The Love Principle - Study 5: Make No Other God

Exodus 20:4-6 NIV 

[4] “You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. [5] You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, [6] but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments. 

(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/exo.20.4-6.NIV)

Now we come to another command that rubs against both ancient and modern culture. 

I am sure that my last study would have annoyed those who either belong to a different religious grouping or who sympathise with them and believe that all roads must lead to heaven. 

They don’t. 

Now we come to a command that annoys good Christian folks, just as it would have caused huge problems for ‘good Jewish folks’ for generations. 

You see, like us nowadays, the ancient Israelites had a real problem with seeking to be like other nations or being truly distinct. Other nations had their household gods. The Israelites had what they called their ‘teraphim’. The liberal Jewish historian Simon Scharma pointed out in his book on Jerusalem that, despite their religious elite preaching monotheism (the worship of one God), succession archaeological digs in Israel have turned up many, particularly female, household teraphim – idols. 

In fact, we see these household idols right at the formation of the Jewish nation. Rachel stole one from her father (Genesis 3:19). During the times of the judges, a man named Micah set up his own mini religion using an idol (Judges 17:1-3). Michal, David’s wife and Saul’s daughter, duped her own father’s men using what seems to have been a life sized household idol (1 Samuel 19:13-17). 

From the Bible and from archaeology, it seems that it was pretty common practice, among both high and low born, for the Israelites to preach that there was one God, but worship idols and graven images at home. Some of them may have justified this by saying that these idols were just a visual, palpable representation of the One True God, but that excuse could never be acceptable as God had already outlawed this. 

Now we, as modern Christians, might stand in indignant condemnation of this. After all, it is unmistakable, outright, flagrant disobedience of the second commandment and pure idolatry.  

But are we guilty of the same thing? 

A god is something or someone that exhibits abilities beyond our own which we value. The second commandment is about taking something that is ordinary (in those days, a block of wood or stone) and making of it more than it is. 

How often does this happen? 

Don’t we value our pet theologies and favourite theologians so much that we ignore the Scriptures that contradict them? 

Don’t we listen to the advice of influencers and community leaders more than we do the Word of God? 

Don’t we prize our habits over the clear commands in the Bible not to do them? 

Don’t we value our freedom, particularly our sexual freedom, more than how God has told us to live? 

Don’t we esteem our money more than our God? Aren’t we prepared to manage our money in ways we know God does not approve just so we can have a little more? 

Don’t we despise the invasion of our free time that comes with involvement in the Body of Christ? Don’t we make illegitimate excuses to avoid going to church? 

All of these, and many more besides, are clear indications that we have an idol: that we have taken something which at best is morally neutral, at worse is morally abhorrent, and prized it more than God.  

That is the very definition of idol worship. 

There is a very stark passage on Ezekiel, when the Lord is so sickened by the idolatry taking place within the very Temple precincts that He departs from the building designed for Him to be worshipped (Ezekiel 8, 9 and 10). By the time the Jews received this warning it was already too late: they were in exile because they loved their idols more than God. 

But it doesn’t need to be too late for us. Listen to what God said through Isaiah: 

Isaiah 42:8 NIV 

[8] “I am the Lord; that is my name! I will not yield my glory to another or my praise to idols. 

(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/isa.42.8.NIV)

Let this study be a clarion call to all of us to set aside the graven images in our lives and to make God truly our Lord. 

There are three reasons to do just this, outlined in this tough, no-nonsense commandment.

The first is The Forged God. 

The Forged God 

Exodus 20:4 NIV 

[4] “You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.  

(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/exo.20.4.NIV)

The next town to the town where I live used to have a massive steel plant. They had enormous furnaces for the creation of steel and used to export all over the world. However, once steel-making technology hit Asia – India and China in particularly – the writing was on the wall. They could no longer compete and the plant was closed. Many thousands of people lost their jobs. 

The forgeries of Motherwell fell silent. 

That kind of devastating loss was anticipated in Ephesus, if the Gospel had been allowed to spread unchecked. Listen to the complaint of Demetrius, a silversmith who made idols of Diana/Artemis and hear the cries of a man whose illegitimate livelihood was at risk: 

Acts 19:25-27 NIV 

[25] He called them together, along with the workers in related trades, and said: “You know, my friends, that we receive a good income from this business. [26] And you see and hear how this fellow Paul has convinced and led astray large numbers of people here in Ephesus and in practically the whole province of Asia. He says that gods made by human hands are no gods at all. [27] There is danger not only that our trade will lose its good name, but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis will be discredited; and the goddess herself, who is worshiped throughout the province of Asia and the world, will be robbed of her divine majesty.” 

(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/act.19.25-27.NIV)

This idol-making business had been going on for centuries. Barely forty days after these commandments were given, in a spectacular way, we see this happening: 

Exodus 32:1-4 NIV 

[1] When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, “Come, make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him.” [2] Aaron answered them, “Take off the gold earrings that your wives, your sons and your daughters are wearing, and bring them to me.” [3] So all the people took off their earrings and brought them to Aaron. [4] He took what they handed him and made it into an idol cast in the shape of a calf, fashioning it with a tool. Then they said, “These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.” 

(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/exo.32.1-4.NIV)

Aaron’s excuse for this epic disobedience is simply pathetic and untenable: 

Exodus 32:22-24 NIV 

[22] “Do not be angry, my lord,” Aaron answered. “You know how prone these people are to evil. [23] They said to me, ‘Make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him.’ [24] So I told them, ‘Whoever has any gold jewelry, take it off.’ Then they gave me the gold, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf!” 

(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/exo.32.22-24.NIV)

Can you imagine anything so utterly foolish? God’s command was clear and unequivocal, yet forty days later they breached it, the man at the centre of it was Aaron, and that was how excused it? 

Yet this is all very human. Look again at the reason why they asked Aaron to make them this idol: 

Exodus 32:1 NIV 

[1] When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, “Come, make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him.” 

(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/exo.32.1.NIV)

It was impatience. Nothing more than impatience. Moses had been gone for forty days.

They were done waiting. And so they turned aside from God. 

Isn’t that just the way? We turn aside to idols because God isn’t providing us what we want just yet and the lure of sin just seems to attractive. 

But every sin is idolatry. Every sin is a usurping of God from the throne of our lives, where He should quite rightly be, and a replacement with ourselves: our hopes, our dreams, our pressures, our agenda, above all others. 

All of this – every bit of it – involved making ourselves our own god and replacing the One True God with it. 

It also happens when we try to recast God in our image, rather than being made in His.

That is a charge that could be laid at the feet of God’s people for millenia. The danger has always been to view God as something of a good luck charm, as a vending machine of blessing: you insert your prayers, you get back a happy life.  

Yet that has never been the case. God always required obedience from us. Look at the stern rebuke of the Israelites in Isaiah: 

Isaiah 58:1-4 NIV 

[1] “Shout it aloud, do not hold back. Raise your voice like a trumpet. Declare to my people their rebellion and to the descendants of Jacob their sins. [2] For day after day they seek me out; they seem eager to know my ways, as if they were a nation that does what is right and has not forsaken the commands of its God. They ask me for just decisions and seem eager for God to come near them. [3] ‘Why have we fasted,’ they say, ‘and you have not seen it? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you have not noticed?’ “Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please and exploit all your workers. [4] Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife, and in striking each other with wicked fists. You cannot fast as you do today and expect your voice to be heard on high. 

(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/isa.58.1-4.NIV)

And there are those who minimise God in the cages of their neatly packaged theologies and philosophies. But God will not be reduced to a product of their fevered imaginations:

Isaiah 55:8-9 NIV 

[8] “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. [9] “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. 

(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/isa.55.8-9.NIV)

All of these are guilty of the same thing: of reducing God into something that we can handle and carry and manipulate and set away in a discrete corner of our lives, never to bother us again. 

But that is not the One True God. That is an idol. We have been instructed never to make an idol. When we do, we are breaking the second commandment. However we do it, we are sinning against God. 

The thing is: a forged god is a forgery god. It isn’t real. It’s a fake. And we are the ones who are conned. We are the ones who lose out. 

Because here we don’t just see a forged god, we also see The Jealous God. 

The Jealous God 

Exodus 20:5-6 NIV 

[5] You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, [6] but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments. 

(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/exo.20.5-6.NIV)

Okay, be honest: are you surprised that God reveals Himself to be jealous here? 

And this is not the only place where God is linked with jealousy in the Bible: 

Deuteronomy 4:23-24 NIV 

[23] Be careful not to forget the covenant of the Lord your God that he made with you; do not make for yourselves an idol in the form of anything the Lord your God has forbidden. [24] For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God. 

(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/deu.4.23-24.NIV)

Deuteronomy 6:13-15 NIV 

[13] Fear the Lord your God, serve him only and take your oaths in his name. [14] Do not follow other gods, the gods of the peoples around you; [15] for the Lord your God, who is among you, is a jealous God and his anger will burn against you, and he will destroy you from the face of the land.  

(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/deu.6.13-15.NIV)

Psalms 79:5 NIV 

[5] How long, Lord? Will you be angry forever? How long will your jealousy burn like fire? 

(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/psa.79.5.NIV)

Are you taken aback by this? Are you shocked? 

I was taught when I was small that jealousy was a sin. But here we see that God is jealous.

God is righteous – He does not sin. Neither does He tempt into sin (James 1:13-14). 

So what is going on here? 

What we need to understand is that jealousy in and of itself is not sinful. If not managed, it can lead to sin, but the emotion of jealousy is not sinful. 

‘The Bible Says’ commentary identified jealousy as being ‘a desire for that which is rightfully yours’, which is not a sin. Whereas envy is ‘a desire for that which is not rightfully yours’ and is a sin. 

This is a very important distinction. What it means is that we rightfully belong to God, not the other way round. So if we make a god out of anything else and worship it, assigning it greater value than we do to God, then we are stealing from what is rightfully God’s and handing it over to something that has no right to own it at all.  

What is that something? 

We are. 

Because we are rightfully God’s. 

Think for a second about a museum with highly prized exhibits. Last year there was a famous daring and brazen robbery at the Louvre Museum in France, where thieves defied their security measures and made off with incredibly valuable treasures without being caught. 

I am sure their security has massively improved since then. It has to. Otherwise no-one will lend them their precious objects  

Securing things you own like a museum secures its exhibits is a form of jealousy: you have something and you don’t want to lose it. 

No-one is jealous for something that is of little value to them.  

So what does that mean? 

God is jealous for us because we are of value to Him. We are important to Him. We matter. 

It was jealousy that caused God to judge His people and send them into Exile (Deuteronomy 32:16-25). 

It was jealousy that caused Him to bring them back again (Joel 2:18-27; Zechariah 8:1-8). 

Jealousy for the fate of His people is also a driving force behind the coming of the Messiah (Isaiah 59:1-20). 

So jealousy is not a sin. Jealousy here is the emotion felt by a God who is entitled to have all of our heart, soul, mind and strength, but often does not. Jealousy is the emotion felt by a God who should not need to compete with the idols we made for ourselves for our attention and worship – and it is a sad indictment of our fickle spirituality that He does – but who will fight for our affection and even gave His Son to die for us. 

This is our God. And do you know what? I’m so glad that He’s jealous for me! 

But after having had a look at the failures of our forged God and that our God is a jealous God, we now look at a deeply uncomfortable, challenging aspect of this command – that our God is The Just God. 

The Just God 

Exodus 20:5-6 NIV 

[5] You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, [6] but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments. 

(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/exo.20.5-6.NIV)

Like most Scottish men, I like football. Even with all the technology in the game now, after every decision in every game, there are always discussions on whether or not the referee made the correct decision. Among some football fans, there are often conspiracy theories on why the referee made his decision and allegations of dishonesty or impropriety. 

But, of course, these always come from people who are just sore losers. 

In these verses, we see a glimpse of God’s justice. For some, this might come as quite a surprise. We are used to the God of love and grace, but here He is condemning those who choose to worship someone other than Him. 

Why is that? 

The quite chilling reason is at the end of verse 5, when God said that He will punish the progeny of ‘those who hate Me’. 

This tells is precisely how God views idolaters. People who choose to make their own gods and worship them hate the one true God. 

And why is that? 

Because of that command to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. It is simply impossible to do that and worship another.  

Besides, if we worship another, we are favouring them over God, or believing that they and God are equal. That devalues God. It demeans Him. It disgraces Him. It is nothing short of a spiritual insult. 

So the conclusion that idolatry is hatred towards God is spot on. 

Look what Paul said about such people: 

Romans 1:21-32 NIV 

[21] For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. [22] Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools [23] and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles. [24] Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. [25] They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen. [26] Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. [27] In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error. [28] Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. [29] They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, [30] slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; [31] they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. [32] Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them. 

(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/rom.1.21-32.NIV)

All of these people – every last one – are idolaters, because something else in their life, no matter its nature, was more important to them that giving God His rightful place as Lord of their lives. 

Our verses in the Ten Commandments tell us that justice will come to these people. 

But there are two flavours to this justice. 

There is justice for the God-haters.  

Now, we must understand this correctly. The Bible does not teach that children will die for someone else’s sin. Quite the opposite. As Ezekiel taught, the soul who sins will die (Ezekiel 18). 

If innocent children die because of the guilt of their father, that would not be just. 

No, this is something far more challenging. 

Many commentators point out that a human could realistically see three or four generations of offspring, if they lived that long. These commentators have surmised that the reason this punishment was meted out was because the idolater remained alive and influenced their progeny into idolatry. It was their influence, and not just their sin itself, that caused the punishment to spread. 

That is, the idolater sinned and then influenced their children, grand-children, great-grandchildren and great-great grandchildren to sin, and all received the just punishment of their sin. 

This teaches us a chilling truth. We think sin is an individual choice. ‘It’s my choice. I can do whatever I want’, we say to ourselves. And to a degree, it’s true. 

But we are not the only ones affected by our sin. This verse teaches that our influence can cause others to be dragged into it. The sin can spread like a virus down the generations and cause many others to be led astray.  

Look what Jesus taught about those who cause others to stumble: 

Luke 17:1-2 NIV 

[1] Jesus said to his disciples: “Things that cause people to stumble are bound to come, but woe to anyone through whom they come. [2] It would be better for them to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around their neck than to cause one of these little ones to stumble.  

(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/luk.17.1-2.NIV)

This is truly a sobering reality. 

There is also justice for the God-lovers. 

Exodus 20:6 NIV 

[6] but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments. 

(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/exo.20.6.NIV)

The sense of this statement is that the ripple effect of loving God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength is a lot wider and further-reaching than the effects of hating God. 

On average, three generations of the same family would number between fifteen and thirty people – perhaps more for my brother because he has six children, but then, he’s definitely not average. 

What we are talking about here is an influence of love and obedience that extends to thousands, and the Hebrew doesn’t restrict this to the family line.

In other words, obedience has an extraordinarily positive effect, spreading more than thirty times faster and further than sin. That example of a truly Godly person can change an entire family and everyone around them. It is a positive influence that cannot be maligned or limited. 

This is truly a tremendous blessing. 

But it’s what we do with this information that counts. Any attempts to trap us into succumbing to temptation never include the full implications of doing so. That’s always buried in the small print that we never read and instantly regret when everything goes south. 

Here God spells it out for us. 

If we turn aside to sin and make an idol for ourselves, we risk taking down future generations. 

Is that not what has happened? 

But if we choose to put God first and worship only Him, our influence will spread further and faster and influence thousands for the better. 

Be honest with yourself: which of these are you doing now? 

Which of these would you rather do? 

Conclusion 

Exodus 20:4-6 NIV 

[4] “You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. [5] You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, [6] but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments. 

(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/exo.20.4-6.NIV)

When you look at who and what people worship, things can get a bit bizarre. 

In the Karne Mata Temple in Rajasthan, India, twenty-five thousand rats are fed grains, given milk to drink and worshipped, as they are considered to be reincarnation of a Hindu god. 

In Atraulia village, Bihar, India, there is a temple where the cricketer Sachin Tendulkar is worshipped. 

In Tanna Island, Vanuatu, the current King of England is worshipped. 

The Yazidis of Iraq, Syria and Turkey worship a peacock angel. 

There is a ‘church’ in Sweden that believes copying and pasting information is a divine act. 

There is even a cult in America that carries out ceremonies to bless AR-15 rifles, because they believe them to be the ‘rod of iron’ mentioned in the Bible. 

This is to say nothing of the numerous cults who worship aliens. 

People worship the most bizarre things.  

But perhaps the singular most bizarre thing anyone can worship is themselves. 

This command is a clear as crystal prohibition against making idols. God doesn’t mess around. It’s direct and to the point.  

We might look at it, say that we don’t make images or idols to worship and then consign it to history. We might say that we don’t make forged gods. 

But is that really true? Or have we made gods that have replaced or deprioritised the One True God in our lives? Does our morality play second fiddle to our money? Will we stop going to church as soon as something better is on? Do we ignore the Bible's teaching on sexuality so we can ‘enjoy’ the temptations of the flesh? 

Do we find that our day is taken up with servicing habits and addictions that dominate our thinking? What is our first thought in the morning? Or our last thought at night? 

What are we truly enthusiastic about? What gives us more energy and drive? 

What has the number one spot in our lives? 

Because that is truly what matters. Not what we sing on a Sunday. Not what we say in church. Not what we do in the company of believers. 

The true test of whether we were loving God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength is whether or not He is our first priority above all, or whether we have set up an idol in the temple of our soul. 

So tell me: who are you really worshipping? 

Prayer 

Lord Jesus, I confess that for too long I have made idols out of mundane, ordinary things. I know this is an insult to Your glory and Your greatness. I renounce them now. Be Lord of my life and show me what this will mean for me. Amen. 

Questions for Contemplation 

• Should this command be consigned to history, or does it have something relevant to say to us? What is that message? 

• Why was it so wrong for God’s people to make an idol to worship? 

• Have you made an idol to worship? How will you repent of this?