6th October 2025

6th October 2025


Pray (ACts)


Read (Exodus 20:4-6 focus v4-5a)


Message (Alan Burke) 


A long time ago I was doing my visits as an assistant I called with an elderly lady in the congregation that I was serving who had only ever had me in the kitchen and I had to come in down the wee alleyway at the side of the house and through the back door. She was just out of hospital and she had sent me a message to tell me what I was coming just to come in through the front door it was open and she would likely be in the front room on the right. As I walked in I was hit my a multi sensory experience, the smell of incense sticks burning, the candles dotted all around the room and all around the fire place, with candles were little Buda’s, there were paintings of Mary, there were paintings of some white guy with blonde hair and blue eyes that I didn’t know, there was a big Hindu Ganesh that’s the one with the elephants head and four arms, and then in the middle there was a big white crucifix. There were others but I was so overcome, it like someone had unexpectedly slapped me in the face. This lady to say the least was hedging her bets.


Most of us though don’t have a shrine to an idol or idols, we’re not hedging our bets, we don’t give offerings to idols, nor do we bow down to them so we might imagine that we are safe, aren’t we? Well let’s look to what this commandment teaches us. Firstly if you have an NIV you’ll read idol and for the ESV and KJV you’ll read carved or graven image. The Hebrew word that is used does not meal idol but image and most of us grew up with graven images. So we are not to make any carved image, graven image and v4 well the NIV connects everything to how it has translated the Hebrew word as idol but I’ll give it to you from the ESV which is much clearer just as the KJV and this is it; 4 “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.


We are forbidden not only from making ourselves a carved image but any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, the earth beneath or the water under the sea. This is a complete prohibition in relation to images in worship and we see that from what comes in v5 where we are told not to bow down to them. The Second Commandment then focuses in on the worship of the Lord our God. It is not enough to know who to worship but how we worship matters too, the First Commandment made it clear that the LORD God demands our complete devotion and the Second makes it clear how worship matters too. It’s not enough to know how to worship, how we worship matters too.


You may think it doesn’t really matter that much. Well think to the enthusiastic worship of the Golden Calf. The people worshiped it and made sacrifices to it (Ex 32). They worshiped but the form and the focus of their worship was wrong and the Lord was angry with it, picture that, picture God angry with false worship, for it’s not enough to know who to worship, how we worship matters. Or think back to Cain and Abel in the book of Genesis, both brought sacrifices to the LORD, they both worshiped, but Cain did not worship the LORD in spirit, his heart was not in it, his offering was a token but his heart was indifferent so that Lord did not accept his offering, it was not worship.


Not only does it matter who we worship, how we worship matters too. The object of worship is the LORD God, not on our own personal tastes, it is not about us, worship it is about God. We must search our hearts and our practices to make sure that they are not displeasing to the Lord, and if either fails to please him then we must change it. I believe in consumer driven worship and the consumer of our worship is the LORD and not us, the purpose of worship is doxology, to glorify and please the LORD our God. Knowing that while we are sinners we can approach a thrice Holy God through Jesus Christ with confidence.


Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC
Q92 What is a Sacrament?
A. A Sacrament is a holy ordinance instituted by Christ; wherein, by sensible signs, Christ and the benefits of the new covenant are represented, sealed, and applied to believers.
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