Here we are now. This is my fifth in the series of heart-to-heart talks on the Ten Commandments,
or I like to think of them as God's Ten Rules for Living.
And I've come to the conclusion that the people of this generation know all about life.
I do not believe that there was ever a generation where the people knew more about life than those of our present generation,
and yet so few know how to live.
And we need to get back again to God's Ten Rules for Living.
Now, I left you in our last little heart-to-heart talk in that second commandment, and time ran out.
Time goes so quickly when you talk about the things of God. Oh, my goodness, a life!
The last time I was at your house, the time went so quickly I had to leave long before I was finished talking with you.
So we come back again to that second rule, thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image.
And this second rule of God I think is one rule that most people feel less guilty of breaking,
yet more is said about this one in the Bible than any other.
Primitive man found it hard to realize a God that he could not see,
and so he made aids to assist his imagination, to bring reality into his worship.
And it's true today. It is the hardest thing in the world to accept God by faith.
It's the hardest thing in the world to accept by faith the promises of God, the Word of God.
Yet Abraham did, Moses did, Elijah did.
The grand old prophets of old accepted God by faith and the Word of God.
In our little heart-to-heart talks regarding faith, I reminded you that all on earth they had was the Word of God.
It was sufficient. They had to accept the person of God by faith.
And yet man has not changed in this respect.
It's so hard for the average person to accept the person of God, the personality of God by faith.
They want to see him. They want something that they can see.
Even in the promises we say today, seeing is believing.
But God's Word and the things of God are just contrary.
First you believe, and then you see.
We've got the cart before the horse.
That's the reason that man finds it so hard to realize a God that he cannot see,
so he makes aids to assist his imagination.
Now, the danger in this lies in the fact that it's so easy to worship the means instead of the goal.
The Bible, the churches, music, ministers, and all of our symbols and all of our aids to worship
are sacred only because they lead us to God.
For example, even denominationalism can be a violation of this rule.
One can have all of his faith in the fact that he is a Methodist.
Regardless of what God's Word says, if his bishop or his church teaches something else,
they will accept that in preference to what God says.
They can literally worship their own denomination.
Even more dangerous than our aids to worship are some other images that we make.
We're told that God created man in his own image.
But to live a life in conformity with our creation is difficult.
In fact, it's so difficult that all of us fall for a chart.
Thus, instead of being like God, we seek to create him in our own image.
It's so much easier to make a God like ourselves than for us to be like him.
That's the reason Paul.
Oh, I remember the morning when I was in Athens and I asked to be taken to Mars Hill.
I relived somehow I could just see Paul standing there on the top of Mars Hill
and proclaiming the very words that I am going to read to you
and refresh your memory with them from the Word of God.
And Paul stood in the midst of Mars Hill and said,
Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious.
For as I passed by and beheld your devotions,
I found an altar with this inscription to the unknown God,
whom therefore ye eagerly worship.
You worship him.
Him declare I unto you, God that made the world in all things therein,
seeing that he is the Lord of heaven and earth,
and dwelleth not in temples made with hands.
Neither is worshiped with men's hands, as though he needed anything,
seeing that he giveth to all life and breath and all things,
and hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth,
and hath determined the times before appointed and the bounds of their habitation,
that they should seek the Lord, if happily they might feel after him and find him,
though he be not far from any one of us.
For in him, not in the things that we worship, not in our idols,
for in him we live and move and have our being,
as certain also of your own poets have said, for we are also his offspring.
For as much then as we are the offspring of God,
we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold or silver or stone,
graven by art and man's device.
Paul is putting the whole thing before us right there.
He said, why in the world do you want to worship something that is hewn out of stone,
or made out of wood, marble, silver, gold,
when it's only made from man's hands, man's workmanship?
It's nothing. Man has made it.
It's man's art. It's man's work.
Don't bow down to that.
There is only one to be worshiped, the true and the living God,
for in him, not in that which has been hewn out by man's hands,
but in him, God Almighty, we move, we live, we have our being.
He is the power.
That's God's word.
That comes from the highest authority in heaven and earth.
Even more dangerous than our aids to worship are some other images that we make.
We're told that God created man in his own image,
but to live a life in conformity with our creation is so difficult.
God tells us not to do wrong, but there are some things we want to do right or wrong.
So we create a God who doesn't care what we do.
We think of the God of the blue skies, the majestic mountains, the lovely flowers,
but we turn our backs on the God who said,
You have robbed me in tithes and offerings.
We turn our back on the God who says, Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.
We would rather turn to what we call nature.
Nature doesn't talk back to us.
And we can literally, I mean literally, find in nature a false God,
using nature as a false God, as a prop to satisfy the longing of worship
that we feel on the inside of us.
That's right.
Much is said today about worshiping God through nature.
Now, let no one undervalue the ministry of nature, the flowers, the mountains,
the hills, the valleys, the sunshine, the birds.
They're all full of beauty.
But no man ever reaches God through nature.
Men do get to nature through the God who made it.
Let a man be right with God,
to find the mystic key that unlocks all nature to him.
But the men who try to climb to God through nature never succeed.
Men cannot use a flower as a representation of God for worship.
God is the creator of all nature.
Nature is not God.
Notice the solemn warning,
the gracious promise linked to this commandment, the second commandment.
This is one of those passages of Scripture which is most often and constantly misused.
I give you God's word. I quote the Bible now.
Thou shalt not make unto thee a graven image,
nor any form that is in the heaven above,
or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under 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,
upon the third and upon the fourth generation of them that hate me,
and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments.
I said just a second ago that this is one Scripture that is very often misunderstood, misused.
There are those who read the first part of that commandment and pass to the second,
and declare that if a man be impure, God will punish his child on that account.
Now the subject of the result of the sin of a man as manifested in succeeding generations is not now under discussion.
What is, is the simple and plain meaning of these concluding words.
If a man puts something in the place of his Creator,
that iniquity of making a representation of God
is visited upon the children of the third and fourth generation of him that hate him.
That is to say that if in worship, men put something in the place of God,
if they come under the influence of worship, which is an attempt to put something between God and man,
then they are not only harming themselves but their children also.
You will remember that in a previous Heart to Heart talk,
when we were talking about worshipping God with all of our hearts,
that I made a very definite statement,
and that is the fact that there was no law that proved God,
no place in the Bible does God give proof of himself.
God took care of that in our creation.
We do not teach a baby to hunger or to thirst.
Nature has done that.
However, we must train our children to satisfy their hungers and thirsts with the right things,
and that is the responsibility of the father and the mother.
If you're a good mother, you have the responsibility
of satisfying the hunger and the thirst of your precious little child with the right things.
In exactly the same way, if you are a parent,
it is your responsibility to satisfy the desire of worship
that your child has with the right God, the true God,
and there is but one true God, God Almighty.
Therefore, if you as a parent are worshipping a false God,
you have your influence, and nine times out of ten,
you will influence your children with your worship,
and it will be carried down to the second, the third, the fourth generation,
and you will be held responsible for your child's worship.
That's what it means.
That is to say, if in worship, men put something in the place of God,
if they come under the influence of worship,
which is an attempt to put something else between God and man,
then they are not only harming themselves but their children,
and the probability is that their idea of worship will be transmitted to their children,
and their children's idea of worship will be transmitted to their children,
so that the wrong that men do themselves when they misrepresent God
is a wrong which they are doing to their children likewise.
Now, that is the first, the simple meaning of the words
that's used in connection with this commandment.
I tell you, it's a solemn thing to pass on to children a wrong conception of God.
It's an awful thing.
Men often take lower ground and talk about passing to their children evil forces and habits.
Nothing can minimize the awfulness of such conduct, but it is the root of it all.
When a man puts something as the object of his worship in the place of God,
he passes on the same practice to his offspring.
Now, let's notice the gracious promise standing side by side with the warning,
showing mercy unto thousands.
Now, there's very little doubt that the rendering ought to be showing mercy
unto a thousand generations of them that love me and keep my commandments,
and that is to say that if a man sweeps the idols away and gets into a living connection with God,
worshipping Him without anything between,
the result will be that his child's child will most likely also worship the true and the living God
and will have the blessing of God upon him.
Here is a remarkable comparison.
God visits the iniquity to the third and fourth generation,
but He shows mercy unto the thousandth generation.
Oh, this is marvelous.
If a man will commit to his posterity a worship which is true, which is strong, wholehearted, pure,
and will sweep away all that interferes between himself and God,
he is more likely to influence for good the thousandth generation that follows him
than the man of an opposite character is to touch that generation with evil.
That's the word of God. That's marvelous.
Granted, that man has but one God.
It is still a question of supreme importance how he worships that God.
If he is worshipping Him through some other means
than coming directly into the presence of the God that he worships,
then, beloved, he is losing that wonderful thrill of that personal relationship.
And there's nothing more thrilling to any human being.
There's nothing that is more consoling, more encouraging,
that gives greater strength than to know that in Almighty God you have a personal heavenly Father
interested in every detail of your life,
that you don't have to go through someone else to make your request known,
that you can come boldly before he is thrown.
That's the greatest assurance. That's the greatest surety.
That's the greatest thing in life.
Make yourself real, I pray.
God the Father, God Almighty, His person, His power,
as real as that human being with whom you rub shoulders.
You can talk with him.
You can feel his presence as real to you as the air that you breathe.
Beloved, I pray that shall be your experience and he shall be that real to you.
Amen.