"Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in 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 upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Me; and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love Me, and keep My commandments" (Exod. 20:4-6).

"Take ye therefore good heed unto yourselves . . . 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, . . . 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" (Deut. 4:15-19).

This was the first commandment broken by the nation of Israel. Moses had not even come down from the mountain with the tables of stone before Israel had crafted for themselves a golden calf and worshipped it as representing "thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt" (Exod. 32:4).

This propensity of the people to turn from the true God to idols is further described by the apostle Paul:"When they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonor their own bodies between themselves; who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen" (Rom. 1:21-25).

God’s judgment upon those who violated this second commandment was severe:"Visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Me" (Exod. 20:5). "He took the calf which they had made, and burnt it in the fire, and ground it to powder, and strawed it upon the water, and made the children of Israel drink of it… and there fell of the people that day about three thousand men" (Exod. 32:20,28). "When … ye shall. . . make a graven image, or the likeness of any thing, and shall do evil in the sight of the Lord thy God, to provoke Him to anger … ye shall soon utterly perish from off the land . . . and the Lord shall scatter you among the nations, and ye shall be left few in number among the heathen, whither the Lord shall lead you" (Deut. 4:25-27). "If thy brother . . . entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers . . . thou shall stone him with stones, that he die. … If thou shalt hear say in one of thy cities . . . Let us go and serve other gods. . . thou shalt surely smite the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword, destroying it utterly" (Deut. 13:6-18).

This second commandment is closely linked with the first one:"Thou shalt have no other gods before Me." The emphasis in the first is the oneness, the uniqueness of Jehovah, the God of Israel. He alone is the true God. All others_Baal, Dagon, Ashtaroth, Molech, etc._are mere inventions of man’s imagination. In the second commandment the emphasis is on the fact that God is a Spirit (John 4:24), that He is seen and approached by faith, not by sight, that His substance cannot be represented by anything that man can make. God is the Creator of all things. How dare creature man try to fashion an image of his Creator, to change "the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things" (Rom. 1:23).

Man has always had a tendency to gravitate away from that which cannot be seen, which must be apprehended by faith, to that which is visible, as well as to utilize created beings_either real ones or images thereof_as mediators between themselves and God. Even in many so-called Christian churches, where the ten commandments are well known, there is an emphasis on statues, pictures, and images of Christ as well as of created beings such as Mary, the mother of Christ, and various apostles and "saints." People are sometimes encouraged to venerate the persons represented by these statues, touch and kiss them, and even to pray to them as if they were mediators between themselves and God. Thus God Himself is put at a distance, often out of fear of His being a God of judgment, and lack of appreciation of His matchless grace and mercy toward His own. The fact that "There is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus" (1 Tim. 2:5) is overlooked. There is not the knowledge of one’s sins totally forgiven and of justification before a holy, righteous God on the basis of the death of Christ at Calvary. There is not the peace of heart and mind before God that results from being justified by faith (Rom. 5:1). Therefore, people fearfully and cautiously seek to approach God through deceased fellow humans, "holy" ones who were once sinners like themselves, who might be expected to have more compassion on them and be more able to put in a good word for them than would God Himself, or Jesus, His Son.

"God is a Spirit"; He is not confined by time and space; He does not specialize in knowledge in certain areas and not others; His power is not limited to those activities that we can see and experience ourselves. Since the gods of the Gentiles were products of their own imagination, their imagined powers and abilities were of necessity limited by the breadth of experience and imagination of those who created them. Thus, for example, when the large Syrian army was soundly trounced by the small army of Israel, the Syrians rationalized their defeat by saying, "Their gods are gods of the hills, therefore they were stronger than we; but let us fight against them in the plain, and surely we shall be stronger than they" (1 Kings 20:23). The gods of the Gentiles’ imaginations might be limited to certain specialties_war in the hills, war on the plains, fertility, wisdom, etc._but let us be careful that we do not limit God in any way or bring Him down to the level of a human being. God knows everything there is to know about every possible topic in the universe_every language, all science, all diseases . . . and their cures, all tribes of every nation, every single individual, . . . everything! God also has the ability to be at a million (or more) different places, talking and listening to a million (or more) different people, all at the same time. So let us come boldly before Him in prayer at all times, for all things, in all circumstances, knowing He can and does listen to us and that He can and does respond to our requests, according to His perfect will and way and timing.

Just as the children of Israel repeatedly turned away from the true God to serve the idols which their hands had created, so there continues to be a tendency in man today to turn away from the Word of God, the Holy Scriptures, to the advice, prophecies, and fortune-telling offered by man. Many people take their guidance and direction for the day from the daily horoscope. These horoscopes supposedly are constructed on the basis of the position of the stars and planets, though in many cases they may be the pure invention of man’s imagination. Whatever the case may be, the user of the horoscope would be turning either to the planets and stars_God’s creation_or to man’s imagination for guidance, rather than to God Himself and His revealed Word. "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" (Deut. 4:19). May we, as believers in Christ and God, have nothing to do with such things as astrology, fortune-telling, tarot cards, reading palms and tea leaves, Ouija boards, and the like. These are all forms of idolatry, substituting created things and beings for the true God, and at its worst, delving into the world of another spirit-being, namely, Satan, the archenemy of God.

A number of New Testament scriptures warn against idolatry:"Neither be ye idolators. . . flee from idolatry" (1 Cor. 10:7,14). "Keep yourselves from idols" (1 John 5:21). "Abstain from meats offered to idols" (Acts 15:29). Also, covetousness (literally, the desire to have more than another, or more than enough, or more than one’s share) is equated with idolatry in Eph. 5:5 and Col. 3:5.

Considering the extent of idolatrous practices occurring today in nations where Christ is preached and the Bible is available, it is no surprise that idolatry (worship of "the image of the beast") will be most prominent in the era of the great tribulation when God’s children will have been taken to heaven and His restraint of evil will have been removed from this world (Rev. 13:13-18).

In conclusion, we do well to take heed to these words penned by the apostle Paul:"For though there be [those] that are called gods, whether in heaven or in earth (as there be gods many, and lords many), … to us there is but one God, the Father, of Whom are all things, and we in Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by Whom are all things, and we by Him" (1 Cor. 8:5,6).