biblestudy: The Commandments (Part Three)

Idolatry, Part Three
John W. Ritenbaugh
Given 30-Jul-88; Sermon #BS-TC03; 78 minutes

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The last two times that I spoke, I was talking about the keeping of the first commandment, which has to do with the worship of the true God, who is the Creator, the Sustainer, the Ruler, and Provider of this universe, and as I was trying to emphasize to you, the Source of a way of life that we call Christianity.

My concern, at least at this point, is mainly with the effect of wrong worship. One effect is that without the true worship of the true God the standards, the ideals of conduct in morals and ethical areas and in spiritual areas, is left totally to human experience which we find, of course, is very limited. It is fallible, and perhaps worst of all, very selfishly lived.

Now we are going to go back to Romans the first chapter because there is a verse that I want to pick up there and provide a basis for this beginning of the second commandment. As you understand, what the apostle Paul is showing there in Romans the first chapter is what happened when the world rejected the true God as the Source of a way of life, that is, they rejected Him as God.

Romans 1:23-25 and [they] changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man—and birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things. Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, to exchange the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.

Now down in verse 28, which is the verse that I want to begin with really.

Romans 1:28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting.

The King James says that God gave them over to a "reprobate" mind. What I find even more interesting is the first phrase in that verse, "and even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge." That is not really what it says in the Greek there. What it says in the Greek is that mankind put God to the test. Is that not interesting? Puny man put God to the test, put the Creator to the test, and they found that God, the Creator of the universe, did not measure up. Can you imagine that? He did not measure up, He did not fit within the parameters of what they thought that God should be like.

And so what God did is very interesting—He gave them, you and me, a mind that is void of judgment. If they did not have enough judgment, enough common sense to be able to see that the true God, the Creator, was a God that was fit and able to be worshipped, then He would just give them over to that kind of a mind. Which He did.

Now, my concern is that it is this mind which He gave us over to which is responsible for the creation of society out there. I do not care whether it is a Japanese society, a Chinese society, an Indian society, a Russian society, American, European; whether it is an African or South American society, all of them are based on a mind that is reprobate, on a mind that is void of judgment. And what God is, of course, concerned about in the Bible is not a mind that cannot judge between physical things. Because it is very obvious that man is able to make judgments in regard to the physical laws. We have been able to go to the moon, have we not? We have genius in technological areas that we have used to a very great extent.

But when it comes to making a judgment on the use of those things, then we invariably put it to an immoral use. When it comes to making a judgment as to how to use our understanding in regard to relationships with people, then we almost invariably make the wrong judgment. When it comes to making a judgment in regard to spiritual things, that is, in regard to God, we also invariably make the wrong judgments.

So we have, then, very great technological possibilities and capabilities. We are able to do marvelous things, but we cannot get along with one another. And the basic reason—it is broad reason, but nonetheless it is a reason—is that God has been left out. He has not been retained in the area of relationships, either with Him or with other people. What has resulted then begins to be listed in verse 29.

Romans 1:29-32 Being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful; who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but also approve of those who practice them.

I read an interesting quote of a man by the name of Gaudet, who was a writer of a number of years ago. And I think that it really hits the nail right on the head. "Such as you make your god, such you will make yourself." And that hits the nail right on the head because we have to respond to something. There is something in us that drives us to worship. We will show veneration, adoration for something. And in our efforts to show that adoration and veneration, we will mold ourselves to the image that we feel is worth responding to.

Now contrast that to Jesus Christ in John the 5th chapter. Jesus is defending Himself from the accusations of those who claimed that He was taking too much on Himself. He says in verse 30,

John 5:30 "I can of Myself do nothing. As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is righteous, . . .

Compare that to what God says about man in Romans 1. Man has a mind devoid of judgment, of proper and right judgment. But Christ claims that His judgment is righteous. Now here it comes,

John 5:30 . . . because I do not seek My own will but the will of the Father who sent Me."

There, if we can put it in a nutshell, is the secret of Jesus. Not ever breaking the first commandment or the second commandment or the third commandment or the fourth commandment or the tenth commandment directly. He did not seek His own will. Put that in the back of your mind. Maybe it would be better to put it in the front of your mind because this is the key to not committing idolatry. He always submitted to the will of the Father regardless of the cost to Himself—that He was willing to sacrifice, that He was willing to humble Himself, He was willing to yield, He was willing to submit, He was willing to bow down before any command that God gave in His Word. And in so doing, it left out the opportunity for any kind of idolatry because He never sought His own will. He always sought the will of the Father.

In chapter 7, verse 16, Jesus in this chapter is at the Feast of Tabernacles. And again He is answering accusations that have been made against Him. It says that,

John 7:16 Jesus answered them and said, "My doctrine is not Mine, but His who sent Me."

His teaching was not something that He dreamed up. He got it from the Old Testament. He got it as a result of His fellowship with God. He got it as a result of His prayers, of His study of the Old Testament, of His meditation on God's Word. And then He submitted to it and then He taught it to others. And so the doctrine, the teaching is not Mine but His who sent Me.

John 7:17 "If anyone wants to do His will, he shall know concerning the doctrine, whether it is from God or whether I speak on My own authority."

It is very interesting there in verse 17. This phrase that "if anyone wants to do His will" is not just a casual reaching of a decision, but rather the Greek shows that it is something that is laboriously thought through. That one has considered all the factors that one is able to gather regarding whether one should go in this direction or whether one should go in that direction and then one makes a choice to go in the direction of God rather than to submit to either to nature or to the persuasions of others.

So what we are talking about here is not something that is just casually arrived at but something that is carefully considered and thought through and a choice is made to go in that direction in order to avoid the idolatry that is inherent in following the carnal self. So if anyone wants to do His will, he shall know! There is the result. The effect of going in that direction will be to know truth, to be able to discern it, not because it is simply something that is written in a book, but because of experience one is able to arrive at clear understanding and discernment regarding what is right and wrong.

John 7:18-19 "He who speaks from himself seeks his own glory; but He who seeks the glory of the One who sent Him is true, and no unrighteousness is in Him. Did not Moses give you the law [Now look at this next phrase, it is almost astounding in the light of the people to whom He is speaking.], yet none of you keeps the law?"

In the United States we could say that and feel very confident that what we are saying is right. If we just pick out one commandment; the Sabbath commandment alone trips almost everybody up. When we begin to get into ramifications of that commandment, say in regard to the holy days, that eliminates even a lot more because there are some people who obviously keep the Sabbath like the Seventh Day Adventists, but they do not keep the holy days. But yet that is directly attached to the fourth commandment. But in Judea, in the first century, "none of you is keeping the law." It is an astounding statement! He says,

John 7:19-20 "Why do you seek to kill Me?" [The answer is interesting and it shows that these people were guilty of the very thing that Christ was accusing them of.] The people answered and said, "You have a demon. Who is seeking to kill You?"

Do you understand, brethren, that they could not even read, understand, discern their own murderous intents? And the reason is given in verse 17, they were not doing the will of God. Whose then were they doing? Now if they were not doing the will of God, were they guilty of idolatry? The answer, of course, is yes. They were doing the will of some other god. Do you see the effect? The effect was to be unable to discern clearly between right and wrong as shown by the fact that they did not even understand their own murderous intents.

John 7:24 "Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment."

How can any man know the truth if he is in contact with the wrong source? If he is in contact with the wrong source from the very beginning of his life and if that wrong source has been a reprobate mind. And if that wrong source has been a mind devoid of judgment. Not just one mind, many minds, all that it took to create this culture that we call the American way of life. It gets pretty scary.

Please turn to Jeremiah 25, beginning in verse 5. Just preceding this, Jeremiah was giving how long that he had been preaching in Jerusalem. If you want to figure it out, it turns out to be 23 years that he was speaking in Jerusalem and Jeremiah was not the only one. It says in verse 4,

Jeremiah 25:4-6 And the Lord had sent to you all His servants the prophets, rising early and sending them, but you have not listened or inclined your ear to hear. They said [here is what the prophets said], "Repent now everyone of his evil way and his evil doings, and dwell [Live abundantly, multiply, spread out, be prosperous] in the land that the Lord has given to you and to your fathers forever and ever. [Here is the problem] Do not go after other gods. . .

Were they bowing down before a leering statue of Molech? It is possible. Were they using a statue of Diana of the Ephesians or of Artemis, of Aphrodite, of Mars, of Jupiter, of Zeus? A possibility. You see, we are not there. We are concerned about the good old USA, 20th century, 1988. What about you and me? How does this apply to you and me? Do we have other gods before us? Is God sending out a witness to the United States of America? Is God sending out a witness to Israel? And is He saying, maybe not directly these words, "Turn you from your gods"? You better believe that He is. Look what we have produced. Remember what Gaudet said? "Such as you make your god, such you will make yourself."

Is the United States of America like the God that is described in the Bible? Or the United States of America like some other god? What have we made ourselves into? That is the question. Do we need to turn from other gods?

Jeremiah 25:6 Do not go after other gods to serve them and worship them, and do not provoke Me to anger with the works of your hands.

Oh, that is interesting. Is it possible that the gods that we worship are the works of our hands? Yes, just was like it was anciently in Israel with the Philistines, with the Canaanites, or the Babylonians. Now what they apparently literally made were statues of something that they used to worship their god. Now somehow or another we have become convinced that we are not idolaters because we are not bowing down before a statue.

This is where the second commandment begins to come in and why understanding the spirit of the law is so important. Where was the source located from which they made the statue that they used to worship? The hands actually made it, but the ideas, the creativity came from out of the mind. So what the hands made, the mind formulated before it ever hit a drawing board or before it ever became a manufactured item. Now with that kind of an understanding there can be gods by the millions, by the billions for every person because every person has the potential of creating a god in his own image. So we possess the capability of carrying a god with us wherever we go. It could be the wrong god.

Jeremiah 25:7 "Yet you have not listened to Me," says the Lord, "that you might provoke Me to anger with the works of your hands to your own hurt."

These works of their hands was something that came from their own minds. It did not come from the mind of the Creator God. What is so terrible, deceitful, about idolatry in its modern sense, especially, is part of the nature of idolatry itself and that is that the damage is not readily apparent. If we have a false god, nobody hits us over the head with a blackjack and gives us some pain to make us think a little bit. That false god may be very comforting to us, at least for a while. And usually what happens is that the damage that is done by idolatry comes so much later than the actual act itself that it is very difficult for a person to make the connection between the act of idolatry and the pain that he is now beginning to feel.

So all too frequently we will blame the pain on something that has only been the effect of the real cause, which was the idolatry that started the ball rolling.

Now the effect of breaking commandment number one is to break number two. Because once a person is no longer worshipping the Creator, something else has to be put in its place. And that something that man will worship is himself. God gave them over to a reprobate mind.

In Isaiah the 40th chapter, beginning in verse 9; we are just going to kind of skip through this chapter. It is addressed to Zion.

Isaiah 40:9 O Zion, you who bring good tidings [that makes it very clear that Zion is the church, the one who is preaching the gospel], get you up into the high mountain; O Jerusalem, you who bring good tidings, lift up your voice with strength, lift it up, and be not afraid; say to the cities of Judah, "Behold your God!"

Can you remember what the work of Elijah was back there in the books of Kings? What was Elijah doing? Elijah was revealing to the Israelitish people the true God. And that is what our responsibility is as well. So He sends out encouragement and warning.

Isaiah 40:10 Behold, the Lord God shall come with a strong hand, and His arm shall rule for Him; behold, His reward is with Him, and His work before Him.

It says that He is like a shepherd in verse 11. A very gentle shepherd, and yet a shepherd who is also very powerful and capable of tremendous destruction. Now verse 12 begins a man's conception of what God is like. Even this is limited but it is the best we can do and so God has included it in His Word. They are ideas, they are concepts rather than actual specific identification of what He looks like.

Isaiah 40:12 Who has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand, . . .

Just to give somebody a little inkling of an idea of the magnitude of the power of that great God. Anyone who is familiar at all with the oceans and the size of those oceans, and yet the psalmist here, Isaiah, this is poetry by the way, is telling people that this God is so great by comparison to the oceans that He can hold it in His hands. Now he is not talking about literally, he is trying to give us ideas of the magnitude of His greatness.

Isaiah 40:12-14 . . . and calculated the dust of the earth in a measure? Weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in the balance? Who has directed the Spirit of the Lord, or as His counselor has taught Him? With whom did He take counsel, and who instructed Him, and taught Him in the path of justice?

He goes from area to area to show that the God, the source of this way of life, the God who is the Creator is over and above anything that man can come up with in a variety of areas.

Isaiah 40:15-16 Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket [All those people, billions of them.], . . . He lifts up the isles as a very little thing. And Lebanon [with all of its trees] is not sufficient to burn.

Isaiah 40:18 To whom then will you liken God?

What is your answer to that question? What is your image of God? What is He like in your mind's eye? What does God want you to know about Himself so that you can carry with you that image wherever you go? And that is the image, as it were, that you always consult in every aspect of your life, the One that you bounce things off, the One that is the guide and sets the standards and the ideals for your life. What is your image? What would you compare Him to?

Now verse 19 begins a scathing indictment of the weakness of an idol that comes out of a man's mind. How a man has to actually make it. Now this is literally what they did.

Isaiah 40:21-22 Have you not known? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is He who sits above the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants are like grasshoppers.

If the inhabitants are like grasshoppers compared to God, what, pray tell, is a God going to be like that a grasshopper comes up with? You can see the sarcasm dripping from Isaiah's pen. The best man can do is to come up with an image of himself. There is nothing greater in the mind of man than himself. I am talking about carnally, apart from God. Can we honestly say that a god that is made, that has to be carried around by the one who made it is greater than the man who made it? That is ridiculous.

Isaiah 40:25-26 [he asks the question again] "To whom then will you liken Me, or to whom shall I be equal?" says the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high, and see who has created these things, who brings out their host by number; He calls them all by name, . . .

He says, look at all the stars in the heavens. God not only created them, He put them where they are. He set them in their courses, and He knows each one of them by name, and there are, according to estimates, billions times billions times billions of stars that are out there in the heavens. You know, when you look up in a perfectly clear sky somewhere out in Texas where there is no moon you can only see about 6,000 of them. Do you even know the name of 6,000 people? God knows the names of quadrillions of stars. Probably all the little planets He has got going around each one of them too.

Isaiah 40:26-27 . . . by the greatness of His might and the strength of His power; not one is missing. Why do you say, oh Jacob, and speak, O Israel: "My way is hidden from the Lord, and my just claim is passed over by my God"?

Brethren, the natural mind cries out for something to help it to worship God. But nothing in man's imagination can measure up. So anytime that a man begins to come up with some sort of a concept of a god that he wants to worship, there is going to be an inevitable result. I am just going to give you one scripture back here in Psalm 78, verses 40 and 41. There is going to be a predictable effect take place.

Psalm 78:40-41 How often they [meaning Israel] provoked Him in the wilderness, and grieved Him in the desert! Yes, again and again they tempted God, and limited the Holy One of Israel.

Whenever a man tries to come up with some kind of a concept, a symbol, an image of what God is like, because of man's very limited mind, because of his limited experience, because of his carnality, because of his selfishness, God is going to be limited. And as a result of that, people are going to live the kind of life that we saw described there in Romans the first chapter. How can a person really trust the god that he has made himself? It is an impossibility. It cannot be done.

Back in II Timothy, let us tie this back into you and me.

II Timothy 3:1 [Paul tells Timothy] But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come.

We are in those days. So Paul gives a rundown of the hallmarks of those days and it looks like one is reading the front page of the Los Angeles Times. Now in verse 5 it says,

II Timothy 3:5 having a form of godliness [in the end, mankind would have a form of godliness, but that godliness would be marked by something] but denying its power.

God will be limited. If God is limited in His power in any way in the mind of a man, then that man is not going to trust that God that he is worshipping. And when push comes to shove, there is going to be a breaking of the law of God. Would you deny the power of God? Us? Brethren, that is idolatry. Do you limit God in such areas in your life as healing, childrearing, your marriage? Is God able to save, deliver, provide salvation? Can you truly and honestly say that you are giving of yourself wholeheartedly in any of those areas? Are you really striving to be obedient to Him, not seeking your own will like Christ. He did not seek His own will. But God responded and blessed that Man.

Are you afraid that God's way will not work? Are you afraid that if you try it, you are going to get hurt? How about tithing? Is that a problem? Are you fearful that it will not work? And then you show that fear by refusing to humble yourself in faith before God enough to try it.

You know what we are talking about here is the real basis of idolatry. Other than ignorance, it is that self-willed man refuses to surrender himself to worship God in the way that God has commanded. Worship is our response to God and that occurs every day. It is not something that is limited to the Sabbath. Worship is our response to God. And you are worshipping God when you use His childrearing plan or His marital approach, the kind that is given in this Word. That occurs every single day.

Now back in Exodus. Let us go right to the commandments.

Exodus 20:4-6 "You shall not make for yourself any 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 generation of those who hate Me, but showing mercy to thousands [that means thousands of generations], to those who love Me and keep My commandments."

This commandment does not apply to sculpture, per se. It is alright to do a sculpture of a man, a woman, a thing. But it is not alright to make a sculpture, picture, statue, carving, engraving, or whatever that is going to be used in the worship of God.

Now some do not perceive the difference between the first and the second commandments. The first commandment stresses the uniqueness of the Creator God, the Creator who is the source of truth, of right values, of standards that will produce right relationships. The first commandment deals with what we worship. Now God is someone who comes into our life from beyond this physical realm. An idol is something that we make and assign a value to.

The second commandment covers a specific area of idolatry. It covers God's spirituality. We are to worship God in spirit and truth, according to John 4:24. Spirit having to do with two aspects. It includes something that we might call enthusiasm, something we might call zeal. That is, throwing ourselves wholeheartedly into the worship of God with sincerity. It also covers worshipping God by the means of or through the Spirit of God. That additional aspect is very important because without it, we are going to very quickly and easily fall into idolatry and the effect, then, is going to take us away from God. And then of course the truth aspect of it is pretty much evident.

The second commandment covers the way we worship. The first commandment covers what we worship. The second commandment covers the way. God does not want to be worshipped through something else. So we have to worship Him in spirit and in truth.

Now of course the most obvious aspect of this commandment is that it deals with the use of physical helps or aids in worshipping the invisible, spiritual God. So the second commandment then prohibits the use of anything which represents God or could become an object of veneration. It prohibits any kind of likeness of Christ or the Father, however we might consider Him to look. Anything like crucifixes, pictures. How many people do you know that have pictures of Christ in their home? Halo over His head, light shining from the back of Him. That is not what He looks like. Nobody knows what He looks like. That picture is a lie! It gives people a false image of God to carry around with them.

Turn with me to Deuteronomy 4, verse 15. Deuteronomy 4 is like a preamble to the giving of the Ten Commandments a second time in Deuteronomy 5. But Moses is speaking.

Deuteronomy 4:15-19 "Take careful heed to yourselves, for you saw no form when the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire, lest you act corruptly and make for yourselves a carved image in the form of any figure [not just a man's figure, any figure, he stretches it out here]: the likeness of male or female, the likeness of any beast that is in the earth or the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the air, the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground or the likeness of any fish that is in the water beneath the earth. And take heed lest you lift your eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun, the moon, the stars, and all the hosts of heaven, you feel driven, . . .

You notice that? Man will worship something. God is warning here that every man has the capability of creating his own god. It is not just those heathens over there. Every man has the capability and when we begin to understand the spirit of the law and that God wants us to worship Him in spirit and in truth, this begins to get very personal because we can carry an image, a false image of God wherever we go. We do not have to carry a leering statue with us of some kind of Buddha. That thing came out of a man's mind anyway. Might be a little more difficult to remember if you have to carry it around in your memory, but it is there nonetheless.

Deuteronomy 4:19-20 You feel driven to worship them and serve them, which the Lord your God has given to all the peoples under the whole heaven as a heritage. But the Lord has taken you and brought you out of the iron furnace out of Egypt to be His people, an inheritance, as you are this day.

But you understand that regardless of what a man would make would be a lie. When God gave the pattern for the Tabernacle first and then the Temple after that, there were no representations of God at all. Even the original instructions regarding the altar were that that altar upon which the sacrifices would be made was to be made either from simple turf, just like you would rip sod off the ground, and stack it up and make an altar on which you would offer an animal. It was either made out of simple turf or it was made out of uncut stone. You see, the idea of being altar, a place of worship, a place of sacrifice, a place a person comes to commune with his God, the inference is inescapable that God is saying that everything man touches, he perverts, he twists it, he makes it dirty. Spiritually, I am talking about. And that if God was going to be worshipped, it was going to be with truth, with stones that were not cut. Something that a man had not put his hand to and ruin.

Now Numbers the 33rd chapter. We are receiving instructions here regarding the taking over of the land of Palestine.

Numbers 33:50-52 The Lord spoke to Moses in the plains of Moab by the Jordan, across from Jericho, saying, "Speak to the children of Israel and say to them: 'When you have crossed the Jordan into the land of Canaan, then you shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you, destroy all their engraved stones, . . .

The word in English means any resemblance, any portrayal. And if you have a King James, I believe they have the word "picture" there. That is not wrong. They have defined it a little bit more specifically, but it certainly would be included within the definition of that Hebrew word engraved stone, any resemblance, any portrayal, any memorial.

Numbers 33:52 . . . destroy all their molded images, and demolish all their high places.'

Again, this is meant in a religious sense. It does not mean a statue that had nothing at all to do with the worship of a god and those things are certainly permissible by God. Now any representation of God changes God into a different God from what He really is. This is where the damage begins to be done. It changes God into a different God from what He is because you are beginning with a lie; you saw no form. Nobody knows what He looks like. If God wanted us to know, He would have told us. But the fact that He did not tell us makes it obvious that He wants us to concentrate on something else, because He has not withheld any good thing from us. We do not need to know what He looks like.

Now consider the people to whom he was speaking here. They came out of Egypt. The Egyptians worshipped, among other things oxen, heifers, sheep, goats, lions, dogs, cats, monkeys, the ibis, crane, hawks, crocodiles, serpents, frogs, flies, scarab beetle, sun, moon, planets, stars, fire, light, air, and darkness. Now if you were able to talk to Mr. Joe Egyptian, he could probably come up with good reasons why he was worshipping those things. I am talking about good carnal reasons. Now I know this is true because I have had contact with enough people to know that when you ask them a question like, "Have you come across the truth regarding Christmas?" And once in a while we will get somebody that says, "Well, yes."

One time I was visiting a young man and I asked him that question. But he went a little bit further than just the yes. He said that he did not bow down to the Christmas tree, therefore he could not see anything wrong with it. Now he did not understand. Do you? Do you understand what is wrong with the Christmas tree? It is not in the shape of a man, is it? And besides that, the young man said he did not bow down and worship it. Well, that sounds plausible.

Now the bowing down and worship is actually covered by the first commandment which stresses the uniqueness of the Creator God. But the aspect that this young man did not understand falls within the understanding of the second commandment. Now if the young man were actually bowing down to it, then that was what he was worshipping, covered by the first commandment. We are talking about the commandment that covers the way a person worships. What does he use as the connection between him and God, between him and what he is worshipping? We are to worship in spirit and in truth.

Let us go to Exodus 32, the very famous the event that took place in the wilderness when Israel made the Golden Calf.

Exodus 32:1-5 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." 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." All the people broke off the golden earrings which were in their ears, and brought them to Aaron. He received the gold from their hand, and he fashioned it with an engraving tool, and made a molded cap. 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 the Lord."

Now, these people in the beginning were not really asking for another god. What we see here is a chain of events that got away from them, and from Aaron especially. I think it is well documented that these people did not like Moses. They did not like him as their leader. They were jealous of him and indeed, were raising all kinds of trouble against him.

Moses went up into the mount to talk with God and he was gone for a good while so that these people were becoming impatient about standing where they were doing nothing. Now remember this because this happens to you. What happens to you, brethren, whenever you are involved in a trial and this trial begins to go on much longer than you think? And that your leadership seemingly has gone way off somewhere and has left you alone to your own devices. What do you begin to do?

Well, these people did what came naturally. Motivated by their impatience, they decided that they needed a new leader and that any leader that could make them a new god was a man who was going to be worth following. So they went to the one that they picked as being the most likely prospect, Aaron, and they struck gold the very first time apparently.

Now Aaron's problem appears to be that rather than take a strong stand and say, No, God is on His throne, Moses is up there with Him, Moses will be back and things will remain as they are," it looked as though Aaron decided that he was going to mollify them and put them off and so he told them to give up something that was very precious to them, both from a vanity standpoint as well as a monetary standpoint, their jewelry. It did not work because these people were in a sacrificial mood and so they sacrificed their gold. And now Aaron's hand was forced. And so he made them a representation of what was the most common god in Egypt, a bull.

Can you see the sin here? The sin is that in their efforts to get a leadership driven by their or motivated by their impatience, they came up with a god that defined, that changed the nature of God completely, from that of Creator to something that was created. From that which they could not control to an animal, a god that they could carry around and control their destiny with. No longer were they going to be under the thumb of that God who always did inexplicable things and was beyond the realm of their thinking. Now they had something they could control. Why, they could carry it around with them if need be.

What is so interesting is that they were going to use this god to worship the God who had brought them out of Egypt! At least that was Aaron's intent. Because Aaron said, "Tomorrow is a feast to the Lord," not to the bull, not to Apis. That was the bull's name, Apis. But tomorrow is a feast to the Lord. They were going to use the thing in the worship of God.

Now, is that not in principle what the Pope does? Not this particular Pope, but it has been done through the years. The Pope is just a general title. He collects the gold from the people. He makes crucifixes, statues, idols, Madonnas, whatever you want to call it. He says that these things are only to keep God in mind. See, that they are a means of conveying these people into the presence of God. But it is the same principle. It will not be long before that which is associated with God becomes God. Do not the people pray to the Virgin Mary who the Bible says is dead? Is there not an image in people's minds of a weak Jesus, naked, showing the anguish of a painful death, hanging on a cross? What image, pray tell, of God do they carry around with them?

It is interesting that in this case here in Exodus 32, the people said it is a feast to the Lord. God said, you are worshipping it. Well, that is the same principle that is involved with Christmas. The image changes the god. It makes God, the true God, less than He actually is. It begins to limit Him immediately. God says he wants to be worshipped in spirit and truth. He does not want anything between us and Him. We can come directly into His presence through the work of Jesus Christ. These people corrupted themselves by defining God's nature to their own ends to get a leader.

Now go with me back in the New Testament to Mark the 7th chapter.

Mark 7:6-7 "This people honors Me with their lips [Jesus says], but their heart is far from Me. In vain do they worship Me."

You see that. In vain do they worship. He does not deny the intent is to worship Him. But it is in vain, it is useless, it is futile, it does not add up to anything. It is not accomplishing a thing. It is not doing anything for them in terms of the purpose that God is working out. It does not fit in with the building of character, it does not fit in with developing the mind of Christ because lies are being pumped in, not truth.

Mark 7:7-8 "In vain do they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men. For laying aside the commandment of God, . . .

Mankind has laid aside the commandments regarding the holy days and instead inserted the commandments of men regarding Christmas and Easter and Halloween. All kinds of things of that nature that they have substituted for what God has in His pure Word.

Mark 7:8-9 "For laying aside the commandment of God, you hold the tradition of men—the washing of pitchers and cups, and many other such things you do." He said to them, "All too well you reject the commandment of God, that you may keep your tradition."

The traditional holidays are done in God's name, but He is not in them. He is in what He established, and mankind is making an eternal witness of their stubbornness, their pride in rejecting the commandments of God to hang on to things that have nothing at all to do with the God of the Bible. You can find here in many other places that Jesus just joined battle with all those man-made supplements[?] the Jews had put in in their day. These people's outward appearance, the reason He called them hypocrites, belied what they really were. They were not really committed to God. If they had really been committed to God they would not have had to do those things that are mentioned there, the washing of pitchers and cups and the rejection of the commandments of God.

Now listen to this: the traditions distort the law of God. They distort the law of God, and thus they distort the image of God, because the law is a description of God's character and that is the image He wants us to carry and follow. Christmas distorts what God is. The focus is on the mother and the baby and the giving of gifts and the parties and whatever else is connected to it. And that distorts the law of God and the law is a description of God's character and thus the image that God wants us to carry with us of Him is distorted as well.

And so Christ, just in this example here, He repudiates every addition, every subtraction, every distortion because it is distorting the image of God.

Isaiah 1:13-16 Bring no more futile sacrifices; incense is an abomination to Me. The New Moons, the Sabbaths, and the calling of assemblies—I cannot endure iniquity and the sacred meeting. Your New Moons and your appointed feasts My soul hates; they are a trouble to Me, I am weary of bearing them. When you spread out your hands, I will hide My eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not hear. Your hands are full of blood. "Wash yourselves" [and so on].

Notice the contrast (I think it is in the King James), it says here in the New King James too, verse 14, "your New Moons." They are put in contrast to His. It may very well indicate that what God is saying here is that man feels free to good and well worship God as he sees fit and to substitute anything, and yet do it in the name of God, a la (Exodus 32), a la Christmas, or Easter. That breaks the second commandment because it is distorting the image of God even though it is sincerely done in the name of God. And that image, of course, is going to distort and change our worship.

Let us consider something for just a moment here. Let us suppose that what he is talking about in this section really is not some day other than what God has commanded. Now traditionally we in the church have interpreted that your New Moons as being something akin to Sunday worship or worshipping on Christmas or Easter. But what if it is not? What if it really is the Sabbath that He is talking about? What if it really is a holy day? Trumpets is a new moon. He mentions not only that but also the appointed feasts.

It is interesting that the context here indicates crowds of people, all of them in a festive attitude as though they are going there with all of their hearts. And yet God is saying that what they are doing with all of this festivity and with all of this sincerity, as it were, is worthless. That their holiness was all a sham. Is it possible that that could happen to you? Your attendance at the weekly Sabbath, your attendance at a holy day, that your attendance at the Feast of Tabernacles might be worthless? That your attendance there is really not worth anything at all?

It is also interesting when you begin to consider this in a much larger context, if you would follow it all the way through chapter 2, you would find that these people even had what we would have to call a repentant attitude, a contrite spirit. But it was all aimed in the wrong direction. It was not aimed at the true God. If it had been aimed at the true God, they would have changed. If they had aimed it at the true God and they had changed, then God would not have reason to call these people down for what they were doing. Their spirit of contrition, their spirit of repentance was still aimed at the false gods. And so it rendered null and void the keeping of the holy day or the keeping of the Sabbath, which may very well indeed have been the true Sabbath or a true holy day.

I get the picture here that they were doing essentially the same thing in Isaiah's day as they did in Exodus 32. They were calling it a feast of the Lord and God was saying, "I'm not in it. That's not aimed at Me. You're not worshipping Me in spirit and truth." What was God's evidence? Despite the fact that these people were attending services, even if it might have been a true Sabbath or a holy day, God shows in the rest of the context that these people had the morals of an alley cat. Their eyes were hot with lust. They had fortunes that were built on greed and on crime. They were envious, they were murderous, deceitful, stingy. They were filled with hate and they were gossiping, and yet on the Sabbath, they appeared before Him as if everything was okay.

What kind of a God permits that kind of worship? Certainly not the God of the Bible. Remember, worship is what we do every day, not something that is restricted to the Sabbath. Worship is our response to God. People show up on the Sabbath and they look good in their clothing. They have a smile on their face. But during the week they turn away from God. God is showing that He is more concerned about relationships between people than He is about a scrupulous regard for the keeping of a formal worship with Him. Brethren, worship cannot be separated from character and attitude. And, you see, He is showing here that we cannot fool Him.

Let us go to chapter 2 in Isaiah beginning in verse 5.

Isaiah 2:5-7 O house of Jacob, come and let us walk in the light of the Lord. For You have forsaken Your people, the house of Jacob, because they are filled with eastern ways. [That is interesting in the light of today and the Oriental religions that are flooding into the United States of America.] They are soothsayers like the Philistines, they are pleased with the children of foreigners. Their land is also full of silver and gold, and there is no end to their treasures.

You know what He is intimating there? What He is intimating there is they became wealthier and wealthier, but they forgot their need of God. That the wealth deluded them into thinking that everything was okay. "The deceitfulness of riches" is what Jesus called it back with in Matthew, Mark, and Luke with the rich young ruler. What were they worshipping? It was money. That was what was getting their time and attention. They were not concerned about their relationship with their neighbor, they were bowing down to serving their god, which was money, which was power and prestige.

Isaiah 2:7-9 Their land is also full of horses [automobiles, trucks, means of conveyance], there is no end to their chariots. Their land is also full of idols; they worship the work of their own hands, which their own fingers have made. [Can we update that from the leering idol to technology? Certainly we can.] People bow down, and each man humbles himself; therefore do not forgive them.

The next several verses tell us what God is going to do. Verse 17 is important because it shows a source of idolatry.

Isaiah 2:17-18 The loftiness of man shall be bowed down [It is pride which results in stubbornness and independence from God.], and the haughtiness of men shall be brought low. The Lord alone will be exalted in that day, but the idols He shall utterly abolish.

So here we have a listing in Isaiah 2 of all kinds of idolatry and what ultimately causes it, and that is pride.

Let us recapitulate here just briefly. Number one: The most obvious form of idolatry is the worship of a false god using a material representation. Now this is in the light of the second commandment. So I think that we could show historically that the idol did not begin as a god but rather as a symbol of a god. But it is not long, historically speaking, before the symbol is actually worshipped. And the actual making of the symbol is done in order to make the worship of God easier. We have got to remember that. Worshipping God in spirit and in truth is not the easiest thing in the world especially when one considers the drive that we have within us to see God, to see a representation of Him, and then we try to make a representation and we are led astray.

Number two: Some have deluded themselves into thinking that as long as they are sincere, that they can adapt Christianity to almost any practice. And so things like Christmas and Easter and Halloween and mind science and the worship of institutions or society, but what these people are doing is that they are creating their own religion and they are distorting the image of God in so doing. They have created an image in place of the true God.

Number three: (we have not even discussed this all). And I want you to turn back to Colossians 3. Now this third one is a direct breaking of the first commandment. But because the first commandment is broken, it affects the way we are worshipping and therefore also impacts and breaks the second commandment.

Colossians 3:5 [Paul says] Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.

Well, this has very sobering ramifications. Covetousness is an unlawful desire to get. It could be power, it could be money, it could be praise, it could be a feeling that we want to get. Now the person who desires to get things has set in place a god other than the true God. And the reason is because he will bow down and worship that thing in the biblical sense. He will give over his mind, his time, his energies in the accomplishment of that thing to the exclusion of the true God. That is why covetousness is idolatry.

Let us go to Ephesians 5, back a few pages. Now if a person gives over his mind, his energy, his time, his devotion, his adoration to the accomplishment of something other than or to the exclusion of the true God, idolatry is created.

Ephesians 5:5-7 For this you know, that no fornicator, unclean person, or covetous man, who is an idolater, has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore do not be a partaker with them.

The essential nature of idolatry is selfishness. Even with the pride, the stubbornness, those things are all spinoffs of the selfishness, the desire to do our own thing.

Now the young man that I mentioned earlier in regard to Christmas knows the truth, but he does not understand what bow down to or serve means in the biblical sense. It is within the pages of the Bible. The definition of this word or the usage of the word begins with the meaning "to bend the neck." You see, as one would normally do in adoration or, let us say, in worship or in prayer. To bend the neck or the waist. So it means then, reverence, worship, give assent to, submit to. That is what you are doing. You are submitting to the one that you bow your head to and that bowing of the head is the outward recognition of submission to.

Serve means to work for or promote the interest of. It is used in these contexts in the Bible. Work for, promote the interest of, aid, help, obey, wait upon, satisfy the requirements of. The ramifications of this are almost endless because it could involve every other commandment. We just began to touch on this in the other two sermons that I gave to you, where Paul very obviously, like in I Corinthians the 10th chapter showed that series of five or six sins of which the Israelites were guilty of in the wilderness, were summarized by him telling them to flee idolatry because every single one of them was an extension of their own will to the exclusion of God. They were going to do what they wanted to do regardless of God's will. They had set themselves in place of God. They were worshipping the self. That is the essential nature of idolatry. It is to impose one's own will against the will of God.

Now suppose we ask God for something that He has promised, something very good, like prosperity. He tells us that if we tithe, for example, why, we can be prosperous and it is something that is not only good but something He definitely wants us to have. Now if our desire for the thing, prosperity, power, whatever, becomes greater than the desire to submit and to obey God regardless of our appearance, we will find some carnal means to satisfy that desire. It might be fornication. It might be adultery. It might be stealing. If the circumstances are right, it might be murder. But we will impose our own will over and against the will of God and we are in effect worshipping ourselves because that is what we are submitting to. That is what we are bowing down to. That is what we are serving.

You remember Abraham, what he did? God promised Abraham, "I'm going to heal your body and you're going to have a son. Not only your body, but Sarah's body." They laughed about it. What happened when they became impatient, brethren? The impatience did not show up until 10-12 years later and there still was no child, no heir for Abraham. And so what did Abraham do? The father of the faithful got to the place where his impatience drove him to take Hagar and produce an heir, a son by means of that relationship. He imposed his own will on God. God was merciful with them and showed him, no, that was not the way. It was not the means. It was not going to be done according to the way that Abraham decided. It is going to be done God's way.

Let us go back to Jeremiah again in chapter 17.

Jeremiah 17:5 Thus says the Lord: "Cursed is the man who trusts in man. . .

That is, the person who puts his trust in a carnal means. He turns aside from God's way. He shoves God's law, God's will, God's purpose out to the side and he decides he is going to do it his way, the carnal way, trusting in man.

Jeremiah 17:5-8 . . . and makes flesh his strength, whose heart departs from the Lord. For he shall be like a shrub in the desert [all puny and scrawny, talking about in an overall sense that person is not going to prosper], but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land which is not inhabited. Blessed [though] is the man who trusts in the Lord, and whose hope is in the Lord. For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters, which spreads out its roots by the river, and will not fear when heat comes; but its leaf will be green, and will not be anxious in the year of drought, nor will cease from yielding fruit.

Now here is where that very famous verse appears in the Bible as to what gets us to circumvent the law of God and commit idolatry by exercising our own will against the will of God and failing to submit, bow down, serve Him.

Jeremiah 17:9-10 "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it? I, the Lord, search the heart. I test the mind, even to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings."

Brethren, the motivation for idolatry, or really for true morality, comes when we discover that we want something forbidden and we have to make a choice. There it is, right there. There is the crux of the issue. Can you remember right at the very beginning of the Bible, God shows this. "Has God said, 'You shall not eat of the tree?'" and immediately Satan jumped on that point because he knew that he could stir up the man and the woman in regard to something that was forbidden by the law of God. And so they exercised their own will and the first commandment they broke was the first commandment and then right after the second commandment, because they interposed their own way and their own will on God. Because the fruit was too great for them to resist.

All you have to do is substitute the other commandments there, and the principle is always the same. I do not care whether it is fornication, stealing, lying, murder, or whatever it is. The question, of course, is: Who are we bowing down to? Who are we submitting to? That is what we are worshipping. And the image is in the mind. It does not have to be a leering statue. The young man who said he was not bowing down to the tree? No, he was not literally bowing down to the tree, but he was submitting to the god who created Christmas. And it was not the true God.

We will finish with I Corinthians 6, beginning in verse 9.

I Corinthians 6:9-12 Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards [covetousness is idolatry], nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God. [So Paul says that] All things are lawful for me [it means all lawful things are lawful], but all things are not helpful. [even lawful things are sometimes not right to do] All things are lawful for me, but [here it is] I will not be brought under the power of any.

Paul was not going to allow himself to be brought under the power of any desire of his body or mind. He was not going to interpose his will or the wills of others who were putting pressure on him over against the true God. That he was going to try to do with all of his might what Christ did, to submit his will to God completely and totally. Because that was the only way that he could be free of idolatry.

Brethren, we need to understand this and to work hard at making sure that our desires are controlled and that they are not driving us to interpose our will against God and thus be guilty of changing the image of the Almighty Creator.