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- D.L. Moody - The Ten Commandments
"The Ten Commandments" by D.L. Moody
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The Second Commandment
Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of
any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath,
or that is in the water under the earth: thou shalt nor bow down
thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous
God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the
third and fourth generation of them that hate me; and shewing mercy
unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.
THE FIRST COMMANDMENT, which we have just considered, points out the
one true object of worship; this commandment, is to tell us the
right way in which to worship. The former commands us to worship God
alone; this calls for purity and spirituality as we approach Him.
The former condemns the worship of false gods; this prohibits false
forms. It relates more especially to outward acts of worship; but
these are only the expression of what is in the heart.
Perhaps you will say that there is no trouble about this weight. We
might go off to other ages or other lands and find people who make
images and bow down to them; but we have none here. Let us see if
this is true. Let us step into the scales and see if we can turn
them when weighed against this commandment.
I believe this is where the battle is fought. Satan tries to keep us
from worshiping God aright, and from making Him first in everything.
If I let some image made by man get into my heart and take the place
of God the Creator, it is a Sin. I believe that Satan is willing to
have us worship anything, however sacred--the Bible, the crucifix,
the church--if only we do not worship God Himself.
You cannot find a place in the Bible where a man has been allowed to
bow down and worship anyone but the God of heaven and Jesus Christ
His Son. In the book of Revelation when an angel came down to John,
he was about to fall down and worship him, but the angel would not
let him. If an angel from heaven is not to be worshiped, when you
find people bowing down to pictures, to images, even when they bow
down to worship the cross, it is a sin. There are a great many who
seem to be carried away with these things. "Thou shalt have no other
gods before me." "Thou shalt not bow down thyself to any graven
image." God wants us to worship Him only, and if we do not believe
that Jesus Christ is God manifest in the flesh we should not worship
Him. I have no more doubt about the divinity of Christ than I have
that I exist.
Worship involves two things: the internal belief, and the external
act. We transgress in our hearts by having a wrong conception of God
and of Jesus Christ before ever we give public expression in action.
As someone has said, it is wrong to have loose opinions as well as
to be guilty of loose practices. That is what Paul meant when he
said: "We ought not to think , that the Godhead is like unto gold or
silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device" (Acts 17:29,
italics added). The opinions that some people hold about Christ are
not in accordance with the Bible and are real violations of this
second commandment.
A QUESTION
The question at once arises--is this commandment intended to forbid
the use of drawings and pictures of created things altogether? Some
contend that it does. They point to the Jews and the Muslims as a
proof. The Jews have never been much given to art. The Muslims to
this day do not use designs of animals, etc., in patterns. But I do
not agree with them. I think God only meant to forbid images and
other representations when these were intended to be used as objects
of religious veneration. "Thou shalt not make unto thee ... Thou
shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them." In Exodus we
are told that God ordered the bowls of the golden candlestick for
the tabernacle to be made "like unto almonds, with a knop and a
Aower" (Ex 25:33); and the robe of the ephod had a hem on which they
were to put a bell and a pomegranate alternately. How could God
order something that broke this second commandment?
I believe that this commandment is a call for spiritual worship. It
is in line with Christ's declaration to that Samaritan woman, "God
is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit
and in truth" (Jn 4:24).
This is precisely what is difficult for men to do. The apostles were
hardly in their graves before people began to put up images of them,
and to worship relics. People have a desire for something tangible,
something that they can see. That is why there is a demand for
ritualism. Some people are born Puritans; they want a simple form of
worship. Others think they cannot get along without forms and
ceremonies that appeal to the senses. And many a one whose heart is
not sincere before God takes refuge in these forms, and eases his
conscience by making an outward show of religion.
The second commandment is to restrain this desire and tendency.
God is grieved when we are untrue to Him. God is love, and He is
wounded when our affections are transferred to anything else. The
penalty attached to this commandment teaches us that man has to reap
what he sows, whether good or bad; and not only that, but his
children have to reap with him. Notice that punishment is visited
upon the children unto the third or the fourth generation, while
mercy is shown unto thousands, or (as it is more correctly) unto the
thousandth generation.
THE FOLLY OF IMAGES
Think for a moment, and you will see how idle it is to try to make
any representation of God. Christians have tried to paint the
Trinity, but how can you depict the invisible? Can you draw a
picture of your own soul or spirit or will? Moses impressed it upon
Israel that when God spake to them out of the midst of the fire they
saw no manner of similitude, but only heard His voice.
A [manmade] picture or [manmade] image of God must degrade our
conception of Him. It fastens us down to one idea, whereas we ought
to grow in grace and in knowledge. It makes God finite. It brings
Him down to our level. It has given rise to the horrible idols of
India and China, because they fashion these images according to
their own notions. How would the president feel if Americans made
such hideous objects to resemble him as they make of their gods in
heathen countries? Isaiah bore down with tremendous irony upon the
folly of idol-makers: upon the smith who fashioned gods with tongs
and hammers; and upon the carpenter who took a tree, and used part
of it for a fire to warm himself and roast his meat, and made part
of it in the figure of a man with his rule and plane and compass,
and called it his god and worshiped it. "A deceived heart hath
turned him aside."
A man must be greater than anything he is able to make or
manufacture. What folly then to think of worshiping such things! The
tendency of the human heart to represent God by something that
appeals to the senses is the origin of all idolatry. It leads
directly to image-worship. At first there may be no desire to
worship the thing itself, but it inevitably ends in that. As Dr. Mac
Laren says: "Enlisting the senses as allies of the spirit is risky
work. They are apt to fight for their own hand when they once begin,
and the history of all symbolical and ceremonial worship shows that
the experiment is much more likely to end in religion than in
spiritualizing sense."
If, every day, I bow before a crucifix in prayer, if I address it as
though it were Christ, though I know it is not, I shall come to feel
for it a reverence and love which are of the very essence of
idolatry."
Did you ever stop to think that the world has not a single [manmade]
picture of Christ that has been handed down to us from His
disciples? Who knows what He was like? The Bible does not tell us
how He looked, except in one or two isolated general expressions as
when it says, "His visage was so marred more than any man, and his
form more than the sons of men." We don't know anything definite
about His features, the color of His hair and eyes, and the other
details that would help to give a true representation. What artist
can tell us? He left no keepsakes to His disciples. His clothes were
seized by the Roman soldiers who crucified Him. Not a solitary thing
was left to be handed down among His followers. Doesn't it look as
if Christ left no relies lest they should be held sacred and
worshiped?
History tells us further that the early Christians shrank from
making pictures and statues of any kind of Christ. They knew Him as
they had seen Him after His resurrection, and had promises of His
continued presence that pictures could not make any more real.
I have seen very few pictures of Christ that do not repel me more or
less. I sometimes think that it is wrong to have pictures of Him at
all.
Speaking of the crucifix Dr. Dale says: "It makes our worship and
our prayer unreal. We are adoring a Christ who does not exist. He is
not on the cross now, but on the throne. His agonies are past
forever. He has risen from the dead. He is at the right hand of God.
If we pray to a dying Christ, we are praying not to Christ Himself,
but to a mere remembrance of Him. The injury which the crucifix has
inflicted on the religious life of Christendom, in encouraging a
morbid and unreal devotion, is absolutely incalculable. It has given
us a dying Christ instead of a living Christ, a Christ separated
from us by many centuries instead of a Christ nigh at hand."
THE INDWELLING CHRIST
No one can say that we have nowadays any need of such things.
"Behold I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice,
and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and
he with me." If Christ is in our hearts, why need we set Him before
our eyes? "Where two or three gathered together in my name, there am
I in the midst of them." If we take hold of that promise by faith,
what need is there of outward symbols and reminders? If the King
Himself is present, why need we bow down before statues supposed to
represent Him? To fill His place with an image, someone has said, is
like blotting the sun out of the heavens and substituting some other
light in its place: "You cannot see Him through chinks of
ceremonialism; or through the blind eyes of erring man; or by images
graven with art and man's device; or in cunningly devised fables of
artificial and perverted theology. Nay, seek Him in His own Word, in
the revelation of Himself which He gives to all who walk in His
ways. So you will be able to keep that admonition of the last word
of all the New Testament revelation: little children, keep
yourselves from idols" (1 Jn 5:21 ).
I believe many an earnest Christian would be found wanting if put in
the balances against this commandment "Tekel" is the sentence that
would be written against them, because their worship of God and of
Christ is not pure. May God open our eyes to the danger that is
creeping more and more into public worship throughout Christendom!
Let us ever bear in mind Christ's words in the fourth chapter of
John's Gospel, which show that true spiritual worship is not a
matter of special times and special places because it is of all
times and all places:
"Believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall " neither in this
mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father... . But the hour
cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the
Father in spirit and truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship
him. God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in
spirit and in truth" (Jn 4:21-24).
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