Voddie Baucham - Worship God Rightly

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
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

(00:22):
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

(00:54):
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

(01:17):
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

(01:38):
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

(02:00):
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

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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

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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

(03:07):
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

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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

(03:50):
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

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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

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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.

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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.

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There's a helpful definition of this if I can find it. Essentially, well,

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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

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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

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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.

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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

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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,

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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

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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,

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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.

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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

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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

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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.

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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

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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,

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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

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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.

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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

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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?

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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

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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

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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,

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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

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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

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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

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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.

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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

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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

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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,

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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

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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,

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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.

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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

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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.

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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,

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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,

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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.

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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,

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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,

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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

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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

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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.

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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

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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

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Bible actually written in and marked up. Folks, that's idolatry.
That's idolatry. That book with ink printed on paper, that's

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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

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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.

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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

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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

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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.

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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

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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.

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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

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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.

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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

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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.

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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

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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.

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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,

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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

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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,

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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

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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,

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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.

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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

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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,

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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.

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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

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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

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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,

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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.

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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

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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

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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,

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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,

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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

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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

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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.

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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

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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.

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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

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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

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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.

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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

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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

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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.

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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.

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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.

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Even the devil is God's devil. Did he just go
get job? No, he had to ask, because all power

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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.

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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.

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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.

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We worship the one true, in living God, and we
worship him only, and we worship him rightly. Let's pray,

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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

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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

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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

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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