Hey, podcast listeners! Thanks for streaming today's podcast, From Pathway to Victory. Pathway to Victory is a nonprofit ministry featuring the Bible teaching of Dr. Robert Jeffress. Our mission is to pierce the darkness with the light of God's word through the most effective media available, like this podcast. To support Pathway to Victory, go to ptv.org slash donate or follow the link in our show notes.
Now, here's today's podcast, From Pathway to Victory. The second commandment is about how we're to worship the true God. How do we obey the second commandment?
When you think about God, and hopefully you do, how do you make sure it's the real God you're thinking about and not the God of your imagination? How do you obey the second commandment? Welcome to Pathway to Victory with author and pastor, Dr. Robert Jeffress. You know, idol worship was a major problem in ancient Israel. Time and time again, the Israelites would drift away from God until a period of judgment brought them back in line.
But idol worship, it's not isolated to ancient history. Today on Pathway to Victory, Dr. Robert Jeffress explains why idolatry is still a pervasive problem in the church. Now, here's our Bible teacher to introduce today's message.
Dr. Jeffress. Thanks, David, and welcome again to Pathway to Victory. Just before we get started with today's message on the second commandment, I'd like to invite you to join me on a magnificent vacation experience. I'm referring to the 2025 Pathway to Victory journeys of Paul Mediterranean cruise. The stunning Greek islands of Santorini, Mykonos, and Crete are just some of the most sought after destinations in the world. But our trip is much more than famous.
Beaches and breathtaking views. Amidst all this natural beauty, we'll celebrate the one who created it all. Our tour includes Bible teaching and worship in historic places like Ephesus.
The dates are May 5th through 16th, 2025. So take a look at all the details available online and make plans to join us by going to ptv.org. Just last week, we started a practical teaching series on the 10 Commandments. You might know that I've written a best-selling book on this subject.
It's called The 10, How to Live and Love in a World That's Lost Its Way. But you probably don't realize I've also written a book for children on this topic as well. Our kids need to understand and benefit from the wisdom of God's 10 Commandments. Be prepared to jot down our contact information because later in the program, I'll explain how you can receive your copy of my new book called The 10 Commandments. The 10 Commandments for Kids, plus the one I've written for you as well. Now, let's get started. Human creativity is a powerful force, but there's a point where our creativity can land us in trouble. You see, when it comes to God's character, it's dangerous to let our imagination run wild.
I titled today's message The Second Commandment, Worship the True God. History took place. When I was little, my dad used to drag us down to the Alamo in San Antonio. Standing there in front of the Alamo, I used to imagine what it would have been like for Santa Ana and his troops to scale the old mission. As an adult, I've had the privilege of visiting the most famous house in America, the White House. As I've said in the East Room many times for different ceremonies, my mind would wander and I would wonder, what it was like for John and Abigail Adams, who were the first residents of the White House, and actually hung their laundry in what is now the East Room.
What it was like for them. But of all the historical locations I visited, the one that has meant the most to me is to visit the land of Israel. There is something about walking on the stones where Jesus walked 2,000 years ago. There's something about standing on the Mount of Olives and realize this is where he ascended into heaven and where he's coming back one day. To stand in the front of the empty tomb and realize this is where Jesus conquered death forever. There is something faith affirming. I hear it from people all the time. My faith came alive after a trip to Israel.
Why is that? There's something about being in that location that lifts our faith from what we sometimes think of as mystical and even mythical to actual events that happened in a time, place, location. We have a desire for physical, geographical representations of our faith because we are physical beings. In fact, when Jesus came, he came in the flesh. 1 John 1 says, what we have heard with our ears, we've seen with our own eyes. We have handled concerning the word of life, Jesus. In other words, John was saying he wasn't just a spirit. We saw him. We heard him.
We touched him. It's everything normal for us to desire physical representations of our faith. I think that's why people have for 2,000 years searched for relics like pieces of the cross or they get excited when they think they have found the nails that were driven into Jesus' hands. They enshrine certain locations and make them holy places. It's part of the way we're made as physical human beings. The downside of seeking physical representations of our faith is that if we're not careful, we start to worship the objects of faith rather than the God whom those objects represent.
And that's not just a minor technical difficulty. It is a major issue as evidenced by the second commandment we're going to look at today. If you have your Bibles, I want you to turn to Exodus chapter 20.
We're in a series I'm calling The Ten, how to live and love in a world that's lost its way. We're looking at the Ten Commandments. And you remember last time we looked at the first commandment.
It's found in Exodus 20 verses 1 to 3. As the Israelites planned to enter the promised land, God told them that they were going to be faced to worship many false gods of the Canaanites. And that's why the very first commandment, verse 3, was you are to have no other gods before me. Esteemed God alone, we said. Why is God to be worshipped above every other god? Remember the reasons in verse 2 that God told Moses to worship him alone. God alone is our creator, our covenant maker, our rewarder, and our redeemer. And then to verse 4, the second commandment flows naturally out of the first commandment.
Look at it with me. You shall not make for yourself an idol or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water underneath the earth. You shall not worship them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children on the third and fourth generations of those who hate me, but showing loving kindness to thousands to those who love me and keep my commandments. Now, you need to know there are some faith groups that actually believe all of this is one commandment, both verse 3 and verses 4 to 6. It's all part of the first commandment.
You're to have no other gods before me, and you're not to make any images of me and worship them. If they combine the first two, then how do they come up with 10 commandments? Well, these faith groups take the last commandment and separate it, the one about coveting. They say the ninth commandment is you shall not covet your neighbor's house, and then the tenth commandment, you shall not covet your neighbor's wife.
I believe that's incorrect. I believe the coveting commands go together, but I believe verse 3 is its own commandment. You are to serve no other gods before me, and verse 4 through 6, you're not to make images of God. I believe these are two distinct commandments. You see, the first commandment tells us whom we're to worship. We're to worship God and God alone.
Don't worship a false god. That's what the first commandment is. The second commandment is about how we're to worship the true God.
We're to make sure we're worshiping God alone and not some man-made image of God. Now, what is this commandment prohibiting? Is it to say we're not to have any kind of artistic representation of angels or anything in heaven on earth? That's what it seems to say, but if that's true, then God violated his own command. Because remember, in Exodus 31, he was giving instructions about the artwork that was to be in the tabernacle and later in the temple. And he said to gifted craftsmen, you are to make artistic designs in gold and silver and in bronze and in the cutting of stones and the carving of the wood.
The tabernacle was adorned with representations of angels and palm trees. Remember on the Ark of the Covenant, the lid, they fashioned the two angels, the cherubim, to guard the holiness of God. This isn't an absolute prohibition against any artwork, but I think, as one commentator said, what God is prohibiting is infusing these objects with any kind of spiritual efficacy power. In other words, to imagine that these objects have some supernatural power to draw us closer to God or to establish communion with God, that is what is being prohibited. Now, like most of the Ten Commandments, this commandment starts out with a negative, don't do this.
It prescribes the judgment, the consequences of those who violate the commandment, and then it ends with a promise. I think the key verse is verse five, you are not to worship these images or to serve them. What is the danger of images of God? There are two of them. First of all, images diminish the glory of God.
They diminish the glory of God. Remember the story I told you over Christmas? Well, the first grader, Johnny, who's working on his art project, the teacher says, what are you drawing, Johnny? He said, I'm drawing a picture of God. She says, well, nobody knows what God looks like, and Johnny says they will in a few minutes.
You know, it's a funny story, but it makes a point. The problem when we draw images of God is we reduce God, we diminish the glory of God, and a great illustration of that is Exodus chapter 32. Remember the children of Israel had crossed the Red Sea, they were on the way to the promised land, but they stopped at the base of Mount Sinai. And remember, Moses went up to the top of the mountain for 40 days and 40 nights to receive the law of God.
The Ten Commandments is all the other law. Interestingly, while God was giving the commandments to Moses, the Israelites below were breaking the very commandments Moses was receiving, including this one. The Israelites, they were discouraged that Moses had left them. They hadn't heard from him. They didn't know what had happened to him. They said, maybe he's died.
We're without a leader. So they go to Moses' brother, Aaron, and they say, we need something we can worship and follow. We want you to make an image of God. And so they said, we need a God who will go before us. And so what did Aaron do? He acquiesced to that command, and in Exodus 32, he said, tear off the gold rings which are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me. And then the Scripture says, Aaron fashioned the gold into a molten calf. And when the people saw it, they worshiped it. And Aaron said, this is your God, oh Israel, who brought you up for the land of Egypt.
You have to think, what in the world happened to Aaron? Did he fall into idol worship? Did he start following prematurely the Canaanite gods? Why would such a righteous man start worshiping the wrong God?
Well, he didn't. He wasn't worshiping the false God. He was worshiping the true God. He hadn't become a pagan all of a sudden. The reason I know that is in verse 5.
He says, tomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord, to Yahweh. He wasn't worshiping a false God. He didn't think this was a new God. He thought it was a representation of the true God.
They wanted something visual that they could follow. He didn't think this was God. He thought it was a representation of God.
You say, well then what's wrong with that? God is like a powerful bull. He is strong and mighty and able.
He is the one who just parted the Red Sea. What's wrong with depicting God as a powerful God? Well, it's true, God is powerful, but He's other things as well. He's holy. He's just. He's forgiving. He's omniscient.
He's sovereign. And that bull doesn't represent all of those things. It just represents one aspect of God.
It doesn't tell the whole story about God. By the way, that's the same trouble with a crucifix. A crucifix, a cross with Jesus on the cross that some use in worship.
What's wrong with a crucifix? Jesus did hang on a cross. He did suffer an agonizing death. He did die for the sins of the world. That is central in Christianity.
That's all true, but it's only half the story. That Jesus who was on the cross arose from the dead three days later. And the cross is empty and He's in heaven right now. There's nothing wrong with what the crucifix tells except it doesn't tell the whole story. That's the problem with an image.
Now some of you are thinking, Pastor, you are splitting hairs theologically. No image can tell everything about God. Exactly. That's the point.
That's why you shouldn't use images. It reduces God. It diminishes the glory of God. Isaiah 40 18 says, to whom then will you liken God? Or what likeness will you compare with Him?
He's incomparable. There's no way to picture who God is. Images not only diminish the glory of God. The second problem is they distort the truth about God. Once you diminish God's glory, it's easy to distort the truth of God. When you reduce God to something you can handle or you can see, once you have diminished God, it's easy to distort God and make Him whatever you want Him to be. A great example of that is found in Romans chapter 1. Remember God is describing those who have rejected the knowledge of the true God.
Which, by the way, everybody has by looking at nature. You can know there is a God by looking at nature. But some people have rejected that knowledge of the true God and instead they have created a false God and made Him whom they want Him to be. Look at verse 22, professing to be wise, Romans 1 verse 22, professing to be wise they became fools. And they exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and of four-footed animals and crawling creatures. Therefore, God gave them over in the lust of their hearts to impurity so that their bodies would be dishonored among them for they exchanged the truth of God for a lie. And then they worshipped and served the creature rather than creator who is blessed forever. They tried to reduce God to this image that they had made and then they imposed upon this new God whatever values they wanted. And you read Romans 1, part of those values were sexual immorality. They imagined to be a God who approved of same-sex relationships, men lusting for men and women for women and every other kind of immorality. The pattern is you reduce God and then you distort His truth.
And by the way, the same thing is happening today. Our society wants to diminish God, to downsize God into something manageable that we can understand and control and then we distort the truth of the real God. I saw a great illustration of this just a few years ago in that popular movie that came out. Remember Evan Almighty? Did you all see the movie?
It's a comedy and it's an entertaining movie. It's a modern day riff on the flood story. In the movie God is portrayed, he's been reduced to Morgan Freeman, that is God. And he comes to Steve Carell, a modern day business man, and orders him to build an ark, a massive ark and to have the animals get on the ark because a great flood is coming. And so in one key scene the Steve Carell character is talking to God and asks him about the original Noah and the ark story.
And this is what God, that is Morgan Freeman, says. He says, you know a lot of people miss the whole point of that story. They think it's about God's wrath and anger.
Evan says, well if it's not about His wrath and anger, what is the story about? And God answers and says, well I think it's a love story about believing in each other. You know the animals showed up in pairs. They stood by each other side by side just like Noah and his family. Everybody entered the ark side by side.
Aw, isn't that a sweet story? If you don't like a God of wrath and anger and judgment, adopt this God. Let Morgan Freeman be your God. I like a God who doesn't judge people. I like one who encourages unity among people.
Teamwork makes the teamwork makes the dream work. Why not have that kind of a God? And you hear that all the time today. You know, when I imagine God, that's your first clue something bad is coming. Whenever I imagine God, I imagine Him to be a loving God, not a judgmental God. I imagine God to be somebody who allows everybody into heaven, not just one small group that trusts in Jesus. That's who I imagine God to be.
Ladies and gentlemen, God is not the sum of your speculations about Him. Whenever you imagine God, you are violating the second commandment. You are creating a God in your image instead of a God that is revealed in Scripture. And that's what the problem with images of God are. It not only diminishes the glory of God, it distorts. It allows us to distort the truth about God. Why worship God only and not images of God? He gives us the reason in verse 5. He said, I'm the Lord your God and I am a jealous God. He goes on to say in Isaiah 42 verse 8, I am the Lord God and I will not give my glory to another. Now we read that negatively, say a jealous God, not sure your glory. What's wrong God? Are you that insecure? Are you that paranoid that you think somebody's going to take away your glory? Look, remember these commands are not for God's benefit.
They're for our benefit. God has a holy jealousy. He loves us so much He doesn't want us to get distracted and deceived by false gods that can never meet our needs. He gives us command for our reason and He said, if you disobey it I will visit the iniquity of the fathers on the children on the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me. Now some people misinterpret this verse. They believe in what is called a generational curse. They believe that there are certain sins that if your forefathers committed them that somehow you're held guilty for what your forefathers did and there's this unbreakable generational curse that goes from generation to generation. There is only one sin that was accounted to everybody's account and that is Adam's sin. Romans 5, 12 said, for through one man Adam's sin entered the world and death spread to all men because all sinned. We are held accountable for Adam's sin.
That is true. And if you think that's unfair, rest assured in this, you verify that and I do every hour of every day by sinning against God. We all sin because we've inherited Adam's sin. But outside of Adam, you and I are not accountable for anybody else's sin. We are accountable for our own sin.
That's what God said in Ezekiel 18, 20. The person who sins will die. The son will not bear the punishment for the father's iniquity. Nor will the father bear the punishment for the son's iniquity. The righteousness of the righteous will be upon himself and the wickedness of the wicked will be upon himself. We are not held guilty for somebody else's sin.
So that's not what God is saying. The third and fourth generations will be held guilty if you violate the second commandment. These foundational principles have guided human civilization for generations and it's imperative that we instill this wisdom from God in our hearts and homes. I'm delighted to tell you that I've written a children's book to equip moms and dads for this purpose. Grandparents too. It's called The Ten Commandments for Kids. In Deuteronomy 6, we read, These commandments are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children.
Talk about them when you sit at home and when you lie down and when you get up. Every God-fearing household should own a copy of this creative resource so that we can teach the ones you love these valuable life-giving lessons that are prescribed by God himself. And I'm ready to send a copy of my new book to your home when you give a generous gift to support the ministry of Pathway to Victory.
Again, it's called The Ten Commandments for Kids. In addition to this new children's book, I've written one for you as well. When you give a much-needed gift today, I'm going to send you a hardcover copy of my best-selling book called The Ten, How to Live and Love in a World That Has Lost Its Way. Now, before our time is up, I want to reinforce my gratitude for your support of Pathway to Victory. You're bringing the hope of the gospel to the dark places of our world. In fact, there's not a date that passes when we don't hear from someone who tells us their heartwarming story of life change because of the teaching they hear on Pathway to Victory. So, thanks for doing your part today as together we pierce the darkness with the light of God's word.
David? Thanks, Dr. Jeffress. The brand-new children's book from Dr. Jeffress, The Ten Commandments for Kids, is yours today when you give a generous gift to support the ministry of Pathway to Victory. In addition, you'll receive a copy of the original best-selling book called The Ten, How to Live and Love in a World That Has Lost Its Way. Call 866-999-2965 or make your request online at ptv.org.
Now, when you give $125 or more, you'll also receive the complete collection of audio and video discs for this month's teaching series, The Ten, and that comes along with the corresponding study guide. One more time, our phone number, 866-999-2965, or simply go to ptv.org. Now, you could send your request by mail, write to P.O. Box 223-609, Dallas, Texas, 75222.
Again, that's P.O. Box 223-609, Dallas, Texas, 75222. I'm David J. Mullins.
Join us next time when we continue our study of the Second Commandment, Worship the True God. That's Tuesday here on Pathway to Victory. Pathway to Victory with Dr. Robert Jeffress comes from the pulpit of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas. You made it to the end of today's podcast from Pathway to Victory, and we're so glad you're here. Pathway to Victory relies on the generosity of loyal listeners like you to make this podcast possible. One of the most impactful ways you can give is by becoming a Pathway partner. Your monthly gift will empower Pathway to Victory to share the gospel of Jesus Christ and help others become rooted more firmly in His Word. To become a Pathway partner, go to ptv.org slash donate or follow the link in our show notes. We hope you've been blessed by today's podcast, from Pathway to Victory.
