Next Part 2 (The SECOND Commandment)

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II. "For I the Lord your God am a jealous God."</strong> The first reason why Israel must not worship graven images is, because the Lord is a jealous God. "The Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God." Exodus 34:14. Jealousy is taken, [1] In a good sense, as God is jealous for his people. [2] In a bad sense, as he is jealous of his people.

[1] In a GOOD sense; as God is jealous for his people. "Thus says the Lord, I am jealous for Jerusalem, and for Zion, with a great jealousy." Zech 1:14. God has a dear affection for his people, they are his Hephzibah, or delight. Isa 62:4. They are the apple of his eye, Zech 2:8, to express how dear they are to him, and how tender he is of them, "Nothing is dearer than the apple of the eye." Drusius. They are his spouse, adorned with jewels of grace; they lie near his heart. He is jealous for his spouse, therefore he will be avenged on those who wrong her. "The Lord shall stir up jealousy like a man of war; he shall roar, he shall prevail against his enemies." Isa 42:13. What is done to the saints, God takes as done to himself (2 Kings 19:22); and the Lord will take revenge upon all who afflict Zion. "I will deal severely with all who have oppressed you." Zeph 3:19.

[2] Jealousy is taken in a BAD sense, in which God is jealous of his people. It is so taken in this commandment, "I the Lord your God am a jealous God." I am jealous lest you should go after false gods, or worship the true God in a false manner; lest you defile your virgin-profession by images. God will have his spouse to keep close to him, and not go after other lovers. "You shall not play the harlot" Hos 3:3. He cannot bear a rival. Our marital love, a love joined with adoration and worship, must be given to God alone.

Use one. Let us give God no just cause to be jealous. A good wife will be so discreet and chaste, as to give her husband no just occasion of jealousy. Let us avoid all sin, especially this of idolatry, or image-worship. It is heinous, after we have entered into a marriage covenant with God, to prostitute ourselves to an image. Idolatry is spiritual adultery, and God is a jealous God, he will avenge it. Image-worship makes God abhor a people. "They made God angry by building altars to other gods; they made him jealous with their idols. When God heard them, he was very angry, and he rejected Israel completely." Psalm 78:58, 59. "Jealousy arouses a husband's fury, and he will show no mercy when he takes revenge." Prov 6:34. Image-worship enrages God; it makes God divorce a people. "She is not my wife." Hos 2:2. "Jealousy is cruel as the grave." Canticles 8:6. As the grave devours men's bodies, so God will devour image-worshipers.

Use two. If God is a jealous God, let it be remembered by those whose friends are popish idolaters, and who are hated by their friends, because they are of a different religion, and perhaps their maintenance cut off from them. Oh, remember, God is a jealous God; better move your parents to hatred, than move God to jealousy! Their anger cannot do you so much hurt, as God's anger. If they will not provide for you, God will. "When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up." Psalm 27:10.

III. "Visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generation."</strong> Here is the second reason against image-worship. There is a twofold visiting. There is God's visiting in mercy. "God will surely visit you:" that is, he will bring you into the land of Canaan, the type of heaven. Gen 50:25. Thus God has visited us with the sunbeams of his favour; he has made us swim in a sea of mercy. This is a happy visitation. There is God's visiting in anger. "Shall I not visit for these things?" that is, God's visiting with the rod. Jer 5:9. "What will you do in the day of visitation?" that is, in the day when God shall visit with his judgments. Isa 10:3. This is the sense that God's visiting is taken in this commandment, "visiting iniquity," that is, punishing iniquity. Observe here three things:

[1] Sin is that which makes God visit in anger. "Visiting iniquity." Sin is the cause why God visits with sickness, poverty, etc. "If they keep not my commandments, then will I visit their transgressions with the rod." Psalm 89:31, 32. Sin twists the cords, which pinch us; it creates all our troubles, is the gall in our cup, and the gravel in our bread. Sin is the Trojan horse, which causes all the trouble. Sin is the womb of our sorrows, and the grave of our comfort. God visits for sin.

[2] One special sin for which God's visits, is idolatry and image-worship. "Visiting the iniquity of the fathers." Most of God's envenomed arrows have been shot among idolaters. "Go now unto my place which was in Shiloh, where I set my name at the first, and see what I did to it." Jer 7:12. For Israel's idolatry he allowed their army to be routed, their priests slain, the ark taken captive. Jerusalem was the most famous metropolis of the world; there was the temple. "Where the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord." Psalm 122:4. But for the high places and images, that city was besieged and taken by the Chaldean forces. 2 Kings 25:4. When images were set up in Constantinople, the chief seat of the Eastern empire, a city which in the eye of the world was impregnable, it was taken by the Turks, and many cruelly massacred. The Turks in their triumphs at that time reproached the idolatrous Christians, caused an image or crucifix to be carried through the streets in contempt, and threw dirt upon it, crying, "This is the God of the Christians." Here was God's visitation for their idolatry. God has set special marks of his wrath upon idolaters. At a place called Epoletium, there perished by an earthquake 350 people, while they were offering sacrifice to idols. Idolatry brought misery upon the Eastern churches, and removed the golden candlesticks of Asia. For this iniquity God visits.

[3] Idolatrous people are enemies not to their own souls only—but to their children. "Visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon their children." As an idolatrous father entails his land of inheritance, so he entails God's anger and curse upon his children. A jealous husband, finding his wife has stained her fidelity, may justly cast her off, and her illegitimate children too, because they are none of his. If the father is a traitor to his prince, no wonder if all the children suffer. God may visit the iniquity of image-worshipers upon their children.

But is it not said, "Every man shall die for his own sin; the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father?" 2 Chron 25:4, Ezek 18:20. How then does God say, he "will visit the iniquity of the fathers upon the children?"

Though the son be not damned—yet he may be severely punished for his father's sin. "God lays up his iniquity for his children" (Job 21:19); that is, God lays up the punishment of his iniquity for his children—the child smarts for the father's sin. Jeroboam thought to have established the kingdom by idolatrous worship—but it brought ruin upon him, and all his posterity. 1 Kings 14:10. Ahab's idolatry wronged his posterity, who lost the kingdom, and were all beheaded. "They took the king's sons, and slew seventy people." 2 Kings 10:7. Here God visited the iniquity of the father upon the children. As a son catches an hereditary disease from his father, so he catches misery from him: his father's sin ruins him.

Use one. How sad is it to be the child of an idolater! It had been sad to have been one of Gehazi's children, who had leprosy entailed upon them. "The leprosy of Naaman shall cleave unto you and unto your seed forever." 2 Kings 5:27. So it is sad to be a child of an idolater, or image-worshiper; for his seed are exposed to heavy judgments in this life. "God visits the iniquity of the fathers upon their children." Methinks I hear God speak, as in Isa 14:21, "Prepare slaughter for his children, for the iniquity of their fathers."

Use two. What a privilege it is to be the children of godly parents. The parents are in covenant with God, and God lays up mercy for their posterity. "The just man walks in his integrity, his children are blessed after him." Prov 20:7. A religious parent does not procure wrath—but helps to keep off wrath from his child; he seasons his child with pious principles, he prays down a blessing on it; he is a loadstone to draw his child to Christ, by good counsel and example. Oh, what a privilege it is—to be born of godly, pious parents! Augustine says that his mother Monica travailed with greater care and pains for his new birth, than for his natural birth. Wicked idolaters entail misery on their posterity; God "visits the iniquity of the fathers upon their children;" but pious parents procure a blessing upon their children; God reserves mercy for their posterity.

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