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Ten Commandments (2)
Jesus Says…
The Ten Commandments (2)
In an effort to call our community back to higher morals, we are looking at the Ten Commandments. The second commandment is important: “You shall have no other gods before Me. 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” (Exod. 20:3-4).
Most of us have seen idols from ancient countries or from Hinduism. There is not much of that kind of idolatry in modern America. In listing a number of sins, Paul included “greed, which is idolatry” (Col. 3:5, NIV). Jesus spoke of the danger of “laying up for yourselves treasures on earth,” concluding by saying “You cannot serve God and mammon” (Matt. 6:19, 24). The word “mammon” personifies riches as if it were one’s god.
America has a number of gods in this sense. Think of some of them: riches, sex, sports, automobiles, popularity, celebrities, self, technology, social media, status, materialism, family, etc. A god in this sense is anything that takes the place God should have in one’s life.
The second commandment stresses that God will not take second place in one’s life. “You shall have no other gods before Me.” Compare this to Jesus’ words, “He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me” (Matt. 10:37). Jesus was not minimizing love for family members, but the prioritizing the worship of God the Son. Jesus is deity (John 1:1-3). Nothing can come before Him.
Mike Willis
