Promises to All Who Keep God's Law of Love
Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them. Exodus 20:4, 5.
Our Creator demands our supreme devotion, our first allegiance. Anything which tends to abate our love for God, or to interfere with the service due Him, becomes thereby an idol. With some their lands, their houses, their merchandise, are the idols. Business enterprises are prosecuted with zeal and energy, while the service of God is made a secondary consideration. Family worship is neglected, secret prayer forgotten. Many claim to deal justly with their fellow-men, and seem to feel that in so doing they discharge their whole duty. But it is not enough to keep the last six commandments of the Decalogue. We are to love the Lord our God with all the heart. Nothing short of obedience to every precept ... can satisfy the claims of the divine law.
There are many whose hearts have been so hardened by prosperity that they forget God, and forget the wants of their fellow-men. Professed Christians adorn themselves with jewelry, laces, costly apparel, while the Lord's poor suffer for the necessaries of life. Men and women who claim redemption through a Saviour's blood will squander the means intrusted to them for the saving of other souls, and then grudging dole out their offerings for religion, giving liberally only when it will bring honor to themselves. These are idolaters. The Signs of the Times, January 26, 1882.
Anything that diverts the mind from God assumes the form of an idol, and that is why there is so little power in the church today. Manuscript 2, 1893.
The second commandment forbids the worship of the true God by images or similitudes.... The mind, turned away from the infinite perfection of Jehovah, would be attracted to the creature rather than to the Creator. Patriarchs and Prophets, 306.
God is a searcher of the heart. He distinguishes between true heart-service and idolatry. Manuscript 126, 1901.
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