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Ex 20:4-6

4 "You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; 5 you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, 6 but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.

In the KJV, carved images reads "graven images" which means idols.

So does that mean those who make statues, or paintings, or pictures are sinning against God?
If you buy them and/or have them in you home are you sinning?
The answer is in verse 5a you shall not bow down to them nor serve them.

If you have seen pictures of Egypt and the pyramids, or watched movies you will see gods that others have made out of stone. The Egyptians worshiped these statues.
Buddha is another example of idol worship, even though he was just a man, they make an image of him and they even say that if you rub his belly you will have good luck.
Some may not like this, but even the painting of Jesus is a form of Idol worship. Why, because people believe that HE looks like that, when we don't know what Jesus looks like.
So you are worshipping a picture of a man that may not even look like Jesus.
There are also other gods in the bible that were made with their arms out in front of them. What they would do is heat up these arms until they were red-hot; then lay their baby's on the arms sacrificing their children to these gods.
You say that that is sick and awful and wonder who would do something like that?
But the same thing happens thousands of times everyday when women have their baby's aborted. Either way they are killing their children.

Tomorrow we will read more about worshiping other gods in the first commandment.

But for today, go ahead and look at that statue or painting and admire the work of the artist, but don't worship it, and even with the paintings, don't desire to be in the false world that the artist has painted. By doing so you are in a sense saying to God that His creation isn't good enough and that He should have done a better job.
And if that picture doesn't really look like Jesus, when you get to heaven you will wonder who the guy is with the holes in His hands, feet and side. That will be our real Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!

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