One God
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One God
One God
Throughout scripture, God at times shows himself superior than the gods of the pagans. He shows himself superior to powerful kings and Pharaohs. You are familiar with many of them. Certainly Exodus records how God showed himself powerful. In many of the battles of nations against Israel, God shows he is powerful. Scripture also tells us stories of what happens when God is not properly regarded.
In acts, Herod was killed when he accepted the worship of the people. Elijah proved God to be the only true God in his contest with the priests of Baal. I want to read one account from scripture, though, that you may not be as familiar with, but it shows God’s superiority over idols, over man-made gods. and this happens when the Philistines capture the ark of God. Remember that the ark was a visible symbol to the people of Israel of God’s presence. Here is what happens when the Philistines decide they want that ark:
When the Philistines captured the ark of God, they brought it from Ebenezer to Ashdod. Then the Philistines took the ark of God and brought it into the house of Dagon and set it up beside Dagon. And when the people of Ashdod rose early the next day, behold, Dagon had fallen face downward on the ground before the ark of the Lord. So they took Dagon and put him back in his place. But when they rose early on the next morning, behold, Dagon had fallen face downward on the ground before the ark of the Lord, and the head of Dagon and both his hands were lying cut off on the threshold. Only the trunk of Dagon was left to him. This is why the priests of Dagon and all who enter the house of Dagon do not tread on the threshold of Dagon in Ashdod to this day.
The hand of the Lord was heavy against the people of Ashdod, and he terrified and afflicted them with tumors, both Ashdod and its territory. And when the men of Ashdod saw how things were, they said, “The ark of the God of Israel must not remain with us, for his hand is hard against us and against Dagon our god.” So they sent and gathered together all the lords of the Philistines and said, “What shall we do with the ark of the God of Israel?” They answered, “Let the ark of the God of Israel be brought around to Gath.” So they brought the ark of the God of Israel there. But after they had brought it around, the hand of the Lord was against the city, causing a very great panic, and he afflicted the men of the city, both young and old, so that tumors broke out on them. So they sent the ark of God to Ekron. But as soon as the ark of God came to Ekron, the people of Ekron cried out, “They have brought around to us the ark of the God of Israel to kill us and our people.” They sent therefore and gathered together all the lords of the Philistines and said, “Send away the ark of the God of Israel, and let it return to its own place, that it may not kill us and our people.” For there was a deathly panic throughout the whole city. The hand of God was very heavy there. The men who did not die were struck with tumors, and the cry of the city went up to heaven.
It is dangerous to take lightly the one true God. Now, you may be asking what this has to do with Deuteronomy chapter 6. Well, I am using it as an illustration. We are going to be in Deuteronomy 6 for the next few weeks at least, and my prayer has been that God would use the study of this text to draw us out of any complacency we may have regarding our own spiritual growth and that of our families and the whole community of believers who call Oasis home.
We are preparing to fully engage as a church in D6 starting in September, and this is the honest truth, that when I began our study of Deuteronomy at the beginning of the year, I had not known we would even be doing D6. In fact, you may recall we were very limited in doing something like that because of our other building having been leased to another church. But as things turned out, the board chose to not renew that lease. I also did not know I would miss a few Sundays due to my health issues that I was dealing with.
I say that just to comment that I happen to think it is superb timing that here we are, arriving at Deuteronomy 6 in our preaching series, just before we begin that focus next month. I wish I could take credit for some very clever planning to put us where we are at this moment, but honestly, it was not my timing. But here we are. Today our main focus is going to be a single verse, a very important verse; Deuteronomy 6:4 is a verse that is recited by the devout Jew multiple times per day. Deut6.4
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.
But before we dive into this, let remind ourselves where we have been thus far in Moses’ talk to the people, and where we are headed. Moses has been recalling to the people of Israel God’s faithfulness and to an extent, Israel’s unfaithfulness, from the Exodus to the present time. The present time this speech is being given is shortly before they are to enter the promised land. Moses is recalling the commands of God, and charging the people to follow them. Both before and after Deuteronomy 6, Moses is once again laying down the law of God. Some have said that Moses’ main concern is to teach the people a holy fear of God. Deuteronomy 6 immediately follows Deuteronomy 5. There, the Ten Commandments are recalled to the people, having first been recorded in Exodus 20. Moses reminds the people of these commands, and also reminds the people how they trembled after seeing the manifest presence of God, and begged Moses to be their mediator between them and God.
Then Moses continues into Chapter 6; Deut6.1-9
“Now this is the commandment—the statutes and the rules—that the Lord your God commanded me to teach you, that you may do them in the land to which you are going over, to possess it, that you may fear the Lord your God, you and your son and your son’s son, by keeping all his statutes and his commandments, which I command you, all the days of your life, and that your days may be long. Hear therefore, O Israel, and be careful to do them, that it may go well with you, and that you may multiply greatly, as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has promised you, in a land flowing with milk and honey.
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
Now, particularly with Deuteronomy 6:4-9, this is the basis that the people who put together the D6 curriculum started with. There is a need for people of faith to be diligent in their teaching of the faith to each generation. This principle is not only for the Israelites. Certainly, they had many specific rules that applied to them that we do not have. We are not concerned so much with teaching our children which sacrifice was for what purpose like they were. But that does not mean we should not learn about those things, since they show us something about the character of God.
So this is not about teaching our children as though we are there listening to Moses. But as followers of Jesus, we should greatly desire to know Him better. Everything in the Old Testament points in one way or another to Jesus. So while the New Testament may be our primary source of instruction in the Christian Faith, learning about the long history of redemption that God has prepared for us will greatly enrich our understanding and appreciation for what God has done for us.
So we are looking at getting some signs to put in both of our buildings with Deuteronomy 6.4-9 on them, so that we will be always reminded of what our focus is as a church. We are focused on making disciples, and that includes equipping and spurring on parents, grandparents, single people, widows and widowers, any faithful person to Christ, to join us in raising up and teaching each new generation of believers what it is that Jesus demands from His followers.
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.
Hear. This is a clear command. Hear. wrapped up in this command is not only the need to hear what Moses is saying, but a need to believe what He is saying. One of the best ways to find out what someone believes is by observing what they do. For example, if someone told you that if you were smart, you would buy all the stock in a certain company you could, because that company was on a path of guaranteed success, and you learned that the person telling you this had never invested a dime, you may conclude they do not really believe what they are telling you.
I know a lady who has been very successful as a sales manager at various car dealerships. And many years ago, she made a career move from a Ford dealership to a Volkswagon dealership. Before the Ford Dealership, she was at a Chrysler dealership. I remember asking her about it, thinking that must be really hard. After all, day in and day out, for many years, you have been telling people that Ford is the best vehicle, and telling customers that they will be happiest if they buy a Ford. I asked her how can she now go sell Volkswagons? And her answer was, “Love the one you’re with”.
You see, I don’t think I would be able to do that. If I spent years saying that Fords were the best, and sold many vehicles with that brand, I don’t think I could face any of my former customers and tell them that now VW is the best. I think if I had sold you a Ford with all the sales techniques I knew, and called you back a year later and told you well, now I think you would be happier with a VW, you would have to ask yourself if I really believe that VW is the best. Or, did I really think Ford was the best last year. And certainly if it was discovered by that customer that I don’t personally own a Ford or a VW, but some other brand, that customer would most certainly be within reason to question
My point is this: You prove what you believe by what you do. The people of Israel, in being commanded to hear, were also being commanded to believe. The evidence of that belief would be in their actions. Augustine said, “Love God, then do as you please”. What did he mean by this? Do as you please? What Christian leader would ever teach his people this? Well, it is a very deep statement. If you love God, obedience would follow. A desire to please Him would follow. Wanting to be in His will would follow. So Augustine was saying just the same thing in a much more clever way than I did. So to hear is to obey
The evidence of your belief, the evidence of your love, is in the doing. So said Jesus that the evidence of love for Him is in the keeping of His commands. Hear, O Israel. Hear, believe. The Lord our God, the Lord is One. In the Hebrew there are six words after the command to hear, and they have been translated in several ways:
“Yahweh is our God, Yahweh is One”
“Our God is Yahweh, Yahweh alone!”
“Obey, Israel, Yahweh. Yahweh our God is the Unique”
“The LORD our God, the LORD is one”
“The LORD our God is one Lord”
And there are some more as well. So what does all this mean? Well, in these different translations we can see that this short phrase carries in it a lot of meaning. Yahweh is one. He was to be the only God to the Israelites. Only he should have their love, their worship, their allegiance. He is the Lord OUR God. Not that he belongs only to them, but they are to live as though they belong to Him.
I like that third translation. It got my attention more than the others. First, instead of hear, it says obey. In the Hebrew understanding, the command to hear meant to obey. But what really struck me was “Yahweh our God is the Unique”. the unique.
Dictionary: Unique means being the only one of its kind; unlike anything else: this discovery was unique in history | original and unique designs. • [predicative] (unique to) belonging or connected to (one particular person, group, or place): particularly remarkable, special, or unusual:
Our God is the unique. I like this description. One thing to note here is that many of the scholars that I read as I studied this do not think the main goal of this statement is to reinforce monotheism, though it does, but more to differentiate who God is as opposed to the way pagan gods were believed in. And this is why I introduced you to Dagon when I began. Who was Dagon? Well, note that in the text of Samuel 1, it specifies that it was the Dagon of Ashdod. You see, most of the pagan gods, or idols, were duplicated in many different places or settings.
There is no clear evidence of who Dagon really was. Some historians have said he was a fish god, half man and half fish, like Aquaman. Regardless of whether he was a fish god or not, the text leads us to believe there was more than one Dagon, otherwise it would not be necessary to mention that this is the one that was in Ashdod. I will quote from the pulpit commentary:
Deuteronomy Chapter 6
This is an affirmation not so much of the moneity as of the unity and simplicity of Jehovah, the alone God. Though Elohim (plu.), he is one. The speaker does not say, “Jehovah is alone God,” but “Jehovah our Elohim is one Jehovah” (comp. for the force of אֶחָד Exod. 26:6, 11; Ezek. 37:16–19). Among the heathen there were many Baals and many Jupiters; and it was believed that the deity might be divided and communicated to many. But the God of Israel, Jehovah, is one, indivisible and incommunicable. He is the Absolute and the Infinite One, who alone is to be worshipped, on whom all depend, and to whose command all must yield obedience (cf. Zech. 14:9). Not only to polytheism, but to pantheism, and to the conception of a localized or national deity, is this declaration of the unity of Jehovah opposed. With these words the Jews begin their daily liturgy, morning and evening; the sentence expresses the essence of their religious belief; and so familiar is it to their thought and speech that, it is said, they were often, during the persecution in Spain, betrayed to their enemies by the involuntary utterance of it.
Spence says in that quote there were many Baals and many Jupiters. I noticed when I was a child going along to the stores at Christmas time, that there were many Santa Clauses. This may date me a bit. But you would go to K-Mart and there was a Santa there. You would go to the mall and there was a Santa there. Outside some stores were Santas ringing the bell for the Salvation Army. Most kids figure out there is something going on here. They don’t even all look the same. Some don’t smell like Santa, but they smell like beef and cheese.
And this was the case with the idols of pagan worship. You may see the temple of Dagon in Ashdod, and then visit another Philistine town and see a different one. You may visit someone’s home and see a miniature Dagon. Like many Santa Clauses, there were many Baals and Jupiters.
Yahweh, though, was not like that. Yahweh was one, the unique. Not only could pagan gods be duplicated in many places, those who worshiped them believed they were all opposed to one another. You may please one with a gift, but another one may still be angry with you. Yahweh is not only unique, he is one in the sense that there is no opposition within him. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are not constantly add odds with each, like the pagan gods. One can trust that the unique God is consistent in purpose. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit never clash with each other, never challenge each other, never get in cosmic fights while the people cower below, unsure of which God really is going to come out ahead in the end.
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are unified. Now, there are sometimes people who may say, “Stick with the New testament, and we will be fine!” Well, Jesus quoted often from Deuteronomy, including quoting 6:4-5, and attaching to it His endorsement of it, saying it is the greatest commandment.
Throughout scripture we are reminded that God is one:
I am the Lord; that is my name;
my glory I give to no other,
nor my praise to carved idols.
And the Lord will be king over all the earth. On that day the Lord will be one and his name one.
And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.
Therefore, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that “an idol has no real existence,” and that “there is no God but one.” For although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth—as indeed there are many “gods” and many “lords”— yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.
There is only one true God. The Philistines believed in their god, Dagon. But before the one true God, Dagon, even though he were only a man-made statue, must bow. But rather than choosing to worship this one True God, who brought humiliation to Dagon, and was afflicting those people with tumors because of their lack of reverence for him, the Philistines just wanted to get rid of the one true God.
Such is still the case today. Confronted with the One True God, many people today, just as those Philistines of old, rather than bow to him, rather than submit, they want to get rid of him. Why? Because He demands righteousness, and the people reject it. What do you do when confronted with the One True God? Do you hear, obey, love? Or do you stop up your ears, rebel, and hate?
It has been said for a long time, that if you talk about Jesus in a certain way you will always be welcomed. If you talk about his kindness, his care, his concern for people, that’s ok. But if you talk about what He requires of us, you may quickly lose popularity. If you talk about holiness, you will be hated by many.
Many will not bow the knee to Christ willingly, but there will come a day when each will bow, and proclaim him Lord. While you have the chance now, the Holy Spirit calls you to obey Christ, to repent of sin, and believe the gospel.
In the past decade or so, we have all witnessed an alarmingly fast degradation of the society around us. IN decades past, people would say of politicians, they pretend they are moral but they aren’t really. Now many politicians and influential people do not even pretend to be moral. They are openly mocking the values that God himself has imposed on His creation.
And most of you may agree with me, and like the preaching, and want to be challenged, but it may not be very long before we have real opposition to this type of preaching. Are we ready? When the opposition comes, will we be found faithful? How will our children react and understand when in their schools, there are children who want to change their gender, or even worse, they want to be a cat or something?
I came from a pretty old fashioned city, and I just heard this week that the high school I went to now has students who identify as cats, and they have put litter boxes in the restrooms for them. How much must you hate a child to affirm this kind of mental disorder? There is no love in that. How can the school board approve of such things? How can they not love those children enough to get them the counseling and help they need instead of coddling them and telling them whatever they want to be, that’s fine?
They mock God’s order, His creation. There is severe judgment to come. Jesus warned about those who would cause a child to sin. There is severe punishment for those who do so and do not repent. So how will our children cope with the craziness all around them? How will they be able to view these things from a biblical perspective? Parents, grandparents, church, we must obey the commands of Deuteronomy 6. We are responsible to teach our children right from wrong, so I urge you to participate in D6 starting next month.
I know it is a sacrifice to get up earlier to come out on Sunday. Every parent knows the challenge of getting out of the house on time. Let me challenge you with this. Do you make sure your kids get to school on time? Why? Is it less important they get to church? As important? Or more important?