idols

The Gideon Story

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1 Corinthians 10:11 talks about the experiences of the Children of Israel, and Paul says, “Now all these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come.” We are going through the same experiences they went through, so let us look at one of these experiences.

Judges 6, tells about a man who felt forsaken and discouraged. The Lord came to encourage him, and told him he was a mighty man.

Why so Many Problems?

Gideon felt like replying, Lord, I am not. He said, if the Lord is with us, why have all these calamities happened to us? “‘. . . Where are all His miracles which our Fathers told us about, saying, “Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?” But now the Lord has forsaken us and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites.’” Judges 6:13.

Gideon did not hold any prominent position, and he did not belong to one of the strong tribes like Judah or Ephraim. In addition to that, Gideon said, I am the least of my father’s house, so why are you calling me a mighty man? “Then the Lord turned to him and said, ‘Go in this might of yours, and you shall save Israel from the hand of the Midianites. Have I not sent you?’” And Gideon replied, “‘O My Lord, how can I save Israel? Indeed my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house.’” Ibid., 14, 15.

The Lord said, Go!

Then Gideon asked for a sign. If I have found grace in Your sight, if I have found favor in Your sight, please show me a sign that it is You who talked with me. Please do not go away until I can fix you something to eat.

The Lord said, I will wait until you come back.

Gideon “went in and prepared a young goat, and unleavened bread from an ephah of flour.…He put the broth in a pot; and he brought them out to Him under the terebinth tree and presented them.”

“The Angel of God said to him, ‘Take the meat and the unleavened bread and lay them on this rock, and pour out the broth.’ And he did so. Then the Angel of the Lord put out the end of the staff that was in His hand, and touched the meat and the unleavened bread; and fire rose out of the rock and consumed the meat and the unleavened bread. And the Angel of the Lord departed out of his sight.” Ibid., 17–21.

Then Gideon was scared. He said, I have been talking with God. Alas!

The Lord said, Do not be afraid. Do not fear.

Keep that in mind, because dealing with fear is a big part of the Gideon story.

I Am Going to Work Through You

Notice the first part of the instruction God gave Gideon. He already told him He was going to work through him to defeat the Midianites, a war-like people who were the enemies of God’s people. But before Gideon could go deal with the Midianites, he had some work to do at home.

Here are some questions for the men to think about. How are things in your family? If you are a pastor or an elder, how are things in your church? God holds you responsible for what is going on in your families. In the Day of Judgment, God is going to ask us a question that He is not going to ask our wives. You can read that in the Law of Moses.

If a woman made a vow, and her husband contradicted it, she was free from that vow. But let me tell you, if a man makes a vow, he had better fulfill it, because he is responsible to the Lord. He is responsible for what happens in his home. And, if he is a pastor or an elder, he is responsible for what happens in his church.

We are living in a generation where anything goes, and many fathers, pastors, and elders have let their responsibility slip. We have things going on in our homes and churches for which we are not going to want to give account in the Day of Judgment.

1 Samuel 2, tells of a man who did this very thing. It says Eli advised his sons not to do evil, but he did not enforce what he said. He and his sons lost their souls over it, and many thousands of people also lost their souls.

How Are Things in Your Home?

Before God can use any man to win a victory over his enemies, things have to be right in that man’s house, and things were not right in Gideon’s family. The Lord told him, “‘Take your father’s young bull, the second bull of seven years old, and tear down the altar of Baal that your father has, and cut down the wooden image that is beside it; and build an altar to the Lord your God on top of this rock in the proper arrangement, and take the second bull and offer a burnt sacrifice with the wood of the image which you shall cut down.’ So Gideon took ten men from among his servants and did as the Lord had said to him. But because he feared his father’s household and the men of the city too much to do it by day, he did it by night.” Judges 6:25–27.

Are there idols in your family? Are you allowing it to happen? If you are, God is going to hold you responsible. A father has responsibilities. Ellen White wrote to fathers that they should not allow their son to curse, use tobacco or alcoholic beverages in the home.

But what if they say, Dad, I have the power of choice and I am going to do it anyway?

Then you have a responsibility to say, You can do it if you want, but you cannot do it in my home, you will have to leave, because I want the angels of God to dwell upon my family, and I cannot allow that in my home.

People, today, are mixed up about love. They think love means that you just let anything happen. God is love, but there are certain things God would not allow to take place in heaven, and when some angel said, We are going to do it anyway, the Lord said, Then you are going to have to get out.

God cannot work miracles for His church through a man whose family is not in order. Of course, we must pray and ask the Lord to help us to not be harsh, overbearing, severe, and unchristlike in our words and behavior. People have to understand that, in our homes, there is a law—not our law, but the law of God. We are His children, therefore we abide by those laws, and disobedience is not allowed.

This principle is all through the Bible. Jacob said, we need to have a revival in our family. I am the father, you have idols and I want you to get rid of all your foreign gods. And they gave them to Jacob, and he buried them. Jacob recognized that he could not have the blessing of God on his family while some of them were worshipping idols. (See Genesis 35:1–4.)

What Are Your Idols?

If there are idols in your house, the Lord is not going to be able to bless you and your family. If you are a father, you need to rid your house of idols.

God made a covenant with Abraham. “‘This is My covenant which you shall keep, between Me and you and your descendants after you: Every male child among you shall be circumcised; and you shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between Me and you.’” Genesis 17:10–11. This was between God and all of Abraham’s descendants.

One of Abraham’s most famous descendants was Moses. God called Moses to deliver Israel, but God could not allow him to deliver Israel until Moses had straightened out some things in his own house.

On his way to deliver Israel, Exodus 4:24–26 tells us that the Lord met Moses and sought to kill him. Why? You see, Zipporah had a horror of blood and suffering, so she had not allowed Moses to circumcise their son. [Because Moses had allowed this to continue, God could not let him go deliver the Children of Israel until the problem in his house was corrected.] Then Zipporah took a sharp stone and cut off the foreskin of her son and cast it at Moses’ feet. So God let him go.

Are You Following Divine Instructions?

Is your family in order? Is the Lord going to be able to use you to defeat His enemies and bring victory to His people? Not if your house is not in order.

Is your church in order? Paul gives the necessary qualifications for a Bishop: “One who rules his own house well, having his children in submission with all reverence (for if a man does not know how to rule his own house, how will he take care of the church of God?).”
1 Timothy 3:4, 5.

There are Seventh-day Adventist Churches and homes all over the world that are not in order, and we need to do something about it! A deacon is a servant of the church. That is what the Greek word diakonos means, and these are the qualifications of servants of the church: “Their wives must be reverent, not slanderers, temperate, faithful in all things. Let deacons be the husbands of one wife, ruling their children and their own houses well.” 1 Timothy 3:11, 12.

God is going to have an orderly people, because they see it is the way God operates. If you really love God, you will obey His commandments.

I recognize that, no matter how humble, no matter how gentle, no matter how tactful you attempt to be, occasions will arise when people in the family will rebel.

Walking Alone

Ellen White says if you decide to do what is right and walk with the Lord, you might have to walk alone, like Enoch. (See the Youth’s Instructor, April 28, 1898.) I have often pondered that statement, because Enoch was a married man who had children, yet, she said he had to walk alone. I would rather be like Enoch and walk alone than be like Eli!

When you attempt to follow the instruction God has given to help your family come into order, you get in big trouble, and so did Gideon.

When the men of the city arose early in the morning, the altar of Baal was torn down; the wooden image had been cut down, and the second bull was being offered on the altar which had been built. When they found out Gideon had done it, they told Joash to bring Gideon out to them so they could kill him. (See Judges 6:28–30.) He knew he was going to have trouble, so he did it secretly, at night.

When you attempt to follow the Lord’s instructions, by getting the idols out of your house and bringing your family into harmony with what God has said, you will be accused of being a fanatic; an overbearing father; an unenlightened person, a hard taskmaster, and all sorts of things.

And if you are an elder and try to help your church come to order, you will be accused of all those things, and more. People will accuse you of being unchristlike. When you attempt to follow the instructions needed to get your family or church in order, you will get in trouble, just like Gideon did.

Accusations Hurled Against the Reprover

People will say the same things about you that they said about Gideon. “You have wronged us. You are guilty. You have destroyed our property. You have destroyed our religion. You are a blasphemer. Since you have wronged us, you ought to be punished.” They will say, “You are too severe. The least you could have done is let us have the idols and let us get the market value out of them. You did not even allow us to recover our investment.”

And here is a real common one: “You took away our power of choice. You did not even let us choose; you have taken away our freedom.”

Let us just examine that for a minute. Did Gideon take away their power of choice? Gideon did not ask them if he could tear their idols down; the Lord told him to do it, and he did it. So did he take away their power of choice? It might seem like he did when you first look at it, but there is something you may have forgotten.

We all make agreements. When we get married, we make a holy, sacred and binding agreement, and it involves contractual relations, covenant promises. These people, who were so angry with Gideon, they and their forefathers had entered into covenant promises with the Lord. (See Judges 6.)

Gideon was not taking away their power of choice when he destroyed the idols. They had already promised not to worship idols! The choice had already been made. Those men had free choice, too. They could have decided to go back and live in Egypt, where they could have worshipped all the idols they wanted. They were free to separate from Israel and go back, but they had not. They wanted to be part of Israel, and being part of Israel meant no idol worship.

I appeal to the men who are reading this article to pray and ask the Lord if you are fulfilling your obligations. It may seem like your family is rebellious now, but the very people who seem rebellious now, can rise up in the Day of Judgment, your wife and your children, and say, Why did you not enforce the law of God in our home?

Where Are the Leaders?

We need leadership today. We need men who will say, “In my house, we are going to serve the Lord. We are going to live according to the Bible and the writings of the Testimonies of God’s Spirit. That is the way we are going to live here, because we have made a covenant to do that.” If you married a woman who was a Seventh-day Adventist, she has already made that decision. You are not asking anything unreasonable to say, “I want everybody in my family to obey God’s Word and to obey the Spirit of Prophecy.” Let me tell you young men, you better not marry somebody who has not made that decision, or you are in trouble.

Gideon was scared. I do not know if you have ever been in that state of mind. I have been, many times. Lord, I am so perplexed. You say do this, and I do not even know how to get started. So Gideon asked the Lord for a sign, and the Lord gave him a sign, but Gideon was still struggling to develop faith.

Lord, please do not be angry with me, he said. Let me ask you for one more sign. (See Judges 6:36–40.) Friends, with the situation in the world today and what we are soon going to go through, if we do not develop faith like Gideon had, we are not going to make it. You develop faith by proving His promises, and you are not going to make it through the Time of Trouble without it.

Gideon decided to do what the Lord told him to do. He issued a summons. He made some enthusiastic, zealous, impassioned appeals, and his countrymen flocked to him—all except the people from Ephraim. 32,000 men came. Even with 32,000 men the enemy outnumbered them about four to one!

God Will be Victorious!

The Lord said, You have too many people. (See Judges 7:2.) If this army goes out and they gain the victory, they will decide they did it themselves.

Friends, God’s work is soon going to be finished, and Gideon’s 300 are going to chase the enemies out of the world. The victory is going to be won in a way so you and I will know that we did not do it.

Gideon was astonished! Lord, you know whom I am up against! God said, I want you to do what Moses told you to do. Before you go to war, tell any man who is afraid to go home.

So Gideon did what the Lord told him to do, and with a heavy heart he watched 22,000 men go home. The majority of his army left. (See Judges 7:3.) They went home because of fear. Fear is a universal part of the human experience. Gideon had been struggling with fear, that is why he asked for those signs. He had received three signs so far, but he was going to receive more. God knew he needed something to bolster his faith and courage.

One of these days, we will find out what it is like to have the majority leave us. If you think that we have been forsaken now, read Testimonies, vol. 5, 80, 81. When the National Sunday Law is enforced, we are going to find out what it means to have the great majority of those who call themselves Seventh-day Adventists leave us. Why? Because of fear! If you are afraid, you are not going to make it.

So You Want to be One of the 144,000?

I have been aghast over the years when I have heard people say they hope that Jesus will come soon so that they will not have to die. They have no idea at all what they are talking about.

In the time of trouble, the 144,000, if they could have the assurance that their sins were forgiven, would not shrink from torture or death. If you are going to be part of the 144,000, you are not going to be afraid of death or torture.

During the Dark Ages they had many forms of torture, and some of the most awful were some of the most simple. In Inter-America, South America and in Europe they took men and women and tied an iron strap around their waist so that they were anchored to a big pillar. Another iron strap would be tied around their neck so that their head was anchored, and another around their ankles so they could not move. From above, they would drip a drop of water on their head.

They would let drop after drop of water fall. It was called The Drip, one of the most terrible forms of torture there is. Each hour they would turn the hourglass, and by the time four or five hours had gone by, the nerves were so irritated that every drop of water hitting their head felt like being pounded with a hammer. By the time five or six hours had passed, they could literally go insane, losing all their mental and physical functions.

When a prisoner was tied to one of those pillars, they, and their tormentors, knew exactly what was going to happen, and they knew what the consequence would be.

Those being tortured would say, Lord, unless You help me and deliver me, I am sunk. And unless the Lord helped them, the time would come when they would say anything and do anything to be free from that bang, bang, bang on their head. The 144,000 are going to be people who will not shrink from something like that.

Overcoming Fear

How are you going to overcome the problem of fear? As I read through the Bible, I find that fear is the universal experience of a man who is alone. There is only one Biblical solution to the problem of fear, and that is to have Jesus with you. If Jesus is not with you, you are going to be afraid. If He is with you, you will not be afraid. There is no human solution for fear. Isaiah 41:10 has the solution. “Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, Yes, I will help you, I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.’” You do not need to be afraid, because God says He is going to be with you.

There were several times during Jesus’ life on earth when the disciples were afraid, until Jesus came. For instance, the disciples were out on the Sea of Galilee and they saw Jesus coming. They thought He was a spirit, and they were terrified. “But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, ‘Be of good cheer. It is I; do not be afraid.’” Matthew 14:27. “Jesus came and touched them and said, ‘Arise, and do not be afraid.’” Matthew 17:7.

The Presence of Jesus Removes Fear

You see, it is the presence of Jesus that will take away your fear. There is nothing else that will do it. When we are faced with the kind of experiences that we will be going through, there is no psychology, no human rationalization that can deliver us from fear.

“Let your conduct be without covetousness; be content with such things as you have. For He Himself has said, ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you.’ So we may boldly say: ‘The Lord is my Helper; I will not fear. What can man do to me?’” Hebrews 13:5, 6.

Gideon only had 10,000 men left. The enemy outnumbered him twelve to one. The Lord comes to tell him that he still has too many. The Lord said, We are going to put the people to a test, and we are going to separate them into two groups.

Meeting the Test

You and I are being tested day by day. Most often, we do not even know it! These people did not know that they were being tested. Very often we are tested in every phase of life. One of the things that amazes me about God is how He works through such simple things.

This was a simple test. He said, Take your soldiers and bring them down to the water. I am going to test them. The people who get down on their knees and drink the water, put them all to one side. The people who walk down to the water, bring it up with their hand and lap like a dog, you put them in another group. So Gideon did that. (See Judges 7:4, 5.)

9,700 soldiers knelt down, leaving only 300 who did not. The Lord said, Take the 300. (See Verse 6.) This was such a great test of Gideon’s faith that the Lord knew he needed some more special help. So the Lord told him, Go down to the camp of the Midianites tonight and you will hear something.

When Gideon got down there, he heard these soldiers talking about a dream one of them had. In his dream a loaf of bread rolled down the mountain, hit a tent and destroyed it. The other soldier said, That is the sword of the Lord and Gideon. The Lord has given the Midianites into the hand of Gideon. When Gideon and his servant heard that, Gideon said, the voice of God is speaking through those Midianites. I know it. The Lord has delivered them into my hand, and I am going to do what the Lord said to do, and we are going to do it now! (See Verses 10–14.)

It is not enough to be without fear. 10,000 were without fear. If you are going to go through to the end, it is not enough to be fearless. What did those 300 men have that the others did not have?

Character Revealed

The simplest event of life reveals character. One of the differences was that the 300 had a sense of urgency. They said, God’s business has to be done now. It has to be our number one priority!

Do you have a sense of urgency? Would you be willing to go into the Time of Trouble right now, or do you want to wait for another generation? What is really top priority in your life? Do you think it is time to finish the work?

People write me, I believe in The Great Controversy, but I do not believe it is time yet to do what you are doing with it. I think we need to distribute The Desire of Ages and Steps to Christ all over the world first. Well, when do you think it will be time?

Others call, or write, “I am opposed to these newspaper ads because I do not think we should do it now.” Let me ask you, friend, when would you like the Loud Cry to occur? Some future generation? Is that what you are waiting for?

You see, the difference between the 300 and the others was the others were going to take their time to get a big drink of water, but the 300 said, This is urgent. We will get a little water on the way, but we are going now!

How Long Must God Wait

How long is God going to have to wait before there is a group of people who are willing to go into battle now? Concerning this battle recorded in Judges 7 and 8, Ellen White wrote, “The most complete system that men have ever devised, apart from the power and wisdom of God, will prove a failure, while the most unpromising methods will succeed when divinely appointed and entered upon with humility and faith.…He [God] is just as willing to work with the efforts of His people now and to accomplish great things through weak instrumentalities.” Patriarchs and Prophets, 554.

I am so happy for that statement. We are all weak, but the Lord said He is willing to work through weak instrumentalities and to do mighty things. “If they would cherish true humility, the Lord could do much more for His people.” Ibid., 553. Although that is a comment on Gideon, it also includes us.

If I would be humble and manifest faith, how much more would the Lord do? Mrs. White says that most of the time, the Lord cannot do for us what He wants to do. (See That I May Know Him, 227.)

Do You Not Want to Go Home?

Do you want your family, your local church, the other churches in your sisterhood of churches, to be in a condition where God can finish the work? I propose that we fast and pray and ask the Lord to help us come into a spiritual condition so He can do for us what He wants to do. What happened after this battle is going to happen again.

“No words can describe the terror of the surrounding nations when they learned what simple means had prevailed against the power of a bold, warlike people.” Patriarchs and Prophets, 553.

If God had done this through 30,000 people, they would not have felt such terror, but when those surrounding nations heard that 300 people had defeated and destroyed an army of 120,000, they knew that it was of God.

Character is What Counts!

What we are up against is not humanly possible either. But that does not matter because of the God we serve. You see, it is God’s work, and success does not depend on numbers. It never has! God can deliver by few as well as by many. It is the character that counts.

Sometimes when people have decided to keep the Sabbath for the first time, it seems like they are all alone; their family is against them; their employer is against them; their friends are against them; everybody they know seems to be against them. Many times I have told such people, “If you were the only person in the whole world who was keeping the Sabbath, it would still be right, and you would still be victorious. Study the story of Noah!”

We know from the story of Gideon, that success does not depend on numbers, and we know that God is going to finish His work in a way that is going to bring glory to Him, and not to us. I want to have the character of the 300. I know that I am not worthy, but it is not a matter of worth.

If you want to be part of this little group, say, “Lord, help me to follow directions. Help me to get my family and my church in order so You can work through us. Help us to have faith and just follow directions so we can have this character experience.”

Take Heed Lest You Fall, Part II

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We learned in Part I of this article that while Moses was on the mount meeting with God, the children of Israel became restless. The people came to Aaron and declared that they had to do something! So he told them to bring to him their golden earrings, and he fashioned for them a molded calf, which was declared to be Israel’s god. (Exodus 32:2–4.) They believed they really were still worshipping Jehovah. They did not think that they were rejecting Jehovah. The golden calf was simply a symbol of Jehovah; that was what they had grown up with in Egypt.

Modern Idols

“And the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.” Exodus 32:6. After you have worship, then you need to have something for the young people too. So they rose up to play.

Today, of course, we do not have idols like the golden calf, but I have often thought about all of the people who eat and drink in front of their idols. Now, they do not worship them, and they are not golden calves, but how many people are eating and drinking in front of their idols, their television shrines? How many people go to their stadium shrines where they eat and drink? You know what else they do there? They yell! They get up early sometimes; they stay up late sometimes. Whatever it takes; they are interested; they are enthusiastic.

Were the children of Israel enthusiastic about what they were doing? Oh, yes, they were enthused! They got up early. Likewise, today, people are enthused about their idols. They are fanatical about their idols.

Today, the devil is doing a number on our young people with games, with playing, with amusements, with activities, and with sports. All of these things are being introduced, and the saddest thing is that, in many places, it is actually being done in the name of the Lord.

I have seen competitive basketball games where, before the games start, the teams pray together and say, “We are going to be witnessing for the Lord today.” And then they go out and try to beat the other team with all they are worth.

Rationalization

We are living in a serious day and age, are we not? We are on the way to Canaan, and anything that engrosses our minds so that we lose sight of our heavenly goal and our heavenly mission is something to be avoided. But how easy it is to rationalize.

Some time ago I copied an article from the Review and Herald. A lady wrote in explaining why she had changed her habits. Whenever we change our habits, we always have good reasons for doing so, even if we change them for the bad.

She wrote, “There once was a time when I thought I would never see a television set in my home.” I have noticed how many people sit around television sets. I did not grow up with a television. In the limited experience I have had with television, I have noticed how, when I am watching the programs, I am never thinking of the Lord; I am never studying my Bible. My Bible becomes less interesting.

This lady continued, “There once was a time when I thought I would never see a television set in my home. I condemned all television. And then we had children. Living in a neighborhood with 21 pre-schoolers, we discovered our son, Sean, to be a very social creature, as most three-year-olds are. We mothers became friends too. Our family believed that, like salt, Christians must mix in order to be useful. In our neighbors’ homes, I discovered with dismay how entranced our son was with their television sets, which seemed always to be on. He mimicked what he saw. He began asking to visit friends so he could watch TV at their houses. At that point, we faced a dilemma—either take the salt out of the neighborhood and isolate ourselves in a home with no television, or we would have to teach him to become a discriminating television viewer. So we bought our first television, and began an experiment that has lasted for ten years. I will admit it has not been a hundred percent successful a hundred percent of the time. It would still be easier to say no to television all of the time. Determining which programs are acceptable for viewing is a process that involves our whole family. Instead of saying a flat no to a program, we watch it together, and later discuss why the program should or should not be a part of our family’s diet. Monitoring the television is a continual project. We try to limit television-viewing time. Doing so is a challenge, because too many programs fall in the ‘good’ category.” They must have been living in a different country! “What do we watch? My husband and older son are history buffs, so they enjoy history documentaries. Watching a World War II program together gives them the opportunity to discuss history, prophecy, and the Bible. So, yes, we have a television in our home, and our family is learning to choose daily, for eternity. Learning this kind of self-control is important to us.”

That is an interesting philosophy! It is interesting how we can rationalize everything.

A Re-write

Read the letter through again with my added comments. I could not help putting some comments in!

She wrote: “There once was a time when I thought I would never see a television set in my home. I condemned all television. And then we had children.” Studies show that children are the most damaged by television. I would much rather see someone have a television when they did not have children than when they did have children.

“Living in a neighborhood with 21 preschoolers . . . .” We do have counsel, of course, on city living and on country living. But, anyway, she continues, “We discovered our son, Sean, to be a very social creature, as most three-year-olds are. We mothers became friends too. Our family believed that, like salt, most Christians must mix in order to be useful.” What did Jesus say about salt that has lost its savor? (See Matthew 5:13; Mark 9:50; Luke 14:34.) It becomes like the world. Do we witness by becoming like the world?

“But in our neighbors’ homes, I discovered with dismay how entranced our son was with their television sets, which seemed always to be on.” They also probably had beer in their refrigerator; they probably also had parties on the Sabbath. I wonder why she did not consider getting beer or having parties on Sabbath too, so that they could be like their neighbors.

“He mimicked what he saw.” That should have been warning enough.

“He began asking to visit friends so he could watch television at their houses.” As I read that, I could not believe why, with a three-year-old, she could not have simply said no! But here is a three-year-old that is ruling the roost.

“At that point we faced a dilemma.” I mean, what do you do with a three-year-old that wants to go to the neighbors? “Either take the salt out of the neighborhood . . .”—this kid was becoming a real witness—“. . . and isolate ourselves in a home with no television, or we would have to teach him to become a discriminating television viewer.” Well, they could teach him to become a discriminating beer drinker too.

“So we bought our first television, and began an experiment.” Now she goes on to say that instead of saying a flat no to a program, they watch it together, and later discuss why the program should or should not be a part of their diet. Can you imagine watching a program, then deciding whether or not you should have watched it?

Then she says, “Doing so is a challenge, because too many programs fall in the ‘good’ category.” I could not help thinking, they have really been bitten. They must have been affected! I cannot find anything on television except the Steps to Life program that is worth watching. Even the news, most of the time, is sensationalism. The news can cause people’s minds to start wandering in areas of sex and violence and other things, of which they should not be thinking.

She says, “This is a continual project.” I wonder what happened to their witnessing program? They got the television so they could be a witness in the neighborhood, but monitoring of the television became a continual project. Whatever happened to the salt? I was surprised, when I read this part of the article where she admitted that all of their time was taken up with the television, that she did not see through her own arguments.

“What do we watch?” She mentions World War II documentaries. There is nothing much more “blood and guts” and violent than World War II programs!

Counsel Given

Consider a few thoughts from the pen of inspiration. “The world is flooded with books that are filled with enticing error. The youth receive as truth that which the Bible denounces as falsehood, and they love and cling to deception that means ruin to the soul.

“There are works of fiction that were written for the purpose of teaching truth or exposing some great evil. Some of these works have accomplished good. Yet they have also wrought untold harm. They contain statements and highly wrought pen pictures that excite the imagination and give rise to a train of thought which is full of danger, especially to the youth. The scenes described are lived over and over again in their thoughts.” The Ministry of Healing, 445.

I know what happened to me. I did not watch many programs, but I saw a movie at Union College [Lincoln, Nebraska] on the Civil War—one that had been shown in the theater. I probably relived that program a hundred times in my mind; I can still remember every detail of it. Did you ever see any programs that you relived afterwards in your minds? Do you remember every detail? Did you ever notice how hard it is to memorize the Bible and how easy it is to remember what you see on television?

What does the Bible say? “Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things [are] honest, whatsoever things [are] just, whatsoever things [are] pure, whatsoever things [are] lovely, whatsoever things [are] of good report; if [there be] any virtue, and if [there be] any praise, think on these things.” Philippians 4:8.

Mrs. White wrote that people think of these things over and over again in their thoughts. Such reading unfits the mind for usefulness and disqualifies it for spiritual exercise. Is there any wonder why our young people today are not interested in spiritual things? Such reading—and television programming—destroys interest in the Bible. Passion is aroused, and the end is sin. We are living in an altogether too crooked world to be leading our children into paths of sin in our own homes.

“It is often urged that in order to win the youth from sensational or worthless literature, we should supply them with a better class of fiction. This is like trying to cure the drunkard by giving him, in the place of whisky or brandy, the milder intoxicants, such as wine, beer, or cider. The use of these would continually foster the appetite for stronger stimulants. The only safety for the inebriate, and the only safeguard for the temperate man, is total abstinence. For the lover of fiction the same rule holds true. Total abstinence is his only safety.” The Ministry of Healing, 446.

Skimpier Clothing

There is another thing that led the children of Israel to defeat. Do you remember the story of Achan? What was it that he coveted? The garments of the Babylonians and the Egyptians. It is one thing to take the person out of Egypt and Babylon; it is another thing to take Babylon and Egypt out of the person. It is interesting that as these people rose up to play, Exodus 32:25 mentions how some of them became naked in their play. Their garments became a little skimpier; they became a little more like the world.

James 4:4, 9, 10 says, “Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.” “Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and [your] joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.”

Who will Stand?

Who will be able to stand? Will it be those who fill their minds with thoughts of worldliness? Do not make others your standard, because most of them are not going to make it to heaven. They all can—God would love them all to, but it is not going to happen that way.

In 11 Corinthians 6:15–17, we read, “What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever? And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God. As God has said: ‘I will dwell in them And walk among them. I will be their God, And they shall be My people.’ Therefore ‘Come out from among them And be separate, says the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean, and I will receive you.’ ” Listen, if the salt has lost its savor, what good is it? It is worthless, except to be tossed out. If we become the salt of the community by becoming like the community, we are worthless. He says, touch not the unclean, and “ ‘I will receive you. I will be a Father to you, And you shall be My sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.’ ”

Either we are all for God or eventually we are going to be all for Satan. Steps to Christ, page 33, says, “What we do not overcome, will overcome us and work out our destruction.” The next page in Steps to Christ says, “Even one wrong trait of character, one sinful desire, persistently cherished, will eventually neutralize all the power of the gospel.”

As you look at your life, is there any place that you are holding on to something that the Lord has, at least at one time, convicted you of? If you are, that thing, unless you overcome it, will eventually destroy you and work out your condemnation. We have to be complete overcomers to be among the 144,000. Whatever can be shaken will be shaken. And there may be something different for each one of us. You might have something in your diet that you have never really surrendered. You may be practicing it, but you have never really surrendered it. Whether or not you are practicing it, if you have not really surrendered it, a time will come when you are going to find reason and rationale for doing what you want to do, such as the children of Israel did after Moses was gone for 40 days.

Is it possible to quit doing something that you have not really surrendered all the way to the Lord? Is it possible for a person who may be in love with somebody they should not be in love with to give that up and never really surrender? Is it possible to quit smoking and never really surrender it? Many people who quit smoking never really surrender. Somewhere in the back of their minds, that habit is still there, and every so often they think about how wonderful it would be . . . . There are people who do that with drugs and with alcohol. Every single person who holds on, in the back of their mind, to that cigarette, whether they have quit or not, sooner or later will start smoking again.

Is there some sin in your life that you have never surrendered? You may not be practicing it; you may not be doing it, but do you never really surrender to the Lord? What we do not overcome completely will eventually completely overcome us and work out our destruction.

In 1 Peter 2:9, Peter says, “But you [are] a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praise of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.”

The Lord has called you and me to a higher plain of living than just nominal Christianity. He has called us to be clothed with the robe of Jesus’ righteousness. He has called us to be separate in practice from the world. He has called us to have pure thoughts. He has called us to have the love that Jesus had—love that turns the other cheek, love that never gets upset or irritated. We must develop the character with which we can stand before God and He can say, “These people are without any guile in their mouth; they are without fault before the throne of God.” (Revelation 14:5.)

Paul says, “Let you who think you stand, take heed lest you fall.” And the time to take heed is not when you are stumbling, it is when you think you are standing tall and firm. Today is the day to take heed, to review our lives, to see if there is something there that we are cherishing, some area that God has been trying to lead us to surrender, repent of, and overcome.

Pastor Marshall Grosboll, with his wife Lillian, founded Steps to Life. In July 1991, Pastor Marshall and his family met with tragedy as they were returning home from a camp meeting in Washington state, when the airplane he was piloting went down, killing all on board.

Question – Are Pictures Idols?

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Question

Are pictures or photographs the same as graven images?

Answer

Pictures may surely become idols. However, just because some people may overdo on picture taking does not make it all a sin. Pictures are often an asset to the work of God. They can also be a great influence for evil. Therefore, let us see what inspiration has to say about pictures and also about idols.

Ellen White wrote: “It is a difficult matter for men and women to draw the line in the matter of picture-making. Some have made a raid against pictures, daguerreo-types [an early photograph produced on a silver or a silver-covered copper plate], and pictures of every kind. Everything must be burned up, they say, urging that the making of all pictures is prohibited by the second commandment; that they are an idol.

“An idol is anything that human beings love and trust in instead of loving and trusting in the Lord their Maker. Whatever earthly thing men desire and trust in as having power to help them and do them good, leads them away from God, and is to them an idol. Whatever divides the affections, or takes away from the soul the supreme love of God, or interposes to prevent unlimited confidence and entire trust in God, assumes the character and takes the form of an idol in the soul temple.” Selected Messages, Book 3, 330.

“A few condemned pictures, urging that they are prohibited by the second commandment, and that everything of this kind should be destroyed.

“These one-idea men can see nothing except to press the one thing that presents itself to their minds. Years ago we had to meet this same spirit and work. Men arose claiming to have been sent with a message condemning pictures, and urging that every likeness of anything should be destroyed. They went to such lengths as even to condemn clocks which had figures, or ‘pictures,’ upon them. …

“A few in _____ had gone so far as to burn all the pictures in their possession, destroying even the likenesses of their friends. While we had no sympathy with these fanatical movements, we advised that those who had burned their pictures should not incur the expense of replacing them. If they had acted conscientiously, they should be satisfied to let the matter rest where it was. But they ought not to require others to do as they had done. They should not endeavor to be conscience for their brethren and sisters.” Evangelism, 216.

Positive counsel is also given regarding the use of object lessons, blackboards, maps, and pictures to aid in explaining lessons to students. (Education, 186.) And warning is given to parents to guard their children against “the lovesick pen pictures presented in newspapers.” (The Adventist Home, 415, 416.)

We are told that we should have no other gods before the God of heaven, so we must put God first and last in everything we do or see. We must be sure that our photos are not a source of pride or have caused a great expenditure of funds that could have been used in furthering God’s work. “Those who claim to believe in Christ need to realize that they are to reflect His image. It is His likeness that is to be kept before the mind.” Messages to Young People, 316, 317.

The Ten Commandments, Part III: Idol Worship is Bad News

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According to what God has told us, upon the Ten Commandments hang all the law and the prophets. (Testimonies, vol. 2, 43.) So all instruction really emanates from His Word, His Law, His character, and His love. We need to gather the principles contained in His Law and then apply them to our lives that we might not sin against Him.

The Second Commandment

“Thou shalt not make 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 waters beneath the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself unto 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 showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments.” Deuteronomy 5:8–10.

The first commandment is very short and to the point. The second commandment is a bit longer, but the first and the second commandments are closely related in that they both prohibit idolatry and false worship. There are, nevertheless, very distinct differences between them. Let us take a look at some of these differences.

Catechisms

The first commandment deals with the question of Who is the true God. The second commandment deals with how the true God is to be worshipped. The second is not a repetition of the first, as some would have us to believe. As we look at Catholic, Lutheran, and Anglican catechisms, we see that the second commandment is removed or, with very small type, is included under the first. Then the second commandment is given as, “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord in vain.” The third commandment is given as, “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.” And the tenth commandment is divided in half to fill the void.

The distinction between the first and second commandments is as much as that which exists between any of the other ten. The first commandment reveals the object of true worship. It tells us Who alone must be worshipped. The second tells us how He must be worshipped or how He must not be worshipped. The first prohibits the worship of false gods; the second forbids false forms of worship.

No Tinkering

Ellen White tells us, “The Lord has not placed before one individual the trade of becoming a church tinker.” Sermons and Talks, vol. 1, 40. With what should we not tinker? We should not tinker with the form of worship! Is it tinkering because we are not following a certain kind of liturgy, or is it speaking to greater principles than this? I think that it is speaking to greater principles. When we are counseled to not tinker with the form of worship, it involves the fact that the attention is not to be given to those who are directing the worship but rather to the One who is the object of the worship.

In the early years of my ministry, I attended, at my cousin’s invitation, a special musical program in a Nazarene church. During the program, I noticed one individual, a gentleman, who seemed particularly enraptured with the presentation.

The musical presentation was followed by the “Ministry of the Word,” but at the conclusion of the music, this man left. He had no interest in the preaching. He only wanted the “high,” the sensuous emotion that the music had apparently given him. He did not have any further interest in hearing the Word.

We can tinker with worship to the extent that it becomes almost a sensuous experience; we become wrapped up in all the choreography and the details of the presentation and forget Whom it is we have come to worship. Such are the kinds of things to which this commandment speaks.

The first commandment deals with our conception of God. The second commandment addresses our external acts as manifested in worship. It directs against the false worship of the true God. He must not be worshipped through idols or images—visible manifestations to represent the diety.

Negative Implies a Positive

We must not think that the Ten Commandments are wholly negative. Many of them begin with “Thou shalt not,” and there is a tendency for us to bristle just a little, because we do not like to be told what not to do. This is part of our sinful, fallen, human nature. Yet, we perceive a negative aspect to the second commandment, because it leaves more of a negative impression upon our minds than it does a positive. This is, again, a result of human nature.

There are many things that we accept being told to do, but there are very few things that we enjoy being told not to do. However, if we are told not to worship in a certain way, it is because there is a positive way in which to worship. The negative command, “You shall not,” always implies the positive command, “You shall.” Sin forbidden indicates righteousness commanded. “You shall have no other gods before Me,” implies the command, “You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only should you serve.” (Matthew 4:10.)

Internal Belief/External Acts

Both the internal belief and the external acts are involved in worship. These are distinguished by the first two commandments. The outward acts of worship reveal the thoughts and the intents of the heart. Outward acts are fruits; they are one of the things we can judge. We cannot judge the intents of the heart, but the intents of the heart are usually revealed in the outward actions. This is where a lot of people get into trouble. They do not want to be judged, but they present themselves before people in such a way that there is nothing else that can take place, because we are called to be fruit inspectors and to judge from that standpoint. As a man thinks in his heart, so is his conduct. (Proverbs 23:7.)

False or True

The distinction between false gods or false forms of worship needs to be recognized, because, as fallen human beings, we can very easily be caught up in worshipping idols and things along with or in place of the true God.

When Jesus spoke to the woman at the well, He told her that “the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.” John 4:23.

This is a positive aspect of the second commandment. True worship is far more than religious forms and ceremonies. This is one of the principles of this commandment that we need to consider.

True worship can become perverted and degraded by those who are occupied with the externals and substitute them for the spiritual experience. This is one of the problems with churches which apparently feel that the louder the noise and the more physical movement that occurs, the more they are worshipping God.

One of the reasons many Seventh-day Adventists are worshipping independently of the organized church is because of the inroads the celebration movement has made into Adventism. This is one of the reasons I am no longer employed by the organized conference.

A Stand for True Worship

I had preached a sermon about the celebration movement and the inroads it was making into the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Shortly thereafter, the local conference academy wished to sponsor a rock radio station on its campus. Some of the church members, who knew my stand on the matter, asked if I would accompany them to talk with the conference leadership concerning this station.

We prepared a packet of materials that outlined Christian standards of music and sent a copy to each member of the Conference Committee 30 days before the scheduled meeting. They laughed us to scorn in the meeting.

The church members decided they were going to see to it that this issue was put on the agenda for the constituency meeting, which was to be held in three months. At the appointed time, I was the only pastor who stood before the assembled constituents and spoke against the music that would be played on the campus of the academy by this proposed radio station.

In the three months following this meeting, the little conference of 6,000 members missed its budget by $150,000. The leadership sent out a letter, inquiring whether any of the pastors knew why the giving had diminished so drastically. Upon receipt of that letter, my wife and I drove to the conference office and said, “You have asked a question; we have an answer.” We told them what we felt the answer was, and they again laughed us to scorn and declared, “It could not possibly be.”

A few months later, the conference president called me to his office and told me he would like to discuss my new responsibilities. I had been in my current church district for seven years, and I knew it was getting close to the time to move to another district. We did not think we would be moved clear out, but we were. The conference president said, “We have four positions which must be cut because of the finances. One pastor has taken a call to another conference; one has retired; one has gone back to Andrews University. This leaves one more position, and that is yours.” If I was in trouble, it was because I stood for principle on issues, not because I was involved in moral problems or other personality difficulties.

As far as I was concerned, this change was fine. God had called me to ministry, so my wife and I started an independent ministry. We have continued in the Lord’s work ever since.

Forbidden Images

The second commandment, as given to the Israelites, forbids the making of images or any likenesses of any created object in heaven or earth for the purpose of worship. There are people who believe that this commandment forbids photographs—pictures of Jesus or relatives or anything of that nature. They say that such pictures are graven images. They do not believe we should display these things in our homes, because the commandment forbids it. Well, the commandment does not forbid this kind of thing. If indeed such was the case, then Moses, when commanded by the Lord, shortly after this commandment was given, to embroider figures of angels, to be placed in the Sanctuary to beautify it, was under divine injunction to transgress this commandment!

The principle of this commandment centers on worship. If you have created a shrine, where you bow down and worship, and the shrine includes a photograph of someone you adore and worship, then yes, this is wrong, and the second commandment addresses that. Memory’s hall, where we have photographs and pictures of loved ones, has nothing whatsoever to do with this principle.

Anything in the Heavens

Many people interpret “Thou shalt not make . . . any likeness [of any thing] that [is] in heaven above” as not making a picture of Jesus. After all, He is in heaven above. But let me just ask you a question: Are we to worship Jesus? Absolutely! This commandment is not forbidding the worship of Jesus. (Although, as presented previously, it does forbid worshipping a graven image of Jesus.) He certainly is worthy to be worshipped.

This commandment is referring to the planets in the heavens above us, to which people have attributed the status of gods. People have bowed down and worshipped Venus, Mars, and the sun. The Lord tells us that we should not worship these heavenly bodies or make any graven images of them. Neither should we worship angels, which are in heaven. They are not worthy of worship. (See Revelation 22:8, 9.)

Dead gods are not worthy of worship. Let us be honest; there are dead gods. They were known and called such, but they were believed to have immortal souls. We are forbidden to make graven images for the worship of these gods.

The second commandment is a prohibition against the worship of the work of our hands.

In Place of God

An idol is any creature or created thing put in the place of God. Idolatry is creature worship rather than Creator worship. Of all the forms of idolatry, the most degraded and senseless is the worship of the mere image of the genuine.

Think about this for a moment. Man is always superior to that which he makes, and in worshipping the works of his own hands, he is worshipping that which is inferior to himself. If you fashion a little doll or an image—perhaps a statue of the Virgin Mary—it is something crafted by your hands. It has no life or energy. It cannot help you. It is actually beneath you. It would be one thing to worship a living human being who is on your same level, but it is altogether different to worship something which is beneath you.

Image worship is even worse than the worship of what God has made, because what God has made has at least come from His hand. Image worship is the worship of something from the hand of man.

Heathen Gods

When the law was given to the children of Israel at Sinai, they had just been delivered from a country where some of the worst forms of idolatry had been practiced. They were on their way to a land that was equally corrupt. The chief gods, which the Egyptians worshipped, were the likenesses of Osiris and his wife, Isis. Osiris was known as the god of the dead. All heathen gods were men and women who, after their deaths, were deified and worshipped. In many places, they are still worshipped.

In Egypt, along with the worship of human forms, the people also worshipped the ox, heifer, stork, crane, hawk, crocodile, serpent, frog, and fish of the Nile. Every living thing was a god, and a god was in everything. This was a form of pantheism.

As far back as can be traced, the worship of all pagan deities originated with the worship of dead men and dead women. The Bible speaks very plainly concerning the worship of the dead and the familiar spirits of the dead. Do not seek after those that peep and mutter, the Bible says. (Isaiah 8:19.) (See also Leviticus 19:31; Deuteronomy 18:10–12.)

All graven images of worship usually represent dead heroes, ancestors, or, as we find in modern forms of this idolatrous worship, the saints and the Virgin Mary. Interestingly, in the Catholic structure, a person does not become a saint until he or she is dead.

Immortality of the Soul

This commandment forbids the doctrine of the immortality of the soul. If it were understood correctly, there would never be the concept of the immortality of the soul.

Can you see why, on the Ten Commandments hang all the law and the prophets? Immortality is not spoken of in the Ten Commandments, yet the foundation of it is found there. This is why it is never to be entertained as a doctrine, because the second commandment forbids the consideration of the immortality of the soul. Only God is immortal. To represent God, an image must represent someone who is immortal as well.

In the book, The Origin of Pagan Idolatry (A. J. Halry, London, 1816), the author, George S. Faber, states that the gods were holy men and the sun, moon, and stars were regarded as intelligences, because they were the abode of deified men. The gods were the souls of men who were afterwards worshipped by their posterity on account of their extraordinary virtues.

Since the dead are unconscious and know not anything and have nothing whatsoever to do with anything that is done under the sun, pretended spirits of the dead are really the spirits of devils or evil angels impersonating the dead for the purpose of deception. (Ecclesiastes 9:5) The worship of idols constitutes demon worship and is so designated in the Scriptures.

The Great Apostasy

Idol worship denigrates the idea of worshipping God to the level of worshipping goats and devils. What an abomination to our Creator!

Idolatry is Satan’s effort to substantiate the lie to Adam and to Eve when he said, “You shall not surely die. For God knows that in the day that you eat of this tree, then your eyes will be opened, and you will be as gods.” (Genesis 3:4, 5.)

The great apostasy, or falling away, which was mentioned by the apostle Paul during the early Christian centuries, was a return to heathen idolatry under the disguise of a Christian exterior. The apostles were scarcely dead before the early Christians began to make images of them to venerate the relics of apostolic days. The apostasy ripened into its full fruitage between the fourth and the eighth centuries.

Edward Gibbon, in his book, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (reprinted by Allen Lane The Penguin Press, London, 1994), wrote that the sublime and simple theology of primitive Christians was gradually corrupted and the monarchy of heaven, already clouded by metaphysical subtleties, was degraded by the introduction of a popular mythology which tended to restore the reign of polytheism, the worship of many gods.

At the first, the experiment was made with caution. As the church leadership began to bring this practice in, they did it very carefully at first, because they did not know what the reaction of the people was going to be. The venerable pictures of saints and martyrs were discretely allowed, and before the end of the sixth century, these images were the object of worship and the instruments of miracles. By the beginning of the eighth century, the more timorous Greeks were awakened by an apprehension that, under the mask of Christianity, they had restored the religion of their fathers.

Temporal or Eternal

It is so much easier to be carnal than spiritual! This explains the general demand for ritualism on the part of unspiritual people. They seem to feel that a great outward show of religion makes up for the lack of an inward experience. This is one of the things commanding the attention of human beings today, especially in the area of fashion. The less spiritual experience a person has, the more they are drawn into the field of fashion. They do not seem to realize that these “things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen [are] eternal.” 11 Corinthians 4:18. This is why, “The just shall live by faith,” not by sight. Galatians 3:11. (See also 11 Corinthians 5:7.)

The most lasting and valuable things of life are invisible. Love, joy, peace, righteousness, and character cannot be seen, yet they are more precious and eternal than all the things that are visible to the naked eye.

To be continued . . .

Pastor Mike Baugher is Associate Speaker for Steps to Life. He may be contacted by e-mail at: mikebaugher@stepstolife.org, or by telephone at: 316-788-5559.

I am a Jealous God

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The second commandment is a very powerful commandment.

It says, “You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: You shall not worship them, or serve them: for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquities of the fathers on the children, to 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.” Exodus 20:4–6 (NAS).

There are negative consequences to idol worship that not only affect you, but generations that come after you. To those who are faithful to God He blesses with loving kindness for thousands of generations.

The heart of this commandment is that God is a jealous God (Deuteronomy 5:9).

We usually think of jealousy in negative terms, but there is also a good jealousy. Jealousy is defined in the dictionary as being intolerant of a rival or unfaithfulness; hostile toward a rival or one believed to enjoy certain advantages. An example of bad jealousy would include King Saul toward David (I Samuel 18:5–9) and the elder brother, in the parable of the prodigal son, who did not want to share because of jealousy of his younger brother (Luke 15:11–32). It would be a good thing to guard jealously the nation’s freedom. It is also good to be jealous for your health and integrity. The Bible says, “Contend for the faith that was once delivered to the saints.” Jude 1:3. It is a good thing to be jealous for the truth and for marriage. Marriage is a covenant between two people, an emotional attachment and commitment to one another that should never be stolen. It is right to be jealous over that covenant of love.

Often in both the Old and New Testament, God relates to His church as a husband relates to his wife. God has the exclusive right to His church which He will not give up without a fight.

Contrary to popular opinion, God does have a holy anger. When Elijah confronted wicked Ahab and Jezebel who had taken young men and young women of the nation, causing them to be temple prostitutes in the name of worshipping God by means of Bel, Elijah said God is not happy, and He is turning off the rain. The rain turned off for three and a half years (I Kings 17:1)! This caused great suffering to the people because of the effects of the famine; however, I would like to suggest to you that the horrible effects of famine were more merciful than what the continued idolatry of Ahab and Jezebel had on the nation.

God destroyed a whole nation, Pharaoh and his army, and all the first born in Egypt in the midst of the siege at the exodus. Lives were sacrificed to deliver Israel.

Herod also, who took the head of John the Baptist and the life of the apostle James, was eaten by worms. See Mark 6:21–27; Acts 12:1, 2, 21–23.

Jesus, speaking to the church of Thyatira under the symbol of Jezebel, says that you have this wicked woman and I am telling you what I am going to do with her. I am going to throw her on a bed of suffering and I am going to destroy her children with pestilence. See Revelation 2:20–23. God has a jealous anger for His church!

My wife and I have a Chihuahua named Tori. Chihuahuas see themselves as German Shepherds. A few years ago we moved out into the country and right across from our property is a big field which is dangerous to get to because of the busy highway between. One day as we got out of the car, Tori spotted a big reaping machine, a big combine. Having never seen one before, Tori decided she would get that thing, but between her and the combine was the road. I watched as Tori, with all of her energy, headed out towards that combine, at the same time watching a big Mack truck coming down the road. My sense told me that I was not going to catch that dog. I love my wife and I knew that if the dog got hurt, she was really going to be hurt so I knew I had to act immediately, so with all the strength I had and everything in me I screamed at that dog. It was powerful enough that it terrorized the dog, causing it to stop. With two big emotions I picked it up and was so glad it was not crushed but also mad that it could have been killed. I screamed at my dog; it was a jealous response to save the dog’s life and I was so happy to be able to give it back to my wife because I loved her.

The first commandment points out whom to worship, the second tells how to worship God, the third explains the name and its sacredness and the fourth tells when to worship. The result of violating that second commandment caused great trouble for Israel and also for the Christian church. In the wilderness thousands of people died because of building the golden calf (Exodus 32) and the book of Deuteronomy records many more instances where the Jewish people were cursed because of idolatry. In Jesus’ day some people actually made an idol out of their temple.

Jesus said to the woman at the well in John 4:23, 24: “The hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth.” There are great mysteries that surround God that are not understood and never will be, but God does have a throne of fire and when He has been seen, He seems to have the form of a man but the Bible says He is also spirit; He is everywhere. There is nowhere you can run from the presence of God. He must be worshipped in spirit and in truth.

Worship is a big issue which is found in Genesis, Exodus and also in Revelation. The second commandment says that you shall not make to yourselves an idol. You shall not means no!

What is an idol? It is an image that is worshipped as a god. The ancient sanctuary had angels embroidered on the curtain and other illustrations but you will never find the Israelites bowing down to the angels. They were illustrations. God does not prohibit illustrations. He does prohibit taking some object and using it to venerate Him. An idol can be any object that becomes a person’s compassionate devotion. Some people make idols out of their children and some men make goddesses out of their wives. Some worship their automobiles and lots of others worship their homes or even themselves.

The Scripture continues in Exodus 20:4–6, “or any likeness of what is in heaven above, or the earth beneath, or in the water under the earth.” No fish gods, no flying bird gods, nothing in the earth beneath, or on the earth or in heaven. Some different translations say, “You shall not worship or serve them.” NASB. “You shall not bow down [submit or yield, bend the head or body in submission, to give an act of service, to obey] yourselves to them.” KJV. “You shall not bow down or worship [to honor or reverence a divine being] them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous [demanding complete devotion] God.” NIV.

Why is God jealous? Is it just arbitrary or does He have a reason? Deuteronomy 4:39 says, “Know therefore today and take it to your heart that the Lord He is God in heaven above and the earth below and there is no other.” The truth is, there is no other God. God is not going to share with anything or let you embrace some false god. Our very life is dependent upon being unified with the One who created us. The devil, wanting to be God, has caused the mess in this world. This will only be resolved at the final judgment.

Jesus had something to say about this when the devil came to him with the three temptations in the wilderness. At the last temptation, the devil said that all these things I will give you and bypass the cross, if you will fall down and worship me. Jesus said to him to go Satan, for it is written that you should worship the Lord your God and serve Him only (Matthew 4:9, 10).

Paul said, “But I say that the things that the Gentiles sacrificed, they sacrificed to demons, and I do not want you to become sharers with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord with the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord at the table of demons.” I Corinthians 10:20, 21. Then he says in verse 22, “Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy?” So what he is saying is that all of this idol worship is really backed up by demonic forces. The Bible does talk about the things they can’t see, can’t hear and also the images which proves that there are unseen powers. God is not going to share His church with these demons. God does have a righteous indignation, but you do not want to arouse God’s jealous righteous indignation. God’s jealous love and jealous anger come out of His great love for us.

What if God said it doesn’t matter; go ahead and bow down to anything you want to and worship nothing. What would that say about Him? The fact that He is passionate about us tells us that He loves us. The greater the love, the greater the anger when it is violated. All this flows from God’s love, and His love for us is birth to his jealousy. His jealousy gives birth to His holy anger and His holy anger gives birth to His mercy because He is not willing for any to perish. God looks at His anger and says it is justified, but I cannot let them go, so I bring in mercy. He brings in His grace, all of which is the result of His love.

The apostle John revealed in the book Revelation what the Christian church would go through as a result of idolatry: “And the rest of mankind who were not killed by these plagues did not repent of the works of their hands.” Revelation 9:20.

This idolatry all came from the Tower of Babel. Nimrod died and Semaramis marvelously gets impregnated by a beam of light from the sun. This is what she told everybody and her baby was a miraculous baby, Tamuz. She soon had everybody worshipping her and, of course, Nimrod was in the sun. We have this mother/son cult which was an attempt to counterfeit the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. This idol worship spread all over the world and Semaramis took the name, the Queen of Heaven. The Bible has something to say about this. Abraham was called out of that mess in order to preserve the truths about God and his method of worship.

We find that in Jeremiah 7:18, 19 it says, “The children gather wood, and the fathers light the fire, and the women knead the dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings to other gods, that they may provoke me to anger. Do they provoke me to anger? declares the Lord: but are they not harming themselves to their own shame?” Yes, it provokes the Lord, but here it says they are really doing themselves the disservice.

Ezekiel, a contemporary of Jeremiah, said that Israel was about to go down the tube. Babylon surrounds Jerusalem and Ezekiel is taken in vision on a tour of the temple where the God of heaven should be worshipped, but where Israel, with their backs toward the temple of the Lord and their faces toward the east, were worshipping the sun. “Yet you will see greater abominations which they are committing. Then He brought me to the entrance of the gate of the Lord’s house which is towards the north and behold women were sitting there weeping for Tamuz.” Ezekiel 8:13–16.

Would the New Testament church succumb to idolatry? In the book of Revelation two women are represented. In Revelation 12 one woman is chased by a dragon. She represents God’s church. She is clothed with the sun, standing on the moon, a crown of 12 stars on her head. The church represented here keeps the commandments of God and has the faith of Jesus. These commandments are those which were given at Sinai and they are described here in the context of the heavenly sanctuary and the Ark of the Covenant.

The other woman presented in Revelation 17 is described as the harlot. She is called Babylon; she has great mysteries and a cup full of fornication which she has with the kings of the earth. She is called an adulterer because she was supposed to be the bride of Christ but has prostituted herself to the world. Just so in the Christian community there will be those who are faithfully keeping God’s commandments and having the faith of Jesus, as well as those who are unfaithful and who made their league with the world. Both of these will call themselves Christian.

In the United States of America we have seen a huge shift towards idolatry. Evangelicals and Protestants and some Sabbath keepers have shifted from God centered worship to human centered worship, and the very essence of Christianity is being sacrificed in order to gain numbers.

Some mainline Protestant churches are basically abandoning the Bible for humanistic teaching, philosophy and psychology, which has caused their numbers to go down because there was not anything there. If you take the Bible out of the church, you do not have anything to keep the people.

Some of these mega churches began to say, “We think we can get crowds if we do this right.” They set out to do it. In fact, one of the large churches was the Mecca of thousands of Protestant Evangelical ministers across the United States, including many Sabbath keeping ministers, who said they are going to teach us how to do evangelism. Recently this large church, to their credit, said that, “We are telling you we were wrong; it doesn’t work; we did get a crowd but our people are not growing spiritually.”

One writer said concerning this particular church that it has been one of the most influential churches in America for the last 30 years. Hanging outside the pastor’s door was this sign: What is our business? Who is our customer? What does the customer consider of value? What about this customer driven method? This changes Jesus’ directions to His disciples from teaching them to obey all that He had commanded them, to find out what they want. That is a major shift!

To human centered worship, I ask if this is like Aaron and the golden calf all over again? The impact has been astounding. Everywhere you go you see the Protestant, Evangelical churches and some Sabbath keeping churches absorbed in drama, disco music, clowns and puppets and anything else Madison Avenue and Hollywood have to offer become the cutting edge. Church growth has become the in, and whirly methods have become the means. However, the truth is that God demands to be worshipped on His own agenda and not ours. Church was not created for us to have a party; it was created for people to hear the Word of God so that their lives would be transformed.

There are many people who love Mary and there is no doubt that she was a godly woman and we are grateful that God chose her, but we have never ever seen such veneration of Mary as we have seen today. People are seeing images of Mary on garage doors and underpasses and people are going there by the thousands to kiss whatever looks like her. They are sincere and they mean well. This practice has been given great support from Pope John, who believed he owed his life to Mary for saving him from the bullet that was fired at him; however, the Bible does not teach that Mary is to be venerated or worshipped.

I love the apostles and I praise God for saints, but when it comes down to my theology I want to hear what Jesus has to say and not the councils of the church, or the opinion of the learned, but give me the Word of God. Luke 11:27, 28 tells when Jesus was teaching and a woman thought this was just marvelous: “And it came about, while He said those things, one of the women in the crowd raised her voice, and she said to him, Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts at which you were nursed.” Jesus did not hesitate but immediately responded and would not accept it. He said just because Mary bore me and just because I nursed at her breasts does not make her something special. On the contrary, Blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe. None of us, including Mary, are blessed unless we do the will of God.

The Council of Trent shaped the modern Roman Church. To the Virgin Mary, they pray in these words, “Oh Mother of God, queen of heaven, command thy son to have mercy on us.” The right use of images, says the Council of Trent, is to honor them by bowing down before them even though the Bible says do not bow down before them (Exodus 20:4, 5). The Bible portrays Mary as being humble and obedient, even calling herself the handmaid of the Lord (Luke 1:38); however, the Pope officially gave Mary the title, Queen of Heaven, and established a feast day honoring her. The Bible says that Mary knew she needed a Savior: “My spirit has rejoiced in God my Saviour.” Luke 1:47. The papacy says no, she was immaculately conceived, meaning she was conceived sinless, without original sin, and that she is all holy, meaning she lived a sinless life. You see, goddesses do not need salvation!

Cardinal Gibbons said, quoting Isaiah 49:15, “Can a woman forget her infant so as not to have pity on the fruit of her womb; even so Mary will not forget us.” The actual text says in the Catholic New Jerusalem Bible, “Can a woman forget her suckling child that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yes, these may forget but yet I [the Lord talking about Himself] will not forget you. Behold I have engraved you on the palms of my hand.” Verse 16.

Many religions scoff at the idea of idol worship, but the Hindu religion, which is a classic example of pagan religion, blatantly admits that they worship idols, believing it to be a good thing. They accept it with open arms as a simple way of expressing one’s devotion and love to God, but that is exactly what the second commandment forbids. God commands that you do not use an idol or an image to express your worship to Him. God responds personally to those who are devoted to Him.

A huge phenomenon occurred in 1995 when one night a man had an idea. He was impressed that he should go to his idol and give it some milk. When he did, the milk disappeared and pretty soon people everywhere were giving their idols milk, and milk was drying up all over India. People thought it was a hoax and some reporters out of New York said, “On Thursday, September 1, 1995, the news swept around the world of extraordinary miracles of milk drinking Hindu statues. Never before in history had a simultaneous miracle occurred on such a global scale. Television, radio, newspapers eagerly covered this unique phenomenon and even skeptical journalists held their milk filled spoons to the gods and watched humbly as the milk disappeared.”

You can bring any image you want in here made of plaster of Paris and plastic and take a hammer and knock them down and they will fall down. You can take a piece of wood and carve it up and everybody knows that these things cannot see or hear, but there is another supernatural force that you cannot see that surrounds these things. I was listening to Catholic Radio in Lansing, Michigan, discussing this incident and how wonderful Mary was. They talked about the statues of Mary crying tears and bleeding and were so excited about this. Every time I turn around there is a new miracle of weeping, crying, bleeding or something coming from a statue of Mary. Catholics call them miracles, and many people are coming to see.

The Hindu teaching is that the idols are not just a symbol, but the belief is that the idol represents something, a form with which the mind can be connected and concentrated upon. The ultimate reality is beyond the senses; it is what you cannot see.

The Roman Catholic teaching is: “That the honor which is given them (the images of saints and relics) is referred to the objects which they represent so that through the images which we kiss and which we uncover our heads and kneel, we adore Christ and venerate the saints whose likeness they are.” This is the same concept as the Hindus. We know this image is not Jesus; this is not a saint; we know that, but we are doing this in order to venerate Christ.

The second command says do not use images in the act of worship. We have a jealous God and He demands exclusive rights to your worship. You can say you will worship any way you want; go ahead, but that does not mean God will accept your worship. Worshipping God is about His agenda and not yours or mine. The Israelites thought they could worship the way they liked but God will not share His church with anyone or anything in heaven above or earth beneath.

What would happen if after your honeymoon your wife comes in with a picture of your wedding and says, That is so beautiful! You know, I have decided what I will do. I have three old boyfriends and we had great times together and those are memories I don’t want to give up. I have three pictures that are smaller and I will set them over here. I am sure you won’t mind. Will you mind?

This did not happen, but just suppose I walked into my house one day and there was my lovely wife with my picture and she was looking at my picture and kissing it saying, I love you so much! I walked in and I saw this and felt pretty good and said, Honey, your prince is home. She said, Oh yeah; I really love you and then she continues kissing my picture. I said, Honey, it is me, in the flesh, but she keeps kissing my picture and saying, Oh, I just love you so much! What would I do with that picture?

Our God is a jealous God and He is not going to put up with you just kissing His picture. He wants you to worship Him in spirit and in truth.

Pastor Jay Gallimore’s sermon was taken from the Ten Commandment Weekend, 2008 series aired on 3ABN.org. For more information contact www.3ABN.org.