Idolatry Explained

1. 0:00Hutterburg catechism, Lord’s Day 34. What is God's law? God spoke all these words: "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me.
2. 0:22You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above or that is on the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth.
3. 0:30You shall not bow down to them or worship them.
4. 0:32For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents to the third and fourth generation of those who reject me.
5. 0:40"but showing love to the thousandth generation "of those who love me and keep my commandments.
6. 0:45"You shall not make wrongful use "of the name of the Lord your God, "for the Lord will not acquit anyone "who misuses his name.
7. 0:51"Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.
8. 0:53"Six days you shall labor and do all your work, "but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God.
9. 0:58"You shall not do any work, your son or your daughter, your male or female servant, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. For in six days the Lord made the heaven and earth, the sea, and all that
10. 1:09is in them, but rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and consecrated it. Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that God is giving to you.
11. 1:21You shall not murder.
12. 1:23You shall not commit adultery.
13. 1:25You shall not steal.
14. 1:26You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
15. 1:29You shall not covet your neighbor's house.
16. 1:31You shall not covet your neighbor's wife or his male or female servant or ox or donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor.
17. 1:39How are these commandments divided?
18. 1:41Into two tables.
19. 1:42The first has four commandments, teaching us how we should live in relation to God.
20. 1:46The second has six commandments, teaching us what we owe our neighbor.
21. 1:50What does the Lord require in the first commandment?
22. 1:52That I, not wanting to endanger my own salvation, avoid and shun all idolatry, sorcery, superstitious rites, and prayer to saints or to other creatures. That I rightly know the only true God, trust Him alone, and
23. 2:05look to God for every good thing, humbly and patiently, and love, fear, and honor Him with all my heart. In short, that I renounce all created things rather than go against God's
24. 2:15will in any way. What is idolatry? Idolatry is having or inventing something in which one trusts, in place of or alongside of the only true God who has revealed himself in his word.
25. 2:28So here in Lord’s Day 34, we have recently entered the third section of the Heidelberg Catechism, a section that deals with gratitude or service.
26. 2:35Our appropriate response, the only appropriate response to all that God has done for us Christ Jesus. And early on in this third section we have an explanation in some
27. 2:44detail of the Ten Commandments. Essentially the Lord is telling us that this is how we are to live. This is how our lives are to be shaped as those who
28. 2:52have been redeemed through the shed blood of Christ Jesus. As answer 93 makes clear the love of God can be divided into two parts or into two tables. The first table has four commandments teaching us how we live in
29. 3:03relation to God. The second table has six commandments teaching us how we are to live in relation to our neighbor. This is based on Jesus' summary of the law in
30. 3:11Matthew 22. When he was asked by someone what is the most important commandment in the law, Jesus replied by saying, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your
31. 3:19your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment and a second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two
32. 3:28commandments depend all the law and the prophets. And so the two things that are in focus are a vertical access, our love for our God, how we are to relate to our God, and a horizontal axis, how we are to relate
33. 3:39to our fellow image bearers, how we are to relate to our neighbors, how we are relate to everybody that we come into contact with.
34. 3:46And the key point to understand is that we can only truly love our neighbor if we love our God first and foremost.
35. 3:53The idea then is that a genuine and true love for God produces a genuine and true love of in our hearts and in our lives.
36. 4:02That helps us understand the principles that lie behind the first commandment.
37. 4:07The first commandment is you shall have no other gods before me.
38. 4:11This is a very important command.
39. 4:13The Lord as our creator and as our redeemer wants us to ensure by his grace that he is and remains the top priority in our lives.
40. 4:24See, our sinful tendency is to do exactly what answer 95 says idolatry is.
41. 4:30Our natural tendency is to have or invent something that we trust in, in place of or alongside of the only true God who has revealed himself to us in his word.
42. 4:41We even see Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived, making shrines for the pagan gods of his pagan wives.
43. 4:48We're naive if we think that this is just an Old Testament problem.
44. 4:52We manufacture gods all the time.
45. 4:53We don't carve or whittle something out of wood or stone that we then bow down to or worship.
46. 4:59John Calvin says, "Our sinful hearts are factories for idols.
47. 5:04We're constantly manufacturing things that we trust in, things that we serve, things that we submit to, things that determine our lives and the things that we do instead of our Creator and our Redeemer."
48. 5:17The tricky thing with idols is that they tend to meet us, or at least they appeared to meet us right where we are. Think about it. Work and money
49. 5:25seem to satisfy our perceived need for financial security. Alcohol, nicotine, and other substances seem to satisfy our perceived need for rest and some relaxation, maybe even some stress relief. Sexual sins seem to
50. 5:39satisfy our sexual desires. And so idols tend to meet us where we think we are. We could be here all day listing off all kinds of idols, but I think you get the point. The bottom line is we have this
51. 5:51tendency to look to stuff, to provide for us what only God has provided and has promised to give to us.
52. 5:59And so instead of trusting in stuff, we are to trust in the Lord with all of who we are.
53. 6:05We need to recognize the conviction and the comforting truth that comes from James 1.17.
54. 6:10Every good and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there's no variation or shadow due to change.
55. 6:17We trust in the Lord because the Lord is the gift.
56. 6:19of all good gifts. He's already given us salvation in Christ Jesus and through his shed blood. Our biggest need, the need for salvation, has already been
57. 6:28fulfilled. And so as God's chosen people, redeemed through the blood of Christ, we can trust that our God will provide us with everything that we need for body and for soul. This is why we read in Proverbs 3 verses 5:
58. 6:39and six. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding and all your ways acknowledge him and he will make straight
59. 6:47your paths. That's how our God calls us to live. If you look back on redemptive history, on world history, on your own personal history, you'll see a God who has always been faithful and you'll see a God who always
60. 6:59will be faithful to the people that he has chosen. If you ever doubt that, just look at the cross. Look at all that God has done for you in Christ Jesus. Look at
61. 7:08the cross and see a God who is faithful to his people and faithful to every single one of his promises. So really when you think about it, if God has been that good to us, if he's given us salvation
62. 7:19in Christ Jesus, if he's promised to give us everything that we need for life in this world, if he's promised to be faithful to us as we continue on this
63. 7:27journey to eternal glory, then why would we trust in anything in place of or alongside of the one true God who has revealed himself to us in his word? Our glorious, our glorious and gracious God needs
64. 7:39to be the centerpiece and the foundation of our lives. God is the centerpiece of our lives and as he guides us by his grace and spirit, we begin to see and understand the importance
65. 7:51of loving God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength and loving our neighbors as we love ourselves. In other words, as those who have been redeemed in Christ and through his
66. 7:59blood. Our hearts and minds are to be focused on serving the Lord, on loving the Lord, on pursuing His glory, and on showing, sharing, and spreading the love
67. 8:08of Christ Jesus to everyone that we meet. That's what our God calls us to do, and quite frankly, anything less than that can rightly be understood as idolatry.
68. 8:19you

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