with it. Not allowing God's true and right worship to be rightfully done in church. We almost need to maybe swing the pendulum a little bit the opposite way and say, if you walk out of a church and where you feel like you've got nothing out of the worship, you might be right. Because maybe you'd worship the Lord your God, and he was pleased with that worship. That should be enough for us. That should be enough for us to say, I worship the Lord my God today. I did not worship myself, I did not. That was not the point. That's not the reason I am worshiping in church, is for my own enjoyment. This is for the Holy God, the King, our King and Lord. And we start to think that somehow we can, like I said, this comes back to we're trying to reinvent it. And why, I don't know the specific, statistic off the top of my head, why are children leaving the church even though they were raised in it? When they become old enough to accept the Lord and to follow Him in their own adult way, in their adult status, they're departing. It's some crazy, terrible, crazy number. It's like 80% are departing from church when they're old enough to do so. That startling statistic should be a warning to all of us. That should be a cautionary tale, like what are we doing in our churches to cause our young ones to depart when they are free to do so? This is a hard thing. This is a hard thing. I think it comes back to this commandment. When church is an entertainment, And then when it's not an entertainment, then they leave. When it ceases to be entertaining, they leave. Because they've never been taught true worship. I mean, maybe there's many other factors, I'm sure, that are incorporated into that. But true worship is about God, not about man, not about me. So that second question, what is required in the second commandment? The second commandment requires receiving, observing, and keeping pure and entire all such religious worship and ordinances as God hath appointed in his word. So boiling this all down to one sentence, What God has not commanded is therefore forbidden. What God has not commanded should be forbidden. We should not go there. We are to worship God the way he's set it down, where he's written it, where he's directed us, where he's commanded it. I think on the many, music choices that come on through the Christian radio stations. We have quite a few of them in this area. I'm not sure that's a good thing, or I think it might be a bad thing. I like to play with my kids as a spot, as we listen to a Christian music song, spot the heresy. See if you can find it. Trying to help them to think and listen critically. There is a lot of bad doctrine presented in really catchy songs. they've found really good, and they roll off the tongue really nicely, and you start to believe them. Children start to believe them. And so I almost, would almost caution to be careful more of Christian music these days, because they're getting, those Christian thing, those Christian songs, they're coming in, they're getting incorporated into worship, That's the same one. I hate to keep belaboring the point of that one church that has a smoke machine. We sang stuff that comes on the radio that's been written in the last five years. I mean, it was, we were singing the stuff on the radio as if it was a holy psalm written down by God, as that was somehow worship. May it never be. Our children are entertained by it. We are entertained by it. And if we are truly standing for a holy God, His piercing eyes into our worship. He is meant to be worshiped. He is there to be worshiped. He's created us to worship Him. We are to give God the glory for all things in our lives. We are there to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. But we often, like I said, we can twist that. I do want to open that up for thoughts and questions, if anyone has any.