出エジプト記20:1-17  Exodus 20:1-17,

After leaving Egypt, the Israelites arrived at the foot of a mountain called Mount Sinai about three months later. Mount Sinai is a mountain 2285 metres high in the south of the Sinai Peninsula. On the mountain, Moses heard God’s voice and God gave him two tablets with ten teachings inscribed on them. These are the Ten Commandments.

The Ten Commandments told the Israelites how they should live, having been saved by God from slavery in Egypt. In Old Testament times, Israel had a variety of God-given commandments. Of these, the Ten Commandments were the most important and fundamental. The Ten Commandments can be further summarised as two teachings: to love God and to love one’s neighbour. In other words, the first four teach us to love God. The fifth teaching, “Honor your father and your mother,” relates to both loving God and loving one’s neighbour. And the five teachings that follow are about loving one’s neighbour. Today I would like to talk about the meaning of the first and second of The Ten Commandments.

In Old Testament times, people in different countries made images of gods and believed in and worshipped them. For example, the people of Egypt, where the Israelites worked as slaves, also believed in various gods. They believed in a sun god called Ra, who had the head of falcon and a red circle on his head representing the sun; a god called Osiris, who ruled the world after death; a goddess called Isis, who brought good harvests; and many other gods, including a god with the head of a wolf, a god with the head of a sheep and a god with the head of an alligator. The people in the land of Canaan, where the Israelites were going, believed in a god called Baal, who caused storms and brought rain, and in goddesses Asherah and Ashtaroth, who multiplied offspring. These gods are not real gods, but gods created by humans. Human beings come up with various gods according to their own desires, such as “I want this,” or their own wishes, such as “I want to be this,” or their wish for the world to be this way. They then make pictures or statues of them and worship them so that their desires and wishes are fulfilled.

But the real God is the Lord God alone, who created the world and the universe and saved the people of Israel. So the Lord God first told what kind of God he is by saying, “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” He then told the saved Israelites how they must live in order to live in a state of thankfulness and salvation. In the first commandment he taught them, “You shall have no other gods before me,” and in the second commandment he taught them, “You shall not make for yourself an idol.” Pictures and images of gods made by human beings are called idols. Why should we not believe in other gods or make idols to worship them? The reason is that when people believe in and worship gods created according to their own desires and wishes, they become slaves to their own desires and wishes.

However, the Israelites failed to follow these teachings and worshipped idols, both during their wilderness journey and after they came to live in the land of Canaan. In our own country, Japan, there are various idols. Worshipping the sacred objects in shrines and Buddhist statues in temples is idolatry. Those who believe in Jesus should not worship idols.