Have you ever wondered what the difference is between the first and second commandments? ‘Have no other gods before me’ and ‘Do not make for yourself an idol’ sound similar, don’t they? If I have no other gods before God, then I have not made an idol of anything, right? Isn’t the very act of idolatry placing other gods before God? Why does God follow the first commandment with a second commandment that rephrases the first commandment? I don’t know about you, but I rephrase what I say to people all the time until I know they understand what I am saying. Maybe that is what God is doing in the first and second commandments. Maybe he is reinstating a second time what he has already said just in a different way, or maybe it is something more . . .
When I teach the Ten Commandments in my Bible classes, I try to get my students to look at the commandments God gave us from the heart of a Father who wants what is best for his children. God did not give us ten commands to follow so we would have a right standing with him. He gave us rules to follow so we could find freedom in him.
Instead of reading the commandments as ‘Thou shall nots,’ we should try to hear them as God knowing what is best for us and wanting what is best for us. As I wrote about in a previous blog (Freedom in the First Commandment), God is telling us through the first commandment to realize he is the ultimate freedom giver. When we credit other gods as our bondage breakers, we become broken and unfulfilled. Only God can free us and rescue us so why put other gods in his place when they can never achieve what he can? False gods cannot rescue us from our captivity to sin so why waste our time with them?
In the second commandment, he takes us a step further. We go from thinking why waste our time with other gods to why even create them in the first place? The other day I was reading Psalm 135 and discovered why it is in our best interest to not make idols for ourselves.
15 The idols of the nations are silver and gold,
the work of human hands.
16 They have mouths, but do not speak;
they have eyes, but do not see;
17 they have ears, but do not hear,
nor is there any breath in their mouths.
18 Those who make them become like them,
so do all who trust in them.
When we make something an idol, we become like it – unable to speak, see, hear, or breathe. We become deaf, mute, and blind and we suffocate ourselves anytime we place someone or something in the place of God. God does not want the consequences of idol worship for us. He created us for so much more. He created us to experience life to the fullest with all of our senses, not to live a life where our senses become dull or worse, nonexistent. But, that is exactly what the enemy wants. Satan wants us engaged in idol worship so that we cannot hear, see, speak, or breathe. He doesn’t want us fully alive or even a little alive. He wants us to live numb lives, and sadly, he is succeeding. We live in a culture that has more access to knowledge and networking, yet we are becoming numb. We are suffocating. Just as I hear God saying – Remember me – in the first commandment, I hear him in the second commandment saying – Wake up! Do not make idols for yourselves because you will become like the idols. You will eventually stop feeling. Then, I hear him actually say through his Word, his Son
“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” (John 10:10 NIV)
The enemy, the thief, wants to take life and feeling from us. He wants us to place other things above God because he knows when we do, we will become dull. God, though, is about life. He is the life giver, and he knows we are more fully alive when we are loving him first and only because in him alone do we live, move, breathe, and have our being. (Acts 17:28)
Wake up! Live with Christ as your King! It’s how you were designed to live.