Numbers 33:51-52

This command is only intended for things involving the religious worshipping of whatever it was that they happened to call god. Every representation of God changes into a god that is not really God, because it is a lie. When Israel was in Egypt they worshipped these things because they were in that land and it was part of the culture. I am not saying that every Israelite did this, because there were obviously some who did not, and they still were worshipping the true God. But the Egyptians worshipped oxen, heifers, sheep, goats, lions, dogs, cats, monkeys, ibis, cranes, oxen, crocodiles, serpents, frogs, flies, beetles, the sun, the moon, planets, stars, fire, light, air, and darkness, and probably others that I could not find a representation named.

Do you know what? Because we can understand what carnal nature is like, these people could come up with good reasons why they did it. When I say "good," I mean it seemed logical to them, and to those who were doing the same thing.

I mentioned in my previous sermon—the one on the first commandment—of a man telling me in an email that he did not care whether the Bible said to not do as the pagans do through the worshipping or the use of Christmas and Easter, because he was going to do it anyway because, as he justified it, "It is my way of worshipping God." To him it was perfectly justifiable because he wanted to do it that way. So it really did not matter whether God wanted it or not. This was the way he was going to worship God. He justified it by quoting Luke 2 about the angels proclaiming joy that the Savior was born. That was his basis for it.

Here is the essence of this: Idolatry denies the nature of God, and thus obedience to this commandment determines the way one will worship. It must be in spirit and in harmony with His nature—the truth that the Bible reveals. Thus knowing God's true nature is important, because what we worship we become. That is a truth. What we worship we become, and this is why we absolutely must seek God, so that we will have truth to use in our worship of Him. This commandment covers idolatry in a form in which the true God is worshipped either in an image or an idolatrous practice, and thus perverting the reality through a false representation that if we idolize, we become the wrong thing.

Numbers 33:50-52

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.

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.