Deuteronomy 5:7 - No Other Gods
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Introduction
Introduction
You will never be right with God by keeping The Ten Commandments. But the Ten Commandments will show you how wrong with God you are.
And when you see how wrong with God you are, you will either be driven to despair or to salvation.
You have already failed to keep these Ten Commandments.
If you keep looking to yourself for the strength to keep them perfectly, you will drive yourself mad.
If you ever measure yourself as having kept them perfectly, you’re either ignorant of what the commandment demands or you’re delusional.
But rather look to ourselves when we fail these Ten Commandments, we must look to Jesus who had no sins, no trespasses—who never once broke God’s Law—the Jesus who died to pay the price for our law-breaking and rose to bring us the perfect righteousness demanded in these Ten Commandments.
Tonight we begin with with Commandment #1: “You shall have no other gods before Me,” (Deut. 5:7).
As you probably know, the Ten Commandments can be divided into two parts (or we might think of two tablets): Commands 1-4 direct our relationship with God; Commands 5-10 direct our relationship with neighbor.
The Ten Commandments are telling us how to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and how to love neighbor as we love ourselves.
In this way, the Ten Commandments (like the first second great commandments that Jesus); they are the sum of all the Law and the Prophets.
Let’s read them.
[READING - Deuteronomy 5:6-21]
6 ‘I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 7 ‘You shall have no other gods before Me. 8 ‘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. 9 ‘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, and on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, 10 but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments. 11 ‘You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not leave him unpunished who takes His name in vain. 12 ‘Observe the sabbath day to keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. 13 ‘Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 14 but the seventh day is a sabbath of the Lord your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter or your male servant or your female servant or your ox or your donkey or any of your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you, so that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you. 15 ‘You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out of there by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm; therefore the Lord your God commanded you to observe the sabbath day. 16 ‘Honor your father and your mother, as the Lord your God has commanded you, that your days may be prolonged and that it may go well with you on the land which the Lord your God gives you. 17 ‘You shall not murder. 18 ‘You shall not commit adultery. 19 ‘You shall not steal. 20 ‘You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. 21 ‘You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, and you shall not desire your neighbor’s house, his field or his male servant or his female servant, his ox or his donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor.’
[PRAYER]
[CONTEXT] A wicked generation of Israelites has perished in the wilderness and a new generation is poised to enter and possess the Promised Land.
Before they do, God renews His covenant with them—His Covenant of Law. This Law was to direct the living of God’s people as they lived in Promised Land.
Again, the very first commandment is “You shall have no other gods before Me.”
John Calvin said that this command means that God cannot bear any rival and will not allow any rival.
Thomas Watson said is the foundation of all true religion.
[AIM] Tonight we’ll answer the question: Why this commandment? And along the way we will see how we’ve fallen short and why we need Jesus.
[INTER] So, why this commandment?
[TS] Let me give you a couple REASONS…
Major Ideas
Major Ideas
Reason #1: Because of who God is, we shall have no other gods before Him.
Reason #1: Because of who God is, we shall have no other gods before Him.
[EXP] God is the only God. YHWH is not one choice among many but the only option. He is God and there is no other.
Earlier in Deuteronomy 4:33-35, Moses said to God’s people...
33 “Has any people heard the voice of God speaking from the midst of the fire, as you have heard it, and survived? 34 “Or has a god tried to go to take for himself a nation from within another nation by trials, by signs and wonders and by war and by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm and by great terrors, as the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes? 35 “To you it was shown that you might know that the Lord, He is God; there is no other besides Him.
A moment later in Deuteronomy 4:39 the same truth is reiterated…
39 “Know therefore today, and take it to your heart, that the Lord, He is God in heaven above and on the earth below; there is no other.
It’s a truth that will be repeated in Deuteronomy 32:12 and Deuteronomy 32:39. It’s a truth is repeated throughout the OT in Exodus 8:10; 9:14; 1 Samuel 2:2; Isaiah 43:10-12; Isaiah 44:6-8; Isaiah 45:5-7.
Listen to Isaiah 45:5-7…
5 “I am the Lord, and there is no other; Besides Me there is no God. I will gird you, though you have not known Me; 6 That men may know from the rising to the setting of the sun That there is no one besides Me. I am the Lord, and there is no other, 7 The One forming light and creating darkness, Causing well-being and creating calamity; I am the Lord who does all these.
[ILLUS] Sometimes when you go to a restaurant they come out with 30-page menus with what looks like hundreds of items. It can be difficult to choose what to eat when you have a plethora of options.
Some people think of worship like that. They see before them a spiritual menu of many different gods—some who do this, some who do that—and they get to order whatever king of god they want because there are so many to choose from.
But the truth is, there is only one God on the worship menu. And we will either worship Him or break this very first commandment by worshipping someone or something else.
[APP] With this first commandment God demands our exclusive devotion, our perfect faithfulness.
But here’s the problem: We’ve already failed.
You see, Ephesians 2 says that before we worshipped God through faith in His Son Jesus, we all followed the prince of the power of the air (i.e., Satan) and we all lived in the flesh—lusting, indulging, by nature children of wrath (Eph. 2:2-3).
In 1 Corinthians 6 the Apostle Paul lists out some of those who followed the way of Satan—fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, homosexuals, thieves, drunkards, revilers, swindlers—and then he says in 1 Corinthians 6:11a...
11 Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.
But if this is who we were—breakers of this very first, most fundamental commandment—then how can we be made right with God?
11 Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.
Because of who God is, we shall have no other gods before Him.
Only in Christ Jesus can we obey this command.
[TS] …
Reason #2: Because of what God has done, we shall have no other gods before Him.
Reason #2: Because of what God has done, we shall have no other gods before Him.
[EXP] Notice how the Ten Commandments are introduced in Deuteronomy 5:6...
6 ‘I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
Because God is the god who saved His people when they cried out for salvation, He demands they worship Him exclusively. They shall have no other gods before Him.
The phrase ‘before Me’ in Deuteronomy 5:7 could be translated as “before My face” or “in My presence”.
As God’s people through rescue and through covenant, the Israelites continually lived before the face of God or in His presence.
Therefore, there was never an acceptable time or place to have some god before YHWH, the one true God.
[ILLUS] You might remember the story of Naaman in 2 Kings 5. He was a captain in the Syrian army and a leper. He was told about the prophet Elisha in Samaria who could cure leprosy. Naaman went to him and was healed, and responded to his healing with these words, “Behold now, I know that there is no God in all the earth, but in Israel...” (2 Kings 5:15).
But then Naaman asked Elisha in 2 Kings 5:18…
18 “In this matter may the Lord pardon your servant: when my master goes into the house of Rimmon to worship there, and he leans on my hand and I bow myself in the house of Rimmon, when I bow myself in the house of Rimmon, the Lord pardon your servant in this matter.”
Naaman still had a job to do back home in Syria and apart of that job entailed bowing with his king in the temple of a false god. He asked Elisha if YHWH—the only God—would pardon this. Elisha seemed to indicate that he would, telling Naaman to ‘go in peace’, but I wonder if Naaman ever finally said, “I can’t keep bowing in the house of this false god when I’ve been healed by the one true God!”
[APP] Having been saved by God’s grace through faith in Jesus, surely we can’t keep bowing before false gods when we’ve been saved by the one true God.
J. I. Packer wrote that people are often tempted to bow before the little-g gods of sex, shekels, and stomach, which he called an unholy trinity constituting one god: self.
And if it was sex, shekels, and stomach, Packer said it was the enslaving trio of pleasure, possessions, and position.
Or for others it was football, the firm, and family.
“In the mater of life’s loyalty,” he said, “temptation is a many-headed monster.”
Perhaps we’ve bowed to one of these little-g gods, these idols. If so, there is forgiveness in Christ who was always perfectly faithful to His Father; and who will credit His perfect faithfulness to us if we will trust Him.
And if we have trusted Him, then we are empowered to resist the temptation to bow before any god except the one true God.
He has saved us, we shall have no other gods before Him.
[TS] …
Reason #3: Because of where we are going, we shall have no other gods before Him.
Reason #3: Because of where we are going, we shall have no other gods before Him.
[EXP] Israel had come out of Egypt where there were all sorts of idols and they were headed into the Promised Land where there were all sorts of idols.
Thus, when God’s people entered the land, they were to clear it of every idol-worshipping people. And they most certainly were not to intermarry with the idol-worshippers or allow their children to intermarry with them. As Deuteronomy 7:3-4 says…
3 “Furthermore, you shall not intermarry with them; you shall not give your daughters to their sons, nor shall you take their daughters for your sons. 4 “For they will turn your sons away from following Me to serve other gods; then the anger of the Lord will be kindled against you and He will quickly destroy you.
Given the reality of idol-worship in the land they were entering, it was imperative that Israel have no others God’s before the one true God—YHWH.
The only hope of remaining faithful to God—the only God, the God who saved them—was in obedience to this command.
The command is stated emphatically to Israel as a whole and to every Israelite individually in the severest possible terms—“You shall have no other gods before Me.”
Why such strong language? Because the price for breaking this commandment is death— “For they will turn your sons away from following Me to serve other gods; then the anger of the Lord will be kindled against you and He will quickly destroy you.”
[APP] Thank God for Jesus who died the death that we deserved for breaking this commandment and gave us standing before God as if we’d never broken it.
[TS] …
Conclusion
Conclusion
How shall we respond to Jesus? If He has died to save us from God’s wrath because of our breaking this commandment; if He has given us His righteousness before God—the righteousness of one that never broke this first commandment, how should we respond to Him?
Well, we could rightly say that Jesus is deserving of our praise or our service or any number of good things, but in light of this first of the Ten Commandments, the appropriate response to Jesus is exclusive devotion.
Having been saved by Him, exclusive devotion is what Jesus demands from us.
24 Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. 25 “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. 26 “For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? 27 “For the Son of Man is going to come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and will then repay every man according to his deeds.
We shall have no other gods before Him.