Adrian Rogers - Learning Family Worship
Be finding Exodus chapter 20, when you found it look up here. We're talking today about the Ten Commandments, "A Perfect 10 for Homes that Win". God does not want your home to be a loser. Let me say this about the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments are not arbitrary. They're universal. Now we have some laws in America that are arbitrary. One of them says; you drive on the right side of the road. One time in England, I missed a plane connection and had to rent an automobile. I'd never driven over there. Those folks over there drive on the wrong side of the road, but they say it's the right side. They say we're wrong. That's all arbitrary. Really doesn't make much difference what side of the road you drive on if everybody agrees where you are that's what you're going to be doing.
The Ten Commandments however are not arbitrary, they're universal. And they're not temporary. They're eternal. We don't need a new morality for a new age. The old one is settled by the Word of God. And in the truest sense, you don't break the Ten Commandments, they stand. When a man jumps out of a ten story building, he doesn't break the law of gravity, he demonstrates it. And when you transgress God's commandments, you don't really break them, you are broken on them. But when you stand upon them and build upon them, then they become to you strength. Now today, we're dealing with the second commandment. The first commandment in Exodus 20 verses 3 and 4 tells us who to worship, "No other gods". The second commandment tells us how to worship. The first commandment forbids false gods. The second commandment forbids false worship.
Now what does this has to do with the family? Well friend, the greatest gift you can give to your children beyond the shadow of any doubt or peradventure, the greatest gift; are you listening? Is to teach them to worship. Hello? The greatest gift, listen, the greatest gift you can give to your children is to teach them to worship. You couldn't teach them anything any more than that. And yet, how many children today learn to worship in the home? You say, "Well, Pastor Rogers, we come to church to worship".
Well friend, it will do you little good to come to church and act pious around the Lord's table if you've been bickering around the breakfast table. The worship that does not begin at home, does not begin. The greatest gift you can give your children is to teach them to worship. Now, these commandments are given to fathers and mothers to teach their children. And here's what Exodus chapter 20 verse 4 through 6 says, "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is Heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God visiting the iniquity of the fathers unto the children of the third and fourth generation of them that hate Me, and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love Me and keep My commandments".
How important it is therefore that we keep His commandments and this one that says there shall be no false worship. Now this is set in the negative, but anything that is in the negative has to have a positive, or it could not be a negative. For every positive there is a negative. For every negative, there is a positive and when I tell you not to do the negative that means you must do the positive. For example, if I say, "Don't stay outside," what does that mean? Come inside. You see, you cannot obey the negative, don't stay outside without obeying the positive, come inside. And when the Bible forbids false worship, it is an injunction for true worship.
And so, no matter how you look at these commandments, whether they are negative or positive, they arrive at the same conclusion, rightly understood. And every one of them rightly understood is a positive commandment. And all of the commandments are positive. Every time God says, "Thou shalt," He's just saying, "Help yourself to happiness". And every time God says, "Thou shalt not," He's saying, "Don't hurt yourself". These are wonderful rules, wonderful laws, for all time, eternal and universal. And today we're talking about learning family worship.
Fritz Kreisler was one of the greatest violinists of all times. He had a violin. It was a Stradivarius violin; only a few Stradivarius violins in the world. Let me tell you how he got it. The violin that Fritz Kreisler played belonged at one time to a wealthy Englishman. Fritz Kreisler learned about the violin and tried to buy it. The Englishman said, "It is not for sale". Kreisler upon a time went to visit that Englishman and very humbly said, "Could I just touch it? Could I just touch it"? And the Englishman said, "Alright, touch it". And Kreisler took a little advantage and he tucked it under his chin and began to draw the bow across those strings. And when Fritz Kreisler began to play that violin, you could hear the laughter of children in the streets. You could hear birds singing. You could just hear the music of the spheres.
The old Englishman listened for a while and then great tears began to course down his cheeks. When Fritz Kreisler realized he'd pushed it a little far by taking that violin into his hands, he apologized. He said, "I'm sorry. I shouldn't of done that. I just wanted to play it. I wish you would sell it to me". The Englishman said, "No, it is not for sale. But it is yours. You may have it. It belongs to you. You are the master. It doesn't belong to me, it belongs to you". Friend, I want to say, likewise, God is the only one who is worthy of your life. It belongs to Him. To no one else. And you must give your heart, your life and all that you have to Him in worship and you must teach your children to worship.
Now, let's look at this command here a little more carefully and see if we can make some applications to our lives here. First of all, this command tells us there must be a proper conception of God; because if you conceive of God wrongly, you're going to behave wrongly. I want you to take your Bibles and turn over here to Psalm 115 verses 4 through 8 and look at what God says about those who worship idols. He says, "Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men's hands. They have mouths, but they speak not. Eyes have they, but they see not. They have ears, but they hear not. Noses have they, but they smell not. They have hands, but they handle not. Feet have they, but they walk not. Neither speak they through their throat".
Now he's describing the stupidity, the silliness of worshiping anything but almighty God. And then he says this in verse 8, "So they that make them are like unto them". First the family molds the idol and then the idol molds the family. Think about it. We become like what we worship. So it is so very important that we have a proper conception of God. Not just any god. We must understand who God is and what God is like. And therefore God has absolutely forbidden the making of anything material as an object of worship. Why? Because God is not a material God; He is spiritual. The Bible tells us in John chapter 4 verse 24 that God is spirit, "They that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth". It literally says that God is spirit; not a spirit. He is spirit. That is His essence. God is spirit and to worship Him, we must worship Him in spirit and truth.
So what, what material thing can represent spirit? God is like a circle whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere. I mean, how would you describe a God like that? How would you imagine a God like that? You cannot do it. And so, we are forbidden to try to make anything material and say this is what God is like. Here's a verse I want you to put in your margin, Isaiah chapter 40 and verse 25, "'To whom then will you liken Me? Or to what shall I be equal?' saith the holy One". "'To whom then will ye liken me or shall I be equal?' saith the Holy One". You'll make a big mistake if you'll say God is compared to anything. I mean, what, what are you going to say God is like? I can say one man is like another man. One piano is like another piano. One pulpit is like another pulpit. One suit is like another suit. There's only one God. So there's nothing else to compare Him to.
God says, "You can't compare Me to anything". Number one, He is spiritual and the material can never represent the spiritual. And number two, He is in a class and a category all by Himself so any idol is a bad picture of God. And who wants a bad picture of himself or herself in circulation? When we get the pictures back from the photo mat, we look at them. If there's one that really is not very good one of us, we want to tear it up. If there's one that makes us look better than we are we want to keep that one. And you know a good photographer says, "Where there's beauty we take it, where there's none we make it". But nobody wants a bad picture of himself. But the Bible speaks of people who have changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man.
Now, we all have a desire to worship something. Nature abhors a vacuum. Man is incurably religious and if he doesn't worship the true God in the right way, he's going to worship something else. Do you know what an idol is? An idol is a magnified sinner. What a man does is, he takes his worse vices and makes gods out of them. And so the gods of the pagans represent lust, and greed, and war, and vengeance. That's what all of these idols are. Men take their worst vices and make gods out of them and then they worship those vices and legitimatize that vice. Pretty neat. For example, Baal was a pagan god. He was a fertility god. And so, since they wanted to fornicate they just said, "Well the way we worship our god is through fornication and adultery". Pretty slick. And what they had done is just to take their vices, magnify their vices, worship their vices and then legitimatize their vices. That's the reason that idolatry is such a horrible thing.
Now there's some people who say, "Well, what I do is not really idolatry, but I have a statue or I have an image, I have an icon, I have something that just reminds me so much of God that I venerate that statue. I venerate that image because it reminds me so much of God. It just really helps me to worship the true God". Well ladies, I want to ask you a question. Suppose you happen upon your husband in a room somewhere and he had a woman in his arms, kissing her. And then he looks over out of the corner of his eye and he sees you. He says, "Oh, sweetheart, how are you? Come in. I'm glad to see you. Now I know you think I ought not to be doing this, but I want to tell you, this woman was so beautiful and so gorgeous she reminded me of you. And I was really just thinking of you darling and that's why I was doing this. You see, she reminds me of you".
I don't know how many women in this congregation would buy that, but I think very few. Now the Bible says, this helps us to understand something of the jealousy of God. This is the reason this text says, "I the Lord thy God am a jealous God". Now jealousy in the wrong sense, that wrong kind of jealousy is a terrible thing. But look if you will in Exodus 20 verse 5, "Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them; for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God". Now, we think of jealousy as a green eyed monster. And wrong jealousy is indeed that. But there is a holy jealousy, a righteous jealousy. Now, you and I in most of our jealousy have no right to that jealousy. One athlete has no right to be jealous of another athlete. One preacher has no right to be jealous of another preacher because we don't own athletics, we don't own preaching. But God has every right to be jealous of who He is, because there's only one God. Only one, not two. He has a monopoly on being God. He has a holy jealousy and He is a jealous God.
Now there are all kinds of false idols. Very frankly, we in America today, don't make idols of gold and silver and wood. There are some like that around. Most Americans don't make those kind of idols, but in Colossians 3:5, the Bible also speaks of the idolatry of the heart. And for example it says, "Covetousness is idolatry". Or in Ezekiel 14 verse 3, it speaks of those who have, "Set up gods in their heart". And I just want to mention some of these. And we're not going to bear down on these, but just mention them. For example, you can make an idol of yourself. And by the way, that is the greatest idolatry right now in America is me-ism. We've gone from theology to me-ology. Have you noticed that? That we're worshiping the creature. And the Bible prophesies the last days in Second Timothy chapter 3 and verse 2 where people will be, "Lovers of their own selves".
Now anything that you love more, fear more, serve more than God is an idol. Anything you love more, serve more, fear more than God is an idol. The Bible speaks of those who are, "Lovers of their own selves". Others have made a god of money. The reason that some won't come to church is they say, "All they want down there is their money". But the truth of the matter is, it's all that he wants is his money. I mean, his god is greed. His creed is, "Get all you can, can all you get, sit on the lid and poison the rest". He worships the almighty dollar. But Jesus said in Matthew 6:24, "You cannot serve God and mammon". You just can't do it. Either God is God or money is God.
And there are so many who worship money. There's some who worship the family. Rather than being in church on Sunday night or Sunday morning, they're out with family affairs. And they say, "Well, I mean, after all God gave me this family and I am going to put my family first". You will make a terrible mistake if you put your family first. Jesus said in Matthew 10 verse 37, "He that loves father and mother more than Me is not worthy of Me". The best thing you can do for your family is not to put them first. Joyce doesn't mind being second place in my heart and she is second place; God is first place. You say, "Oh, you ought to love her better than that".
Friend, I love her so much more because God is first place in my heart and in my life. I love her with a love He has given me that I could not love her with if God were not first in my heart and in my life. Don't make a god of your family. Our Lord warned against making a god of your family. We've got the gods of popularity. I believe that there're some mothers today who would let their daughters spend a weekend in Hell if they thought it'd make them more popular. John chapter 12 and verse 42, "Nevertheless among the chief rulers also many believed on Him, but because of the Pharisees they did not confess Him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue".
What does that means? It means there were some who said, "I really believe that Jesus Christ is the Messiah, but I'm not going to make it public. Because if I make it public, it is going to hurt my associations. I want to be well thought of". There's some of you who may be sitting in this building today who ought to come down one of these aisles openly and publicly take a stand for Jesus Christ, follow Him in the water of believer's baptism, but your god is the opinion of other people and you love and fear the opinion of other people more than you love and fear God. And of course, in our sex saturated society, anybody can look around and see that we've made a god of pleasure and a god of sex. Some have made a god of sports. I'm amazed how Sunday has become fun day and the stadiums now are filled.
Our forefathers would never have thought about that. We're going to be talking about that when we get to that commandment in Exodus 20 verse 8 that says, "Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy". I'm not against sports. Michael Jordan came back to basketball. We ought not to use the word great carelessly, but folks I want to tell you that man is a great athlete. I mean a great athlete. Any way you cut it. He can do things that when I watch it, it defies physics. I mean, I don't see how that happens. He is an incredibly great athlete. And I'm not against that and I give him all of the praise that is due to a man; he has earned it. But I was a little saddened as I read some of the hype about him coming back into basketball. Little kids were saying, "Now I have hope again". Some sports writers were likening that unto the Second Coming.
You know what's wrong with us today friend? We have too many idols and too few heroes. We need to be teaching our kids again about heroes. We made a god of pleasures. In Second Timothy 3 verse 4, the Bible speaks of those who are, "Lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God". Where have all of the heroes gone? And where did all these idols come from? Sex idols and sports idols and all of these other things. No, first of all, there must be a proper conception of God. God is spirit. "They that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth". But secondly, with that conception of God must come that communication of God. And that's where you come in parents. It's not enough for you to have theological exactitude. It's not enough for you to write down in your notes.
Yes, God is spirit and, "They that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth". But how does that play out in your family? How are you teaching your children about the worship of God? Again I say, the greatest thing you can do for your children, the greatest thing is to teach them to worship. Now, wrong worship is the worst thing you can do. And that's the reason God puts this great warning here. Listen to what He says in verse 4. He says, there must be the proper conception, but now in Exodus 20 verse 5 he says, there must be the proper communication. "Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them. For I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Me".
False worship is iniquitous. It corrupts the minds. And the iniquities of the fathers are visited upon the children to the third and fourth generation. Not the guilt of the fathers, but the result of the father's guilt is visited upon the children. I want to give you an example of what I'm talking about. How that your worship will go on down to your children, your grandchildren and your great grandchildren. The way you worship has a result that will last on and on and on after you are gone. We're going to do a little Bible study this morning in the Old Testament. I want you to see something. I want you to see what happened to a man named Uzziah. And if you would just take your Bibles and turn to Second Chronicles chapter 26.
Let me just show you this. It's worth turning to. I's an amazing thing here in the Old Testament; Second Chronicles chapter 26 and verse 16. Now here was a man who basically was a good man. King Uzziah. But king Uzziah one day decided he would worship God in a way that was forbidden to worship God. And look if you will in Second Chronicles 26 and verse 16, "But when he was strong, his heart was lifted up to his destruction for he transgressed against the Lord his God and went into the temple of the Lord to burn incense upon the altar of incense".
Now I'm not going to tell you why that was so wrong, but it was wrong. What King Uzziah did was absolutely wrong. He was worshiping the true God in the wrong way. Then skip on down to verse 21 of that same chapter. The Bible says, "For he was cut off from the house of the Lord and Jotham his son was over the king's house". Now here's Uzziah, he's worshiping God the wrong way. He loves God, but he did something that was very wrong and gave a wrong conception and a wrong picture of God. Now he has a son Jotham. This is his son. And what was Jotham like? Well, Jotham said, "I'm not going into the temple anymore". Look if you will in Second Chronicles 27 verses 1, "Now Jotham was twenty and five years old when he began to reign and he reigned 16 years in Jerusalem".
Now look in Second Chronicles 27 verse 2, "And he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord according to all his father Uzziah did". Uzziah was a good man, Jotham was a good man. "Howbeit, "now if you just don't mind marking your Bible, just put a circle around that. "Howbeit, he entered not into the temple of the Lord". Here was a dad who stopped going to church and here was a son who said, "You know, I can love God without going to church". Do you ever hear that? I can love God without going to church. "Hey, let's go down to the lake this Sunday. Kids, get the Bible, we're going to have Sunday school and fishing. We're going to have a wonderful time. We don't need to go down there to Bellevue. I mean, God is everywhere. Come on kids".
Sounds alright, yeah. So here is Uzziah, he's worshiping God the wrong way. There's a church fuss over it. So Uzziah says, "Well I don't have to go to church anymore". Jotham says, "Sounds like a good idea to me dad," so, "He entered not into the temple of the Lord". Now, father and son. Now what about the grandson? Go to Second Chronicles 27 and verse 9, "And Jotham slept with his fathers and they buried him in the city of David and Ahaz, his son, reigned in his stead". Uzziah worshiped God the wrong way. Jotham said, "Well, I don't have to go to church to worship God". Now along comes Ahaz and what was Ahaz like? Well look in Second Chronicles 28 verse 2, "For he walked in the ways of the kings of Israel and made also molten images for Baalim". He became a pagan idolater.
Uzziah loved God, worshiped the wrong way. Jotham loved God, wouldn't go to church. Ahaz, Uzziah's grandson begins to worship a false god. Second Chronicles chapter 28 verse 24, "And Ahaz gathered together the vessel of the house of God and cut in pieces the vessels of the house of God". Now there was one grandfather who just didn't go to church. Here is a grandson who is tearing the church down, "And shut up the doors of the house of the Lord". Well, his father had no use for the house of God, why should he? Now, he takes the holy vessels and cuts them in pieces and nails the door of a church house shut. But it's not over yet. Look in Second Chronicles 28 and verse 3, "Moreover, he," Ahaz, "burnt incense in the valley of the son of Hinnom and burnt his children in the fire, after the abominations of the heathen whom the Lord had cast out before the children of Israel".
What does it mean he burnt his children in the fire? They had a molten god named Molech and they would take their little children and put their little children into the belly of that god, which was a furnace of fire, and cremate their little children, screaming, alive. Oh you say, "Nobody would kill little babies". Hello? Pagan! Here was a dad; he worshiped God the wrong way. Here was his son; loved God; saw no need of the church. Here was his grandson, a pagan nailing up the doors of the house of God. Here were his great grandsons sacrificed to a pagan god. "I am the Lord thy God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers unto the sons of the third and fourth generation of them that hate Me". Psalm 112 verse 2. Listen to me my folks, listen to me. We have something that is very, very wrong in America today. It is this philosophy; "It doesn't matter what you do as long as no one else gets hurt".
Have you heard that? If you haven't heard that, you've been Rip Van Winkle. "It doesn't matter what you do as long as nobody else gets hurt". Come up close, I'm going to tell you something. Nobody on the face of this earth has ever sinned one time without somebody else getting hurt. Nobody ever sins by himself. There is no such thing as a solo sin. Sin never hurts just one person. We're bound up in our humanity together. Sin never hurts just one person. Understand that. And the most hideous result of sin is its effect on the sinner's children. But I want to turn that around and let me say something wonderful. The law of sowing and reaping reaps for good too.
You know one of my life's verses is Luke 4:8, "The generation of the upright shall be blessed". And friend, I'm not just living for my children; I'm living for my grandchildren, my great grandchildren and their children. And I'm holding God to that and I want them to say, "There was a man, my great granddaddy. I never knew him, but he loved God. My mom and my granddaddy loved God. And my momma loves God and I love God". Second Timothy 1 verse 5, Paul said to Timothy, "When I call to remembrance the unfeigned faith that is in thee which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois and in thy mother Eunice, and I am persuaded that in thee also".
A woman came to her pastor. She said, "Pastor, when should I begin the spiritual training of my child? When he's five years old"? Pastor said, "No". "When he's three years old"? "No". "When he's three months old"? He said, "No". "Well, when shall I begin"? The pastor said, "With his grandparents". The faith that was first in your grandmother and now in your mother and now in you. Don't you want your grandchildren to love God? Oh how important it is that we teach our families to worship. True worship is commanded and I wish I had more time to talk with you about true worship. But let me say this, God deserves it. As we've learned, the word worship comes from worth-ship. God desires it, the Father seeketh such. God demands it. "Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and Him only".
Parents, I'm asking you a question: do you worship the one true God? Do you worship Him in spirit and in truth? Do your children know that you love Him more than anything else? I've got four kids and one thing they know is, they know their dad is not perfect. They know it. But I'll tell you something else they know. And all four of them will tell you, that dad is not a phony. He loves God. And they know that He is number one. And I'm telling you, oh, God help me to tell it, the best thing you can do for your kids is not to give them a college education or leave them a legacy, but it's to teach them to worship God.
Bow your heads in prayer. Heads are bowed and eyes are closed. Now you can't teach what you don't know any more than you can come from where you haven't been. And you've got to know God yourself. So if you've not yet given your heart to Jesus, I want to help you to do so. Would you pray this prayer right now? If you want to know God, if you want to be saved, pray this prayer, "Dear God," that's right, just speak to Him out of your heart.
Dear God, I know that You love me and I know that You want to save me. Jesus, You died to save me. You promised to save me if I would trust You. I do trust You Jesus. I believe You're the Son of God. I believe You paid my sin debt with Your blood on the cross. I believe that God raised You from the dead. I now receive You this moment into my heart as my Lord and Savior. Come into my heart, forgive my sin and save me, Lord Jesus.
Pray it and mean it. "Save me, Lord Jesus". Say it from your heart. "Save me, Lord Jesus". Did you ask Him? Then thank Him. Pray this way:
Thank You for saving me Jesus. I don't look for a sign; I don't ask for a feeling, I stand on Your Word. You're now my Lord, my Savior, my God and my Friend. And now Lord Jesus, (and this is important that you pray this friend) now Lord Jesus, help me not to be ashamed of You. Help me to have the courage to obey You and make it public. In Your name I pray, Amen.