The Heidelberg Catechism (34) (Explained for Children)

This Lord’s Day speaks about the law of God, the Ten Commandments.

Question 92: What is the law of God?

Answer: God spake all these words, Exodus 20, Deuteronomy 5, saying, I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.

Then the Ten Commandments follow. We hear them read every Sunday morning in church. The law applies to all people, to those who lived in prior years and to those who are living today.

Question 93: How are these commandments divided?

Answer: Into two tables; the first of which teaches us how we must behave towards God; the second, what duties we owe to our neighbor.

When Moses was on Mount Sinai, he received from the Lord two tables of stone. On these tables the Lord had written the Ten Commandments. Four commandments were on the first table, and six commandments were on the second table. The four commandments tell us how we are to behave towards God, and the six commandments tell us how we are to live with our neighbors. Our neighbors are all people.

You could also say that the first table tells us that we must love God above all, and the second that we must love our neighbor as ourselves. We have already heard this in Lord’s Day 2, question 4. Now, however, we will listen to all the commandments, beginning with the first.

Question 94: What doth God enjoin in the first commandment?

Answer: That I, as sincerely as I desire the salvation of my own soul, avoid and flee from all idolatry, sorcery, soothsaying, superstition, invocation of saints, or any other creatures; and learn rightly to know the only true God; trust in Him alone; with humility and patience submit to Him; expect all good things from Him only; love, fear, and glorify Him with my whole heart; so that I renounce and forsake all creatures, rather than commit even the least thing contrary to His will.

The first command says, “Thou shalt have no other gods before Me.” Thus the Lord is the only God who must be served. There are no other gods, only idols! The Lord is the only true God.

Do you know what the Lord also forbids? In the answer there are four things mentioned besides idolatry. Let us look at them.

Sorcery. Sorcerers do wonderful things; think only of the sorcerers in Egypt. Their rods became serpents, but that was the work of the devil. The devil is very powerful!

Soothsaying. Soothsayers tell people what will happen in the future. People do not know what lies in the future, and it would not be good if they did know. We may not seek to know the future. Do you remember that King Saul went to a soothsayer? That was a great sin for him. Soothsaying is also a work of the devil.

Superstition. There are even people who think that the stars can predict what will happen.

Invocation of saints or any other creature. Roman Catholics pray to Mary and Peter, and idolize them in this way; however, God alone must be honored. We do the same thing if we seek the help of people and forget God.

All these things are forbidden by God. The instructor says that, if we desire salvation, we must not do these things but must flee from them. But the Lord says something more, for He requires us to trust in Him only. He must have the highest place in our hearts.

In all that we do, we must always consider whether the Lord would approve of it. If God does not approve, we may not do it, even if people say, “Do it anyway.”

We must expect all good things from Him, and also love the Lord with our whole hearts. In the first commandment the Lord requires this from each of us. We can no longer do so, because our evil hearts do not desire to look to and love the Lord. How terrible this is! The Lord, however, can make it different, and then, with a new heart, we do love His will.

Question 95: What is idolatry?

Answer: Idolatry is, instead of, or besides that one true God who has manifested Himself in His Word, to contrive, or have any other object, in which men place their trust.

In the Bible we can read who God is and what He does. Only He can give us everything that we need, and therefore we may not place our trust in anyone or anything else. If we are sick, we go to the doctor, who prescribes medicine. That is good, but we must not place our trust in the doctor or in the medicine. The Lord must bless both the work of the doctor and the medicine which he prescribes. If He does not, we will not become better. If we think that it is the doctor who can make us better, then he is our idol. In this way there are many idols, also in our hearts. For example, we can love money and place our trust in it, thinking that it can make us happy.

We must continually ask the Lord, “Take away all the idols in my heart, and grant that I may learn to trust in Thee alone.”

Deze tekst is geautomatiseerd gemaakt en kan nog fouten bevatten. Digibron werkt voortdurend aan correctie. Klik voor het origineel door naar de pdf. Voor opmerkingen, vragen, informatie: contact.

Op Digibron -en alle daarin opgenomen content- is het databankrecht van toepassing. Gebruiksvoorwaarden. Data protection law applies to Digibron and the content of this database. Terms of use.

Printen