Daily Devotional Monday 9th November 2020
by William Moody
Exodus 20:1–6
The Ten Commandments
20:1 And God spoke all these words, saying,
2 “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
3 “You shall have no other gods before1 me.
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. 5 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 the fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing steadfast love to thousands2 of those who love me and keep my commandments.
(ESV)
The Second Commandment
(Shorter Catechisms 49-52)
‘The second commandment requires the receiving, observing, and keeping pure and entire, all such religious worship and ordinances as God hath appointed in his word.’ (A.50).
The first Commandment is about who we worship, the second commandment is about how we should worship the true God. Worship must not be by our ideas but by God’s design.
‘The second commandment forbids the worshiping of God by images, or any other way not appointed in his word.’ (A.51). The problem with images is that they bring God down in people’s thinking to be much less than the infinite and glorious God that He is.
In our worship we must remember that we worship the Sovereign God and we must think of this awesome God in a proper way. We must remember that God is jealous for His worship and never takes it lightly (A.52).
Worship of our heavenly Father should be a wonderfully joyful experience, but we must never approach it in a light hearted way and we must always remember God’s holiness and glory as we come to worship Him.
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