was about to fall down and worship him, but the angel would not let
him. If an angel from heaven is not to be worshipped, when you find
people bowing down to pictures, to images, even when they bow down to
worship the cross, _it is a sin_. There are a great many who seem to
be carried away with these things. "Thou shalt have no other gods
before Me." "Thou shalt not bow down thyself to any graven image." God
wants us to worship Him only, and if we do not believe that Jesus
Christ is God manifest in the flesh we should not worship Him. I have
no more doubt about the divinity of Christ than I have that I exist.

Worship involves two things: the internal belief, and the external
act. We transgress in our hearts by having a wrong conception of God
and of Jesus Christ before ever we give public expression in action.
As some one has said, it is wrong to have loose opinions as well as to
be guilty of loose practices. That is what Paul meant when he said:
"We ought not to _think_ that the Godhead is like unto gold or silver
or stone, graven by art or man's device." The opinions that some
people hold about Christ are not in accordance with the Bible, and are
real violations of this second commandment.

A QUESTION.

The question at once arises--is this commandment intended to forbid
the use of drawings and pictures of created things altogether? Some
contend that it does. They point to the Jews and the Mohammedans as a
proof. The Jews have never been much given to art. The Mohammedans to
this day do not use designs of animals, etc., in patterns. But I do
not agree with them. I think God only meant to forbid images and other
representations when these were intended to be used as objects of
religious veneration. "Thou shalt not make _unto thee_. . . . Thou
shalt not _bow down thyself_ to them, nor _serve_ them." In Exodus we
are told that God ordered the bowls of the golden candlestick for the
tabernacle to be made "like unto almonds, with a knop and a flower;"
and the robe of the ephod had a hem on which they were to put a bell
and a pomegranate alternately. How could God order something that
broke this second commandment?

I believe that this commandment is a call for spiritual worship. It is
in line with Christ's declaration to that Samaritan woman--"God is a
spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in _spirit_ and in
_truth_."

This is precisely what is difficult for men to do. The apostles were
hardly in their