POCKET GODS AND GRAVEN IMAGES

POCKET GODS AND GRAVEN IMAGES THE SECOND COMMANDMENT Around the Year with Emmet Fox August 2 Read Exodus 20:4-6 “Thou shalt not take unto thee any graven image.” Exodus 20:4 A primitive people needed to be thus instructed because they were much given to making idols of a palpable sort. We do not do these things, but whenever we give power to anything but God, we are making that thing into a graven image. For example, we give power to our ailments, particularly if it is a favorite ailment. We all know people who say, "My rheumatism," and they say it quite lovingly. Been with them a long time! Has become a conversation piece! Others say, "My indigestion." We are making a graven image of these things. It is only when we take power away from them that we can heal them. If you forget God and worship graven images of any kind, you are going to suffer. You can demolish a stone statue; you can burn a wooden one. The way to destroy mental images is to stop thinking of them and giving them power. This commandment goes on to say, "For I the Lord thy God am a jealous God." Moses does not mean that God is jealous like a man, but that God must have first place. The trouble with many pious people is that they want God to be vice-president, keeping the presidency for themselves. So, the Bible uses the word "jealous" in the sense that if you give power to anything but God, you have lost God altogether. You cannot have a percentage of God. Either God is the only power, or nothing at all.