Scott said:
Even one like this?!? ;-)
Icons or pictures like this are not good...
For the following reasons...
No description of Jesus is given in the bible and no one knows what Christ looked like.
Pictures and statues of alleged saints and Jesus have led billions into idolatry.
1 Peter 1:7 That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ:
1 Peter 1:8
Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory:
The apostate Catholic church is a prime example of why we should not make icons for religious purposes.
They bow down and pray before their idols. They burn incense to them. It should be disgusting to a Christian. The numbness of the average Christian to idolatry is amazing...
Acts 17:29 Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God,
we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device.
Thou shalt not make 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 waters beneath the earth:
Thou shalt not bow down thyself unto them, nor serve them" (Deuteronomy 5:8-9,
God has forbidden the making of icons for the purpose of veneration and worship.
The stinking excuses and twisting of the scriptures to justify these abominable practices are legion...
Hezekiah destroyed the bronze serpent that Moses fashioned when the people began to venerate it.
2 Kings 18:4 He removed the high places, and brake the images, and cut down the groves,
and brake in pieces the brasen serpent that Moses had made: for unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it: and he called it Nehushtan.
Icons are not always evil but God was very specific in making sure that believers understood the dangers and made sure that we understood His extreme displeasure.
Paintings and statues of Christ and so called saints has led many into practicing what God has clearly forbidden.
God has contempt for those who practice these things.
Nahum 1:14 And the LORD hath given a commandment concerning thee, that no more of thy name be sown:
out of the house of thy gods will I cut off the graven image and the molten image: I will make thy grave; for
thou art vile.
Psalms 115:4 Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men's hands.
Psalms 115:5 They have mouths, but they speak not: eyes have they, but they see not:
Psalms 115:6 They have ears, but they hear not: noses have they, but they smell not:
Psalms 115:7 They have hands, but they handle not: feet have they, but they walk not: neither speak they through their throat.
Psalms 115:8
They that make them are like unto them; so is every one that trusteth in them.
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