The Second Commandment

Today we're going to do the second commandment. If you remember, back last month, we started a series on the commandments. And in November, we did an introduction and the first commandment. And before December gets away, let's talk about the second commandment. If you will, turn with me over to Exodus 20. We'll read through the verbiage here to begin with. Exodus 20 and verse 1. We'll begin at the beginning again, since we're near the beginning of the commandments. Exodus 20 verse 1 says, God spoke all these words, saying, I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image, any likeness of anything that's in heaven above, or that's in the earth beneath, or that's 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 generations, of those who hate me, or those who reject me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love me, and keep my commandments. So we talked about the first commandment and who we worship. The last time we were in the commandments, who we worship, is one God, one God. Not many gods with one primary God, but one God and none other besides him. And as we read through the commandments, you'll remember last time we talked about how God began, as he starts in the commandments, he shows us some of his traits, and some of how he handles. It's not all about do not, do not, do not, as many people think. He talks about how he brought us up out of Egypt. He brought us up out of bondage. He's the one who delivered us. He's the one who wanted all good things for us. He wanted freedom, and he wants people to have life. And as he begins the commandments, remember he talked about that, and then he begins to show the way of life that if we want what he wants too, which is everything good for us, this is the way of life that we will live. And he starts with, in the first commandment, who do we worship? We worship just one God. Here in the second commandment, as we read through that, he shows us how, one way of how we worship him. But he also, in the second commandment, in the verbiage that we just read, tells us more about himself. You'll notice down in verse 5, it says that, I the Lord your God am a jealous God. And he tells us something about himself at that point. Now if I told you that I was jealous of you today, and we weren't in church, you might wonder what I'm talking about. Jealous is a word that isn't a great trait in the world around us. A lot of people say jealousy is one of those great sins that we should be eliminating from our lives. But God says he's a jealous God. Let me read from the dictionary here what jealous, the primary meaning of the word that's used today is. It says, fearful or wary of being supplanted, apprehensive of losing affection or position, resentful or bitter in rivalry, envious. When people say jealous today, much of the times that's what they're talking about. But that's not God, is it? That doesn't in any way, shape, or form talk about what our God is. He's not bitter or resentful. He's not envious of us. He has nothing to be envious of us for.

I mean, we're dependent totally on him. He doesn't need us for anything, but he gives us things. It gives us everything if we will obey him. Well, here's the alternate definition in the general, and they say that this is not widely used. It's almost as if this word jealous is another one of those English words that if you use it in one sense, it means something. But if you use it in another sense, it almost has an opposite meaning. The alternate definition of jealousy is vigilant in guarding something, intolerant of disloyalty or infidelity. And they say an example of this would be a father watching protectively over his children. Now, all of us who have children, we know what that meaning of the word is, don't we? We would all say we're jealous for our children. We want what's best for them. We want to give them the things that are going to make their lives happy, fulfilled. And as they grow up, and as they go on their own, we hope, just like God hopes, that they've listened to us. We want what's best for them, and what God wants is the best for us. So he's not a jealous God in the sense that the world might use the word jealous, but he's jealous for us. He's not jealous of us. What he wants. And one thing we always keep in mind is what God wants for his people and for all people is he wants them to have eternal life. He wants them to be supremely happy and joyful. He wants to give us all the things that our heart could desire. But to get that, there is a way of life you have to follow. And in the Ten Commandments, he begins to show us, if you want that, if you want the same thing that I want, if you want what I want to give you, this is the way you live. Now, we've talked about the First Commandment last time, and here in the Second Commandment, God, who's jealous for us and not of us, wants the same thing. Well, put your finger there and exit us, and let's turn back because Paul used this very same word when he was talking to the Corinthian church in one of his epistles back in 2 Corinthians 11. 2 Corinthians 11 and verse 1, he writes, "'O that you would bear with me in a little folly, and indeed you do bear with me. For I am jealous for you with godly jealousy. I have betrothed you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.'" So Paul says the same thing. What Paul's reason for being was, after he was converted, is what he wanted was to serve the people of God, that God was bringing in to him, and he wanted them to know God, he wanted them to obey him, to obey God, and he wanted them to have eternal life and to be in the kingdom. He was jealous for them because he knew what was best, and that's what he wanted, just like God wanted, and just like we want for each other.

I would hope that we're all jealous for each other, that we want each other, and we pray for each other, that we will take and live our lives in the way that God can give us what he wants to. And then down in the latter part of verse 5, back in Exodus 20, he tells us something about how life works.

He says, I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who reject me.

But you know, as I've heard about this verse explained, and as I've thought about it, prayed about it, read about it, and different connotations, and lived life, I begin to understand what God means there.

It's not that certainly God punishes us for our sins, and certainly there is a punishment for sinning, but what I think he's talking about when he says he punishes down to the third and fourth generations of those who reject me is the fact that we choose ways of life.

And every single family on earth makes mistakes. Every single family, every single parent has made mistakes, every single one of us who have raised kids wish we could go back in time and know what we know.

Okay. Knew then what we know now, and we would have done things a little differently.

Every child grows up, and every child says, you know, can have an issue with the parents, and something that they have to work through and realize their parents weren't perfect.

Every single one of us have that. If we follow the patterns of our parents in ways that are different than God, the next generation suffers in just the way that we did.

And that generation then follows, and the same thing happens to them. If we choose a wrong way of life, if we react in a wrong way, the same thing results.

There's ways of life, excuse me, there's ways of life we talked about that lead to life, happiness, joy, a way of life that leads to death, misery, and unhappiness.

And families that continue to make the same mistakes continue to have the same results.

And so, you know, as I can look back and not saying anything bad about my parents, there's things that went on in our family that, you know, nothing major but ways of handling things that I've had to learn if I handle them the same way, get the same result. As I see my children grow up and I see them handle situations in a way that I did, I shake my head and I think, no, don't go that way. I know what's going, I know what the result of that way is. Don't go down that way.

So God says there's a natural end to this. Families and children follow each other, and if you reject me, it's very predictable what the outcome of life is. Down to the third and fourth generation, until someone says, enough is enough. We're not going to write the same family history and have the same results we did before. But God says He shows mercy to thousands, and the original translation there is just not thousands, but thousands of generations to those who love me and keep my commandments.

Or haven't even been a thousand generations since man was created. That just shows how wide God's mercy is. He will forgive all our mistakes, and He will give us what we need, the strength, the power, the understanding, to live the way of life that leads to happiness, joy, plenty, all the good things in life that we want for ourselves, for each other, for our children. And so God says that as He again introduces the commandments, this is what I want. And I will show mercy, I will forgive, and I will show you the way that leads to peace, security, and everything that man wants. And in the second commandment here, then He says, as He talks about it, we talked about who you worship, how does that one God, and only one God, want to be worshipped? Well, He doesn't want to be worshipped by a carved image. He doesn't want people bowing down to something that was created. He wants people worshipping Him and only Him, but not by having symbols and representations of Him or other things that they've created that they replace Him with. Let's turn back to John 4. John 4, this is the incident with Christ speaking with the woman at the well. And she's not a Jew, but He takes the time to talk to her. And as they progress through the conversation, you'll remember that she perceives that He's not just some ordinary man who has stopped her there to talk to her. He tells her that He knows some of her marital history, so her ears perk up and she listens to Him. And down in verse 21 of John 4, He says to her, well, let's pick it up in verse 20. She said, Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship. This group looked at Mount Gerizim, the Jews looked at Gerizim. So there was this concept, and we know that back in Old Testament days, God dwelled in the temple. But there was a difference here as they worshipped these two groups. One looked to Mount Gerizim, one looked to Jerusalem. And Jesus said to her in verse 21, Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem worship the Father. He didn't know what He meant at that time, but what He was saying is, there's a time coming that the place doesn't matter where you worship. The temple, the building itself, isn't going to matter. You're going to worship God in a different way than you have before. He goes on to say in verse 22, You worship what you don't know. We know what we worship for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour is coming, and now is, when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth. Not by looking to a temple, not by looking to Mount Gerizim, but true worshipers will worship God how? In spirit and truth. For the Father is seeking such to worship Him. Not needing a symbol, not needing a mountain, not needing a building to worship God, but worshiping Him in spirit and truth.

Turn back to the end of John, John 20. In verse 27, and this is the time after Christ's resurrection, and after Thomas, many people call him Doubting Thomas, or that Christ was resurrected, he said he wouldn't believe it until he was able to put his hands, or his fingers in the holes of Christ's hands. So this is the incident then, in verse 27 of John 20, where he has the opportunity to do just that. Christ said to Thomas, in verse 27, Reach your finger here, and look at my hands, and reach your hand here and put it in my side. Don't be unbelieving, but be believing. And Thomas answered and said to him, My Lord and my God. And Jesus said to him, Thomas, Because you've seen me, you've believed.

Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet have believed.

Blessed are those who don't need an image, who believe God and worship Him in spirit and truth, who believe and worship God because they know He is without seeing Him, who pray to Him and not to some image or to some statue or to some other thing that they put in place of God. Anything that we put in place of God and we look to it for deliverance or life or anything else that God can provide, that becomes an idol to us.

God wanted His worship, our worship of Him, to be pure.

Let's go back to Deuteronomy 16.

Deuteronomy 16, verse 21.

As God, through Moses, is giving the Israelites His people instructions on how to live their lives again. Of course, Moses talks about this before he is going to die because, again, Moses wanted the people to be happy. Moses wanted the people to succeed. He was jealous for them just as Paul was jealous for the people of his day and God is jealous for all of us. Verse 21 says, He says, So in a place of worship, He's saying, when you come to bring your sacrifices, I don't want an idol right next to it. I don't want you coming into the altar in the temple and then you've created some kind of pillar to look at on one side. Bring it to me. And yet we look at the world around us. Many people, I won't say many people, some people might look at this commandment and say, you know, we don't have idols today. The world is not the way it was back in pagan society. We don't have places like Ephesus where we have an idol up on every street corner and that people are bowing down and worshipping as they pass by. And some people will think that this is a very easy commandment to keep.

But as we go through this, you know, Christ doesn't indicate that it's an easy commandment to keep at all. Down through the ages, there has been a problem with idolatry. And without going through every verse in the Bible, you know that it's condemned over and over and over again. Not just for the people of the times before Christ lived, but even down through the ages, even to the end time.

We don't have to turn to Exodus 32 where it talks about the golden calf. But you remember that story where the Israelites who saw the power of God and who trembled just a few days before at the base of Mount Sinai when God was going to thunder down this way of life to them. And 40 days later, what did they do? Just because Moses wasn't there, they decided to throw in all their gold, melt it down, and then as Aaron said, lo and behold, the golden calf popped out like it was some miracle.

And the people, what did they do? They bowed to that cow. It's almost incredible when you think about it that within 40 days, they could go back to the way things were in Egypt. But that was what they were used to. They were afraid because Moses, their leader, was no longer there. They didn't learn to trust in God as they should have by the things that he had already done. And the first thing they did was they were afraid. They turned back to a golden calf and built themselves an idol and bowed down and worshipped it, danced around it wildly. So Moses, when he came down, was understandably, understandably irate at them for what they had done. But it wasn't just them. And it wasn't just that group of people. Turn with me over to Jeremiah.

And we find, back in the time after the fall of the kingdom of Israel, when they were already taken into slavery and the kingdom of Judah should have known that God meant what he said.

But here in Jeremiah 2 and verse 5, as God is commissioning Jeremiah to talk to the people 40 years before the Babylonians were going to come and overturn them, he says in verse 5 of Jeremiah 2, It says, I don't remember them calling on me. I don't remember them asking where'd I go. I brought you into a bountiful country to eat its fruits and its goodness. But when you entered, you defiled my land. You made my heritage an abomination. The priests didn't say, Where's God? And those who handled the law didn't know me. The rulers also transgressed against me. The prophets prophesied by Baal, and they walked after things that don't profit.

They turned to idols. God gave them a promised land. He promised them, and Moses repeated them before he died. If you want to prolong the days that you will live in the land that God gives you, follow the way of life that he prescribes. And yet, what did they do? They went and sought after other gods, built idols, and disobeyed him.

And 40 years later, then they were taken into captivity. They reaped what they sowed. God gave them exactly what they asked for by their actions. Back in Isaiah 2 and verse 5, at the Feast of Tabernacles, I'm sure wherever you were, you read through Isaiah 2, 1-4, talking about people who were not going up to the mountain of the Lord to be taught in the latter days and in his kingdom. But in verse 5, the time before that, there's a warning to all the house of Israel, all of God's people. All house of Jacob, it says in verse 5, come and let us walk in the light of the Lord. For you have forsaken your people. The house of Jacob? Why did God forsake them? Because they're filled with Eastern ways.

They're soothsayers like the Philistines. They're pleased with the children of foreigners. Their land is full of silver and gold, and there is no end to their treasures. Their land is full of horses, and there is no end to their chariots. They began to look at their silver and gold and trust in it more than they trusted in God. We can certainly take the leap and apply that to us today.

Certainly, in this country, we look to our economy almost as if it's a God. The stock market is almost like a God. People look to it and trust in it more than they would trust in God to provide things. Back then, they looked at horses and chariots, instruments of war. Rather than looking to God for protection, which He promised them that He would always do, they began to look at their own equipment and their own weaponry, and their own ability to defend themselves, and somewhere along the line, they forgot God. They began to trust in that more. We do the same thing today. We look at our weaponry, we look at our defense system here in America, and most people, most people is an understatement. Most people would not trust in God. We have to defend ourselves, and so we pour billions of dollars into it in a world that's apart from God.

But we trust in it more than we would trust in God to defend us, just like the people back here were doing. Their land is full of idols, it says in verse 8. They worship the work of their own hands, that which their own fingers have made. People bow down, and each man humbles himself. And then Isaiah says, don't forgive them.

Well, God always forgives. When we repent, back in Acts 17, verse 29, I won't return there. We return there, but in the New Testament, Paul says, you don't need symbols to worship God. You don't need symbols to remind you of what God did. Trust that He will provide everything. And as he cautions the people back at that time, he says, the times of your ignorance God winks at, but now calls on all men everywhere to repent. Turn from the way you used to do things, and turn back to Him. Trust Him and don't replace Him with the works of your own hands.

Back in 1 John 5, verse 21, here's some decades after Christ died, and John the Apostle, who walked with Christ for three and a half years, who, the Bible tells us, was a close friend, if you will, of Him, knew how He thought, knew what He believed, patterned His life after what He saw the example of the Son of God doing.

And He writes in verse John 5, 21, words for all of us, little children, keep yourselves from idols. Don't let that sin creep in unawares. And back in Revelation 22, the very last chapter of the Bible, as it talks about the people who will enter in to that city, the New Jerusalem, that will be part of God's kingdom forever, it tells us in verse 14 of chapter 22, blessed are those who do His commandments, who live and walk that way of life, and have that way of life written on their hearts.

Blessed are those who do His commandments, that they may have the right to the tree of life, and that they may enter through the gates into that city. But outside, the people who won't be part of that are dogs and sorcerers, and sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and whoever loves and practices a lie.

Right up until the end of time, idolatry is a problem. People fall prey to it. It was there from the beginning of the time of man, and it will be there right up until the end, in different ways, shapes, and forms, but idolatry nonetheless. And if we look around us in the world today, we may live in a land that doesn't have a statue of Baal or Athena or some other god on the street corners as we walk by, but as we look around the world, we see that idolatry is alive and well, isn't it?

How many people, even in this country, have little statues of Buddha that are carved out of wood or stone in their homes? Some of them would say they're works of art, but there's a large number of people in this country, and probably hundreds of millions, if not a billion, that bow down to that little statue and expect it to bring them the answers to a peaceful life.

Give them the answers and to help them through life and to find the peace and security for eternity. Here in 2011, it's widespread. If we look at another populous area of the world, where the Hindus practice religion, they worship the created animals, don't they? They worship cows. I remember back in the 60s and 70s, when India was a country that was going through a severe famine, and you would see pictures of people that were starving, and yet through the streets, the cows would just be marching through because they weren't about to touch that sacred cow.

They worship the created rather than the creator. We have a growing religion on earth called Islam, and if you read through some of what they say, they have the very same commandment that we do. You don't bow down to idols, and they say their religion is free of idolatry. But when you see how they worship their God, it's far different than the way we worship our God. They have a place over in Mecca, and there's a black box, a literal black box that's there in the middle of a shrine that they have erected, and it has some kind of sacred stone inside that big black box that's called the Kaaba, K-A-B-A-A.

And when you see pictures of that, what you see are people who practice that religion bowing down prostate, arms outstretched, all toward that box. And they say that every single person, every single proponent of that religion should strive to make a pilgrimage, at least once in their lifetime, so they can bow down to that box.

Now, they don't say it in that way, but that's what the message is. And they say when you pray, you should pray in the direction toward Mecca, bowing down toward that box. And if they say that they have no idols, but if you're bowing down to something, and you're bowing down to a certain direction, it would seem to me that pretty much fits the definition of an idol.

And again, hundreds of millions. Who knows how many? Bow down in that direction, all over the world, and a growing number right here in this country. And yet, we might look at this commandment and say, it's not a big problem today, because we're so used to reading the things in our history books about what the pagan religions used to be like with the Greeks and the Romans, who very much did have public displays of idolatry in the gods that they worshipped.

They didn't worship one god, they worshipped many gods, all who had little responsibilities for making sure that the people were taken care of. The true god does it all. Don't need many gods. And we don't have to bow down to a statue to remember him. And he doesn't want to be replaced with a bank account or a stock market or a drone or anything else that would interrupt and make us look to that for what he can provide rather than him.

And here in this country, we've talked about other religions. You know that there's millions and a billion, at least, around the world who walk into a church every Sunday, and they look straight ahead as they walk in, and there's a statue on the wall or a statue off to the side, and as they walk into that church, what do they do?

They bow down. They bow down to it. They cross themselves, and yet they would say, we don't practice idolatry. And yet you can see people kneeling down in front of those statues and praying to them and looking to them and trusting in them for guidance, trusting in them for deliverance. And yet we would say, or that church, and really most of what is called Christianity today would say, we don't worship idols. And yet God might look at it in a different way.

Let's go back to Ezekiel. Ezekiel 8. And I would venture to say that all of us in this room, no matter, well, at some point in our lives, did those same things that we just talked about in some other religion. I remember, well, growing up, well, until I was 10, walking in, bowing down.

Since then I've gone to funerals where I've seen my cousins bow down, cry, light candles, give money to statues, pray to a statue, not even of Jesus Christ, and expect that that statue was going to deliver the one who had died.

In Ezekiel 8, we find God talking to Ezekiel, and he is understandably not happy about something going on in Israel. Let's pick it up in verse 6. Again, this is God talking to Ezekiel.

Now, let's start in verse 5. Ezekiel 8, verse 5. God said to Ezekiel, Son of man, lift your eyes now toward the north. So I lifted my eyes toward the north, and there, north of the altar gate, was this image of jealousy in the entrance. This image of jealousy. God, jealous for us, wants his people to have everything he can give them. There's this image of jealousy. What he wants is people to succeed. He wants people to be happy. He wants to give them everything.

And here in the entrance is this God who wants it, but now he's going to show Ezekiel what the people that he wants this for are doing. So he brought me to the door of the court, and when I looked, there was a hole in the wall. And God said to Ezekiel, Son of man, dig into the wall. And when I dug into the wall, there was a door. And God said to Ezekiel, go in, and see the wicked abominations which they are doing there. Kind of hidden. Not out in the open. Ezekiel didn't know what was going on until God showed it to him.

And so many times, in the people of God's lives, idolatry can creep in. It's not something that we do out in the open, but sometimes it can be in our minds. It's hidden, and God has to reveal it to us. So I went in, it says in verse 10, and saw, and there every sort of creeping thing, abominable beasts, and all the idols of the house of Israel portrayed all around on the walls. It was all there. In a nation that said they followed God, a nation that God had given a promised land to, and a way of life that would have led to everything they wanted.

And there stood before them, verse 11, seventy men of the elders of the house of Israel, and in their midst stood Jez and Aya, the son of Shaphan. Each man had a censer in his hand, and a thick cloud of incense went up. Now, I don't know how many of you have gone to some funerals. Again, my family came from the Catholic religion on my dad's side. And I remember fully the last funeral I went to, for my aunt, the last living of his siblings, as they brought the casket down the aisle.

And I didn't remember this from before. But of course there was an image that went before it, and the priest, and he had this incense vial that he waved back and forth before it. And I didn't understand what it meant. But as you go back, this is the same type thing they were doing way back in ancient Israel.

A thick cloud of incense went up, and you could just see the incense as that priest went down the aisle with that casket. And he said to me, or God said to Ezekiel, Son of Man, have you seen what the elders of the house of Israel do in the dark? Every man in the room of his idols. Do you see what they're doing? Do you see how they're worshipping a God? They're not doing what I asked them to do.

They're not honoring me. For they say, the Lord doesn't see us. He's forsaken the land. God said to Ezekiel, Turn again, and you'll see greater abominations that they're doing. So he brought me to the door of the north gate of the Lord's house, and to my dismay, women were sitting there weeping for tamoos. Weeping for tamoos. And God said to me, Have you seen this, O Son of Man? Do you see what they're doing in my house? Do you see what the people that I've given promises to, that I've given blessings to, do you see what they're doing? And this was a greater abomination than what Ezekiel had seen before. Who is tamoos? If God finds that such an abomination, who is tamoos?

That it had found its way into ancient Israel, God's people at that time. Let me read to you a little excerpt that I took off of the Internet. And I didn't take it from our website or any booklet of any church of God. I got this from christiananswers.net. A common answer or a common website for people that have any questions about the Bible. That anyone in the world is not supported by anyone but, I guess, some filmmakers and some churches out there.

And they have many, many things on there. And this is what they say tamoos is, or who he was. And I'm not reading the whole thing. It goes on for a few pages there. But let me read some excerpts from what they say. Tamoos is here from Ezekiel 8. After the flood, it says, Noah had a talented but evil great grandson named Nimrod. Well, we all know Nimrod. He was back in Genesis 10. Nimrod rebelled greatly against God. The Bible says that he was a mighty one.

Jewish tradition indicates that Nimrod was a tyrant who made all of the people rebellious against God. And as we remember Nimrod, he's the one who instigated the building of the Tower of Babel. He wanted to take a stand against God. They wanted to build a tower to prevent God from ever, ever flooding the earth again. They thought that they would be able to do something to limit God. And so they began to build a tower of Babel. It's evident from history, ChristianAnswers.net says, that Nimrod was not only a political leader, but also the lead priest of a form of occultic worship.

Nimrod built and organized major cities. The Bible notes that these included Babel, Asher, Nineveh, cities that we've heard of in the Bible. If you know anything about ancient history, the mention of these places may send shivers up your spine. For these were cities of great, almost unimaginable practices and perversion. When Nimrod eventually died, they say, the Babylonian mystery religion in which he figured prominently continued on. His wife, Queen Semiramis, thought of that. Once he was dead, she deified him as the sun god. In various cultures, he later became known as Baal, the great life giver, the god of fire, Balaam, Bell, and Molech.

And as you read through the Bible, you see those gods mentioned. They all had their rut in this man Nimrod, who took a stand against God and thought that he could create something that would limit God's power and make man supreme over God. Later, the website goes on to say, when this adulterous and idolatrous woman, Queen Semiramis, his wife, later after his death, she gave birth to an illegitimate son.

She claimed that the son, Tammuz by name, was Nimrod reborn. So, she had an illegitimate child, and what she told the people was, this is a miraculous birth. Nimrod came back from the dead, and this is his son. And the people believed it. Semiramis claimed that her son was supernaturally conceived, and that he was the promised seed, the Savior, promised by God in Genesis 3.15. However, not only was the child worshiped, but the mother, the woman, was also worshiped as much or more than the son.

Now, that sounds familiar today, doesn't it? Where we have a son worshiped, and the mother is worshiped right alongside as equal, or maybe even greater, in a major religion today. Nimrod, deified as the God of Son and the Father of Creation, Semiramis became the goddess of the moon and fertility. Goes on to say, in the old fables of the mystery cults, their Savior, Tammuz, was worshiped with various rites at the spring season.

According to the legend, after he was slain, he was killed by a wild boar, he went into the underworld. But through the weeping of his mother, he mystically revived in the springing forth of the vegetation in spring. Each year, a spring festival dramatically represented this supposed resurrection from the underworld of Tammuz. So every spring as they came, they wept for Tammuz. They believed if they wept from him, there was a promise of resurrection. What God is saying in Ezekiel is that very right, that very R-I-T-E of what's going on there.

People weeping for Tammuz. The son, the illegitimate son, of a mother, of the wife, of the man who thought he would take a stand against God and created a religion that has many facets, symbols that have found its way down through the ages and are here with us today.

And God says it was happening right there in Ezekiel. It still happens today. Let me go on and read the next couple of paragraphs from this website. Thus a terrible false religion, they say, developed with its sun and moon worship, priests, astrology, demonic worship, worship of stars associated with their gods, idolatry, mysterious rites, human sacrifice, and more.

Basically, almost every vile, profane, and idolatist practice you can think of originated at Babel with Queen Semiramis, the mother goddess, and Nimrod. As the people scattered from Babel with their different languages, they, of course, used different names for Nimrod and Tammuz and Semiramis. It spread. It never died. People clung to those customs. They clung to what was happening back then, and they just promulgated it down through history. And if you read, you can go on the Internet and read it.

You don't even have to go to the library anymore and learn these things. It's all there. As we look around us today, on December 17, 2011, we can find some very, the very same symbols of what was used back there in Nimrod's time and to represent him that has found its way down into the modern age. It's all right there, called by a different name, called by a different reason, attached now to a theme from the Bible as opposed to just worshipping Nimrod or weeping for Tammuz with the very same customs that were there way back when are with us today.

Let's go back to Jeremiah 10. Jeremiah 10, verse 1. Just read through the first five verses here. Hear the word, says verse 1, which the Lord speaks to you. O house of Israel, thus says the eternal, don't learn the way of the Gentiles. Don't learn it. Don't look at what they do and think that you're going to adopt the same things.

Moses said it over and over and over again in the Old Testament. Christ would say the same thing. Don't look at the way the world worships me or their gods. Don't look at the way the world worships their gods and do the same thing to worship me. He tells us how to worship him and not with the symbols that are used with ancient gods. Don't learn the way of the Gentiles, he says in verse 2. Don't be dismayed at the signs of heaven, for the Gentiles are dismayed at them.

Verse 3, the customs of the people are futile. One cuts a tree from the forest, the work of the hands of the workmen with the axe. They decorate it with silver and gold. They fasten it with nails and hammers so it won't topple. They're upright like a palm tree and they can't speak. They must be carried just because they can't go by themselves. Don't be afraid of them. There's no power in it. They can't do evil. They can't do good. There's no power in it. And yet the people do this as part of a custom rite, a pagan rite that had been passed down, that God indicates here.

He hates. Over in Deuteronomy 12, verses that we should all have, just as part of our memory bank, in verse 29 through 32. Because many people would look at it and say, well, it really doesn't make any difference. The amazing things about the websites you read online, or even christiananswers.net, that knows all the history, well-documented, they come down to the conclusion, well, it really doesn't matter because we're not thinking about those pagan ideas today when we celebrate Easter, when we celebrate Christmas.

No! That's totally contrary to what God says. Deuteronomy 12, verse 29.

Then the Lord your God cuts off from before you the nations, which you go to dispossess, and you displace them and dwell in their land. Take heed to yourself that you're not ensnared to follow them after they're destroyed from before you, and that you don't inquire after their gods, saying, how did these nations serve their gods? I'll do the same. And that's exactly the way christianity today and the practices they have got its start. Back in Roman times when the church was being changed by Constantine back in 325, he looked around and said, you know what? We need to have more people in. How are they worshipping their gods? Let's combine the two. Let's combine some of the truth of the Bible with some of these pagan ways, and the Roman Saturnalia, and some of the symbols that are there, and we'll make everyone happy.

And if we do it in the name of God, certainly God will be pleased, is what he thought. He didn't know his Bible well, did he? Verse 30, you shall not worship the Lord your God in that way. For every abomination to the Lord which he hates, they've done to their gods. They've even burned their sons and daughters in the fire to their gods.

God says, whatever I command you, be careful to observe it. Don't add to it. Don't take away from it. If I say to do it in the Bible, do it. Worship me the way I say to be worshipped. The second commandment says, no idols, no symbols, no mixing of pagan rites, no mixing of pagan symbols and idols from the past, to come in and say it's okay because we're not thinking about that specifically today.

Now, the land is full of idolatry, and if we don't pay close attention, we can become part of it and participate in it as well. And I don't mean participate in it as we celebrate the holiday, but it becomes something that we just kind of mull over in our heads or don't take seriously.

But as we see these things around us, realize people aren't obeying God.

And when God fulfills what He says will happen to this nation, not because He wants it punished, not because He wants it to go through what He prophesies it'll go through, but because it has to happen, because the nation and the people in it and the people in the world follow a way that's different than what God said. If they would simply follow what He said, not adding to it, not taking away from it, worshipping Him and only Him, worshipping Him the way He says to be worshipped, and the other eight commandments as well, it wouldn't have to be that way. But that's not been the way of the world. We could talk about other symbols as well. I talked about the one that people walk in to a church, and just about every church in America is adorned with a cross.

And some people would say, you know, it's just a symbol of Christianity. I wear it. I have it just to show that I'm a Christian. But they don't know where that cross emanated from. Let me read from another publication, just briefly, on where the cross came from. It says, What does Tamuz have to do with the cross? What does the worship of Tamuz have to do with the sign of the cross? According to historian Alexander Hislep, Tamuz was intimately associated with the Babylonian mystery religions begun by the worship of Nimrod, Semiramis, and her illegitimate son. The original form of the Babylonian letter T, known as Tao, was a small letter T. We have a small letter T today, and it looks like something. And this author says, It's identical to the crosses used today in this world's Christianity. This was the initial of Tamuz, the same person that the women were weeping for. He goes on to write, The mystic Tao was marked in the baptism on the foreheads of those initiated into the mysteries. So when they baptized someone, they put the initial of Tao on their forehead. The Vestal versions of pagan Rome wore it suspended from their necklaces, and his comment is, as nuns do now, There is hardly a pagan tribe where the cross has not been found. The sign of the cross, the indisputable sign of Tamuz, the false messiah, was everywhere substituted for the true messiah. Now that's what he says. I didn't write it. I didn't pull it out of a church publication. You can go find it documented on the internet and in many encyclopedias. It's there among us.

Let me read this from the Catechism of the Catholic Church. They, I don't know how many of you have Catholic backgrounds. I'll speak to it since I remember many facets of the Catechism. When you go to a Catholic school, it's drilled into your mind day after day after day. You go to Mass day after day after day.

So you know your ten and in third grade when your parents leave the church, there's still the things that you understand from there. So the Catechism of the Catholic Church says this, and incidentally, the Catholic Church has a list of ten commandments. That curiously eliminates the second commandment that's here in the Bible. And here's what they talk about, idolatry. It says idolatry not only refers to false pagan worship, man commits idolatry whenever he honors and reveres a creature in place of God, whether this be other gods or demons, whether it be power, pleasure, race, ancestors, the state, money, and the list goes on.

Well, I'd say they've got that definition right. Whenever we place something in front of God, that's idolatry. And they rightly say it can be power. Power may be the thing that we put in place of God. Maybe ancestry, that we believe our ancestors were so much wiser than anything God could say. Could be the government. A lot of people believe in government. They may not say that the government is what they worship, but there's an awfully lot of people in the world, or in America, that would say our government can solve all the problems, right? We don't believe it can fail. So when we see kind of the writing on the wall with some of the economic situations that are going on, when we see and read reports of what's going on in the world around us, people bury their heads in their sand, and they think our government can't fail.

The United States can't fail. Well, you know what? Any thing of man can fail. Only God can't fail. And so they may put their trust blindly in that. And you know what? People even put men in that role of idol. Ancient history is full of the examples where Caesar's and other kings saw themselves as God, and they expected people to bow down to them.

They had all the answers to everything. And today, if we were really with our idols open, we see that a large part of the world will look at a man, and they will say, he's in place of God. We trust in him. Everything he says is the word of God. And so they look to him rather than look to God.

Could it be that we have some hidden idols in our minds? Things that are not out there for all of us to see, but all of us have something in our mind that God would be revealing to us. Anything that stands between us and him, anything that we would trust in, more than following his directives, even when his directives don't please what we want, would be an idol. And we could be guilty of this commandment as well. And you know it can start off with something innocent. You remember back in ancient Israel, when there was a plague on Israel, and God healed the nation, they erected a statue, remember that had the brass serpent around it.

And that statue was left there. It was a symbol of God's power. But what happened with that statue over time? People began to worship it. And you find back in 2 Kings, during the time of Hezekiah, when he was going through the landscape and wiping out all the things that were apart from God, that brass serpent that was commissioned by God had to be torn down because the people, over time, began worshiping it.

They were bowing down to it. They were making offerings to it. Paul would indicate in Galatians that even the law can become an idol to people. The Ten Commandments. Many of the Jews, I won't say many, some Jews, because I don't know what the answer is, believe the law gives life. When you read back in Galatians 3, Paul said it's not the law that gives life.

The law shows the way to lead a good life, but it's not the law that gives life. The law will never deliver anyone. The law will never give life to anyone. It's only God who can do that.

It's only Jesus Christ who can do that. Not the law. We keep the law because we love Him. 1 John 5 says it, if we love Him, keep His commandments. But it's not the law that gives us life. It's God that gives us life. And it's not the law that gives us forgiveness and illuminates the death penalty from us. It's Jesus Christ and His sacrifice that did it. Not the law. We keep the law because it's the way that leads to everything good.

But in and of itself, it can't give us life. It can't give us forgiveness. Only God and Jesus Christ could do that. And so we worship them.

Let's turn back to Psalm 78. Why does God hate idolatry so much?

We know the answer to that, but let's look at a couple things. And you can certainly add to your list Psalm 78 and verse 40.

How often... This is David. He was writing, how often they provoked Him, God, in the wilderness, and how often they grieved Him in the desert. Yes, again and again, they tempted God, and they limited the Holy One of Israel. They limited Him. And that's what idols do. They limit God.

God can't... He can't be put into a symbol that we can craft with our hands or even imagine with our minds. He's so much more than a cross that are in the churches. What He did was monumental, and what He did is absolutely necessary to us. But He's so much more. He's deliverer, provider, creator, sustainer, healer.

You can't come up with a symbol in our minds. We don't even know everything that God is, but we know that He is everything, and He can't be limited by any idol or any creation of our hands. We don't want to limit God. We want to... We want Him to be expanded in our mind, and we want to pray to Him and ask Him to continue to show us His goodness, His mercy.

Continue to give us knowledge and grow in the grace and knowledge of His Son, Jesus Christ. We don't want to limit Him.

Let's go back to Isaiah.

Isaiah 2.

We were in Isaiah 2 earlier, as we read about... God's of yold and silver and horses and chariots.

Picking it up in verse 12 of Isaiah 2.

It says, It'll come upon all the cedars of Lebanon that are high and lifted up, upon all the oaks of Vatian, upon all the high mountains, and upon all the hills that are lifted up, upon every high tower, upon every fortified wall, upon all the ships of Tarshish, upon all the beautiful sloops, the loftiness of man will be bowed down, and the haughtiness of men will be brought low. It will come upon all the cedars of Lebanon that are high and lifted up, the loaves of Vatian, upon all the hills that are lifted up, upon every high tower will be bowed down, and the haughtiness of men will be brought low. The Lord alone will be exalted in that day, but the idols He will utterly abolish.

All those idols that can be any of those things, for different people, and even different people Ship. Power. Position. Bank account. Security alarm. In a house. What does God see when He sees an idol? He sees the pride of man. What do idols do, effectively? They replace God. They replace God. That's the definition of them. So when we look at a bank account, or when we look at a military in the country you live, or the stock market, we see something just like Nimrod was building. Something that we think can offset God. That can protect us against Him. That we can go our own way, and even though He's set a way of life that leads to everything that man would want, He naturally resists it. It says in Romans 8 verse 7, but then tries to set up idols that will give Him those things anyway. God created us. But what do men do? In their minds or with their hands? They create idols. God created us. And yet men want to create their God. Genesis 1.26 says God created us in His likeness. And when man creates an idol, whether it be in his mind or whether it be something he shapes with his hands, he wants to create God in the likeness that he wants Him to be in. It's the reversal of the roles. And when God sees idols, He sees pride. And there's no place for pride in His kingdom. No place for pride among His people. I won't turn to Ephesians 5 verse 5, but Paul even equates idolatry with covetousness, because they'll give us the things we want without living our lives the way we should if we truly want them. Another thing that idols do is they keep us from God. If we have something in our house, in our mind, in our car, in our country, where we look at it, it keeps us from God, doesn't it? People can feel very comfortable if they have a little Buddha in their house, and they think God is with them. And they don't have to do anything except bow down to that Buddha every day. People will look very comfortable if they have symbols in their house. But it's not an idol that keeps us close to God. If we want to be near to God, God tells us how to be near to Him. You know the answer to that, right? Prayer, Bible study, meditation, fasting. Draw near to Him, He's always there. It's a matter of how close do we want to be to Him. We give Him the answer how close we want to be to Him. An idol, whether it be in our mind or whether it be something we've fashioned with our hands, will not draw us close to God. Some people say they want to wear a necklace around their neck because they feel close to God, and they want people to know what they believe. And yet knowing what that symbol means and where it came from, and even knowing what it symbolizes in the world today, I don't know of another church that preaches the same thing we do. I don't know of another church that calls itself religion that believes the same things we do. So why would you want that symbol of something that doesn't even believe the same things that we talk about and that we believe and that God leads us to know? And yet there are symbols that we can give to the world to let them know who we are. It doesn't have to be something we wear around our neck, put it out in our front yard, a door in our front door of the place we meet with. Over in 1 Peter 2 verse 12, Peter talks about the things that we can do that will show what we believe and who we are. 1 Peter 2, let's begin in verse 11, the beginning of the sentence.

He writes, Beloved, I beg you, with sojourners and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lust which war against the soul, having your conduct honorable among the Gentiles, that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may by your good works, which they observe, glorify God in the day of visitation. Let your good works, the way you live your life in accordance with what's written in the Bible, let that be the outward symbol to what the world sees, that they may glorify God and not glorify some possession or idea in our mind. Matthew 5, 16, Christ said, Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.

That's how we can let the world know who we believe, what we believe, and how we live.

That way. Well, in conclusion, let's go back to Deuteronomy 5.

Again, I would suggest that there's so much more to this commandment and so many more verses that we could read and things that you can think of that you think about this commandment in the ensuing weeks and ask God to help you understand it more fully and to reveal to you if there's anything in your life where you're violating this commandment in his eyes. Deuteronomy 5 this time, the identical words used here for the second commandment. Deuteronomy 5, well, let's begin with verse 6 and read the first one over as well. I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image, any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath or that's in the water under the earth. Don't 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 generations of those who hate or reject me, but showing mercy to thousands.

To those who love me and keep my commandments.