The First Commandment: Idolatry
I. What the Commandment Forbids
A. Read Exodus 20: 3 – “You shall have no other gods before me.”
Q. How have you understood this command in the past? What sins do you think are forbidden by this command?
B. The command to have no gods is not first by accident. As a call to us for our affections, it is central to the Ten Commandments. Obedience to the other commands is not possible if our affection is not first set on the Lord.
C. Read the following verses. In each passage, look for three things:
1. What keeps you from loving the Lord?
2. What items do you often love instead of the Lord?
3. What are the consequences of your misplaced affections?
Deuteronomy 8:11-19
D. Read the Westminster Larger Catechism, Question 105:
Q: What are the sins forbidden in the first commandment?
A: The sins forbidden in the first commandment are, Atheism, in denying, or not having a God; Idolatry, in having or worshipping more gods than one, or any with or instead of the true God; the not having and avouching him for God, and our God; the omission or neglect of anything due to him, required in this commandment; ignorance, forgetfulness, misapprehensions, false opinions, unworthy and wicked thoughts of him; bold and curious searching into his secrets; all profaneness, hatred of God; self-love, self-seeking, and all other inordinate and immoderate setting of our mind, will, or affections upon other things, and taking them off from him in whole or in part; vain credulity, unbelief, heresy, misbelief, distrust, despair, incorrigibleness and insensibleness under judgments, hardness of heart, pride, presumption, carnal security, tempting of God; using unlawful means, and trusting in unlawful means; carnal delights and joys; corrupt, blind, and indiscreet zeal; lukewarmness, and deadness in the things of God; estranging ourselves, and apostatizing from God; praying, or giving any religious worship, to saints, angels, or any other creatures; all compacts and consulting with the devil, and hearkening to his suggestions; making men the lords of our faith and conscience; slighting and despising God and his commands; resisting and grieving of his Spirit, discontent and impatience at his dispensations, charging him foolishly for the evils he inflicts on us; and ascribing the praise of any good we either are, have, or can do, to fortune,
idols, ourselves, or any other creature.
Q. How does this add to your understanding of ways that we worship things or people other than God?
Q. In what ways have you been negligent to love the Lord and serve Him only?
E. Idols of the Heart
1. The heart of the 1st Commandment is idolatry. An idol is anything you love or trust in more than God.
2. Theologian Matthew Henry says that we are most in danger of sinning against the first commandment when we give “the glory and honor to any creature which are due to God only. Pride makes a god of self, covetousness makes a god of money, sensuality makes a god of the belly; whatever is esteemed or loved, feared or served, delighted in or depended on, more than God, that (whatever it is) we do in effect make a god of.”
3. An easy way to figure out what your idols are is to think through how your react to negative things in your life. What makes you angry? What are you fearful of? What do you hold to tightly? What are you working for? What do you trust in or find significance in?
4. These will reveal what you love more than you should and what you’re trusting in more than the Lord.
5. Some common idols are control, competence, possessions, money, status, people’s opinions, comfort, or image. Of course, there are plenty of others.
6. Read Jeremiah 2:5-6, 11-13, 18-19.
a) How does pursuing idolatry make us worthless?
b) How have your idols proven to be broken cisterns in the past?
II. What the Commandment Requires: Love the Lord Your God
A. Read the following verses and ask the following questions:
Deuteronomy 10: 12-16
12 "And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God require of you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, 13 and to keep the commandments and statutes of the LORD, which I am commanding you today for your good? 14 Behold, to the LORD your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it. 15 Yet the LORD set his heart in love on your fathers and chose their offspring after them, you above all peoples, as you are this day. 16 Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn.
I Chronicles 28: 9
9 "And you, Solomon my son, know the God of your father and serve him with a whole heart and with a willing mind, for the LORD searches all hearts and understands every plan and thought. If you seek him, he will be found by you, but if you forsake him, he will cast you off forever.
Proverbs 3: 5-6
5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. 6 In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.
Questions
1. What characterizes the man who reserves his highest love to the Lord only?
2. What increases our devotion for the Lord?
3. What blessings come from a heart fully devoted to God?
B. Psalm 119:7 says “I will praise you with an upright heart as I learn your
righteous laws.” This verse teaches that the Word of God and obedience to His
commands are central to our affection for Him.
1. How have you seen your affection for the Lord increase because of God’s Word and obedience?
2. How have you seen your affection for the Lord decrease because of a
neglect of God’s Word and disobedience to His commands?
C. Read WLC 104:
Q: What are the duties required in the first commandment?
A. The duties required in the first commandment are, the knowing and acknowledging of God to be the only true God, and our God; and to worship and glorify him accordingly, by thinking, meditating, remembering, highly esteeming, honoring, adoring, choosing, loving, desiring, fearing of him; believing him; trusting, hoping, delighting, rejoicing in him; being zealous for him; calling upon him, giving all praise and thanks, and yielding all obedience and submission to him with the whole man; being careful in all things to please him, and sorrowful when in anything he is offended; and walking humbly with him.
1. Many of these terms (highly esteeming, honouring, adoring, choosing, loving, desiring, fearing of him; believing him; trusting, hoping, delighting, rejoicing in him) deal with our inward affections for the Lord. How does this add to your understanding of what our inward worship of the Lord should look like? What duties stand out to you?
2. When we love someone, we yearn to please them and are sorrowful when they are offended. Do you yearn to please the Lord or is your attitude one of entitlement for how the Lord can fulfill your needs?
8. Are you sorrowful when the Lord’s laws are broken? Do you mourn for your own sins and for the sins of your community?
III. Three Uses of the Law
Read Exodus 20:3 "You shall have no other gods before me.”
A. Civil Use – A Restraint for All People
1. Based on all that you have studied, how does this command benefit society?
2. What obstacles prevent society from experiencing the full benefits of this command?
3. What evil is restrained by obedience to this commandment?
B. Pedagogical Use – A Tutor to Lead Us to Christ
1. How does this command show our need for Christ?
2. John 14:15-24. Connecting loving the Lord and loving Christ
15 "If you love me, you will keep my commandments. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, 17 even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you. 18 "I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. 19 Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. 20 In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. 21 Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him." 22 Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, "Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?" 23 Jesus answered him, "If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. 24 Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father's who sent me.
C. Normative Use – Our Guide for the Christian Life
1. How does your study this week show you how to better pursue holiness?
Westminster Larger Catechism 105:
Q: What are the sins forbidden in the first commandment?
A: The sins forbidden in the first commandment are, Atheism, in denying, or not having a God; Idolatry, in having or worshipping more gods than one, or any with or instead of the true God; the not having and avouching him for God, and our God; the omission or neglect of anything due to him, required in this commandment; ignorance, forgetfulness, misapprehensions, false opinions, unworthy and wicked thoughts of him; bold and curious searching into his secrets; all profaneness, hatred of God; self-love, self-seeking, and all other inordinate and immoderate setting of our mind, will, or affections upon other things, and taking them off from him in whole or in part; vain credulity, unbelief, heresy, misbelief, distrust, despair, incorrigibleness and insensibleness under judgments, hardness of heart, pride, presumption, carnal security, tempting of God; using unlawful means, and trusting in unlawful means; carnal delights and joys; corrupt, blind, and indiscreet zeal; lukewarmness, and deadness in the things of God; estranging ourselves, and apostatizing from God; praying, or giving any religious worship, to saints, angels, or any other creatures; all compacts and consulting with the devil, and hearkening to his suggestions; making men the lords of our faith and conscience; slighting and despising God and his commands; resisting and grieving of his Spirit, discontent and impatience at his dispensations, charging him foolishly for the evils he inflicts on us; and ascribing the praise of any good we either are, have, or can do, to fortune,
idols, ourselves, or any other creature.
Westminster Larger Catechism 104:
Q: What are the duties required in the first commandment?
A. The duties required in the first commandment are, the knowing and acknowledging of God to be the only true God, and our God; and to worship and glorify him accordingly, by thinking, meditating, remembering, highly esteeming, honoring, adoring, choosing, loving, desiring, fearing of him; believing him; trusting, hoping, delighting, rejoicing in him; being zealous for him; calling upon him, giving all praise and thanks, and yielding all obedience and submission to him with the whole man; being careful in all things to please him, and sorrowful when in anything he is offended; and walking humbly with him.