W. Robert Godfrey

And you've replaced him with something else.

It's the great human temptation to replace God with something else.

And we'll see as we go along that he warns people against the most particular things that we are inclined to replace him with.

We do that individually, we do that as churches, and he's warning here, don't do it.

I want to be your God, a God who has no image, who is not to be reduced to some part of his creation, but is to be appreciated for the great Creator God that he is.

He goes on in verse 20 to say, the Lord took you out of Egypt to be his own.

Then intriguingly, he says again, verse 23 of chapter 4, take care lest you forget the covenant of the Lord your God, which he made with you, and make a carved image, the form of anything that the Lord your God has forbidden you, for the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.

Now, we all know, don't we, that the idea that God is a consuming fire is just an Old Testament idea.

This is a trick question.

This is to see if you're paying attention.

Is it true that it's just an Old Testament idea that God is a consuming fire?

No, because this very verse, Deuteronomy 4 verse 24, is quoted in Hebrews 12 verse 29.

When the author of the letter to the Hebrews is talking about the importance of worship and the seriousness of worship and how we're to worship God with reverence and awe, that's a New Testament command, not an Old Testament command.

It's also an Old Testament command.

It's a New Testament command, worship God with reverence and with awe.

Why?

Because our God is a consuming fire.

Quotes this verse from the Old Testament.

There are a lot of people today who want to say in churches, well, it's a very different attitude in the New Testament from the Old Testament about worship.

God was very serious and particular about worship in the Old Testament, but in the New Testament you can pretty much do what you want.