In the sermon titled 'God of Revelation Not Imagination,' Jason Dohm explores the significance of the second commandment, emphasizing the importance of worshiping God as He reveals Himself in the Bible, rather than through human-made images or representations. The sermon begins with an analysis of Psalm 119, highlighting the need for adherence to God's word. Dohm systematically addresses five key points related to the second commandment: what it requires, what it forbids, what it teaches about God, how humans have failed to obey it, and how Jesus fulfilled it. He stresses that representations of God are misrepresentations, citing scriptural examples such as Deuteronomy 4 and the incident of the golden calf in Exodus 32. The sermon warns against the dangers of allowing human preferences to dictate worship and emphasizes the consequences of disobedience, which can reverberate for generations. Conversely, obedience can lead to God's mercy extending for millennia. Dohm underscores the centrality of understanding God through scripture and warns against the potential distortions introduced by images, including those of Jesus. The sermon concludes with a call to embrace God's self-revelation and the blessings of obedience.

Psalm 119 verses 9 through 24. As most of you are aware, Psalm 119 is an acrostic psalm and in the Hebrew language has 22 letters. And so I could say, let's read Psalm 119, Bait and Gimmel, because those are the letters that we're reading. It doesn't reflect in the English language, obviously, but in the Hebrew you can see that and actually have a copy of the Hebrew Bible, Old and New Testament. If anyone's interested in looking at that and see what that looks like in Hebrew, I think it's interesting.

You can talk to me after lunch about that. So starting in verse 9, how can a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed according to your word. With my whole heart I have sought you. Oh let me not wander from your commandments.

Your word I have hidden in my heart that I might not sin against you. Blessed are you, O Lord. Teach me your statutes. With my lips I have declared all the judgments of your mouth. I have rejoiced in the way of your testimonies as much as in all riches.

I will meditate on your precepts and contemplate your ways. I will delight myself in your statutes. I will not forget your word. Deal bountifully with your servant that I may live and keep your word. Open my eyes that I may see wondrous things from your law.

I am a stranger in the earth. Do not hide your commandments from me. My soul breaks with longing for your judgments at all times. You rebuke the proud, the cursed, who stray from your commandments. Remove from me reproach and contempt, for I have kept your testimonies.

Princes also sit and speak against me, but your servant meditates on your statutes. Your testimonies also are my delight and my counselors. The title of the sermon this morning is God of Revelation, not imagination. God has revealed Himself to us. You've got a Bible, it's how He wants to be known by you.

That's truth about God. How you might imagine God is not truth about God. That's what the second commandment is fundamentally about. Well, we're systematically working our way through the Ten Commandments, and we've identified a pattern that we'll be using for each of the commandments. Five points that we'll be trying to cover off for each commandment.

One, what the commandment requires. Two, what the commandment forbids. Three, What the commandment teaches about God. The commands are a revelation of God in itself. What He loves and what He hates.

4. How we've failed to obey the commandment. We know that human beings are experts at shrinking down the law. So they can say they obeyed it. Not true.

Jesus in Matthew 5 and 6 expands it out. Includes our thoughts, our motives, our words in it. And then number five, how the Lord Jesus has fully obeyed the commandment so that if you grab ahold of Him by faith you can have his righteousness. So like with the first commandment, we'll take two weeks to unpack those five categories. Today will be one, two, and three.

Next week will be four and five. As we come to our text, let's ask for the Lord's help. Our God, you are glorious. You've revealed yourself to be glorious. Nothing is more fitting in all the world than that we would worship you.

And that we would worship you as you have said you desire to be worshiped, that you would be God in your worship. Having A cheerful, thankful, redeemed people who are so happy to know what pleases you in your worship, and happy to do that and only that. Make us such a people, Lord, We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Okay, right to it.

Number one, what the commandment requires. If you're taking notes on the handout and filling in the blank, requires, fills in the blank. What the second commandment requires. Follow along, hopefully your finger is in Exodus chapter 20. Follow along as I read verse 4 in the first part of verse 5.

I'll break off there and talk about it. Exodus chapter 20, 4 in the first part of 5. 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 is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them nor serve them.

This is our second commandment And the second commandment which is framed in the negative. It tells you what not to do. Thou shall not, the first commandment was like that too. You shall have no other gods before me. But we keep going back to Jesus in Matthew 22 when he was asked which is the greatest commandment.

He says that the greatest commandment is to love God with all heart, all the heart, all the soul, and all the mind. And the second is like it, to love your neighbor as yourself. So those are not framed in the negative at all. Jesus then says, on these two commandments, loving God with everything you have and loving your neighbor as yourself, on those two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. So we accept that God is wisest in how he gives the commandments.

So he was wise to frame this in the negative. You shall have no carved images. You shall not make for yourself a carved image. But we also want to at the same time also frame this according to the greatest commandment that this is actually about loving God with the heart, the soul, and the mind. Fundamentally every commandment is about love and so commandments that are framed in the negative, the you shall not's, are simply where God is putting his finger on the love killers.

I want you to teach your mind to think about it that way. God is putting his finger right on what will kill love and carved images will kill love for God. You must not do that because it kills love, either Love for God or love for your neighbor. So what is the positive heart behind the negative command forbidding any images of any kind that we worship the one true God as He reveals Himself to be. That we love the self-revealed God.

And we worship Him as He tells us to worship Him. So this is the positive heart behind the negatively framed commandment to keep away from images or representations of God. The positive heart there is that we worship Him or love Him as He reveals Himself to be, not according to what we make Him up to be in our minds. And that we worship Him according to how He tells us to worship Him. Our God is a real God who has not left us wondering.

He has revealed Himself. You own one of these? You probably own half a dozen of these. He has told you what He is like. Who is the one true God?

He's the God of the Bible. Our God has not left us to devise worship according to our own tastes and preferences. By the way, we all have that in our own hearts. And that's being broadly expressed in churches across the land. Our tastes and preferences working its way out into how we worship God.

It's not right to do that, but no, every single one of us have that in our hearts. We would like to worship God according to our tastes and preferences, but God is not having that kind of worship. Turn to Deuteronomy chapter 4. I think Deuteronomy chapter 4 is a text that throws light on the second commandment because it speaks to images and it uses many of the same words from the second commandment but it expands it. It gives you more.

So there's a sense in which Deuteronomy chapter 4, I'll be reading verses 15 through 19. It expands on it and in a way it's an exposition of the second commandment. God's own exposition on the second commandment. Show me that. That's what we need.

Deuteronomy chapter 4 verses 15-19. Follow along. God through Moses says this, Take careful heed to yourselves, for you saw no form when the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire, lest you act corruptly and make for yourselves a carved image in the form of any figure. So here you're already noticing we have the same language here. The likeness of male or female, the likeness of any animal that is on the earth or the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the air, the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground or the likeness of any fish that is in the water beneath the earth.

Take heed lest you lift your eyes to heaven and when you see the sun, the moon, and the stars, all the hosts of heaven, you feel driven to worship them and serve them, which the Lord your God has given to all the peoples under the whole heaven as a heritage. He gave those things to you as a gift, as an inheritance. They are not to be worshiped, they are to be enjoyed but not worshiped. They are not God, they do not represent the Creator. They are just the creation.

What do we have here in Deuteronomy chapter 4? We have Moses describing the giving of the Ten Commandments that we are studying. Look right at the beginning here in verse 15. Take careful heed to yourselves, pay attention, for you saw no form when the Lord spoke to you. In God's most direct and public revelation, So Mount Horeb or Mount Sinai, the giving of the Ten Commandments, do you buy what I'm selling?

That is the most direct and most public revelation of God before the coming of Jesus Christ was the mountain. He appeared to the whole nation in fire and smoke, in thunderings and lightnings, but there was no image of himself, but he spoke out of the fire and smoke. The other revelations of the Old Testament are God revealing himself, again, not in images, but in words to a prophet. Moses was a great prophet. The rest of the giving of the law came through Moses but but not the Ten Commandments.

God spoke to the nation. They heard his voice at Mount Sinai. They didn't see an image of him. They heard the voice. He spoke words to them.

And he wrote those words on stone. In God's most direct and public revelation before all Israel, the whole nation, no form, Words. Images? No. Words?

Yes. Why? Here's what Jesus says in John 4.24. Jesus in John Jesus in John 424, God is spirit and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth. God is Spirit.

Our worship should be spiritual worship because God is Spirit, not sensual worship relying on pictures and statues and images and representations. What the second commandment is teaching us, and really if you can only remember a whole phrase from the hour, please remember this phrase, every representation is a misrepresentation. Every image of God is a misrepresentation of God. Every representation, visual representation of God is a misrepresentation of God. These words reveal Him.

These words honor him. So friends, honor these words. Love him by studying him in the Bible, theology, the study of God, not the study of images and pictures and statues and on and on and on, things that come out of our imaginations. This does not come out of our imagination. You would never concoct this God.

You never would. But here He is. He's revealed himself to you. So if you're going to really love God, you have to love the God of words, the God of the book, the God of scripture, the God as he has revealed himself to be. If you love a creation of your imagination, you don't love God.

That's not God. That's number one. What the second commandment requires. That we love him as he's revealed himself to be. We worship him as he's said we should worship him.

To bring visual representations into that worship is to actually misrepresent him. 2. What the second commandment forbids. If you're taking notes on the handout, forbids, fills in the blank. What the second commandment forbids.

I'm going to go back and re-read that same portion. Exodus 24 and the first part of 5. 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 is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them, nor serve them." This is not just an extension of the first commandment. The first commandment being, you shall have no other gods before me." It definitely has a relationship to the First Commandment, but it's not just simply an extension of it where he's saying how you might have other gods.

I think it's more accurate to say that the first commandment forbids other gods, false gods. The second commandment forbids worshipping the true God in a false way. That's a better way to think of how these two commandments relate to each other. There is a danger in segmenting these verses too rigidly, meaning plucking out a phrase and looking at the phrase with tunnel vision and walling it off from the rest. I think if you do that, you get to no images are acceptable for any purpose, but then you're confronted with temple worship where the temple was filled with images, cherubim over the mercy seat, and priests who wore intricately beautiful garments.

In fact, the priestly garments, God says, for glory and for beauty. He wanted the priestly garments to be glorious and beautiful. There were no representations of God in the temple, but there were many glorious and beautiful images. God actually commanded it to be that way. To section off a phrase and say, this means no images for any purpose at all.

You can't do anything with the commandments about how the temple ought to be made and how it ought to include glorious, beautiful images. Or if you segment it too rigidly, you get that all images are okay as long as they are not for worship. So if you just segment off this second part, you get, well we can have any images we want and they're only bad if you bow down to them or serve them. But if you look at the unified whole of the second commandment, what you get is two-fold. First, All representations of God are forbidden.

Any likeness of anything anywhere. Heaven, no. Earth, no. Water, No. That's everywhere, friends.

Any likeness of anything from anywhere. All that's forbidden as a representation of God. The creature can never be offered up as a representation of the creator. That is forbidden. And therefore, second, use of any representation of God in worship is forbidden.

So here's what I'm saying. A unified view of the Second Commandment gives us this two-fold thing that should never be separated. They are inextricably, unbreakably joined together. All representations of God are forbidden and therefore, what you can't break off from it, use of any representation of God in worship is forbidden. These two things are bonded together because of the nature of the human heart, the nature of images, and the nature of worship.

In other words, how can I create or receive something as a representation of God and not direct reverence to it? That's why you can never break them. So I make a representation and I say, God is like this statue or picture. Because of the nature of the human heart and the nature of images and the nature of worship, how can I, having done that, not direct reverence towards it? The second commandment says, because of the nature of our hearts and the nature of images and the nature of worship.

When you make something and say this represents God, you reverence it. We do that. Two passages I'm going to take us to. One is a prime example and another is a New Testament commentary, Paul's commentary, I think, on the second commandment. So first let's go to the prime example, Exodus 32.

It's not far away. Exodus 32. The golden calf is a prime example of exactly what God says not to do in the second commandment. But it bears a close look. A close look helps us and throws light on the topic.

Exodus chapter 32, I'll read verses 1 through 8. Follow along. Exodus chapter 32. Now when the people saw that Moses delayed coming down from the mountain, the people gathered together to Aaron and said to him, Come, make us gods that shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.

And Aaron said to them, Break off the golden earrings which are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters and bring them to me." So all the people broke off the golden earrings which were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. And he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with an engraving tool and made a molded calf. Then they said, this is your God, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt." So when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it, and Aaron made a proclamation and said, Tomorrow is a feast to the Lord. Then they rose early on the next day, offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings, and the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play. And the Lord said to Moses, Go, get down for your people whom you have brought out of the land of Egypt have corrupted themselves.

They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them. They have made themselves a molded calf and worshiped it and sacrificed to it and said this is your God oh Israel that brought you out of the land of Egypt. Question, is Aaron Question. Is Aaron making them a new God? Is this a new God?

It looks like that's what they asked for in verse 1. Come make us gods that shall go before us. Make us some new gods it seems like is what they are asking for. Is that what Aaron did? Look at the end of verse 4.

He's made the calf. Here's what he says. This is your God, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt. That's not new. They had a God bring them out of the land of Egypt.

Then what does he say in verse 5? Tomorrow is a feast to the Lord. Capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D. Anytime you see that in your Bible, if you have a Bible that does it that way, it means Jehovah, the self-existing one, the name by which God of Scripture called himself. It's not a new God, it's worshiping the old God with images, with an image.

Hey, tomorrow we'll worship the Lord using the name by which God had revealed himself. And they build an altar before the image and they offer the sacrifices. Now think of the history here. God spoke at Mount Sinai. The people were terrified and it was right for them to fear God in that moment.

So they asked Moses to mediate. From now on, tell God to tell you and you tell us. Here's the truth of images. You make them and you can manage them. At its core, We want a God that answers to us and not the other way around.

And images serve that purpose. Great! Nobody's scared of that calf. Nobody's frightened of that calf. They made him out of what came out of their ears, their earrings.

And they could manage him. They replaced a God who frightened them with a God that was no threat to them, a God who would never command them. You know they rejected the God who could command them. They are rejecting a commandment that has been given 12 chapters earlier. We don't want the commanding God.

How about a golden calf? You make it, you manage it. Secondly, who told them God is like a calf? Who told them that the God who made the things that we know is like a calf. Our commandment that we are studying.

You shall not make for yourself a carved image any likeness of anything in heaven, earth, water. Don't make anything and say it's like me. Don't make a likeness. Listen to Habakkuk 2.18. Habakkuk 2.18.

What profit is the image that its maker should carve it? The molded image, a teacher of lies. That the maker of its mold should trust it to make mute idols. Now of course that's true of false gods. A Buddha.

It's a teacher of lies. But the golden calf is just as much a teacher of lies. Who told them God was like that? God's not like a calf. God's not the best in a category.

He's in another category. That's why you can't take a creation, a creature, and say God is like that. He's not like that God says to whom will you compare me? Who's like me and it's a rhetorical question because the answer is you can't compare it to anything You know any created thing You have to rely on his self-revelation. So every image is a misrepresentation.

Listen to Thomas Watson. Oh, I love this. This is helpful. Thomas Watson says this. To set up an image to represent God is debasing him If anyone should make images of snakes or spiders Saying he did it to represent his prince, would not the prince take it in disdain?

Think of what he's saying here. You make an image of a spider, you go to your prince, and you say we've worked really hard on this likeness of you. Here it is. It's a spider. What do you have the right to expect?

That's a good approximation That's a good approximation only the gaps not as large as anything in creation is to God in heaven who created it It is an assault on His Majesty to make any image and say, God is like this. You're assaulting His, it's blasphemy. So it won't do to say, I'm not worshipping the image, the image just helps me. It doesn't help you. That's not true.

It harms you. It doesn't bring you closer to the truth of God so that you can worship Him rightly. It takes you further from the truth of God and taints your worship. It invalidates your worship. God doesn't receive that as worship.

So don't let anyone do the sleight of hand with you to say, oh no, I'm not worshiping the image, it's a representation that helps me worship. God's behind the image, it just helps me in my worship. No it doesn't, that's not true. That's exactly why God told us not to, because it won't help you in your worship, it will harm you. You're sinning against Him to do that.

Not only is it not helping you in your worship, You're sinning against him. You're blaspheming by saying God's like this thing. This helps me to know him better. No, no. This takes you further from the true knowledge of him.

The true knowledge of him is found here. New test, second passage, New Testament commentary. Romans 1. Romans 1. Romans 1, I think Paul addresses this rather directly.

I'll start in Romans 1 verse 18 and read through 25. Romans 1, 18 through 25. Romans 1, 18-25. Paul writes, For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them.

For since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse. Because although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man. Birds, and forfeited animals, and creeping things. Therefore, God also gave them up to uncleanness and the lust of their hearts.

To dishonor their bodies among themselves. Who exchanged the truth of God for a lie. That's just the language of Habakkuk. You exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever. Amen.

This last verse gets right to the heart of it. There is an exchange made, the truth of God for a lie. When you bring representations into worship, images into worship, you are trading the truth of God for a lie. The first verse that we read there, verse 18, Paul calls it suppressing the truth in unrighteousness. Well how is it suppressing the truth?

He's saying Even if you never had a Bible, when you look around at what has been created by God, His handiwork, you see certain things about His eternal essence, his Godhead. So the best revelation is in his word, but even if you didn't have the word, you can look around at what's created and know that The God who made these created things is not like them. His eternal power in Godhead are spoken of in just looking at creation. In other words, Bringing images into worship is a rejection even of natural revelation. How much more specific revelation?

Verse 21, Paul says that all of this flows out of darkened hearts, thinking that has become futile. They didn't glorify God as God, they weren't thankful, and so their hearts darkened. Their thinking became futile and out popped the images. So it's appalling, Where do these images come from? They come out of thoughts that have become futile, darkened hearts.

Verse 22 says, they profess to be wise. They say, this is wisdom to do this, but they have become fools. Verse 23 says, they changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image like corruptible man. That's right at the heart of it. You have this glory of an incorruptible God and now you say he's like something that we see here.

That's so wrong. It's the heart of the problem. All we know is tainted by corruption. God's not like that at all. You can't represent Him with anything that we know.

Everything that we know and have seen with our own two eyes is finite. God is infinite. He's incorruptible. He's not like anything you would represent Him with. Now, I can't leave this without talking about images of Jesus.

What does that mean about images of Jesus? Let me ask four questions and try to answer them. Number one is rhetorical. Is Jesus God? I'm going to start there, building my case.

I'm building a case. I'm going to do my best. This is hotly debated and worthy of the debate because Jesus took on flesh. So you could see Jesus if you lived in his lifetime and you went to where he was. He was in a finite place in a real point in time.

So You can understand why there is a debate about pictures of Jesus. I'm going to build a case that the second commandment forbids images of Jesus. I begin with question number one, is Jesus God? Yes, Jesus is God. Question two, are the images of Jesus teaching truth or lies?

There are images of Jesus everywhere. Are they helping your understanding even of Jesus or harming your understanding? What are they teaching? Truth or lies? Listen to Isaiah 53 and compare this to all the images that you've ever seen of Jesus.

Isaiah 53, second half of verse 2, speaking of the suffering servant. He has no form or comeliness. That word literally means magnificent, splendor, glory. He has no form or magnificence, glory or splendor and when we see Him there is no beauty that we should desire Him. That's what the words of scripture reveal about Jesus.

How does that stack up with the images that you've seen of Jesus? No glory, no splendor, no magnificence, no beauty that would draw you to Him. Why is He a hair model in every image that you have ever seen of him. This was driven home. We used to drive when we were driving home to Greenville.

I went past a new church, brand new church, stained glass, Jesus and his disciples. There's a lot of those. Black Jesus, Black disciples. It was a black church. The truth is, it was probably closer to the truth Than the images of Jesus that you're used to seeing why because it's Caucasian Jesus with Caucasian disciples What does that tell you we make Jesus like us You have black skin you make them with black skin if you have white skin you make them look like a European hair model.

That's teaching a lie about Jesus. That's not Jesus. Question three. That's not Jesus. Question three.

Did Jesus ever tell us to use a representation of Him? Ever. Four Gospels. Did Jesus ever say to use a representation of Him? Or, I've already quoted John 4.24, God is Spirit, those who worship Him must worship in Spirit and truth.

Or is there any hint, I would accept even a hint, that Jesus' apostles used a representation of Jesus or encouraged the use of a representation of Jesus? You have acts, the apostles going throughout the world, the known world, preaching, setting up, worship. Is there any hint that they either used or encouraged? You have the pastoral epistles. They're known as pastoral epistles, letters to pastors.

There's not a hint. You say, well, that's an argument from silence sometimes the silence is deafening You you want images in your worship even though you have the second commandment and Jesus never said anything about using a representation of himself and his Apostles never did it according to the histories of the New Testament and the pastoral admonitions in the New Testament. Number four. Did Jesus look like that in eternity past? Whatever that is.

So Let's say you got a photograph from Jesus' life. Jesus looked at the Word. In the beginning was the Word. We just came out of John. In the beginning was the Word.

We just came out of John. In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God. And the Word was God. That what he looked like in the beginning?

Does Jesus look like that now? Whatever that is, even if you got that right, is that what he looks like now? Not according to Revelation 1. His face shines as bright as the sun. You couldn't even look at him.

He has a double-edged sword coming out of his mouth. By the way, I think those descriptions are actually describing what he is like, not what he looks like. So, If he were in the room, would his face really shine like the sun? Well, maybe so. I think it's saying things about him.

In any event, Jesus is eternal. And his incarnation, his earthly life lasted for 33 years. It is a speck of dust on the scales of eternity. Even what he looked like when he was here wasn't an accurate description of his godhood from eternity past or into eternity future. Here's what Thomas Watson says.

It's Christ's Godhead united to His manhood that makes Him to be Christ. Follow the logic, fully God, fully man. Therefore, to picture his manhood when we cannot picture his Godhood is a sin because it makes him to be but half Christ. Meaning even if you saw an accurate depiction of what he looked like when he was on the earth, you would have a half Christ. Because you don't get Jesus in his fullness, all you have is the picture.

You Don't get the words, the miracles, all you have is a picture. But he's the God man and you can't picture the God side. So it would leave you with the wrong impression. You would say That's an average Joe. Jesus is not an average Joe.

Years ago, years and years ago now, the passion of the Christ came out. Christians were flocking to it. Churches were renting theaters and saying bring your neighbors to see this. It will change their life. It will change your worship.

I was an elder at that time, but I was a brand new elder. And I had a co-elder that was jumping out of his skin that this was happening. And my attitude was sort of, what's his problem? It was because I was totally ignorant to how the godly had viewed this for two thousand years. We didn't just start thinking about, should we be representing Jesus?

There's a two thousand year debate that has unfolded. And the people that we love, and quote, would have universally been jumping out of their skins when the Passion of the Christ came out. Brethren, don't let your views of Jesus be colored by Mel Gibson. Mel Gibson produced that movie. He comes out of an image embracing, image loving tradition.

So he did it and wouldn't even blink at the inappropriateness of it. But this is a wicked man by the world standards. This is a wicked man coming out of an image loving background and in a sense you hand over your view of Jesus to him to tinker with it and to color it. I'm not saying you'll accept everything about that movie is true, but it will influence your thinking about Jesus in ways that you might not even know and acknowledge. Are you willing to do that?

Are you willing to hand over influence about your thoughts of our Lord Jesus to anyone, let alone Mel Gibson? Do not. Do not. Do not. Do not.

We'll talk some more about this next week. I want a second shot at it. That was number two. What the second commandment forbids. Number three, what the second commandment teaches about God.

God is revealed in His commandments the righteousness of God. He's telling us about what he loves and hates in his commandments. So when we study his commandments, we're really studying God and what he's like. I'd like to give you four things. Again, I'm sure it's a list that's shorter than it should be, but I'll give you these four things.

Number one, God wants to reveal himself. The fact that he's not content that we just let our imaginations run wild and just think of him however we want to think of him tells you he actually wants to reveal himself. Praise God. He didn't have to reveal himself to us, but he's given us so much about what he's like. He wants to be known.

God gave us this book. Redemption is about God revealing himself. God sending Jesus to redeem a people is so that he would be known as a merciful God, as a God who delights in mercy. He's revealing himself. He wants to be known.

He wants to display himself. Redemption is all about that. Reject a man-centered gospel that puts man at the center of Jesus coming. Yes, yes we should praise God. It means everything to us, but it's not fundamentally about us.

It's fundamentally about God revealing himself to be a God who redeems. He wanted that known. He reveals himself. Friends, be Friends, be satisfied. The clamor for images is really just dissatisfaction.

Revealing dissatisfaction. God can be known so well through the blood of his son by the book. You can know him so well. You can know him so intimately. Don't clamor for something else.

What really satisfies the soul is to know this God through the blood of his son by the book, meaning reconciled by Jesus' work on the cross, and then giving yourself to knowing him as he reveals himself to be in his word. You can know him so well. It's so satisfying to the soul. Oh, don't clamor for something else. You won't end up enhanced.

You'll end up diminished by the things you were clamoring for. Number two. Number one. God wants to reveal Himself. Number two, God insists on being God in our worship.

He won't let you make it up. God insists on being God, being the boss in worship. In worship. He insists on being worshiped in the way that he requires. He is not dependent on our tastes and preferences.

Thank God He is not dependent on our tastes and preferences. Thank God he is not dependent on our tastes and preferences. What kind of a God would that be? Not a God worth worshipping. Number three, the consequences of disobeying reverberates for generations.

So back to our text. There's text we haven't even touched yet. Let's touch it now. Look at the second half of verse 5. 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.

The basis is given for I the Lord your God am a jealous God. Question, is all jealousy bad? Clearly not. God is engaging in jealousy here and He never does anything that's bad. So clearly this is good jealousy.

It is good and right that God would protect what belongs only to him. That's what's happening here. He's a jealous God. He's protecting what belongs only to him. Only he is worthy of worship.

He will not share his glory with another. That's the jealousy here, And it's good and right. I think our minds tend to translate the words of the text into something like this. When someone makes and or uses a representation of God, God transfers their guilt to their innocent children and their innocent grandchildren and maybe even their innocent great grandchildren. You might find your mind translating the words of our text into that.

But that's not what the text actually says. And that contradicts other scriptures. For instance, Ezekiel 18 20. Listen to Ezekiel 18 20 just as crystal clear as it could be. The soul who sins shall die.

The son shall not bear the guilt of the father, nor the father bear the guilt of the son." So Exodus 20 is true and Ezekiel 18 is true and they can be recognized. But you're not going to get there by translating our text to say that Image lovers have their guilt transferred to their innocent children and then their innocent grandchildren, maybe their innocent great grandchildren. The soul whose sin shall die, The son shall not bear the guilt of the father, nor the father bear the guilt of the son. Romans 9.29, I'm going to underdevelop this, meaning I'm cheating it, because I don't have time to develop it properly. Just scribble down Romans 9.29 and make an effort to memorize this one verse.

Over and over and over and over again, it will shift you out of a man-centered thinking that harms us, which creates a category of innocent victims which does not exist. What does Romans 9.29 say? It's in the great predestination, the great election chapter. I'm plucking out one verse. Paul says, Romans 9.29, and as Isaiah said before, Unless the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, could be translated, or left us a remnant, either is fine, we would have become like Sodom, we would have been made like Gomorrah.

Let's unpack that. Unless the Lord of Sabaoth, what is that? The Lord of hosts, the head of an army. Unless the one at the head of the army of heaven had left us a seed or had left us a remnant, we would have become like Sodom, we would have been made like Gomorrah. Now what's that like?

Total annihilation. Total annihilation of sinners, of rebels. Death to rebels. If Sodom and Gomorrah screams anything, it screams death to rebels. Unless the one at the head of heaven's army had left us a remnant, because of his mercy, it would have just been death to rebels.

And we're all rebels. He leaves a remnant because it pleases him to display his mercy. So The category of innocent victims is stripped away from us when we're talking about God. There are innocent victims in a human judicial sense, where somebody who didn't deserve something bad happened to them. I'm not invalidating that at all, but I'm saying God is always righteous and he would be righteous to kill any of the human race at any time because if you want fairness, fair is death to rebels.

Fair is death to rebels. Even if our verse in Exodus 20 meant God would kill your children and your grandchildren and your great grandchildren he wouldn't be unjust to do it. It doesn't mean that but don't think that would be unjust of God to do that because he wouldn't be killing innocent victims he would be killing his enemies. Not that he had made himself the enemy of them, but that they had made themselves the enemy of him, because their natures are bent against them, they are children of Adam. So what is the second commandment saying?

Second commandment saying that the downstream relatives of God haters suffer consequences from that hatred. It's really simple. The downstream relatives of God haters suffer consequences from that hatred, often tremendous consequences. So back to Romans 9.29 for just a minute. All God has to do for you to be destroyed, chasing your own passions, affections, and inclinations is just pass over you.

Just leave you alone. Okay, do you understand that? This is fundamental to a right understanding of the gospel. All God has to do for you to be destroyed, chasing your own affections, chasing what you love, is for him just to pass over you and leave you alone to do what you want. Because our natures are so bent against him.

Let me give you an example. Let me say this before I give you an example. I'm trying to figure out how to speed up. When you are a God hater, and God says, people who make and or use representations of God regardless of what they say or pretend, hate God. That's what it says here.

You might say, I love God and so I'm using this image for worship. God says that's a lie, you hate me. When you are a God hater, you may live to see the carnage of that in the lives of your great grandchildren. Think about this. We are being confronted with a great warning here.

We need this warning. When you are a God hater, you may live to see the carnage of that in their lives. Imagine what it would be like in your old age to behold the carnage of your sin in the lives of your great grandchildren. What must it be like? Example.

The adults of the generation who were brought out of Egypt refused to take possession of the promised land. God said take possession, they said they are too strong for us. This was followed by 40 years of wandering in the wilderness. So if you were 20 years old, you died in that 40 years, unless your name was Joshua or Caleb. The rest, a million people maybe, died in the wilderness.

For 40 years they were wandering until the 20 year olds and older at that point in time died in the wilderness. Now, let's say you were a 50 year old who had a 19 year old. That 19 year old is going to spend, it's your child, spend the next 40 years wandering in the wilderness instead of being in the promised land because you wouldn't go in and possess it. That 19-year-old marries, has a child who grows up and has a child in the wilderness. You're to great grandchildren in that forty years.

Did that mean that none of them repented? No, some of them repented. Did that mean that none of them were saved? No, some of them were saved. But the iniquity of the fathers was visited in that very specific case to the third and fourth generations of those who hated God and wouldn't obey him.

Friends, look around. Find people who will not be governed by God and trace out their generations. Their children are harmed, their grandchildren are harmed, and we've seen it very up close very recently. It matters if you serve the Lord or not. It will matter in the life of your children, in the life of your grandchildren, maybe in the lives of your great grandchildren, whether you serve the Lord or not, whether you would obey the Lord or not.

Number four, the fourth thing that teaches us about God. We're way over. I'm really sorry. I'm not stopping. You just don't want to be here an extra week.

I see what you're up to. Number four, the consequences of obedience reverberates for millennia. A millennium is a thousand years. Millennia is multiple of those. Thousands of years.

The consequences of obedience reverberates for millennia. So look at this. Number three was The consequences of disobedience reverberates for generations. The consequences for obedience reverberates for millennia, for thousands of years. Look at verse 6.

Exodus 20, verse 6. But showing mercy to thousands, thousands of generations, to those who love me and keep my commandments. By the way, Generations up higher was an added word. If you have a translation that italicizes words that they've added in order to give you the proper meaning, generations was added. So The comparison here is third and fourth generations of those who hate me, but showing mercy to thousands of generations, you should probably either add it both places or leave it off in both places.

But in any case, it is a like for like comparison. What is the second commandment saying here? That those who satisfy themselves with God's self-revelation and God's prescribed worship send the mercy of God down through thousands of their generations. Think about that. So if in your lifetime as a parent you satisfy yourself with worshipping not through images or informed by images, but God's self-revelation, you love him by learning who he is and loving him as he's revealed himself to be and you bow to the worship that he's given to us instead of inventing your own, you will send the mercy of God down through thousands of your generations.

That's what this is saying. So the first thing to say is that we're given a wonderful ratio. The worst case is four generations of judgment for God haters compared to a thousand generations of mercy towards those who love God and keep His commandments. So in the worst case, the second commandment communicates that God is 250 times more inclined to mercy than judgment. The worst case, it's really probably better than that.

If it was only the third and fourth generations of those who hate me, if it was only three generations, you even get a bigger number. And if you say, no it's not one thousand, it's thousands of generations, then I mean the number starts to explode. But The worst case, you whittle it down as far as you can whittle it down, God is communicating a disposition that He is 250 times more inclined towards mercy than He is towards judgment. That's wonderful. That's really the thrust of what is being communicated here in this section.

God's disposition towards mercy. Let's keep going with the math. A generation is 20 years. So let's say a thousand generations times 20 years is 20, 000 years. The Bible says that human history is less than 10, 000 years.

All of human history hasn't caught up with his promise here yet. Do you understand that? The psalmist says that his mercy is from everlasting to everlasting. I think he's trying to say that here. Here's an example.

Abraham. Abraham believed God. It was credited to him as righteousness. He didn't clamor for images. He worshipped God as he revealed himself.

Abraham had only a fraction of the revelation that we enjoy. Christ came through Abraham's generations. As recently as 1967, the Six Day War, just go Google the Six Day War. Is God's mercy still being extended to Israel? You better believe it is.

Go read Romans 11. God is not done with Israel. As I understand Romans 11, maybe I don't understand it properly, but as I understand it here today, I think there's going to be a great in gathering of the Lord's people. You know why? Because God's mercy to Abraham extends through his generations.

It's just a case study in his disposition towards mercy. Friends, the ratio is a warning and a tremendous enticement. It's a warning about hating him by disobeying him, but it's a tremendous enticement of all the good that God wants to flow through you to your future generations because you really loved him. I'll pick up with applications next week. God, thank you.

Thank you for your word. Pray that we would be satisfied with what you've given us and not clamor for anything that you haven't. Pray that especially parents in the room or soon to be parents, future parents, would heed this warning of the carnage that can come into the lives of our children and our grandchildren, maybe even our great grandchildren, because of a wrong disposition towards you, of refusal to obey you. But oh, the sweetness of the thought of your mercy flowing through our love for you into thousands of generations. May it be so.

We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.