Remember those who requested
prayer. I talked with Bobby Wright yesterday and his daughter Tracy.
We're going to start chemotherapy pretty soon. She's got to have
a couple of procedures before she starts. They've got to put
a PICC line in. other things, but she's starting chemotherapy
pretty soon. And I haven't heard anything
about Dee or any of the other folks. Kathy Robinson's having
some difficulties with nausea because of that radiation treatment
she's having. So remember her in your prayer
and seek the Lord's help for her. Other than that, I can't
think of anybody that needs prayer. I've got the list somewhere.
I think it's over at the house. Oh, and also, if you want to... Were
you here Sunday? Okay, well you got to. Okay. Okay. All right. Let's begin
our worship service. Hymn number 17, Come Thou Fount
of Every Bliss. Come thou fount of every blessing,
tune my heart to sing thy grace. Streams of mercy never ceasing,
call for songs of loudest praise. Teach me some melodious sonnet
sung by flaming tongues above. Raise the mountain fixed upon
it, mount of thy redeeming love. Here I raise my name in ease,
hither by thy my good pleasure safely to arrive
at home. Jesus saw me when a stranger
wandering from the fold of God. He, to rescue me from danger,
interposed his precious blood. ♪ Oh to grace how great a debtor
♪ Daily I'm constrained to be ♪ Let thy goodness like a fetter
♪ Bind my wandering heart to thee ♪ Prone to wander Lord I
feel it Hymn number 126, Rock of Ages. Rock of Ages, cleft for me, let
me hide myself in thee. Let the water and the blood from
thy wounded side which flow be of sin the double cure. ♪ May my tears forever flow ♪ Could
my zeal no longer know ♪ These four sins could not atone ♪ Thou
must save and Thou alone ♪ In my hand no price I bring ♪ Simply
to Thy cross I cling When mine eyes shall close in
death, when I rise to worlds unknown, and behold thee on thy
throne, rock of ages, cleft for me, let me hide myself in thee. If you have your Bibles turn
with me please to the 20th chapter of Exodus. I'm going to read verses 3 through
5. Thou shalt have no other gods
before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee
any graven image of 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. I shall not bow down thyself
to them, nor serve them. For I, the Lord thy God, am a
jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children,
unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me. Let us
pray. Our Father in heaven, blessed
is thy name, how great thou art, how wondrous
of all thy works. We know that what you have put
your hand to, none can turn back, that you rule in this world and
throughout the universe, directing all things in their path to their
appointed end. We praise you for your word.
It's a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path. the entrance
of which gives understanding to the simple. We thank you, Father, that you
have magnified your word above your name. Full of wonder at
such a statement and that you have given us this word, put
it in our hands to read and study and think on and meditate on
the things of God. We thank you for the shed blood
of Jesus Christ that put away our sins, that satisfied your
law and justice, that propitiated you concerning us. And because
of his death, you have made us the very righteousness of God
in him. Father, we praise you. You're
worthy of all praise. We pray for those who are sick,
Remember especially Tracy Wright. You should be with her and watch
over her. Be with Bobby and Bobby as they minister to her. You
know our hearts and our hearts desires in these things that
she be healed. And we bow to your wisdom in
these things. We know that she is yours. And as all things that
are yours you do with them as you please. You always do what's
right. And we know that You are the
judge of all the earth and shall do right. Father, we ask tonight
as we've gathered here that you might be pleased to open up your
word to our minds and our hearts. Reveal your son to us. Take the
things of Christ and show them unto us. Give us grace to bow
and believe. We pray in Christ's name, amen. Now what I read to you was the
first commandments of the Lord that the Lord gave on Sinai,
and there's a couple of things to remember as we consider these
laws handed down on Sinai. The first is that these were
given not as a set of rules or regulations, but rather were
given to indict the people for the transgressions that they
had committed. That's why a law was given. Scripture says, as
we have repeated, the law was added because of transgression.
The law entered that sin might abound. Paul said, By the law
is the knowledge of sin. We do not know what sin is unless
there is a law that declares it to be sin. That is how we
know that it is a sin. Where there is no law, sin is
not imputed. This people have committed the
sins here listed in these Ten Commandments. and they are guilty, and the
law has proved them so. Now, before this there are no
records of any rites or ceremonies or observation of days prior
to the laws given on Sinai. It is evident that Abel's blood
sacrifice at the east of Eden informed the minds of the fathers
and the people on how God was to be acceptably approached.
He's to be approached with the blood sacrifice, which pictured
the Lord Jesus Christ, and not with the work of hands. That
was Cain's offering that was rejected. That fact is seen in the numerous
altars and sacrifices that the patriarchs made during the days
up to this time. But it was not until the captivity
in Egypt that the Passover was instituted. and commanded to
be yearly observed that a particular rite was established. It was
the first one that was actually established as a rite or a ceremony
to be observed. Now, we know that all the observances
that follow these, all of them pointed to the Lord Jesus Christ
and pointed to the salvation that was wrought by Him on Calvary
Street. The concept of the people of
God as a nation did not exist at this time in the early days
before Sinai or before they were in Egypt. The fathers were Adam
and Noah and Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. They all had families
but they knew by revelation of the idea of a nation which was
a promise to Abraham was only known as a promise. Right now they are not a nation,
they are twelve tribes. In fact, tribes did not exist
among God's people until Jacob had his twelve sons. They were
just men that God had chosen out of this world and they had
families and he dealt with those men. The nation was formed in
Egypt. over a period of four centuries,
and regardless of the size of family, how many people were
in it, God spoke to that nation ALWAYS through one man. There was never a congregational
meeting where God spoke to all the families. He always had one
man that He spoke to, and He spoke to him in dreams and visions
and occasionally in person. These people never heard from
God until they came to Sinai when His voice was heard and
they were afraid. No rite or ceremony or laws were
given to the people save for circumcision that was given to
Abraham for the males born into his family. Abraham did not keep
the Sabbath day. There was no Sabbath day until
the institution of the manna, and the concept of the Sabbath
day and rest was there set forth. They knew that God rested on
the seventh day of creation, but it was never observed as
a special day, not until manna came along. That is when the
Lord said you can gather on six days, but on the seventh day
you do not gather any manna. You gather twice as much on Friday,
and on Saturday you do not gather any, and then He mentioned it
is a rest in reference to the fact that God rested from creation
and that's the first instance and it'll be the instance when
our Lord says in this passage remember the Sabbath day and
keep it holy it'll be in reference because it's a law they've already
broken it evidently so there he references manna and the day
that he finished the work of creation which pictured the finish
of the new creation in Jesus Christ Now, wherever they ventured,
they were confronted with the gods of the nations that they
came into. It is little wonder, since they
did not personally hear from God or see Him, God only spoke
to one man in the whole outfit, it is no wonder that they readily
accepted and embraced the false deities that surrounded them.
No wonder at all. Fathers told them of God and
related to them what God had told them, and some believed
and some did not. But there is no indication that
the concept of idolatry was even addressed until the law was given
at Sinai. It was not even addressed. The
law was given because the people had followed the words of Moses,
but they had also worshipped the strange gods of Egypt. They
did cry unto God when their lives became unbearable, but evidently,
according to the Word of God, they clung to the gods of Egypt
until then and thereafter. Thus, this is the first transgression
addressed here in the Law in verses 3 through 5, and our Lord
says, Thou shalt have no other gods before Me. Thou shalt not
make unto thee any graven image or any likeness of anything that
is in heaven above, or that is in earth beneath, or that is
in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down to thyself
to them, and thou shalt not serve them." Now, this was the first
law that was handed down, and this was an absolute necessity.
This law is important so that all the other laws make sense.
If this is not observed and obeyed, the remainder of laws and ceremonies
carry no real weight. Thou shalt have no other gods
before me, thou shalt not make any graven image unto thyself."
Scripture says things like this along the way. The prophet said,
How long halt ye between two opinions? If God be God, serve
Him. If Baal be God, serve Him. Another prophet said, How can
two walk together except they be agreed? How can a man walk
with God if he doesn't agree with God? These people were idolaters. They were idolaters. They embraced
these false gods. while saying they embraced the
true God, and if there was worship of the true God, worship of the
false gods were also involved in that. Now, God over and over
in Scripture allows no mixture, and no mixture could be allowed.
The people were continually reminded of this throughout their history
in the writing of the Old Testament, and even in the Church Age, the
same thing. Paul preached in places where
there were great idols. Ephesus, the goddess of Diana,
was there. And in Acts, the people who worshipped
Diana gave him a lot of trouble. There was false gods that he
had to deal with. Diana was a god that had multiple
breasts, and that's where the people came to get comfort, to
be nourished, supposedly, by the stone god that they had raised
up. In fact, one of the drawings
of Goddess Diana is in a church in Baltimore, Maryland, but they've
given it a new name. They say it's Mary, the mother
of God, but it's the Goddess Diana, same statue. Idolatry
has been included in what is called the worship of God during
this time, and it's going on now. Crucifixes, which is a cross
with an image of a person on it that they say is Jesus Christ.
crosses which have been around since Tammuz the son of Semiramis
who was the wife of Nimrod who got pregnant two years after
he died and said that she bore the Son of God and he was a priest
and his symbol was the cross. It was a cross found in the Yucatan
in Mexico that predated Christ by 900 years. So it's always
been a religious symbol. People wear them on their ears
and around their neck and say they have some significant religious
value. Well, that's an image of something. I remember many years ago Henry
Mann telling the story of a little girl who had been under the gospel
in his church since she was a child. She was six or seven years old
and her grandmother came to take her home with her and visit with
Granny. Her grandmother was a Methodist.
And they went to church on Sunday, and there beside the pulpit was
this huge cross. I mean, it went all the way to
the ceiling. It was a big one. And at the end of the service,
everybody come up and bowed down before that thing. And the grandmother
took the little seven-year-old girl, and the grandmother bowed
down, and she jerked on her granddaughter to bow down, and her granddaughter
said, Grandma, that's an idol. And that's what it is. That's
what it is. Steeples on churches. They're
phallic symbols. Statues of religious figures,
religious painting and sculptures. Indulgences, icons, chrome trouts
on star trunks, on car trunks. And such are indicted and found
illicit in these two verses. You name it. You name it. These are images which God says
no image of anything in heaven or in earth, or under the sea. Thou shalt have no other gods
before me, and no images to represent God." And the words of verse
3 through 5 are prefixed with this declaration, I am the LORD
thy God, in verse 2. Throughout Scripture this declaration
is often followed with the words, And there is none else. I am
the LORD thy God, and there is none else. There is no God but
Me, there is none other. And verses 3 and 4 proclaim about
what that means, since He alone is the LORD, Jehovah, notice
it's in all caps across, the LORD Jehovah, and He is the singular
God of the people, thy God, I am the LORD, Jehovah, I am thy God. There can be no other God before
Him, which can mean before Him, beside Him, or against Him. All
false, man-made, artisan-crafted deities are not Him. No matter
what people say, this character that they paint and put on sale
at Christmas and Easter, This character standing at her door
knocking, this character with his heart exposed, this character
with a halo around his head. And I'm familiar with these things.
The church I used to belong to had a great big one right on,
posted on the wall back there. I mean, he was kneeling down
at a rock and had a halo around his head. And right here on the
pulpit it said, Sirs, we would see Jesus. And you looked up
and there he was. Or at least they said he was.
But it wasn't Jesus. It was kind of Caucasian looking.
Jesus was a Jewish man. He was probably dark complected
because they lived outside. They were nomadic. Probably had
dark hair. Might have had a big nose. Who
knows? But he was a Jewish man. He certainly wasn't a Caucasian
red-headed guy with blue eyes. We know that. But they paint
that and they say that's Jesus. It's not. It's not at all. All false man-made gods and deities
are not God. and are not to be considered
and are not to be embraced on any level, and there is no exception
here. Our Lord said, Thou shalt have
no other gods before me. No! No is the strongest word
in the English language. It is the most powerful word
and should be used more than people use it. Because we're
raised in the South and we're taught to be genteel and kind,
we'd say, No, thank you. But there's no thank you that
needs to be added to no in most cases. One time a member of this
church asked, she says, can we have you invite the preachers
we want to come? And I said, no. And that was the end of the
conversation. That's the way it ended. And
it'll always end that way. I told my children, don't say no, thank
you. Don't hem and haw about something. If you know something's
wrong or disagree with it, just say no. It ends the conversation. There you shall have no gods. before me." No! That means none! None whatsoever! The Word of God says that. There
is no true God but Jehovah, the Savior. Verse 4 addresses the
fact that God is Spirit and not visible. Thou shalt not make
any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven
above, or that is in earth beneath, or that is in the water underneath,
because they are not God. They're not like God. They don't
represent God. They're not God at all. The word
graven means carved or hewn. Now, not all carvings or statues
are forbidden. This refers to things categorized
as worthy of worship, gods made with men's hands. Now the Scripture
deals with that. Remember in Psalms 115 when the
people had showed David their really fancy God and said, ìWhereís
your God?î Psalm 115 and David said, verse 3, ìBut our God is
in the heavens.î Your God is right here in front of you. You
made Him. You molded Him. You put Him on your shoulders
and carried Him from here to there. He hath done whatsoever he hath
pleased. How about your God? Well, their idols are silver
and gold, the work of men's hands. They have mouths, but they speak
not. I guess the only mouths they have are your mouths. They
have eyes they have, but they see not. The only eyes God has
are your eyes, if that's their God. They have ears, but they
hear not. They have noses, but they smell
not. They have hands, but they handle not. They have feet, but
they walk not. Neither speak they through their
throat. And they that make them, they that make these gods, are
just like them. Their eyes don't see. Their ears
don't hear. Their feet don't walk. Their
hands don't handle. They're just dead just like their
gods are. So is everyone. Then Isaiah dealt specifically
with this over in Isaiah chapter 44, beginning with verse 9. He says, They that make a graven
image are all of them vanity. That means empty. And their delectable things shall
not profit. That's their gods, their delectable
things. They are their own witnesses.
They see not nor know that they may be ashamed. Who hath formed
a god, or a molten, or a graven image, that is profitable, or
nothing? Behold, all his fellows shall be ashamed, and the workmen,
they are men. Let them all be gathered together,
let them stand up, yea, they shall fear, and they shall be
ashamed together, the smiths, with tongs Both worketh in the
coals, and fashioneth with hammers, and worketh it with the strength
of his arms. Yea, he is hungry, and his strength faileth. That
means he is going to make his God, or else he is not going to eat
until he finishes. He drinketh no water in his faint,
but he is making him a God. The carpenter stretcheth out
his rule, and he marketh it out in the line, and he fitteth it
with planes, and he marketh it out with a compass, and maketh
it after the figure of a man, according to the beauty of a
man, that it may remain in his house. he heweth him down cedars,
and taketh the cypress and the oak, which he strengtheneth for
himself among the trees of the forest, he planteth an ash, and
the rain doth nourish it. Then it shall be for a man to
burn, for he will take thereof, and warm himself. Yea, he kindleth
it, and baketh bread, and worshipeth it, maketh it a graven image,
and falleth down thereto. He burneth part of it with fire,
with part thereof he eateth flesh. He roasteth it, and, as satisfied
yea, he warms himself, and saith, Aha, I am warm, I have seen the
fire. And the residue thereof, what
is left over, he maketh of God, even his graven image. He falleth
down unto it, and worshipeth it, and prayeth unto it, and
saith, Deliver me, for thou art my God, they have not known or
understood. For thee that hath shut their
eyes, for he hath shut their eyes that cannot see, and their
hearts that he cannot understand. And none considereth in his heart,
neither is there any knowledge or understanding, to say, I burn
part of it in a fire, ye have also baked bread upon the coals
thereof. And shall I make the residue
thereof an abomination, shall I fall down to the stock of a
tree? He feedeth on ashes. A deceived
heart hath turned him aside, cannot deliver his soul, nor
say, is there not a lie in my right hand? That's pretty clear,
isn't it? That's the graven image that
the Lord talks about. They are images, so that means
they are products of men's imaginations. Read Romans, chapter one, verse
twenty-one through twenty-three, and find that this is what man
does. When he refuses to acknowledge
God as God, he makes himself images, beginning with man, First
he makes one that looks like a man, and then it dwindles down
all the way down to things that creep upon the earth, bugs. One of the gods of Egypt was
a scarab beetle. Also they had gods that were
men and gods that were cows. Plenty of gods. Is there an exception to this? Not if the image is like anything,
like anything in heaven or in earth or in the seas. That pretty
well covers it, doesn't it? Look over at Deuteronomy Chapter
4. Verse 15 says, Take heed therefore,
good heed unto yourself, for ye shall saw no manner of similitude
on the day that the Lord spake unto the orb out of the midst
of the fire, lest ye corrupt yourself and make you a graven
image. The similitude of any figure, the likeness of a male
or female, the likeness of any beast, is on the earth, the likeness
of any winged fowl that flyeth in the air, the likeness of anything
that creepeth on the ground, the likeness of any fish that
is in the waters beneath the earth. And lest thou lift up
thine eyes unto heaven, and when thou seest the sun, and the moon,
and the stars, even all the hosts of heaven, should be driven to
worship them, and serve them, which the Lord thy God hath divided
unto all nations unto the whole heaven. The Lord hath taken you,
thankfully, and brought you forth out of the iron furnace, even
out of Egypt, to be unto him a people of inheritance, as ye
are this day, and have no other gods before me." And that pretty
well covers it, doesn't it? No gods. Verse 5 makes it clear
that religious idols are being addressed. He says, don't bow
down to them, don't serve them, and those things are attributed
to worship. As we had a prefix in verse 2 that said, I am the
Lord thy God, the suffix is found in verse 5. He said, I am the
Lord thy God and I am a jealous God. I am a jealous God. These are divine bookends that
enclose the prohibition of idolatry. Jealousy has to do with a sense
of entitlement. One believes that no one else
is entitled to what he perceives as his, and jealousy ensues. Among human beings, jealousy
is a vapor because nothing is actually yours unless you can
keep it forever. Only with the Lord is jealousy
reasonable. Glory, power, and honor belong
to Him and to Him alone. The Lord hath done it, saith
the scriptures. He will not share his glory with
another because he singularly is entitled to it. He's entitled
to glory so he has a right to be jealous if anybody tries to
take it from him. To continue in idolatry is to
do so upon pain of death. That's what it says in verse
5, Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them. nor serve them, for
I, the Lord thy God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of
the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation
of them that hate me." Now, that is how he describes the idolaters,
they hate me. Look over at Deuteronomy chapter
6. verses 14 and 15. You shall not
go after other gods, of the gods of the people which are round
about you. For the Lord thy God is a jealous God among you, lest
the anger of the Lord thy God be kindled against thee, and
destroy thee from off the face of the earth. Kind of important,
isn't it? Now, as I was reading this passage,
I was struck with the beauty of it. in the prohibition of
continuing in idolatry a new covenant principle was simply
and succinctly declared. This come to me like a flash
of light. I was sitting there and went, wait a minute. Sometimes
that happens, I'm reading scripture and go, oh my goodness, I don't
understand. You see, all the idols are described
in a particular way. They are visible. They are visible. They are palpable. And they can and are embraced
with the five natural senses. The Lord is declaring that He
is worshipped in a way that does not involve these things. Nothing
you can see, He says, can be duplicated and called to God. In the disallowing of these visible
things, He is setting forth what? Faith. He is setting forth faith. It is the precious thing He gives
to His people. It is a substance of things hoped for, the evidence
of things not seen. His people walk by faith and
not by sight. The just, or the justified, live
by faith. The gospel is revealed from faith
to faith. The hope of His people is unseen.
Faith looks not at the things which are seen, but at things
which are not seen. Here I was reading the law, and Romans 3.31
came to mind. Do we then make void the law
through faith? God forbid. Yea, we establish
the law. We establish the law. That's
what he did back here. Setting forth faith. He established
the law. Established the law. That's the
title of my message. The law established. It's established
through faith. Father, bless us to understand, we pray in
Christ's name, Amen.