Tag: works of their hands

42.v. “Wilderness” – 7.d. Sinai – “You shall not make for yourself a carved image”

 

Exodus 20:4  “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.

 Leviticus 19:4    Do not turn to idols or make for yourselves any gods of cast metal: I am the LORD your God.

 Leviticus 26:1    “You shall not make idols for yourselves or erect an image or pillar, and you shall not set up a figured stone in your land to bow down to it, for I am the LORD your God.

 Deuteronomy 4:15  “Therefore watch yourselves very carefully.

 Deuteronomy 4:23  Take care, lest you forget the covenant of the LORD your God, which he made with you

 Deuteronomy 27:15   “‘Cursed be the man who makes a carved or cast metal image, an abomination to the LORD, a thing made by the hands of a craftsman, and sets it up in secret.’

 Psalms 97:7    All worshipers of images are put to shame, who make their boast in worthless idols;

 Isaiah 42:8   I am the LORD; that is my name; my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to carved idols.

 Isaiah 44:9   All who fashion idols are nothing, and the things they delight in do not profit. Their witnesses neither see nor know, that they may be put to shame.

 Isaiah 45:16    All of them are put to shame and confounded; the makers of idols go in confusion together.

 Jeremiah 10:3  for the customs of the peoples are vanity. 

 Jeremiah 10:8-9    They are both stupid and foolish; the instruction of idols is but wood!

 Romans 1:23   and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

 Revelation 9:20    The rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands nor give up worshiping demons and idols of gold and silver and bronze and stone and wood, which cannot see or hear or walk,

God would have no likeness made of Him, no representation that might cloud the conception of His entire separation from matter, His purely spiritual essence. (Ellicott)

As the first commandment forbids the worship of any false god, seen or unseen, it is here forbidden to worship an image of any sort, whether the figure of a false deity or one in any way symbolic of Yahweh. (Barnes)

“After declaring in the first commandment who was the true God, He commanded that He alone should be worshipped; and now He defines what is His lawful worship” (Calvin). “Thou shalt not make to thyself a likeness and any form of that which is in heaven above,” etc. עשׂה is construed with a double accusative, so that the literal rendering would be “make, as a likeness and any form, that which is in heaven,” (Brown)

There is no God but Me. Don’t worship or place in worship anything but Me. Also, don’t make an image of Me or anything else, and indeed don’t worship it. We may find this type of worship foolish and even a bit old fashion. No one in the western world would do anything like this.  Maybe some satan worshipers or others hope to find peace of mind through some eastern religion. For the most part, we think this is foolish to fashion an idol and place it in our home or church to worship it. The western world is far above this, but I might say, much further away from knowing God. The western world, for the most part, denies God, things of God, and the Word of God. They say there is no God and then live a life that is void of Him and any worship of Him.  The idolaters at least try to have a god to serve – howbeit ever so wrong and God-defying.  No, the western world is a place of self-reliant enlightenment.  In this, they find what the world has to offer pleasing and though it never seems to satisfy an inner hunger, they keep chasing after it. Their idol is things of this world and what it has to offer. Though they may not make it an animate object of worship, it is an inanimate object of worship.  

Note the verses above to those who deny and reject God and His commandments.

7.e. You will not know what hour I will come upon you.

Revelation 9:12   The first woe has passed; behold, two woes are still to come. Then the sixth angel blew his trumpet, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar before God, saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, “Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.” So the four angels, who had been prepared for the hour, the day, the month, and the year, were released to kill a third of mankind. The number of mounted troops was twice ten thousand times ten thousand; I heard their number. And this is how I saw the horses in my vision and those who rode them: they wore breastplates the color of fire and of sapphire and of sulfur, and the heads of the horses were like lions’ heads, and fire and smoke and sulfur came out of their mouths. By these three plagues a third of mankind was killed, by the fire and smoke and sulfur coming out of their mouths. For the power of the horses is in their mouths and in their tails, for their tails are like serpents with heads, and by means of them they wound. The rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands nor give up worshiping demons and idols of gold and silver and bronze and stone and wood, which cannot see or hear or walk, nor did they repent of their murders or their sorceries or their sexual immorality or their thefts.

Make no mistake about the timing of God.  He has set a time for His wrath, anger, and judgment on those who do not and did not repent (But of this be assured, that if the master of the house had known the hour at which the robber was coming, he would have kept awake) and (Therefore if you will not watch, I will come upon you as a thief, and you will not know what hour I will come upon you.).  It is not as though He has not given promises of blessings and warnings of judgments.  Yet the heart of stone and unrepentant heart of many will experience the wrath of God in ways that unleash a flood of torment on their soul and physical bodies. We have already read of 1/4th of the earth’s population dying previously and now we read of another 1/3 dying.  This equals a total of 1/2 of the world’s population (3 to 4 billion) people dead.  No one with half a brain would want to experience the wrath and anger of God and yet they still reject His witnesses He sealed to proclaim salvation, redemption, and eternal life.  Can you imagine seeing an army of 200 million coming at you with intent to kill and torment you?  What chance would you have to withstand this force?  Remember this, an army of 200 million is nothing but an ant compared to the power, might, and strength of Almighty God.  If you understand and realize that you could not withstand an army of 200 million then how much more so standing up against God and rejecting Him.  Luke 17:28 Likewise, just as it was in the days of Lot—they were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building,  but on the day when Lot went out from Sodom, fire and sulfur rained from heaven and destroyed them all—  so will it be on the day when the Son of Man is revealed. 

Repent, believe, and cling too, rely on, and trust in Jesus Christ.  Live to humbly serve, honor, glorify, worship, follow, and obey Him.  The only thing that is keeping you from this right now is your heart choice to live for self rather than living for Him, thinking you do not need His redemption, thinking you are good enough, thinking you are not good enough, and thinking there will be time to do this later.  “For he says, “In a favorable time I listened to you, and in a day of salvation I have helped you.” Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.”