Of course I agree with you. From the opening chapters of Genesis, the Bible makes it clear that God cares greatly about how he is worshipped. That almost no one is bothered by depictions of Christ reveals much about the devolution of theology. Earlier generations of American Christians would have immediately identified the 2nd Commandment as an issue here.
We have an ongoing winter storm and my elderly parents are without heat, so I must meet the heating and air man in a few minutes and don’t have time to write more. However, I was able to find an excellent series from Dr. Al Mohler I remember reading some years ago. In it he deals with the recovery of authentic worship. Here is a snippet:
“Hughes is right. Our confused worship corrupts our theology and our weak theology corrupts our worship. Are these voices alarmist? They do mean to sound an alarm. But there are others who are saying, “Don’t worry–be happy–go worship.” One recent church growth author has written, “Worship is like a car to get us from where we are to where God wants us to be. Transportation and communication are imperative; the mode or vehicle is not imperative. Some worship God in cathedrals with the rich traditional organ tomes of Bach and Faure from the classics of Europe. They travel in a Mercedes Benz. Some worship God in simple wooden churches with a steeple pointing heavenward. They sing the gospel songs of Charles Wesley or Fanny Cosby. They travel in a Ford or Chevy. Some worship God with the contemporary sounds of praise music with a gentle beat. They travel in a convertible sports coupe. Some worship God to the whine of a guitar and the amplifiers to the max. They travel on a motorcycle, without a muffler.”
“But surely there is more to worship than the spectrum of taste from a Mercedes Benz to a motorcycle. There must be something weightier here. “Worship is like a car to get us from where we are to where God wants us to be.” Can that be said with a straight face as we listen to the Scripture speak of worship? We know from the onset that there are many different Christian opinions concerning worship. This does not come to us as news. But the real issue for us this morning is whether or not God Himself has an opinion on this issue. Does God care how He is worshiped? Or is He some kind of laissez-faire deity who cares not how His people worship Him, but is resting in the hopes that some people in some place will in some way worship him?
“Scripture reveals that God does care. Leviticus 10:1-3 serves as a witness to this point. “Now Nadad and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took their respective firepans, and after putting fire in them, placed incense on it and offered strange fire before the Lord, which He had not commanded them. And fire came out from the presence of the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord. Then Moses said to Aaron, “It is what the Lord spoke, saying, ‘By those who come near Me I will be treated as holy, and before all the people I will be honored.’”
“These were Aaron’s sons. But they did what God had not commanded them to do in worship. They brought strange fire to the altar and they were consumed. Clearly, God does have an opinion about worship. He is the God whom we have come to know in Jesus Christ, the God who has revealed Himself in the Bible. He is a jealous God–a God who loves us and is calling out a people but a God who instructs and commands His people that we should worship Him rightly.
“In one sense, I think you can say looking throughout the Bible that there has been worship warfare even in the Scripture itself. As a matter of fact, I think you can look back to the very first murder and see that it had to do with worship as well. What is an acceptable sacrifice to the Lord? Cain and Abel saw this issue differently.”
The Whole Earth Is Full of His Glory: The Recovery of Authentic Worship, Part One
Links to the rest of the series are below the first installment.
Amen! And you can find that message repeated in most books, if not all, of the bible.
I pray all went well with your parents.