Commandment #2

"You shall have no other gods before Me. "You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or 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 iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments. Exodus 20:3-6 NASB

This is one of those commandments that we think doesn’t apply to those who are in main-stream Christianity. How many people really have idols in their homes and bow down and worship them. The only idols I see are the fat Buddhas in the Chinese restaurants.

Christian youth groups warn against the idols of TV, movies, video games, facebook, and the mall and that we worship them through the time we spend with them. “Oh, how I worship you exalted movie theater and love your majestic images and may the sweet fragrances of butter, chocolate, sweat, and vomit be pleasing to you.”  Give me a break  :)

An idol is anything that is worshiped or served as a god, including a false image of the One True God.

From Why Yeshua???:

Creating an image of God in our mind that isn’t true is called idolatry. The nation of Israel struggled with this from their very inception. Read this account of Israel after they had been delivered by God from Egypt and brought to the mountain of God. Moses went to the top of Mt. Sinai to receive the Commandments from God and the people became restless.

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 (Elohiym) 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 (Elohiym), O Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt."
5 When Aaron saw this, he built an altar in front of the calf and announced, "Tomorrow there will be a festival to the LORD (YHVH: The Name of God)." 6 So the next day the people rose early and sacrificed burnt offerings and presented fellowship offerings. Afterward they sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry. Exodus 32:1-6

So what just happened here? Moses was up on the mountain and the people wanted Aaron make Elohiym. (“In the beginning God (Elohiym: Hebrew for God) created the heaven and the earth.” Gen. 1:1) What? Did the Israelites think that God looked like a cow? Remember that they had just been delivered from Egyptian slavery, which had lasted many hundred years. Egypt was a land full of idol worship. So it isn’t unreasonable to assume that many of Israelites would have had a perception of God that had been altered by the culture they lived in. Aaron made Elohiym in the image of a cow and then built an alter in front of the cow and said tomorrow we will have a festival to YHVH. They had created an image of YHVH (the one true God) in their minds that was false, thus they were committing idolatry.


I fear that main-stream Christianity as a whole is worshiping a false image of God. We are worshiping a messiah who no longer requires us to follow God’s Commandments as an expression of our faith. All we have to do is “love” him and be a good person (by the definition of the church). This is not consistent with the Bible. We are saved by faith, brought into the Kingdom of God by His grace yes, but the way to live in the Kingdom hasn’t changed. The interpretation in the church that God’s commandments are now nullified in Jesus is due to a lack of understanding of the culture, by which the Bible we hold so dear was written in. (read The Next Awakening) The church teaches that Jesus came to change the focus from the letter of the law to the Spirit of the law. I agree, the Spirit of the law was the original intent of the law; that the law be followed not as a means to achieve righteousness or earn God’s love, but because God loves us and makes us righteous by His grace, we follow His ways. Love and obedience have always been God’s plan. In the second commandment we see that God wants us to love Him and follow His commandments. The “spirit of the law” should make us want to follow and love God’s commandments even more and to follow them with the original intent of God’s heart.