Exodus 20:23

Here lies the solid ground of the appeal against idolatry. They saw nothing. God did not show Himself to them. He did not take any bodily shape from which they might form an image. He gave them His word, His holy commandments, so plain that a child could understand them. There was no need for them to imagine what God was like. That was the very sin they were so faithfully warned against. They were called to hear God's voice, not to see His shape — to obey His commandments, not to make an image of Him. Superstition vainly tries to honour God by making and worshipping an image. Faith, on the other hand, lovingly receives and reverently obeys His holy commandments.

What made this idolatry so offensive was the joining of the idols of the nations with the Lord. A plain, outright idolater was not nearly so evil. It is worse to show that you know the true God and still put false gods on a level with Him.

The so-called worship of the religious world today is not as different from this as it first seems. The Lord's name is mixed up with many things the natural heart craves. About all of them Scripture says: "Little children, keep yourselves from idols" (1 John 5:21). Art, music, gold, silver and valuable objects adorn what people call divine worship. Man makes room for what the world values and chases after — wealth, influence and worldly wisdom.

"Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands," says the psalmist (Ps. 115:4). "Their land is filled with silver and gold… their land is filled with idols," says the prophet (Isa. 2:7-8). Whatever man considers most precious, whatever his heart craves, whatever serves his glory — he turns it into a god. That is the root of idolatry. God is displaced and man exalted, in the exalting of his idol.

After the law had been given, as told in the words of Exodus 20, Israel were warned not to make gods of silver and gold. Then the Lord said to Moses, "An altar of earth you shall make for me, and sacrifice on it your burnt offerings… in every place where I cause my name to be remembered" (verse 24). They might be tempted to copy the altars of the surrounding nations, even if they did not worship those gods. And copying their altars could easily lead to following their idolatrous worship.

Yet even then the Lord, while warning against making gods of silver and gold, was pleased to direct them to make Him an altar of earth for burnt offerings and peace offerings.

Here we find man not as a doer, but as a worshipper; and this at the close of Exodus 20. How plainly this teaches us that God does not want the sinner breathing the air of Mount Sinai. That is not the proper meeting place between God and man. "In every place where I cause my name to be remembered I will come to you and bless you." The spot where the Lord records His name is nothing like the terrors of the burning mountain. There He "comes" to "bless" His worshipping people!