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WHO IS FIRST EXODUS 20:3
If you have your copy of God’s Word with you this morning, I would ask you to turn to Exodus 20 as I read verse 3 to you.
Last week, we introduced the Ten Commandments by setting the context in which they were given.
Remember they were given in the context of grace.
God had redeemed Israel from slavery and as a result this is how they are to respond to him.
As you read the Ten Commandments, God summarizes his moral laws for us with Ten Words or pronouncements.
Wouldn’t it be great if man could do that today?
In 302 words, God told us about Himself and what He expects from His children.
That’s a pretty good economy of words when you think about some of the laws coming out of Washington DC.
For instance a recent federal directive to regulate the price of cabbage contains 26,911 words!
These commandments have been divided in different ways, but I want to stick to the traditional Protestant approach.
The first four commandments deal with a right relationship with God, while the last six deal with the right relationship with fellow human beings.
This morning, we are going to begin with commandment number 1.
This is the first of Ten Commandments (words or pronouncements) that God gives the children of Israel after He delivers them from the bondage of Egypt.
In fact, I would say that this commandment is foundational because all the other commandments are built on it.
If this fact is not accepted, then why in the world would you want to accept any of the other nine?
So God speaks to the people *you shall have no other gods before Me*.
These words in the Hebrew make an emphatic statement about God and the proper response of God’s children to Him.
All through Scripture, these words are reiterated for God’s people to understand the importance of it.
Moses in a song after the parting of the Red Sea sang, “Who is like You among the gods, O LORD? Who is like You, majestic in holiness, awesome in praises, working wonders?” (Ex.
15:11).
In Deut.
6:14, God commanded, “You shall not follow other gods, any of the gods of the peoples who surround you.”
The psalmist said, “let there be no strange god among you; nor shall you worship any foreign god” (Psalm 81:9).
Jeremiah, the prophet, wrote, “do not go after other gods to serve them and to worship them, and do not provoke Me to anger with the work of your hands, and I will do you no harm” (Jeremiah 25:6).
Hosea wrote, “I have been the LORD your God since the land of Egypt; and you were not to know any god except Me, for there is no savior besides Me” (Hosea 13:4).
In the New Testament, Jesus obeyed this command in his temptation with Satan in the wilderness.
Satan took Jesus to a very high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms and their glory and he said, “All these things I will give You, if you fall down and worship me.”
Then Jesus said to him, “Go, Satan!
For it is written, ‘YOU SHALL WORSHIP THE LORD YOUR GOD, AND SERVE HIM ONLY.’” (Matthew 4:8-10).
Paul, in his letter to the Corinthians, wrote, “Therefore concerning the of things offered to idols, we know that there is no such thing as an idol in the world, and that there is no God but one. .
.yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom are all things and we exist for Him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we exist through Him” (1 Cor.
8:4, 6).
And John wrote, “We know that the Son of God has come, and has given us understanding so that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ.
This is the true God and eternal life.
Little children, guard yourselves from idols” (1 John 5:20-21).
So this command is foundational in that God wants to be first in your life.
He desires to have the number one priority in your life.
The culture in which Israel was being delivered from was a polytheistic culture.
This means that people in Egypt served a multiple number of gods.
One looked to the fertility gods to bless the crops as well as the mother's womb.
He looked to the god of rain to shower the seeds he planted and the storm gods to avert their wrath long enough for harvest to take place.
"They worshiped the gods of fields and rivers, light and darkness, sun and storms," comments Philip Ryken [Written in Stone, 58].
Sun god and moon god received devoted worship.
Offerings and sacrifices, accompanied by fear and superstition, daily professed their belief in many gods.
It was from this culture that God was delivering His chosen people.
After four hundred and thirty years, there would be great temptation to keep the gods of this foreign land.
Also, the land that they were about to inherit from the Lord was a land in which the people were devoted to a multiple of gods.
In fact, these gods still exist in the imagination of people.
It may not be in the form of stone or wood or statue; but it could be the god of greed, lust, power, fame, or prestige.
If you can name it, people probably have worshiped it.
So God lays a principle, a foundational command for the people of Israel, as well as for us to obey.
It is a command to get our undivided loyalty and affection for Him.
God desires our heart, mind and soul.
He demands of us our entire being for being rescued by His grace.
In giving this command God uses an emphatic no in prohibiting us from following after other gods.
It is to be exclusive just like a marriage in which a wife is to have no other husband or a husband to have no other wife.
The two shall cleave to each and become one flesh.
In other words, God has no rivals.
This was a problem for Israel as we have already stated and is a problem for many today.
So what God is not saying is that “I am not to be on top of a list of the many gods you have,” and “you can have Me on Sunday only and the rest of the week there can be other gods in your life.”
No, what God is saying is that I do not want you to have any god instead of me or along side of me or in addition to me.
I want your undivided affection.
I believe that this is clearly illustrated in the story of Elijah and the prophets of Baal in 1 Kings 18.
In this story, the prophet Elijah goes to the top of Mount Carmel to confront the people about their divided loyalty to God.
There is not to be a blend between the worship of Baal and God.
So what ensues is a battle of the prophets.
In this battle you have 450 prophets of Baal and 400 prophets of Asherah on one side and one prophet of the Lord on the other side.
The rules for battle were clearly spelled out.
The 450 prophets of Baal would cut a bull into pieces and put it on wood.
Then they would call on their god to consume their sacrifice by sending fire.
Elijah would do the same and call on the name of the Lord.
The god who answered by fire is God.
First, you have the prophets of Baal calling on their god the entire morning.
Then, Elijah begins to taunt them.
Maybe their god was “deep in thought,” in which case it was pretty obvious that wasn’t thinking about them.
Maybe he was busy—responding to the call of nature—therefore subject to human limitations.
Maybe he is traveling and can’t be present to help them, therefore he is not omnipresent.
Maybe he has grown weary and has fallen asleep.
So the prophets begin to pierce themselves and bleed but were not able to get the fire ignited.
“There was no response, no one answered, no one paid attention” (1 Kings 18:29).
Then it was Elijah’s turn.
The Bible says he repaired the altar and had his offering doused three times with water.
God answered his prayer and the people proclaimed “The LORD—He is God!
The LORD—He is God!” (1 Kings 18:39).
There is no god like God!
He is transcendent-far beyond us in character, perfections, being, and comprehension, and yet He is imminent as Paul stated, "He is not far from each one of us."
This God displays His wrath against sin, and yet without any conflict or contradiction, shows love and kindness to sinners through the grace in Jesus Christ.
He is altogether good, perfect in holiness, righteous and just in all that He does, hating iniquity, and rewarding faithfulness.
He judges and condemns, yet He pursues sinners to forgive through satisfaction of His justice secured by His Son.
He is "the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God," whom belongs "honor and glory forever and ever" (1 Tim.
1:17).
"From Him and through Him and to Him are all things.
To Him be the glory forever" (Rom.
11:36).
The first commandment is pretty clear, “You shall have no other gods before Me.”
Every person has a god.
Ligon Duncan points out, "That which we love and serve and desire and long after and aim for and strive for and think of the most is our god."
The gods of our age may not be like the gods of old, which were made out of wood or silver or gold.
Yet, there are a host of things that people consider to be god.
I want to name a few.
First, there is what someone called a “pluralism” of gods.
People view these gods with their different beliefs and systems of worship as equal.
For example, in India there is the goddess of death called Cali.
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