Princeton Presbyterian Church

Princeton Presbyterian Church (EPC) Sermon # 1738

July 5, 2026

Deuteronomy 5.8-10            Click here for audio worship.

Dr. Ed Pettus

(This is an extended outline, not a verbatim transcript.)

 

“Second Commandment – What is Forbidden”

 

“‘You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am 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.

 

What is Forbidden:

 

• False Worship

 

As I mentioned last Sunday, the First Commandment deals with who we are to worship, God only, no other gods. The Second Commandment deals with how we are to worship, no false worship in the sense of idols or worship in a false manner such as anything opposed to what God has revealed in His Word. The Second Commandment requires that we worship by the Scriptures in what God has ordained as true and worthy of Him. It requires only those elements He has given us in the Bible. The Second Commandment requires proper governance in the church for the sake of a unified body among believers. All these requirements are for the sake of eliminating any idolatry.

Today we consider what the Larger Catechism teaches on what is forbidden in the Second Commandment. We start with false worship. We are forbidden any worship that is not established by God. Basically that means practicing or approving of any worship that is not what we know from Scripture. In the Old Testament particularly, that meant not mixing other religions with God’s Commands for worship. Israel too often mixed other religious practices in with what God had ordained for them and they polluted true worship. They were forbidden to add anything from other gods, or add other gods, or any outside forms of worship. It also meant not following any advice from anyone other than God’s rules for following the Second Commandment. So, we read in Deuteronomy 13.6-8, “If your brother, the son of your mother, or your son or your daughter or the wife you embrace or your friend who is as your own soul entices you secretly, saying, ‘Let us go and serve other gods,’ which neither you nor your fathers have known, some of the gods of the peoples who are around you, whether near you or far off from you, from the one end of the earth to the other, you shall not yield to him or listen to him, nor shall your eye pity him, nor shall you spare him, nor shall you conceal him.

Apparently family and friends would sometimes entice God’s people to false worship. I do not think I have ever had that happen to me! Certainly the world and the devil may seek to entice us to false worship just as he did with Jesus in the wilderness. With such a temptation, if we were to fall for it, would dilute our worship to the point of breaking this Commandment. The forces of this world are always working toward that end, to entice us to false worship if unable to stop our worship God all together. The devil will lure us to false ways or worship that seem non threatening or harmless. But the Second Commandment forbids any deviation from true worship.

True worship, worthy of God and in line with the Bible, is a faithful witness to the world. Worship is one of the spiritual disciplines that tells the world that God is real, that we trust Him, that the gospel message of Christ is worthy of our sacrifice of time and praise. That witness is corrupted when worship is mixed with worldly principles.

 

Another passage from Deuteronomy 12.29-32, “When the Lord your God cuts off before you the nations whom you go in to dispossess, and you dispossess them and dwell in their land, take care that you be not ensnared to follow them, after they have been destroyed before you, and that you do not inquire about their gods, saying, ‘How did these nations serve their gods?—that I also may do the same.’ You shall not worship the Lord your God in that way, for every abominable thing that the Lord hates they have done for their gods, for they even burn their sons and their daughters in the fire to their gods. “Everything that I command you, you shall be careful to do. You shall not add to it or take from it.

 

How might such a passage be seen in the world today? Some of you will remember the cult led by Jim Jones that gave a twisted version of religious worship, and eventually took the lives of many of the followers. There have been numerous cults that mask themselves with the pretense of Christianity but are false and evil. When I read a line that says, “they even burn their sons and daughters in the fire to their gods”, it reminds me of those denominations that are pro-choice on the abortion issue that they are very close to those who once burned their children. Moses calls these things an abomination that the Lord hates. Moses exhorts us to “take care”, that we not become ensnared by false worship. Take care to worship God in accordance with His Commandments, for worship in accordance with God’s Word is a true witness to the world.

 

Israel was also given an interesting reminder to help them keep the Commandments. Numbers 15.38-39, “Speak to the people of Israel, and tell them to make tassels on the corners of their garments throughout their generations, and to put a cord of blue on the tassel of each corner. And it shall be a tassel for you to look at and remember all the commandments of the Lord, to do them, not to follow after your own heart and your own eyes...” You may have seen these tassels that are worn by many Jews to this day. They are featured a few times in The Chosen TV show. I have a couple here that I keep attached to my primary USB drive, and another on my book bag. Since I don’t wear robes and cloaks like biblical times, I have to find other ways to attach these reminders. It is not a requirement for Christians, but it is pretty cool to have things that remind us of God’s Word, that remind us of what God requires of us and forbids for us.

 

• Any Likeness for Worship

 

A second category that is forbidden is in making a likeness of God or creature for the sake of worshiping that likeness. Israel turned from acknowledging God’s deliverance to giving credit to the animals that carried them out of Egypt.

 

Exodus 32.1-2, 4, When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, “Up, make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” So Aaron said to them, “Take off the rings of gold that are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.” ...And he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden calf. And they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!”

 

I do not know if a people could stoop any lower than giving credit for their deliverance to beasts of burden. And further, to worship a golden calf rather than the Living God! How rude!

 

Paul also recounts the sin of Israel when they broke the Second Commandment, Romans 1.21-25, For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

 

To worship anything or anyone other than the Living God is to worship a lie. We have to take great care not to idolize anything or anyone in such a way that they become an object of our worship. This is one of the dangers of the cult groups that usually have a manipulative yet compelling leader that can easily lead people astray. Idol worship was not just an Old Testament problem, but the New Testament writers also had to deal with situations, not of stone or wood idols, but with worldly principles and philosophies. Galatians 4.8-9, “Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods. But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more?

Is this not a great realization for us, when Paul writes, “that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God”? God knows us. We are realized by God, known; He is aware of us! It is no wonder that He forbids us from idolatry, because no little “g” god can know us. They have no awareness, no eyes to see or ears to hear. Only God can know. Only God is worthy of worship.

 

• Any Departure from True Worship

 

Next up – we are forbidden to do anything that departs from true worship. True worship is that which is established in God’s Word. We are not to add to it or take anything away from it. I laughed at the Catechism because it goes through some of those things that might lead us to depart from true worship. So it lists anything we might make up on our own or get from another source or even if we have good intentions. And then it says, “or any other excuse.” No excuses! I wonder if some of the entertainment that dominates some church worship will be excused. Not according to our teaching in the Larger Catechism.

An example from the Old Testament was to offer sacrifices that were polluted, unclean, impure, or blemished. Malachi 1.7-8,14, “By offering polluted food upon my altar. But you say, ‘How have we polluted you?’ By saying that the Lord's table may be despised. When you offer blind animals in sacrifice, is that not evil? And when you offer those that are lame or sick, is that not evil? Present that to your governor; will he accept you or show you favor? says the Lord of hosts...Cursed be the cheat who has a male in his flock, and vows it, and yet sacrifices to the Lord what is blemished. For I am a great King, says the Lord of hosts, and my name will be feared among the nations.” The sacrifice that was unblemished was the right sacrifice. This becomes so important in the later sacrifice of Jesus Christ. 1 Peter 1.18-19, “knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.” We have been saved from sin, not by perishable things like silver or gold. We are not saved by any idols. We are saved by the perfect sacrifice, the blood of Christ shed for us who is compared to the lamb without blemish or spot. This is one of the reasons the Second Commandment forbids anything that draws us away from true worship, for true worship is given to the true God for the true and perfect sacrifice for our salvation.

Jesus rebuked religious leaders in Matthew 15.8-9, “‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’” They had departed from the true worship of God because they were breaking the Commandments and replacing them with traditions rather than the Word of God. True worship is connected to true devotion and true discipleship. The Pharisees were in essence two-faced by living one way that dishonored God and therefore disrespecting God through false worship.

 

 

• Anything Sacrilegious

 

The final category I have listed is anything sacrilegious. In the Second Commandment we are forbidden to do anything that profanes that which is sacred. Paul chastised the Jews in the book of Romans for their sacrilegious ways, “But if you call yourself a Jew and rely on the law and boast in God and know his will and approve what is excellent, because you are instructed from the law; and if you are sure that you yourself are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of children, having in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth—you then who teach others, do you not teach yourself? While you preach against stealing, do you steal? You who say that one must not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? You who boast in the law dishonor God by breaking the law. For, as it is written, “The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you” (Romans 2.17-24).

Paul, like Jesus, did not hold back when it came to rebuking those who broke Commandments and especially those who were leaders and teachers.

The Bible teaches there are a variety of ways to show contempt for the sacred. One example is from Acts when a man named Simon tried to buy the power of the Holy Spirit from the apostles (Acts 8). The Bible teaches that we cannot neglect anything God has commanded for worship or show any contempt or hindrance or opposition to what God has established for us. That means we are forbidden to reject things like prayer or the preaching of the Word. We cannot show contempt for praise or thanksgiving. The book of Malachi speaks to us about giving to God; Malachi 3.8, “Will man rob God? Yet you are robbing me. But you say, ‘How have we robbed you?’ In your tithes and contributions.” I can imagine the one who asked how have we robbed God getting the answer and then realizing, “Oh yeah, well, you got me there!”

These are the things forbidden in the Second Commandment: false or polluted worship, worshiping idols, neglecting or twisting true worship, and anything sacrilegious. At the end of the Second Commandment we find the revelation that God is a jealous God. God’s jealousy is not a negative, but a positive in that His love for His people is deep and right and for our good. He is protective of His own and desires the best for us. He is the loving and almighty God and any other god (little ‘g’) leads to death. God’s Commandments are given out of love for His people. Our goal is to give no cause for jealousy, to avoid sins in our worship, to avoid breaking any Commandments, and to respond to God’s great Commandments with joyful obedience and love. May we seek this end, that God may be glorified and we may enjoy Him forever. Amen.