Worship God Rightly

As you take your seats, please open to the Book of Exodus, Exodus chapter twenty, and will continue with our series on the law of worship. If you'll remember, we're looking at the first four Commandments, those vertical commandments, and trying to understand what it is that they have to teach us about worship. We've looked at an overview of the commandments, sort of laid a theological foundation, and then we've taken a couple of weeks to look at Commandment number one. We're going to try to do each of these in a couple of weeks, and today we'll look at Commandment number two, beginning at verse four. And you shall not make for yourselves 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. You shall not bow down to them or serve them for either, Lord, your God. I'm a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me, and keep my commandments. Men. A couple of things that notice here I want you to notice the connection of the commandments. Oftentimes, when we think about the ten Commandments, we think about them as though they are ten isolated commandments and that they're not connected to one another, or at best will think about maybe the first table and then the second table, but not think about the relationship even between those, let alone between the commandments themselves. But I think when we look at the first and second commandment, it becomes obvious for a number of reasons that there is a connection. First, look at the structure here. If you look at the structure, you see an abb A structure. In the first commandment, it is you shall not followed by I Am. In other words, you shall not have any other gods before me. Or in this commandment is you shall not follow by I Am. But in the first commandment it was I Am. And then and therefore you shall not in this commandment again you shall not make any carved images. You shall not bow down to them. Why I the Lord your God am first commandment. I Am the Lord your God brought you out of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. And because of that, you shall have no other gods before me. So we go from I am, therefore you shall not to you shall not because I am the same idea. The second thing is this, Essentially, God has already said you shall have no other gods. He's already said you shall not worship other gods. And yet here in the Second Commandment it seems as though he's saying the same thing, because in many ways he is. The first Commandment deals with the idea of having other gods. The second Commandment deals with the idea of worshiping in accordance with someone or something other than God, allowing your worship to be changed or dictated. Remember this is about the law of worship and what the Commandments teach us about worship. Note that the worship of God flows from the very character of God. It does not begin with us and then get its shape and form because of who we are and how we feel. It begins with God and gets its shape and form because of who He is and what he says. We worship God because he's God. We worship God the way God determines he is to be worshiped because he is God. Remember the definition of worship that we're working from. That definition from bruce Leafblad True worship happens when we set our mind's attention and heart's affection on the Lord, praising him for who he is and for what he has done. Again, these first commandments make it very clear why. First of all, here's who I am. Therefore, here's what you shall not do. In the second commandment, here's what you shall not do. Why, because here's who I am. We worship God in light of who he is and what he has done. But secondly, I remember we talked about the law of worshiping. Here's the definition that we're kind of working from as we go through this series. Every man must worship the One True God rightly, reverently, and regularly. From the first commandment, we get the idea that every man must worship the one True God. Not worshiping God is not an option for any man. From the second commandment, we get the idea that man must worship the One True God rightly. Again, we've already established that we must worship the one True God and only the one True God. So here when we come to the second commandment, and we're looking at graven images and things of that nature, But he's not saying now that this is about having another God. Those things aren't gods. By the way, this commandment has to do with the One True God being worshiped rightly. The third commandment honoring the Lord's name or not taking his name in vain, it's about the Lord being worshiped reverently. In the fourth commandment, the commandment about the Sabbath is about the Lord being worshiped regularly. So it's from these commandments that we get our definition. Finally, there's the idea of normative versus regulative worship. I remember, normative worship is the idea that we worship God according to what we find in scripture, but we can also use other things as long as they're not forbidden in scripture. Remember the Lutheran view. Essentially, Luther wanted to keep the essence of Roman Catholic worship but get rid of anything in Roman Catholic worship that was expressly forbidden in scripture, whereas the Puritan view the Calvinistic view was that we must worship God. This is the regulative principle. We must worship God only in the ways that He has expressly commanded us in his word, nothing else. There are no other options. We have a tendency two tendencies when it comes to the Second Commandment. One is overliteralizing the Second Commandment and the other is over spiritualizing the Second Commandment. And there's a ditch on both sides of the road when we overliteralize the Second Commandment. Here, I don't refer to it being a problem of taking scripture literally. We all recognize here that we take the scriptures literally where they're intended to be taken literally. Amen. I love when people ask are you on those people who takes the Bible literally? And my answer usually when somebody asks me that is where I'm supposed to, right, what they want you to do is say yes, I take the Bible literally. And then they'll bring up something that's obviously figurative in scripture and they say, well, how can you possibly take the Bible? Now? Do you take the Bible literally? My answer is yes, where I'm supposed to. And I kind of confuse this people, what do you mean? I said, Well, when the Bible says that God covers me with his wings, I don't believe that that means he's a big chicken. But when it says you shall not commit murder, I do believe that that means I should not kill you, no matter how much you annoy me with such questions. So be very happy that I take the Bible literally where I'm supposed to. So I'm not talking about the fact that we don't take the Bible literally. But we can be literalistic in our understanding of the Second Commandment. And if we become literalistic in our understanding in the Second Commandment, we believe that the only way you can violate it is by making an actual physical idol. And you say, well, I haven't built any idols. Therefore I'm not guilty concerning the Second Commandment. The fact of the matter is it goes much further than that. We see this, for example, in the history of Israel. We see this in the levitical law, and in the way the levitical law teases out the Second Commandment specific admonitions to Israel about their worship that are rooted in the Second Commandment, but that are very specific to them. For example. The other idea is the over spiritualizing of the Second Commandment, and here the error is to turn everything into an idol. We see idols everywhere. In fact, there's no other sin. We see someone who's successful and wealthy, wearing, driving, or living in something nice or expense and immediately we assume ah idolatry. We see someone who has a hobby that they take very seriously and immediately ah idolatry. We see someone who's overweight and not taking care of themselves. When we say, ah, food is an idol. We see someone who's in really good shape and taking care of themselves, and we go, ah, their bodies an idol. Everything becomes idolatry. The truth of the matter is idolatry is a matter of the heart. There's a helpful definition of this if I can find it. Essentially, well, you know what's going to happen is I'm going to find it later on and I'll read it to you then. But essentially, idolatry is a matter of the heart. The question is what are we trusting in ultimately, And anything that we are trusting in ultimately becomes an idol. Anything that we're putting our faith in becomes an idol. Anything that we believe has ultimate power becomes an idol. Anything that we believe controls our destiny becomes an idol. Anything that we cannot do without, cannot live without cannot imagine life without becomes an idol. And so you can see where when we make this a matter of the heart, it's not just that you can have physical things that are idols. You can you can have physical things that are idols, but they don't necessarily have to be. You can also have other things in your life that become idols. That whole list of things that we just talked about. It's not necessarily true that people's nice things are idols, but it is necessarily true that they can become idols. It's not necessarily true that food can be somebody's idle, or a hobby can be somebody's idle, or somebody's body can become an idol, or somebody's anything can become an idol. All of those things can become idols. But idolatry is a matter of the heart. And see, when we overliteralize idolatry or over spiritualize idolatry, what we're usually trying to do is mask the idolatry in our own heart. Is there something that has become an idol to me? Well, the more I become aware of it, the more I want to overliteralize and say, well, you know, I haven't made anything physical that looks like an idol. Is there something that I have physical that's become an idol to me? Well, then I want to over spiritualize. In other words, I want to guard myself from acknowledging my own guilt as it relates to idolatry. This means that we must apply this differently. Listen to this from the book going beyond the five Points. Things have changed due to fulfillment in Christ. But fulfillment does not cancel the moral principle of the law, though it may change its application. In other words, the application of the Second Commandment looks different than it used to in light of the coming of the Son of Man and his entrance into glory. We worship how we do in light of the coming and resurrection of Christ. I want to give you one particular example of that. There are things that would have been violations for Israel in light of the principle of the Second Commandment that would not necessarily be violations for us. The Second Commandment is given to Israel in the midst of the ancient Near East and in the midst of the ancient Ners. The idea of worship and the idea of gods was very different. People carved their gods, people carried their gods around, people did things, for example, to their bodies. They marked themselves in ways that identified them with the God whom they worshiped. And so I had an interesting encounter once with a gentleman and it went something like this. He was pointing out someone in particular church where we were, person who had come out of a different kind of lifestyle and God had saved him. He's pointing out the fact that this person had a number of tattoos on them. And I said, yeah, yeah, he does. That's a. That's a that's a it's a lot of a lot of tattoos, some of them pretty nice, pretty nice artwork on you know. He's like, how can you the artwork? Who cares about the artwork? The Bible is clear that you that you you should not do that. The Bible couldn't be clearer about that. And so I said, oh, you mean in Leviticus nineteen. He said yes, So he opened up the Leviticus nineteen the Vicus nineteen twenty eight. You shall not make any cuts on your body for the dead, or tattoo yourselves. I am the Lord and he's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, right there, that's pretty clear. I said, yeah, it is, but may not mean what you think it means. Why well, if it does, you're in trouble. Verse twenty seven of Leviticus nineteen. You shall not round off the hair on the temples or mar the edges of your beard. This man was clean shaven. Now, either you have a huge issue here because you're holding that person accountable to Leviticus nineteen twenty eight, but you have excused yourself from Leviticus nineteen twenty seven hypocrite, or that text doesn't mean what you think it means. You see specifically Levigus chapter nineteen. In this section here, dealing with the cutting of the beards and the tattooing and cutting of the body has to do with practices of neighboring peoples who did these things to identify themselves as worshippers of their pagan deities. It didn't have anything necessarily to do with your beard and what you do with it, or whether you have one, or necessarily with whether or not there were things drawn on your body. It had to do with idolatry and identifying with foreign deities, which meant that it was rooted in the principles of the Second Commandment. Now does that mean that somehow the Second Commandment no longer applies to us? Absolutely not. It most assuredly does. But the Second Commandment has to be applied in light of the person and work of Christ. And this is incredibly important. If you'll remember when we started all this, one of the things we said was that the Old Testament is very difficult for us because we don't know how to turn pretty and apply it. And we think that you just run over to the New Testament, you find a verse, you rip it, kicking excrement out of it its context, bring it into your situation, and boom, that's the way you do it. Well, then you run into they violated verse twenty eight, and you violated verse twenty seven. What do we do or there's a way that we look at the Bible as a whole, understanding that Christ is our ultimate hermeneutical principle, understanding something called biblical theology, and that God has revealed himself progressively through biblical theology, and try to approach it that way. And that's what we're trying to do here. So when we look at the Commandment, the Second Commandment against graven images. It's important that we understand it in light of all of redemptive history. That's what our forebears in the Westminster Larger Catechism did. And remember when we do, we're looking at the Westminster Large Catechism. When we look at this, we want to do two things. One, we want to make it clear. I want you to see the sinfulness of your sin. I want to see the sinfulness of my sin. Because what we like to do is we like to look at the commandment. It's like the rich young ruler. You know, a rich young ruler looks at Jesus and he says, ah, I've kept all of those from my youth. Liar, no, you haven't. And the only way that you could possibly believe that you've kept these commandments is if you don't understand the magnitude of the commandments. So I want you to understand the magnitude of the commandments. The second thing is when we understand the magnitude of the commandments, we understand the magnitude of the righteousness of Christ, because he did indeed keep the commandment. Remember that what the Westminster divines were doing in the Larger Catechism was taking a biblical theological view of the Commandments and looking at everything that God has revealed in all of scripture about the heart of this part of the moral law. In answering the question, what are the sins forbidden in the Second Commandment? Listen to this when you take all of the Bible as a whole related to the moral principle behind the Second Commandment. Here's the answer to that question. The sins forbidden in the Second Commandment are all devising, counseling, commanding, using, and anywise approving any religious worship not instituted by God himself, tolerating a false religion, the making any representation of God of all or of any of the Three Persons, either inwardly in our mind or outwardly in any kind of image or likeness, or any creature whatsoever, all worshiping of it or God in it or by it. The making of any representation of foreign deities, and all worship of them or service belonging to them. All superstitious devices corrupting the worship of God, adding to it, or taking from it, whether invented from others, though under the title of antiquity, custom devotion, good intent or any other preference or pretense whatsoever, simony, sacrilege, all neglect, contempt, hindering, and opposing the worship and ordinances which God has appointed. Amen, Hallelujah, Praise the Lord. We're all guilty. We're all guilty. And in case you don't understand it, there here's what you understand. When Jesus is asked what is the greatest commandment, he summarizes the first four commandments, and he says, the first and greatest commandment is what love the Lord your God with all all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, all your strength. You've never done that for one nanosecond in your entire life, which means you've never kept any of the first four commandments, let alone the second. We are guilty. And yet Christ was righteous in this regard. He never, in his earthly life and ministry, violated the second commandment in word, in thought or Indeed, you see, when we say that Jesus was pure and holy and righteous, we don't just mean that he never did any of the big things. He never did any of the smallest things. There was no sin found in him. So with that in mind, let's look at the text here and there are a couple of things that I want us to see. First, Let's look at the you shall nots. There's two you shall nots. You shall not make and you shall not bow. Look at the first one and verse four. 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 under the earth. You shall not make any carved images. Again, God is not afraid that these other things are actually God's or will compete with him. For example, in Isaiah chapter forty four, verses eight through eleven. Listen to what he says. All who fashion idols are nothing, and the things they delight in do not profit their witness Excuse me, their witnesses neither see nor know that they may be put to shame. Who fashions a god or casts an idol that is profitable for nothing? Behold, all his companions shall be put to shame. And the craftsmen are only human. Let them all as symbol, Let them stand forth. They shall be terrified. They shall be put to shame. Together, these things are not God's, that is not his point. But remember this is about a matter of the heart. This is about things being allowed in your heart to compete with the place of God. That is where the problem comes in. A great example of this is when Paul talks about eating meat sacrificed to idols. He says, the idols nothing. It doesn't bother him. Paul has no problem eating meet sacrifice to idols because he doesn't believe in the idols. But he recognizes that there are individuals who worship those idols and for whom that idol means something that it does not mean to me. I've heard of many a story of people leaving their own culture and going to another culture. Let's say somebody leaves here and they go to India or somewhere else in Asia. Somebody leaves there, it comes here somewhere in Africa. And like we often like to do when we go visit other cultures, we like to bring something home. And well, on a number of occasions, people go when they visit, and oftentimes one of the things you bring home is something that's been carved somewhere, right, and so you know, you get that and you come back home and there's this beautiful art piece that you found on your visits around the world, and you put this art piece in and then all of a sudden there's somebody who comes and visits here from your church, and you find out that they're from that place, and you go, oh, I visited that place, got a wonderful piece of art in that place. And they come to your house and you show them the piece of art and their jaw just drops. What is it? Not good? I thought it was good. I thought this was you know, do you know what that is? Well, obviously not. That's an idol in my country and my culture that's worshiped. People bowed down to that. Now, let me ask you a question, as the person who bought it committed a sin, No, because they're not worshiping the idol. Do you follow? This is what Paul means when he says, for him, it's no big deal eating meat sacrificed the idols. And this is not about eating meat. So when he says, if eating meat defends my brother, I will not eat meat, that is not about eating meat. It's about idolatry. And the point is that idolatry is in the heart. God is not concerned about a piece of wood competing with him. Amen, ask the prophets of bail. God is not concerned about that. The concern here is the hearts of God's people and the corrupting of the worship of the One, True and Living God. That's the issue. These things are not gods. They're nothing. They're nothing. Let me take this a step further. There may be people, say, for example, and you know, random country like Zambia, who come from a particular background, maybe a particular true and in their particular tribe. There's a belief that certain charms and images have power. Let's say, just hypothetically, and let's say that, hypothetically, this person from Zambia comes out of that and actually becomes a Christian, and so they no longer utilize such things. However, when somebody threatens them with one, they get scared. They just violated the second Commandment because even though they didn't carve the image, even though they don't possess the image, they fear the image in the way that only God is to be feared. That's idolatry. Are you smelling what I'm stepping in? Is it getting real enough for us? Now? That's idolatry. Superstitions, things that we believe have power that only belongs to God. That's violating the same commandment. It's idolatry. It's idolatry. Can we get even more specific? I've had people to complain because I use this and not a book. Ah ah, these these these new fangled preachers, right, I guess, I guess it's new Calvinists whatever, you know, coming up with their you know, with their electronic versions of the Bible. But guess what now it's you've got an electronic version of the Bible, not a paper Bible. Guess what it used to be. It used to be you have to use the big, giant pulpit Bible. I can't remember when I first started preaching. There are a number of churches that I walked into and I opened up my Bible and put it on top of the pulpit Bible, and people are like then. I've had people who've seen my Bible actually written in and marked up. Folks, that's idolatry. That's idolatry. That book with ink printed on paper, that's not God. Amen, somebody, that's not God. Do you see how deep this goes, how significant it can be. Now again, I'm not saying that if you have a Bible that's important to you. That that's automatically idolatry. I have a Bible that's important to me. I have a Bible that you know, and the covers falling all off of it. It's when I became a believer. A couple of young men who were discipling me, who are teaching me how to read the Bible, and they gave me a Bible and wrote a note to it, note in it to me when I was eighteen years old. And I have it. It's meaningful to me. However, it doesn't have power. Amen, it doesn't have power. I don't believe that I can blaspheme against that particular leather bound paper and ink. Do you see? Idolatry is a matter of the heart. The second commandment is about turning our heart in the wrong directions, our trust in the wrong direction, our fear in the wrong direction, our faith in the wrong direction. What Paul says about this in Romans Chapter one. A familiar passage in Romans chapter one, beginning verse eighteen, for the wrath of God is revealed from Heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who, by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God as plain to them, because God has shown it to them for the invisible attribute. His invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him. But they became feutile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchange the glory of the immortal God for the images resembling mortal man, and birds and animals and creeping things. You see what they did. They exchanged the glory. The point is not that they made something. The point is that they exchanged the glory. You shall not exchange the glory the second thing. The second you shall not so. First you shall not make. Secondly, you shall not bow Verse five, you shall not bow down to them or serve them. Here's where we get into our worship. You shall not worship those things. You shall not bow down to those things. First of all, don't make those things. The idea here is that we are giving over to those things. Secondly, don't have your worship dictated by those things. The only one who can dictate our worship is God himself. Amen. No one and nothing else can dictate our worship. You shall up out down to them. We see these in Exodus thirty two, same book, a few chapters later, and it's rather amazing, right, we get the tink commandments, and we get the mountain and smoke and fire and all that. You would think that after all of that, that it would be generations before you had a problem with idolatry, Amen, who long, long, long, long, long, to hundreds of years before No. No. Moses goes back up on the mountain, and he takes too long, and they build the golden calves. And while he's up on the mountain Chapter thirty two, verses seven through ten, the Lord said to Moses, go down for your people. I love this. There's so many things in Exodus thirty two that when you read it carefully, I just I love this. They make the idol and he doesn't say my people. He's in Moses, you needn't go see about your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. Now. He said, I'm the Lord, your god who brought you out of the land. Right He said that, right now, they're down there. Word has been the golden cab. He's like, Moses, you better go see about your people. You know, those people that you brought out of Egypt. They have turned aside quickly out of the way that I commanded them. They have made for themselves a golden calf and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it, and said, these are your gods, o Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. And the Lord said to Moses, I have seen this people, and behold it is the stiff necked people. Now therefore let me alone that my wrath may burn hot against them, and I may consume them in order that I may make a great nation of you. God is serious, He's serious. Now we know that that is not what happens. A number of them are consumed, the ground opens up and swallows it. God demonstrates his wrath, but God also rescues his people. God reminds his people that he is serious about idolatry, which leads us to the next part of this. And this almost needs its own sermon. But we're going to deal with this because we have to do this. In two sessions. We have that you shall not you shall not make, you shall not bow. But but why, And essentially it's because I am. The last one was I am, because I am, you shall not I am the Lord your God. You shall not have any other gods. This one you shall not make, you shall not bow? Why because I am? And again it is I the Lord your God. And that phrase the Lord your God is connecting it to the first commandment. This is not isolated from the first commandment. It doesn't make sense without the first commandment. He says, I the Lord your God am a jealous God. Here's the first problem. Either Lord your God am a jealous God. And we hear that, and we go, wait a minute, here's what the wrong reasoning does. Here. The wrong reasoning says, well, jealousy is a sin, right deadly sin, and envy, right jealous that's a sin. Here God says he's jealous. Therefore God's a sinner. That's a problem, right, Not exactly. We see this in other places. Deuteronomy chapter four, verses twenty three and twenty four. Take care lest you forget the covenant of the Lord your God which he made with you, and make a carved image the form of anything that the Lord your God has forbidden you. For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God. Again, in Deuteronomy six fourteen we see God identified as a jealous God. But is this always sinful? No. In Numbers chapter eleven and in Numbers chapter twenty five, we see that Phineas was jealous for God's goloe glory, and Phineas was not sinful when he was jealous for God's glory. We see this in One Kings nineteen that Elijah identifies himself to God as having been jealous for God. And so obviously we're talking about something else here, Folks, understand this jealousy. The sin of jealousy occurs when I am envious of somebody else's power, place, position, or possessions because I believe wrongly that what they have ought to be mine. That's jealousy. You have possessions, position, power, praise that I want for myself, and I'm jealous because you have it and I want it for myself. Essentially, me being jealous is accusing God of not knowing how to distribute gifts. I'm accusing God of wronging me because you have some position, some possession, some praise, something some power that I want, and I want it wrongly because it's not mine. Newsflash, all power belongs to God, all position comes from God, all praise is to be to God, and all possessions belong to God. Therefore, God is supposed to be jealous. But it's more significant than that. If God were not jealous, then that would mean that God believed there was someone or something more worthy than him, which would mean God was being an idolager. It is not sinful for God to be a jealous God. It would be sinful for God not to be a jealous God. But that's only part of the problem. The other part of the problem, and we'll do as quickly visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments. Here's the second issue that we deal with, and this is the issue of what some would call generational curses. Again very popular idea, the popular idea of the generational curse. Right, you do something, or you experience something, or you suffer from something. And the response to that is, well, it's a generational curse. Or somebody in your family has done something, your father, your grandfather has done something, and all of a sudden you're afraid, why because of a generational curse? And you think you have justification for believing in the idea of a generational curse, because right here it says he visits the iniquities of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation. Right, I mean there it is, right there, in black and white, a generational curse. Except it's not a generational curse. Let me explain it to you two ways. First, let me to listen to this from the IVP background commentary. Punishment to the third and fourth generation is not granted to human judges, but to God. It expresses the fact that covenant violations bring guilt on the entire family. The third and fourth generation is then a way to refer to all living members of a family. But there's also a contrast and the loyalty that has extended the thousands in generations over against the punishment that extends only to three or four. This is a figure of speech third and fourth generation is a reference to all the living members of your family. This sin will affect not only you, but all the living members of your family. Which is very interesting because in the fourth Commandment, the fourth Commandment talks about you and your children, and your servants and all the members of your household. What's the fifth commandment? The fifth commandment tells children to honor their father and mothers so that they can live long on the land. Listen, the commandments are connected. The idea here is that this is covenant promise, and that when you talk about covenant promise, covenant promise has an impact, and it is and can be a multi generational impact. But there is a difference between the idea that what you do will impact generations to come and the idea that there is a curse on generations. So first there's a theological explanation, but secondly, I want to give you a biblical explanation Ezekiel chapter eighteen. Please turn there, Ezekiel chapter eighteen. And we've had to deal with this because as an adoptive family, for example, we have children who come into our family through adoption. There are Christian people who warned us, aren't you afraid afraid of what well, you might adopt a child who has a generational curse and you wouldn't even know. Wait, what what are you saying? What do you if I believe that we wouldn't have had kids because I know what's in my family the last three generations? Amen? Somebody right, if I was afraid of generational curses, I never would have had kids at all. But the second problem is that is grossly unbiblical. Ezekiel, chapter eighteen, beginning of verse one, the word of the Lord came to me. What do you mean by repeating this proverb concerning the land of Israel? Fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge? As I live, declares the Lord, this proverb shall no more be used by you and Israel. Behold, all souls are mine. The soul of the Father, as well as the soul of the son is mine. The soul who sins shall die. If a man is righteous and does what is just and right, if he does not eat upon the mountain and lift up his eyes to idols, the house of Israel does not defile his neighbor's wife, but or approach a woman in a time of mistry. Impurity, does not oppress anyone, but restores to the debt or his pledge, commitsional robbery, gives his bread to the hungry, covers the naked with a garment, does not excuse me, lend an interest or take any profit without his withholds his hand from injustice, executes true justice between man and man, walks in my statutes, and keeps my rules by acting faithfully his right righteousness. He is righteous. I'm sorry. He shall surely live, declares the Lord. If he fathers a son who is violent, sheds a shedder of blood, so on and so forth. Go down to verse thirteen. Lens takes a prophet. Shall he then live? He shall not. He has done all these abominations. He shall surely die. His blood shall be upon himself. His blood shall be upon himself. He continues on in Ezekiel eighteen, basically to say, father sins, I don't punish the child. There's no multi generational curse. There's a generational influence. Absolutely, we grow up in our households, we learn things, and we tend to live in accordance with the things that we've learned. There is absolutely influence. But the idea of a multigenerational curse. God says clearly in Ezekiel eighteen. He says to Israel, stop believing that and stop teaching that. There are no generational curses. By the way, believing in and being afraid of generational curses is another example of violating the second commandment. Because you are conferring God's power on something that's not God. You're also accusing God of doing something that God doesn't do. You are not cursed. Here's the third and final problem with the idea of the generational curse. What about the blood of Jesus. Huh do you mean to tell me that the blood of Jesus can save me from my sin, can save me from death, hell, and the grave, but it can't save me from my father's sin. I'm saved and all my way to heaven, but I'm cursed because of my grandfather. That is utterly and absolutely ridiculous. It's idolatry. It's idolatry. Jesus saves to the uttermost, to the uttermost, you confess your sin, It's faithful and just to forgive you of your sin and cleanse you of all unrighteousness. Well, except the generational curses that you inherited from your father, your grandfather. No, no, no, A thousand times no. Ezekiel eighteen screams no no. Oh. So when you look at Ezequiel eighteen, and then when you take the fact that this is a very familiar construct the third and fourth generation, when you understand that it's obvious that what's being spoken of there is not the idea of a generational curse, but it's the idea of the significance of covenant promises and our covenant responsibility. So again, connect this to the Fourth Commandment and the Fifth Commandment, and the covenantal duties and responsibility, the responsibility that we have to our children. Deuteronomy chapter five repeats the ten Commandments. And right after Deuteronomy chapter five comes what Deuteronomy chapter six? What is deuteronymy chapter six talking about parents discipling their children and teaching them all of these things that the Lord has commanded. Why, by the way, if there's a generational curse, why would it matter if I teach my children riddle me that bad man? Why would it possibly matter if we're all just doomed because of generational curses? I don't want to be labor this point. But I know for a fact that right here, right now, under the sound of my voice, there are people who are influenced by this thinking. Because I know all out there people are influenced by this thinking. And not only is it grossly unbiblical thinking, but it is actually a form of idolatry. Charms have no power, curses have no power. When Jesus rose from the dead, he came to his disciples, and when he gave the great commission, it began with all power in heaven and on earth is given unto me. If Christ has all power in heaven and on earth, where's the room for the charm to have power. Where's the room for the witch doctor to have power. Where's the room for the curse to have power? Christ has all power, and we worship him and him alone. We bow down to him and to him alone. We do not try to appease other powers, because there is only one power, and it is God in Christ. That is the power that nailed our sin to the tree. That is the power that died and went into the grave. That is the power that three days later rose from the dead in order to demonstrate its power. There is no power anywhere else. All power is his power. All power is his power, all of it, all of it and everything else that you see out there, every dark thing that you see out there, the world, the flesh, and the devil. Well, what about him? Isn't he the prince of the power or the air? Listen? We talked about Luther earlier, and I may not agree with Luther on worship, but I agree with Luther wholeheartedly on this quote. Even the devil is God's devil. Did he just go get job? No, he had to ask, because all power is God's power. Don't make graven images, don't don't don't make things. In other words, don't give over your heart to these things. Don't bow before these things. Don't let these things dictate what worship is supposed to look like. God dictates what worship is supposed to look like. And then remember remember God is a jealous God. God is a jealous God, which means he leaves no room for anyone and anything else on the throne that belongs to him. He can't. For him to do so would be a form of idolatry. There's no room for anyone or anything else on the throne that he occupies, not even you, not even you. Don't be afraid of false gods. Don't be enamored with false gods. Don't be deceived by false gods. We worship the one true, in living God, and we worship him only, and we worship him rightly. Let's pray, Oh God, how we thank you for your goodness and kindness and mercy toward us in Christ Jesus. How we thank you that you have not left us to perish in our sins. How we rejoice in your forgiveness, in your mercy. How we rejoice in the goodness and majesty of Christ. How we rejoice in the sufficiency of His sacrifice, and how we rejoice in the beauty of His worship. Grant by your worship, Grant your grace that we might worship God alone, that we might do so rightly, that we might do so reverently, that we might do so regularly as you command. Thank you for reminding us today that there is no God but God, and that we are to fear serve, worship, or pledge our allegiance to anyone or anything else. Grant that our worship of You might be pure, And grant this we pray Christ's name and for his sake. I