0:00 Exodus chapter 20 beginning in verse four. You shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and to the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commitments. Pray with me. Lord, we look to you tonight, and we agree with the psalmist who said, if your law had not been my delight, I would have perished in my affliction.
0:55 I will never forget your precepts for by them you have given me life. And Lord, as we explore your word, may it heal those that are afflicted. May it comfort those who are in need of it. May you convict those that do not know the standard to which you have called us. May they realize that it is for their good and for your glory.
1:19 And Lord, as we continue to explore this text, we're asking that it would change lives for the glory of the name of your precious son, Jesus Christ. And so we ask that your word would be delivered and would be shared under the power of the Holy Spirit. And we ask that, again, Jesus would be the name on every person's tongue in this night. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.
1:43 You may be seated. The 10 commandments, the very law that was spoken out of the mouth of God and the very instructions that were written by his finger on tablets of stone. Yet we understand that in the new covenant, we relate to this law differently. We must understand that this law is no longer written on tablets of stone, but they are written on the the tablets of our hearts. I said they are mere more than just merely things that we read from the outside in, but they are something that we experience from the inside out.
2:28 This is what happened in the transaction of the gospel. This is what happened in this thing called the born again experience. This heart receives something, and that is the law of God written upon it. And so that every beat of that heart beats with a desire to obey this God, to walk in his ways, to love him. And so we no longer run from this law.
2:58 We no longer try to find loopholes with these commands. No. We run to this word to find life and instruction and peace and to know the God that we've put our faith in. And so we explored a couple weeks ago the understanding of the first commandment and how it is much deeper than just having other deities that we claim as Lord. No.
3:25 No. No. It's anything that we have more devotion and love and desire and passion for other than Jesus. And so a god can be anything. You name it, it can be a god.
3:41 In fact, it's it's more than just something or someone. Colossians three five tells us that covetousness, that we are not to covet which is idolatry. That you and I can even come to a place where there's this strong desire for something or someone, and that desire alone translates into idolatry. Because that desire, that longing as we just sang about, that thirsting belongs to God alone. He commands and asks that we have that longing for Him.
4:20 That searching and that meditation for him. And anything that takes that place, anything, anything, anything that tries to dismiss Him from that place of primary status is an idol. Anything that tries to take our obedience away from Christ for the sake of personal gain is an idol. And so we have to understand as we examine our hearts that this is far greater than just a statue that has some foreign name to it. It can perform some sort of benefit.
4:57 Now it can be your phone. It could be your boyfriend, your girlfriend. It could be your house. It could be your job. Jesus himself said, you can't serve God and mammon.
5:08 You can't serve money and God. I demand complete exclusivity. And if you think that this is some Old Testament concept, does anybody in here know how the book of first John, that epistle written by the apostle of love, the one who gives us this wonderful truth that God is love, Do you know how that book ends? Does anybody know the final verse of that book? If you know it, please say it.
5:38 Little children. Yes. Do not give yourself to idols. This wonderful, blissful epistle warns us at the end of idols coming into our lives. Because though God is love, he asked that we love him and that love be exclusively given over to him.
6:03 And so we read the second commandment. And if you read it, it just seems like it's the first one repeated or it's the first one given with more detail. I mean, isn't not having any other God the same as not making an image and worshiping it? Not necessarily. In fact, we're gonna explore that in a moment.
6:26 But let's see what this verse says in the immediate sense. What does he say here? You shall not make a carved image of anything where? In heaven, on earth, or in the water beneath. It's covering every sphere of life.
6:43 It's covering every area physically we're talking about here. Is God against art? Is God against paintings? Is God against things that we portray concerning nature and things that he has created? Is that what this verse is talking about?
7:03 We have to understand what a carved image is. What is a carved image? Statue? Okay. Well, is God against statues?
7:16 These are the physical things, but there's an understanding of what this is. What is the purpose of creating these things? Worship. A carved image. A graven image.
7:26 This is in the original language, an idol. And so the understanding of this command is that you shall not make anything of any sort, of any creature, of any created thing for the purpose of worship. And so there there's a fine line there because God himself in just a couple chapters is gonna ask the very same people to create something called what, the tabernacle, and there's a lot of imagery in the tabernacle. In fact, there are cherubim that are created. And so there's a fine line here.
7:59 It's not just creating any image, it's creating an image for the sake of bowing down and worshiping it. And this is what the people of Israel walking into as a nation because their neighboring nations worship their gods this way. They had these statues, and they had these images, and they had little gods so small like, remember Rachel who took her gods, her father's gods, and she sat on them? And so there were different sizes, and different colors, and different deities, and and different things, but they worship these things. They served, they sacrificed, they performed acts of worship before these images.
8:39 And God's like, I don't want you to worship me the same way that these people worship their deities. And so we have a more specific understanding of this idolatry concept, but it begs the question again. What's the difference then? Why not just mesh the two commandments as one? Does anybody know the difference between the second and the first?
9:03 What's the distinct feature, detail there that makes this a separate command? Yes.
9:14 Is it like you're making it with your hands? The first is you have the god, but the second one is you you're making it with your
9:21 Yeah. That's that's essentially where we're going here. The first one is kind of adopting any god. The second one is making it, sure, but that's kind of just the first step into it. There's a little detail in the text that gives us an understanding of why this is such a grave sin.
9:35 But yeah, that is an understanding. You can't God made us in his image. We have no right to make him in ours. Right? And that's that's the trail that we're trying to go down here.
9:46 What's so different about this command?
9:51 Evan. You're altering what you're worshiping, that you're altering. So like, you have this image of God of, like, what you have in mind, but like it's drifting away from, like, god's actual standard, what's actually written.
10:03 Yes. That's that's another element of it as well.
10:09 The first one is you shall have no other gods. This one is making a god. Yes. Distinctly, this is, like, no god, like, before god himself. But then there's the next one is creating something in replace of him.
10:28 Sure. Absolutely. Yeah. So it's it's not just like we said, it's not just following other deities. It's making your own deity, making something and worshiping it.
10:38 Absolutely. Yes. That's the clear obvious command. But let's look at it again. Look at the realms that are being targeted.
10:47 It says any likeness in it. So just like we've been made in the likeness of God, we can't this says no other gods. Don't have any this is specific idols that you were talking about. Money could be likeness of god. Don't don't put your faith.
11:05 Don't put your open that or don't put anything in that. Don't make it seem like that's meaningless.
11:11 Sure. Absolutely. So don't attribute these things to God.
11:13 He said the realm. So when the first commandment says, yes. You have no other God but me. You would think heavenly God, like, a higher power. But then in this one, he gets specific.
11:23 Not even things that are you see on earth or that you see anywhere. Mhmm. You can't make them in as your God.
11:29 Yeah. We're treading on that line.
11:31 I was gonna say taking the things of God, like his creation, and returning that into the God itself.
11:38 Right. Worshiping the creation rather than the creator, Romans one. Sure. Yes.
11:43 Oh, and also, like, since God created us in his own image, we shouldn't, like, play his role and create something in, like, Earth's image. Like, we're just making ourselves God really.
11:57 Okay. Yeah. There's a sense there in trying to create something. And and it's not necessarily that creating anything is wrong. It's when we worship what we create.
12:07 I was thinking, like, for the first verse, bringing people into that sin of, like, making them make, like, worshiping you pretty much as an idol. And the second one, you pushing yourself that way, like, worshiping the idol. So, like, bringing people into your sin Mhmm. And then sinning yourself.
12:25 Yeah. So we're all everybody here is touching on on the right things here.
12:31 One, we don't know what God looks like. And two, elsewhere in the Bible, it says please please images that you make don't talk. They can't move. They don't breathe.
12:43 You you you got it in the first statement. Let's let's look at this verse again. You shall not make yourself a carved image. Just stop. He doesn't want a portrayal being made here.
12:54 See, in the first one, we understand that God can be anything. Your future can be your God. We discussed this a couple weeks ago that people are so consumed with their own life that they're even afraid to ask God for his will because what if God wants me to go in a different path and I have this passion? Do you see how a future, your future can become? So it's not just a physical thing, but here he's saying, I don't want no tangible physical thing to be made.
13:17 Of what? Of anything that is in heaven above, on the earth beneath the water. Right? What's in heaven? That includes God himself.
13:32 The first commandment deals with not worshiping false gods. The second commandment deals with worshiping God in a false way. Pay attention. The first commandment deals with what we worship. The second commandment deals with how we worship.
13:59 And what God is saying here in this plain text is yes, don't make something. But he's also saying because he's included in the heaven above, don't make an image of me. Do not make a depiction. Do not make a portrait trying to illustrate me. So he's including himself in this.
14:25 He's saying, I don't want you to step into that arena where you begin to try to limit me or bring me into a specific thing as a representation of who I am. So we understand that. He's not just talking about making something and worshiping it. He's also saying, don't try to take me and make me into some representation of who I am and worship that. So then it begs this natural question.
14:54 Why? Why is that a sin? Why is it a sin to to I'm worshiping God, and all I'm doing is just taking Him, and I'm trying to make a picture of Him, an image of Him, and worship that in light of Him. This is gonna help me worship Him. This is gonna stir my affections for him.
15:11 And God says, no. You you you can't do that. You you can't make a carved image, not just of other things, of myself. Why?
15:23 How does it dilute him? It does dilute him.
15:25 Because your image because you're limiting it. Human human minds, human beings can only have such a limited view of God. So, like, if you're trying to corner him to, like, some, like, four by eight painting or frame, you know, you're limiting God. I mean, we can't comprehend it. We can't comprehend his fullness.
15:41 Absolutely. Yes. A few other hands came up. Yeah. I think
15:45 just like Glenn is saying, going a little further than that, people think that when they do that, if you say it's like an expression of love or something like that.
15:51 But what they're really doing, the more you do that, the more you're like,
15:54 I guess, they said limiting. Well, you're you're taking, like, something divine, you're making it earthly, you're bringing him down to earth, and you bring him to your level, essentially.
16:02 Yes. God would not be seeing physicality until the incarnation. Sure. Absolutely.
16:10 When you think about God in revelation, how he depicts him, you see angels with eyes all around him, and when they see different dimensions of him, they're singing holy, holy, holies. Even the angels can be confident of that he is. So the thing that an image would take all that and it's just
16:27 Absolutely. We're all on the same plane here. Yes.
16:29 It's not set apart, like, unlike the nations that were around them, they all had carved images and tangible gods, but our god is different, and he doesn't want to be like the other gods.
16:41 So he just wanna lower himself to the same way once again as these other pagan nations were worshiping their gods. Here are four reasons why this second commandment is important concerning God and making him into some carved image or limiting him in a sense. Number one, it defiles his character. This commandment defiles his character. Why?
17:00 Because it defiles his nature. What did Jesus say about God when he spoke to the woman at the well?
17:07 To worship him in spirit and in truth.
17:09 To worship him in spirit and truth. Why? Because in the verse in the phrase before that, it says, God is spirit. God is spirit. First Timothy one seventeen, when when Paul gives those bullet points of the attributes of God, one of them is he's the invisible God.
17:26 You can't perceive him. You can't see him. And so what do we do when we try to bring him to a place where we can see him? It begins to mar his image. It begins to defile him as a person, the Godhead.
17:43 And so we're we're trying to take somebody who is invisible, who clearly tells us that you can't see him, and we're trying to make him visible. Now none of us in here, I'm sure, would like anybody to portray us in a certain way. Imagine someone did a character of character of you, and it was completely different than who you really were. That would be offensive to you, especially if you put it online or something. What if somebody took a picture of you and begin to Photoshop it and made you look like something that you weren't?
18:10 It's not accurate. And so God is saying, don't do that to me because nobody knows what I look like. I'm I'm invisible, which is something hard for us to understand. I know we're gonna get into the incarnation in a minute, but God is saying, don't do that. Look what Paul says in his sermon.
18:27 By the way, there's gonna be a lot of scripture here. It's a Bible study, so you're gonna the whole purpose of Bible study is for you and I to receive these verses to sharpen our understanding of this sword, this weapon that you hold. And so that by every Friday at the end of the service, your arsenal of truth would be filled just as much as it was last week. So hold on to these verses, flip through these pages, highlight, do all that stuff. Acts seventeen twenty nine.
18:52 Look what the Lord says through Paul in this amazing sermon. At the end he says, being then God's offspring, he's speaking to he's speaking to Gentiles. And he's saying that we are in a sense God God's offspring, not his literal children that comes through faith in him, but the fact that we are created by him, brothers and sisters in humanity. He says, being that in God's offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. It's plain right there.
19:33 Don't try to limit God to his substance. Don't try to equate him with immaterial. Don't try to even put him on some kind of an image or something. Why? Because he's not.
19:44 He doesn't even come close to that. And when we try to do that, once again, it defiles his character. Secondly, it limits our understanding of him. If someone even wants to try to express who God is through this by making something. The moment you make it into something, make God into some visible thing, once again, it limits our understanding of who he is.
20:14 How can you take the omniscience, the omnipresence, the omnipotent power of God and bring him to a place in which it's in this thing? What is that saying about him? What is that saying of his character, of how he works? The moment we try to bring him into something, we cut off something else of him. And if we can try to limit him in his appearance, then that's the first step in which we limit in what he can actually do.
20:46 That's the danger. You limit his appearance. You limit him what he looks like. Now you're about to limit him into what he possibly can't or can't do. See the dangers with flirting with this idea.
21:00 So God says, you know, I'm so powerful. I'm so beyond what you can understand that the moment you try to understand me or try to make me into something where you can sense me, You're bringing me to a place where you're limiting me, and you're limiting my understanding or your understanding of who I am. Thirdly, the image that we create can become the object that we worship. The image that we create can become the object that we that we worship. So what can initially be something in which we would want to stir our affections or make us come to a place of revering God and meditating upon who he is can over time become the very thing that we worship itself.
21:48 Is that possible? Are there actual examples of that today? Absolutely. It not only can become something that we worship, it's something that can become superstitious. And we've begun to hold on to these things and see these things in a way in which it has some kind of supernatural power in our lives.
22:11 I know this sound and it may sound silly to some people. This is very real in people's lives. Yes.
22:17 I'm just trying to ask. Do you think people have seen the cross like that?
22:21 Absolutely. I can give you many examples of that. What can become an expression of God's love, the cross, can once again become a token of superstition. I've actually seen people who hold on to the cross because they've or put the cross in their car and let it hang over the mirror because it has oh, if you do that, it's gonna protect you from car accidents. You've you've associated God's protective power to some material or a painting of Jesus in your house so that no burglars come in because Jesus is on the wall, and he's gonna watch over those guys.
22:55 See, this becomes superstitious. Now we put our hope in that and not in the omnipresence of God and not in who he is as a person. And so these things can become objects of worship. And we become dependent upon those things for the source of our spirituality. People can become dependent upon paintings and different things to stir our hearts to perform a certain act of worship.
23:27 Is this not true with the Israelites? Remember when these serpents came because of their sin and were biting them and killing them, God asked Moses to take what? A bronze serpent and to elevate it. And for those who were to look at it would be healed. Because by looking at it, it was an act of faith.
23:44 And it was a picture, fast forward to John chapter three, of the cross. That those who would look upon the cross and the one, the snake represents the curse. Jesus was cursed on our behalf and he hung there. We look to him by faith. We are healed from the venom's poison.
24:02 But you read in second Kings later on, that very thing that Moses created by the instruction of God became a thing of worship. They literally began to worship that actual image. So they saw that thing as a sense of power and that source of deliverance instead of God. And God's a jealous God. We're gonna learn that in a moment.
24:25 Lastly, it's an act of disbelief. It's very human of us to wanting to see something and sense something and observe something to stir our faith. When god wants us to trust in his word and trust in what he has said, what did first Peter one eight say? Though you do not see him, you love him. And though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory.
25:01 So you don't see him. You don't see him, but you still love him. And you still have this joy because you know what's to come. The outcome of your salvation is at hand, the redemption of your souls. And so part of the practice of making an idol is to satisfy this innate desire to see, to believe, and to feel, to understand.
25:26 And in a sense, it's an act of disbelief, and God wants us to live by faith, not by sight. Jesus himself said to Thomas, who doubted, hey, you you you believe because you see me. Blessed are those who do not see and believe. That's all of us. Now God can visit people in dreams.
25:44 Jesus has visited people, and it's an amazing thing. But we're not called to live by that kind of a lifestyle. We're called to live by faith, not by sight. And so there's a natural question out of all of this. Right?
25:59 What about images of Jesus? Because we're hearing all this and we're saying, don't make an image of God. I got a painting at home. What do I do with it?
26:15 know. I think it's a bit different because, we're not painting the picture of the, like, the god. We're painting a picture
26:24 of Jesus the human. Father, Jesus incarnate? Yes. Yes.
26:26 We're painting picture of Jesus the human, which is possible that we saw we saw him. Like, people actually saw him. So it's, like, kind of relevant.
26:43 I have a hard time with a picture of Jesus or a statue of Jesus or whatever. Because exactly what you said about to you start when you're praying and you're thinking of Jesus. I think of that image, of that picture. So I am limiting also Jesus and he is God. So I feel the same way.
27:04 I don't think it's it's any different.
27:08 Only reason why I'm addressing this is because this is a possible thought that would come from hearing this command, and so it's appropriate to be able to address it. And let's just let's just understand what the scripture reveals. It reveals very little about Jesus even in his humanity. We get little details. We we understand he has a beard.
27:27 They pulled his beard. We understand how he dressed. But once again, when we try to depict him and really the only clear from head to toe description we get is Revelation one. And it's not really a picture that you wanna probably hang on your wall. I don't know if you wanna have guess overs and seeing Jesus with eyes of fire and feet like bronze burning grass.
27:49 And so it it's also we're training on that area of, well, you don't know what he looks like anyway. So what what are you painting? And what do you and then the other side of the argument is, well, he came in humanity. He actually came in flesh, so we can have an idea of what he looks like. All in all, I don't wanna debate about this too too too much, but I want I want us to understand that we gotta work with what the word of God gives us.
28:14 And if it did not put the effort in revealing who Jesus was from head to toe, it's kind of once again, it's that idea of trying to make something accurate when we don't have the information to make it accurate. And we don't have and so if we do that, then how do we know which one's right? Right? How do we know what it look like? Does that does it come to the place where it affects the way you worship?
28:38 That's where it gets dangerous. And so it's the long debate throughout the years of what do we what do we do with the crucifix? What do we do with all of that? Can that be can that be used in a church setting, in a home setting? Listen, I don't wanna once again go too much into that.
28:53 I think it's more important to understand not doing this concerning the Lord. But anything that we need to stir our affection or stir our faith or to bring us to a place of even having a greater sense of reference, it goes beyond just a physical thing. And we're now flirting with this second commandment, and we gotta be careful. So that's all I'll say. How did Israel break this command ultimately?
29:18 We all know the famous story. Which story? Golden calf. Golden calf. So I want us to read it and get get the understanding of how they came to this place in Exodus 32.
29:29 Let's go to verse four and five. So they wanted to make this idol. So what did they say? They come to Aaron, they say, make us gods. And he asked for their gold and silver.
29:44 In verse four, he says, and he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a grain and tool, and made a golden calf. And they said, these are your gods, oh Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt. When Aaron saw this now look how Aaron reacts. When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it, then Aaron made a proclamation and said, tomorrow shall be a feast to the lord. What is happening here?
30:10 Well, we know that they broke the second commandment and the first commandment. And I believe that Aaron, understanding this, he does not he's not stupid. He's not he does not dismiss the lord completely out of the scene, but he associates the lord with this golden calf. You see that? It says, tomorrow, we feast.
30:33 We make a feast unto the Lord. And he's associating this golden calf with him. And that can be interpreted in so many ways, but I think one way is that you have officially brought god down to that level. And you've brought this calf to his level, saying that this calf delivered you and will lead you through the wilderness. And in Psalms one zero six nineteen, it says that they worship a metal image.
30:59 So they worship the actual thing. And I believe do you know how the Israelites came to this point? I believe that they came to this point because of verse one. Verse one says, where's the lord? Or where's Moses who is a representation of god?
31:16 Where's Moses? What's happened to him? And because they didn't see their leader, they wanted to make an idol. Because they didn't sense him, they didn't sense his leadership, they didn't sense his guidance anymore, they now move towards making a physical image to satisfy, again, that unbelief in their hearts. And so, they create this idol.
31:40 And guess what? When you and I try to create an idol in our lives, it's not just something that we worship in the immediate sense. It actually affects the way we live. Because you look at verse six and what happens? What happens in verse six?
31:55 And they rose up early the next day and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings and the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play. So there's a principle there. They created an idol in such a way that would satisfy their flesh. And that word play wasn't board games. It wasn't video games.
32:20 The Hebrew word means sexual misconduct. It was a mess of sexual immorality. And so you know why people create idols today? Because Because they're not satisfied with the living God, and they wanna create something that will satisfy this flesh. This flesh.
32:45 And so that's what I wanna transition to right now. Because we look at the second commandment and we go, that's fine. That's just like the first commandment. Oh, no other gods before me? Jesus is Lord.
32:56 Praise be to his name. And we look at the second commandment commandment, we go, don't make a brave image. That's fine. I know that God is spirit, I don't have to depict them in a certain way. But listen, to break the second commandment, you don't need metal, you don't need wood, you don't need tools, you don't need an altar, you don't need a painting.
33:17 All you need is your mind. Is your mind. Because it goes beyond just worshiping something. And it goes beyond just worshiping an image of the true God. God.
33:36 It goes to the place in which you try to create God to be something that he's not. And so there are many people today who make very loose statements, not realizing that they are actually expressing idolatry. And so there are people that would say something like, well, God to me is, Or God would never do that. And the moment they begin to make statements like that, and the bible contradicts those statements with a certain truth, every time they say those things, they are just carving an image of who he is that's not true. They are adding something something to who he is.
34:33 They are removing something of who he is, and they are, once again, creating an image of God. And we said earlier that God created us in his image. We have no right to create him in us. So, maybe you've heard that, maybe you've had a conversation with somebody and they said, well, God to me is like that, God to me would never do this, God to me would do this, God to me would understand this. The God that I read in the bible doesn't
35:00 that. You have an idol. Because if it contradicts this word, you're just carving something that's not there. You're creating an image, and misconceptions of God produce false depictions of God, thus violating his true representation. I wanna I wanna just share with you five types of Jesuses that people have made.
35:29 Five types of Jesuses that people have made in their own image. Number one. And I'll I'm not gonna comment on these much. I'm just gonna give you scriptures. Scriptures that affirm that what these opinions are of God are not true.
35:50 The Jesus that would never condemn or judge sin, The Jesus that would never condemn or judge sin. Or Jesus that doesn't judge at all. John five fourteen, you don't have to turn there, you can just write these down. John five fourteen, when he heals a man who was paralyzed for eight thirty thirty eight years, you know what he says to him after he finds him? Listen.
36:14 Don't sin anymore unless something worse happens to you. In his act of compassion, he warns also. The woman caught in adultery, John eight eleven, what did he say at the end? He says, does anybody condemn you? No.
36:29 Good. Neither do I. Go and what? Sit a little bit? Sin no more.
36:35 Sit no more. You know what the apostle said in Acts ten forty two? Just he commanded us to proclaim, this is Peter, and to testify, what? That he, being Jesus, is the appointed one by God to be judge of the living and the dead. Hold on.
37:00 Not okay. So Jesus not only does, yes, judge sin if the things hurt is judged, not unless you be judged, but you just have to read a little bit little bit further. He's talking about judging rightly. We all know that. Don't judge somebody if you have a plank in your eye and you're trying to take a speck out of somebody else's.
37:14 So, if you're trying to judge somebody for a sin and you're struggling with that same sin, hold on, you got to deal with yourself. Do some self surgery there by the power of the spirit and then you have all the right to judge rightly. Okay? But then, he doesn't just say that. He says he commanded us to proclaim and to testify that he's gonna judge the world one day.
37:38 Preachers, you're commanded to preach this. Okay. We're not satisfied. Acts seventeen thirty. The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands that everyone everywhere is to repent because he has fixed a day by which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man, Jesus, whom he has appointed.
38:05 And of this, he has given assurance of all, and he has raised him from the dead. So this Jesus that people have created is a false Jesus because he is going to judge the world in righteousness one day. And he does call us to judge righteously, not in hypocrisy. And he does judge sin, but in love because he knows what's better for us. The Jesus that does not condemn to hell.
38:39 The Jesus that does not condemn to hell. There is this growing trend, the trend, and you've heard me say this already, that hell is just too gruesome of a font. It's too heavy of a doctrine. It seems contradictory to the fact that God is love. That hell cannot be a place where there is eternal torment day and night.
39:06 And so, there's this teaching even amongst evangelicals that says, what Jesus meant by eternal punishment is that when a man does not put his faith in Christ and steps into the realm of eternity, that punishment is that he is annihilated or destroyed for all eternity. They cease to exist. That is what hell is. That is what eternal torment is. Now if we wanna be consistent with that, how do we reconcile a verse like Matthew twenty five forty six?
39:42 Where these are letters in red and Jesus said, and these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life. So if eternal doesn't mean eternal, then is that true of eternal life as well? So eternal is not eternal, eternal is just temporary cease of existing and it's not pain forever and ever. So if eternal doesn't mean eternal for hell, does eternal mean eternal for heaven? Revelation gives us a very detailed picture, now what?
40:11 Please hear me. I'm not sharing these truths as though I am comfortable with the idea of hell. I don't think anybody can be comfortable with the idea of hell, so to speak. It's very disheartening. It's very heartbreaking, And it does not and should not bring us to a place where we point the finger at God and accuse him of anything.
40:32 It should all the more bring us to our knees to weep for those that are lost. Revelation fourteen eleven. And this so if if it's not if it's not eternal punishment, verse mean? And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night, these worshipers of the beast and its image, and whoever receives the mark of its name. What does that mean?
41:04 The Jesus that does not give the same Jesus says don't fear the one who can kill the body but can't kill the soul. Rather, fear the one who can destroy both body and soul now. Oh, well, the word hell means something different in Greek. Really? Whatever it means to you, that place is described as a place where there'll be torment day and night.
41:26 So Greek it up all you want. The Jesus that would ever come down to hell. Number three, the social gospel Jesus. The social gospel Jesus. And this is a growing trend as well.
41:43 Where Jesus and his teachings and Christian ethics are amplified to the point where it excludes other vital truths. And so, Jesus is all about the poor, Jesus is all about equality, Jesus is about the right laws in the land, Jesus is about coming to the needy and the broken and lifting them up to a place where they can live comfortably in this life and be treated justly and rightly. Jesus is about those things, but here's the problem with this social gospel, is that it deflates and belittles vital truths such as sin and salvation and eternity and the kingdom of God. You don't see Jesus while he walked on this earth holding protests, even peaceful ones. You don't see him going around trying to change the laws of the land.
42:37 You know what he was trying to do? Change people and bring them to a place where their hearts are transformed. With us, everything else would be transformed.
42:45 there's a lot of people that are trying to pull Jesus into the political movement. And listen, though he does care for the poor, though he does want us to judge justly and all these different things, the moment you begin to inflate that and deflate the other things that he actually came for, you're in trouble. You can't associate Jesus with a political movement or a party. His kingdom is not of this world. The social gospel Jesus, the tradition over scripture Jesus, the tradition over scripture, the millions of people that claim to worship Jesus, but make little of his word because they love their tradition.
43:35 And Jesus comes to those who held tradition so high, and he didn't speak the nicest words to them. What did he say to the Pharisees in Matthew fifteen three? He answered them, and why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? Is Jesus against tradition? Can we not have tradition and different practices?
43:59 Practices? The moment he begins to override scripture, you're in trouble. He says three verses later, for the sake of your tradition, you have made void the word of God. And some of us in here can testify because you've come from a background that made much of tradition and very live all the word of God. That is a false god.
44:27 God wants us to uphold his word above all things. And if it overrides your tradition, then so be it. Because your tradition is man made. This word is eternal. So there are those who are practicing their faith in the name of Christ, but are clinging on to even hundreds and hundreds of year old church tradition and Jesus says, no.
44:57 They were overriding the Sabbath, what the Sabbath truly meant, because to walk a certain amount of steps meant that you were working, if you spat on the ground and that you were fertilizing the ground, so you were working, come on. All these traditions. And in the name of God, and Jesus stepped on the scene and he did not say nice words, because they were making void the scriptures. The everything is supposed to go right in your life, Jesus. He wants you to be healthy.
45:31 He wants you to be wealthy. And if you're not healthy, and if you're not wealthy, you're outside of the will of God. Can you imagine you saying, I I I know this gospel. I've heard of it before. Sure.
45:47 Maybe you've heard on TV before. Bleeding people for money. Giving people false hope for the sake of monetary gain. This is what the word of God says in Philippians one twenty nine. So it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ, you should not only believe in him, but also suffer for his sake.
46:07 Suffer for his sake. It's been granted to you that you don't just believe in him, but guess what? That you're gonna suffer too. Fit that into your theology. Okay?
46:18 Here's another verse. What did he say in first Thessalonians three three? He's trying to encourage the Thessalonians, and he says, listen, that no one would be moved by these afflictions, For you yourselves know that we were destined for this. Your destiny listen. My destiny is to suffer.
46:42 I know God has a plan and God wants me to go somewhere for his glory. Praise be to his name, but I know that somewhere along the line, there's gonna be some persecution. I'm not gonna be comfortable. And in the very next verses of first Thessalonians three, he says, we told you this over and over and over and over again. So Paul, the Apostle, the great theologian, emphasized suffering in the Christian walk.
47:09 And we can go on and on about the all inclusive Jesus, the never angry Jesus. The whole point is this, is that when we begin to make him into something that he's not revealed in the bible, it's an idol. And so what happens? He says in verse five, the motive for this commandment. We talked about this a couple weeks ago, so we won't go too deep into it.
47:38 But he says, I'm asking this of you because I am a jealous god. So all of those things are motivated by a burning love for his people. James four five says one of the most heart wrenching verses concerning how God used his people. In four four of James, he says, you adulterous people. Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?
48:09 And then he says this spectacular scripture here. He says, or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the scripture says that he yearns jealously for the spirit that is in you? He yearns jealously for that spirit man in you that he has created in his image to be completely his and that you would not share yourself with another and that you would not commit spiritual adultery with this God that you made a covenant with. I wanna encourage you, and I pray that this would be in your mind. And if it isn't, that you would make this a part of your prayer life.
48:56 And the next time you were tempted with a sin, that you would be arrested with the truth that god is watching over you jealously. And that this is beyond just your reputation, though that is important. It is beyond just hurting other people by this sin, though that is important. But that there is a jealous God that does not wanna share you with an idol, but a powerful truth. If I do this, it's gonna hurt the lover of my soul.
49:38 If I do this, what will it say for the one who has so pursued me that he wrapped himself in flesh and died on a cross for me to be reconciled? See, when you have that understanding, temptation loses its force. But when we just see it as a set of rules, and God is making it very clear, I don't want you to see these 10 commandments as a set of rules. When you see it as me asking of you what I want from this relationship, victory is on its way in your life. And he makes this interesting statement.
50:15 He makes this fascinating statement, actually, that's in a sense confused some people. He says here, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments. So we see that he's presenting the consequences of idolatry. And he's saying don't step over that line because I'm jealous for you. Then he makes this strong claim that for those who do, I'm gonna visit the iniquity of these fathers on their children to the fourth generation.
51:02 What does that mean? For the sake of time, I'll tell you what it doesn't mean. It does not mean that God will punish a certain person's children or grandchildren or great grandchildren because of that person's sin. Why? Exodus eighteen twenty tells us that he doesn't do that.
51:28 And so let's just go there, Exodus eighteen twenty, just to understand. Actually, if you can go to verse, Exodus eighteen twenty. Sorry, Ezekiel eighteen twenty. The whole chapter talks about how God will not punish the iniquity of somebody on their children, And he will not punish the fathers of those children that are rebellious. The soul that sins, it shall die.
52:02 The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him. That's clear. And And it's in different places as well. So if that's the case, then what is the Lord trying to say through this verse?
52:22 I would argue it says two things. That the practice of idolatry not only puts that individual in danger, but because of their sin, because idolatry again in this context was not just here's an image, I'm gonna pray to it. No. No. No.
52:43 No. No. There is images and people would sacrifice their babies. There is images and people would perform orgies in front of those images. It affected their practice in life.
52:53 And so I believe it's speaking of two things. Number one, that those who adopt a lifestyle of idolatry put their children at risk of experiencing judgment from that sin. So they are exposing their children to receive the negative consequences from that initial person's practice. And secondly, they put not only their children, they put their line, their genealogy, their generations to come in danger of adopting the same practices. So that's what I believe.
53:28 When it says that I will visit the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, I believe in some sense that he's speaking about those offspring because of their fathers end up hating God because their fathers hated God by committing this practice of idolatry. And he says, I'm gonna visit them. Do we not see this in the Bible? Can you think of a character whose whose sin was practiced in such a way that it affected his generations to come? Abraham.
54:00 Abraham did what? What was one of his things? Not not slept with Hagar. Sarah, his wife, what did he do? More than once.
54:10 He lied about her. Says, oh, yeah. She's my sister. And even the pagan kings were like, excuse me? The pagan was rebuking the man of God, but it didn't stop there.
54:23 We read later on in Genesis who pops on the scene, Isaac. What does he do? The very same thing. Literally, step by step, he does the same thing with his wife when he finds himself in the same situation. It doesn't end there.
54:40 Jacob, the deception intensifies with this guy. Right? It intensifies, and it doesn't even stop there. It goes down to Joseph who deceived his own brothers, masked himself. So it was generational, and somebody had to break the cycle.
54:58 And I believe it was because they were learning from their fathers. They either heard stories or they saw it themselves and said, well, if dad does it, then I can do it. And though they wouldn't say that with their mouths, it's just a contagious thing. Because God by order has set the man to be the example, and automatically what the man does has great influence on how the sons or daughters will respond. And so we see that this has generational consequences.
55:25 It's it's not just something that affects you. Idolatry does not just affect you. And it's not just on a individual level. Remember, he's speaking to the nation. This was a message to the nation.
55:43 And so when a generation a generation adopts idolatry, worships false gods, tries to change and mar the image of Jesus to their own liking, it will affect the next generation. It hinders them from being birthed into truth. And I want to give you an example of this in the scriptures. In one story that, once again, has maybe even frustrated a lot of people concerning the character of God, it's the story of Elisha and the she bears. Do you know this story?
56:15 Let's turn there to second Kings. Second Kings chapter two. And we will go to second Kings one day, I think, like, in 2080, maybe. Second Kings chapter two verse 23. Is anybody who is anybody not familiar with this story?
56:43 K. So everybody's heard the story. You probably haven't heard it in Sunday school, though. But let's read it in verse 23. He, being Elisha, went up from there to Bethel.
56:53 And while he was going up on the way, some small boys came out of the city and jeered at him saying, go up, you bald head. Go up, you bald head. So just a few kids, you know, poking fun of the prophet, I guess, or is it more? And he turned around, and when he saw them, he cursed them in the name of the Lord. And two she bears came out of the woods and tore 42 of the boys.
57:21 From there, he went to the Mount Carmel, and from there, he returned to Samaria. A lot of skeptics and those who try to find fault with the character of God will turn to this story and be like, are you kidding me? Your God, because somebody insulted a man's hairstyle, sent two bears to rip up children. We can spend the next forty five minutes talking about these verses. And one day maybe we will, but I want us to just notice one detail that speaks of this truth of idolatry.
57:58 He went up from there to what? Bethel. No detail in scriptures by accident. These boys came out of Bethel, and they began to mock him by saying go up. Now when you read earlier on, Elijah literally goes up to heaven.
58:20 And so what they're saying here essentially to Elisha is the same way that Elijah was taken up to heaven. Why don't you get out of our face? Because we want nothing to do with a messenger of Yahweh. So they were essentially rejecting the messenger of God who represented God by saying, why don't you just get out of the scene completely? Now that says two things about these boys.
58:45 One, clearly they're not like preschool. If they have that kind of a knowledge to say, go up you bald head. Two, if they were children, how are they walking outside of the city walls? And so we can get into even deeper things. The Hebrew word for small boys is used even for Joseph at the age of 17 and different people.
59:08 Sometimes the English can hinder our understanding of scripture. But I want us once again to focus on this. They came out of Bethel. Go to first Kings chapter 12 verse 26. And Jeroboam said in his heart, now the kingdom will turn back to the house of David.
59:40 If this people go up to offer sacrifices in the temple of the Lord at Jerusalem, then the heart of this people will turn again to their Lord, to Rehoboam king of Judah, and they will kill me and return to Rehoboam king of Judah. So the king so remember, this is when the kingdom split in two, the Northern Kingdom and the Southern Kingdom. So the king took counsel and made two calves of gold. Sounds familiar? And he said to the people, you have gone up to Jerusalem long enough.
1:00:10 Behold your gods, oh Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt. Second Kings is not far from first Kings 12. You have to understand the environment that these kids were in. It was an anti Yahweh environment. It was a we worship a golden calf.
1:00:33 We want nothing to do with the true and living God. We establish who God is in our own image. And because of what happened in first Kings chapter 12, it literally affected the next generation. Do you see? And it brought them to have a greater resistance against the true messenger and the true message of God.
1:01:00 Idolatry does not just affect you. It does not just affect me. There's an entire generation that is influenced by the decisions that we make. So then we're hearing negative examples. Can you think of a good example in scripture of somebody who did not fall into this trap, but lived a godly life that affected their next generation?
1:01:23 You'd be surprised too. Yes. David? K. I wanna just hear different ideas.
1:01:39 one priest who took care of joy.
1:01:42 Okay. Yeah. Yes. The priest that was watching over Joash. Boaz.
1:01:52 So these are all godly examples. Sure. But is there a specific place where it shows that the previous generation affected this one individual to be godly?
1:02:08 Hannah with Samuel? Sure. Absolutely. She dedicated him to the Lord. That's one example.
1:02:12 Yes. Joshua. Joshua? Yes. Joshua with his own children.
1:02:17 Is that what you mean? As for me and my house? Moses to Joshua, so we see discipleship aspect there? Absolutely. These are yes.
1:02:23 These are examples. This person's in the New Testament, Timothy. Go to second Timothy. Second Timothy chapter one verse five. I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother, Eunice, and now I am sure dwells in you as well.
1:02:57 Timothy, the younger generation, was affected by his grandmother and his mother. Go to verse 15 of chapter three. And how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings. Timothy's grandmother, Timothy's mother, their faith was eventually deposited, I believe, because they showered this young man with the scriptures. They lived that example.
1:03:34 They lived in a way in which it gave Timothy a greater ability to receive this faith and walk in this faith. And not only just receive it, which is amazing on its own. For your child to be saved is I can't even imagine. But for him to be recruited by the Apostle Paul and to be a pastor of the church of Ephesus. Do you think Eunice or Lois had any idea?
1:04:04 Probably not. But in Acts 16, Paul comes and Timothy had such a reputation that he recruits him and brings him alongside to be a missionary and eventually to be a pastor. And so we don't even see direct link with father and son or mother and daughter. We see grandmother, grandmother, and then mother, and then son. What a godly example.
1:04:31 There's a scripture that says, the righteous who walks is in integrity
1:04:35 plus that is children. Absolutely. And and there's a frustration. There could be a frustration with certain people that are living godly lives and are trying to raise up their kids in the ways of the Lord, and they're not seeing the fruit of that. I I wanna hold on to that thought for another time, but I just want us to focus on this truth.
1:04:51 That when you and I do walk godly, we give the next generation a greater desire and receptivity to the gospel. And if you look back in Exodus 20, he says that for those who are idolaters, their iniquity will visit them to the fourth generation. But to those who obey me, I will bless them for thousands of generations. God Listen. God, in your walking with him, in your godliness and your holiness towards Him, is eager to bless your efforts and to bless your obedience to a certain point that you cannot even imagine.
1:05:33 That's what he's trying to say here. And he's trying to say, I desire so much more to extend mercy than judgment. Notice that the judgment goes to the fourth generation, but the blessing goes to thousands. God is eager and longing to bless our obedience, but he can't bless unless we obey. He says, if you love me, you'll obey my commandments in some sense, an old testament version of that same command.
1:05:55 And so here's the beautiful truth. And when you and I choose to walk godly, we give this generation and the next generation and generations to come an opportunity to reflect that godliness. Timothy had that. I remember listening to a funeral of a minister just not too long ago, a well known minister, and his son went up there, and he's probably in his forties or fifties. His son went up there and he began to just speak about how his father influenced him and everything, and he shared this one story that, out of the whole thing, touched my heart.
1:06:32 He said, when I was in high school, I played high school basketball, I was maybe 17 years old, and I had to wake up early for practice, so I would have to, you know, wake up at six and go downstairs to get breakfast and leave to go to school to meet with the team. I said one day, I remember it was still dark outside, and I quietly just took my steps down into the kitchen ready to leave. But I heard behind the walls, I heard weeping. I heard weeping. And I peeked into the room and I saw my father on his knees weeping for souls at six in the morning.
1:07:11 And he says, I that image will never leave me. And here he is years later sharing that experience. And I believe that that site with many others had an impact on his heart more than he even knows. I don't know about you. I want to have that impact.
1:07:38 Young ladies, you're gonna be future moms and wives one day. What kind of legacy do you wanna leave for your children? We talked one Sunday about biblical womanhood and how God has ordained that the woman be the nurturer and the caregiver and the one to raise up her children to take care of her home. Your responsibility goes beyond what you can even imagine. You can be a potential Lois or Eunice and raise up a Timothy in another generation.
1:08:08 Do you understand that? Men, you're gonna one day get married unless God calls you otherwise. What kind of wife do you want? What kind of woman do you want to raise your babies? Because while you go do what men are called to do, there's somebody at home that's gonna be raising and giving most of their attention to the children.
1:08:31 Who is she? Is that even part of your category? Is that even part of your understanding of what you wanna look for in a wife? It goes beyond us. Generations are affected.
1:08:44 I'm wanna share one more story when I as I close. One of we went through examples in scripture. I wanna give you example of church history. Jonathan Edwards, man of God. He he was a theologian.
1:08:58 He was a revivalist. He was a gift to the body of Christ. Most of us in here maybe don't know him in-depth, but we've heard the name, Jonathan Edwards. Had a wife, had many children, and his wife was godly. And as he did what he was called to do, his wife was doing what she was called to do, raising up her children, assisting him, and helping him.
1:09:24 Somebody just recently did a study, an in-depth study to see generational line of Jonathan Edwards and his family line, and who they were, and what was resulted from this man of God. Listen to this. I'm just gonna read this. Jonathan Edwards' godly legacy includes one US vice president, three US senators, three governors, three mayors, 13 college presidents, 30 judges, 65 professors, 80 public office holders, 100 lawyers, and 100 missionaries. Do you think Jonathan Edwards or his wife had any idea?
1:10:19 Because that is what their family line looked like after they passed away. Your godliness, your obedience to pledging yourself completely to the Lord and taking him at his word and walking in love with him, fulfilling the first and greatest commitment can touch a people, a nation, a city, the law. It can you do not even know what your obedience can do, and you will only know an eternity just like Jonathan Edwards and his wife will only know an eternity. And so God is saying, listen. Don't have idols in your life.
1:11:03 Don't worship any gods other than me. Be mine completely. And in doing so, watch how I am able to bless you for generations to come and how the fruit of your obedience will numb your mind in amazement if you just trust in my word. So when you feel discouraged to live godly and to live holy when the rest of the world wants to live in a mess, understand this, that you're planting a seed. You're planting a seed, and you have no idea what it can grow into.
1:11:41 No idea. This past weekend, I was talking to a young gentleman, and he's from, he's Persian. And, he's a believer. His dad's a pastor, and, only child, and his mom was stay at home mom, I guess. And I whenever I meet a pastor's kid or a missionary's kid or something, I always ask them a question alongside of their family life.
1:12:11 Because there's this common understanding with PKs and MKs that because their family's in the ministry, they have this tendency to rebel. They have a tendency to walk away from the faith. And here's this young man that loves God. And I just always ask questions. I love to pick people's brains to see how it was like to have their father or their mother in the ministry.
1:12:34 And I said, what was it for you that kept you or made you want to walk with the Lord. He gave me two simple answers, and one of them, I won't go to the other one, but the the one was this, I had a praying mom. I had a praying mom. That's it. He says, I know she was on her knees for me throughout my whole life.
1:13:04 He's like, man, I was in church four or five times a week. I was so in it. I I was so, you know, used to it, but she prayed for me. It's like she she said this. She was such she's the godliest woman I know, and I'm not saying that because she's my mom.
1:13:24 And so this young man just lived with his mother and saw how she lived and how she prayed and how she was consistent. And he goes, man, you live with people, you see their faults, but she prayed. She prayed. Would you, by faith tonight, take this commitment to heart and say, lord, this is beyond me. I see that you're willing to just not bless my life, but bless my children and my children's children and children's children's children.
1:13:53 Father, we thank you for these commandments. Like the psalmist, we say we delight in your law, and we see the joy and the blessing that comes from obedience. Thank you that you're a jealous god. We thank you that you're one to pursue us and to ask these things of us because you want what we would want from any relationship, total devotion. Sacrifice, commitment.
1:14:29 And, Lord, as your people, would you help us be that kind of people? And may we be reminded, Lord, that you are eager to bless our obedience and that you want to shower us with reward. And Lord, we even pray for those that we know that may be godly parents but aren't seeing the fruit of it in their children. God, we pray that they would be reminded that you will bless them for their obedience. We thank you that your mercy outweighs your judgment and your desire, that you so much more wanna extend mercy than you do exposing and revealing your wrath.
1:15:11 Lord, if there's anybody in here that has created a Jesus in their own image, may you remind us, Lord, that you said I am the way, the truth, and the life. And the moment we begin to tamper with you, we tamper with truth. And if we tamper with truth, we exclude ourselves from the benefit of truth. And your word says that they would hear the truth and the truth would set them free. The moment we begin to play and alter and dilute truth is the moment we rob people from freedom.
1:15:52 Make us into faithful messengers of this gospel, always in love, always in compassion, always with a desire for people to see how beautiful you are in all of your attributes. And so, Lord, tonight, we respond not only in song, but we respond with our heart saying, I will not make a carved image, and I will walk in total allegiance to Jesus. And Lord, may you bless the seeds of people in this place, the offsprings to come, generations, Lord, for your glory. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
