Lord’s Day 35
Q96. What does God want from us in the second commandment?
That we never try to make any image of God and that we never worship him in any way other than what he has told us in his Word.
Scripture Proofs — King James Version
Deuteronomy 4:15–19
“Take ye therefore good heed unto yourselves; for ye saw no manner of similitude on the day that the LORD spake unto you in Horeb out of the midst of the fire: Lest ye corrupt yourselves, and make you a graven image, the similitude of any figure, the likeness of male or female, The likeness of any beast that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged fowl that flieth in the air, The likeness of any thing that creepeth on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the waters beneath the earth: And lest thou lift up thine eyes unto heaven, and when thou seest the sun, and the moon, and the stars, even all the host of heaven, shouldest be driven to worship them, and serve them, which the LORD thy God hath divided unto all nations under the whole heaven.”
Isaiah 40:18–25
Acts 17:29
Romans 1:22–23
Leviticus 10:1–7
Deuteronomy 12:30
1 Samuel 15:22–23
Matthew 15:9
John 4:23–24
Parent Guide
Discuss this question together
Discussion Questions
- 1
What does the second commandment say about making images of God?
- 2
Why does God want us to worship him only in ways he has told us in his Word?
- 3
What could go wrong if people made up their own ways to worship God?
Illustration
If you drew a picture of a friend but made the eyes, hair, and height all wrong, your friend might say: "That does not look like me at all." Any image of God will get him wrong because he is Spirit and beyond anything we can picture. He tells us how to worship him so that we worship him as he is, not as we imagine him to be.
Application
The next time you are in a worship service, notice how everything is based on what the Bible teaches. Thank God that he has not left us to guess how to worship him. He has told us in his Word.