RESOLVED

Exodus 20:1–5 NASB95

1 Then God spoke all these words, saying, 2 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 3 “You shall have no other gods before Me. 4 “You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. 5 “You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me,

Diamonds

Exodus 20:1–6 NASB95

1 Then God spoke all these words, saying, 2 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 3 “You shall have no other gods before Me. 4 “You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. 5 “You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, 6 but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.

RESOLVED TO WORSHIP GOD ALONE

I WILL POINT TO THE LORD AS THE EMPHASIS OF MY LIFE!

THE MATERIAL WORLD POINTS TO HIM.

Little boy brought a loaf of bread to a meal. Where did you get that from?

Romans 1:20 NASB95

20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.

MORALITY POINTS TO HIM.

Romans 2:15 NASB95

15 in that they show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them,

Who are Atheist angry at. They claim they do not believe in God, but always have a critique on morality. What are they appealing to? Society has changed radically in just the past decade. Marriage has been redefined. Chelsea Clinton just celebrated the economic boon abortion brings. So they put a price tag on children. On the other side, they accuse Marco Rubio and the NRA of putting a price tag on children? If putting a price tag on children is the reason to be upset? Where is the morality?

See the appeal to morality, is not an appeal to society. It is a deeper appeal to a universal moral law. To appeal to a universal sense of the law is to posit a UNIVERSAL LAW GIVER that stands above society, circumstances, convenience, governments, judges, presidents and even time. So one if one claims there is no God, WHAT ARE THEY COMPLAINING ABOUT? if there is no universal law giver and everything came about by chance and randomness, what they want to claim is morality is merely chance inconvenience.

Sam Harris a leading atheists keeps running into that problem as he debates. He wants to claim that you can go from what it and what he thinks the world should be to a moral imperative to people OUGHT to do such and such. How do you create laws without a morality. How do you have morality without the Transcendence of God.

I WILL WORSHIP THE LORD EXCLUSIVELY. (No other gods before Me.)

EVERYONE WORSHIPS SOMETHING.

People complain about the demands and commands of Jesus. First they complain about His command to be worshipped, how dare He.

First, once you acknowledge God, how dare you put yourself on a pedestal to judge God? How dare you demand He do anything according to what seems right in your own eyes. And to take this a step further, admit that it is pride. I want to see anyone here tell the government, How dare you tax me. I want to see anyone tell the car dealer, how dare you expect me to pay you for this car and drive off.

The presumption of telling God, how dare you expect me to give you thanks and praise for the very life you give me goes beyond my ability to comment. Yet, even among those who claim to be followers of Christ, it’s definitely hard to find them on the road Sunday morning.

Matthew 6:24 NASB95

24 “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.

Matthew

Jesus attracts a large number of people in my circle. They enjoy hearing about His grace and had no qualms about some of His teachings, but they usually got upset when they realized Jesus asked for everything.

When they’d see those passages about Jesus telling people to give up everything, say goodbye to all they know, they’d get upset.

How dare He. Who does He think He is?

They’d always freak out because they thought Jesus had no right to ask for everything from them. To put their whole lives, desires, and passions at His feet.

I never got why they only got mad at Jesus for that. Jesus isn’t the only one who asks for everything.

In fact, everything asks for everything.

Everything asks for your life. For your all. For every last drop of your allegiance.

Power does. Sexual fulfillment does. Athletics do. Your significant other does. Your job does. Jesus isn’t unique in that way. But He is unique in that He gave up everything first. All those other things use fear and false promises and force us to get what they want.

Jesus is the only one who lays His life down for you first, before He asks for yours. He pursues, He dies, He gives up everything and then calls us to Himself. There’s no force, only wooing. His love is so great that it compels us to lay down our lives in return. That’s the only appropriate response when we understand just how great His sacrifice was for us.

God’s heart in tells us that He draws idolatry out to its logical conclusion:

Their idols are silver and gold, / the work of human hands. / They have mouths, but do not speak. —

God even makes the point that when we cry out to idols, they can’t save us. They’re dead. The paradox of an idol, unlike Jesus, is that the worshiper gives it power. We are the ones who give it life. Alcohol can only be a god if we make it one. Money can only be a god if we worship it.

b. I WILL EXAMINE MY HEART.

2 Timothy 3:4 NASB95

4 treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,

Adrian Rogers Sermon Archive II. The Discrimination of the First Commandment

but God also will not allow a rival. You see, some don’t believe in God, others believe in the wrong god, and some believe in too many gods. The Greeks had 30,000 gods, and today, in India, people may starve, while sacred cows that are looked upon as divine may roam the streets, and so forth.

You can make a god of anything. You know, we Americans pride ourselves on the fact that we’re not idolaters; but, friend, we may be idolaters. The Bible spoke of some who were “lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God” (2 Timothy 3:4). Pleasure can become your God. The Bible speaks of some “whose God is their belly” (Philippians 3:19). The Bible says that covetousness is idolatry (Colossians 3:5). Some love the almighty dollar more than they love the Almighty God.

Let me give you a test for idolatry. If there’s anything that you fear more than God, then you’re an idolater. Secondly, if there’s anything that you trust more than God, then you’re an idolater. Thirdly, if there’s anything that you love more than God, then you’re an idolater. Anything that you fear more than God, anything that you trust more than God, anything that you love more than God—that’s the meaning of the phrase before me. God is saying, “I don’t want anything first. I demand preeminence”: the discrimination of it; and discrimination is not always bad. You’d better learn the difference between good and bad, and cleave to the good, and refuse the evil. “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.”

The Bible, in the Old Testament, spoke of some fisherman who, after they caught their fish, turned around and worshiped the net—that is, they worshiped their business. I know some men like that. You speak to a man, and you say, “How do you support yourself?” he says, “My business supports me”: that’s idolatry.

A little boy brought a loaf of bread, and someone asked him, “Where did you get that bread?” “Oh,” he said, “I got it from the grocery.” He said, “Where did the grocer get it?” “Well,” he said, “the grocer got it from the baker.” He said, “Well, how did the baker get it?” He said, “Well, he made it out of flour.” “Well, where did he get that flour?” “He got it from the miller.” “Well, where did the miller get the flour?” “Well, he got it from the farmer.” “Well, where did the farmer get it?” “Well, he got it from God.” “Well, let me ask you another question, or the same question: Where did you get that loaf of bread?” This time, he smiled, and said, “From God.” Amen? You see, dear friend, don’t you say that your business takes care of you. It is God that takes care of you. It is God that sends the rain to make the grain grow. It is God that causes life.

God doesn’t have to take your life, dear friend. All He has to do is stop giving it. It is in Him that “we live, and move, and have our being” (Acts 17:28). And anything that you love more than God causes you to be an idolater. Anything that you hear more than God causes you to be an idolater. Anything that you trust more than God causes you to be an idolater. And God says, “I will not share my glory with another.” There is the discrimination of it.

Exodus 20:1–5 NASB95

1 Then God spoke all these words, saying, 2 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 3 “You shall have no other gods before Me. 4 “You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. 5 “You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me,

Philippians 3:19 NASB95

19 whose end is destruction, whose god is their appetite, and whose glory is in their shame, who set their minds on earthly things.

2 Timothy 3:4 NASB95

4 treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,

People today who will sell their American Birthright for a promised bowl of soup today. Oh, the government will be my God. The God of Progressives and Socialists. What they

exodus

Is there anything you fear more than God? Is there anything you trust more than God? Anything you love more than God?

We will worship anything. Nuhushatan.

Habakkuk 2:2 NASB95

2 Then the Lord answered me and said, “Record the vision And inscribe it on tablets, That the one who reads it may run.

Habbakkuk 2:2

3. I WILL EXPRESS MY FAITH OPENLY.

Psalm 22:22 NASB95

22 I will tell of Your name to my brethren; In the midst of the assembly I will praise You.

Ways to worship the Lord

I will faithfully attend small group.

I will come expectant and choose to be excited for worship.

I will invite others to worship the Lord.

I will give thanks before every meal.

Gnostics appear under many different labels, all rooted in the same mistakes. They can call themselves fascists, communists, National Socialists, progressives, Marxists, positivists, and or psychoanalysts, but they are all the same, just varied.

In one of his most famous passages, written for his University of Munich lectures, Voegelin claimed:

The attempt at world destruction will not destroy the world, but will only increase the disorder of society. The gnostic’s flight from a truly dreadful, confusing, and oppressive state of the world is understandable. But the order of the ancient world was renewed by that movement which strove through loving action to revive the practice of the ‘serious play’ (to use Plato’s expression)—that is, by Christianity. Voegelin, Science, Politics, and Gnosticism, 12).

In essence, Voegelin believed, each of these Gnostics wanted to murder God.The death of the spirit is the price of progress. Nietzsche revealed this mystery of the Western apocalypse when he announced that God was dead and he had been murdered. This Gnostic murder is constantly committed by the men who sacrifice God to civilization. The more fervently all human energies are thrown into the great enterprise of salvation through world-immanent action, the farther the human being who engage in this enterprise move away from the life of the spirit. And since the life of the spirit is the source of order in man and society, the very success of a Gnostic civilization is the cause of its decline. A civilization can, indeed, advance and decline at the same time—but not forever. There is a limit toward which this ambiguous process moves; the limit is reached when an activist sect which represents the Gnostic truth organizes civilization in an empire under its rule. Totalitarianism, defined as the existential rule of Gnostic activists, is the end form of progressive civilization [Voegelin, New Science of Politics, 131-132]