No God, But God

The America's highest court declared that the Decalogue the Ten Commandments, the document of incalculable influence that has provided the basis for the public morality of Western culture and the text for which the first 200 years of our nation's history was universally used to teach English, was an improper display for impressionable young minds.

That amazes me. It goes to show you that Western culture is without a moral compass. And what God said back to the nation of Israel in Judges Chapter 17, verse number six, is very much the way it is today when every man did that which was right in his own eyes. Our culture is floundering and will continue to flounder, and if it's not careful, it will soon be beached on the desolate shores of its own moral corruption and emptiness. The question is, what do we do? We want to begin by looking at commandment number one.

Turn with me in your Bible, if you would, to Exodus chapter 20, verses 1 to 3. Then God spoke all these words saying, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the House of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. The Bible tells us that there is no God but God. And that is the God we are to serve and we are to worship. So tonight we want to talk about the motivation for this commandment. And then look at the meaning of the commandment.

and then lastly the manifestation of that commandment in your life and in mind it's good to know what the text says but we need to live out what the text says so first of all the motivation for this command is based on two things number one who he is and number two what he's done first of all who he is he says in verse two i am the Lord, your God.

It is I and not it. It is you and not them. And the phraseology that the Lord uses is reminiscent of Moses' initial encounter with God some 40 years earlier at the burning bush. When God instructed Moses to say to the people, when they asked who sent him to say, I am, has sent me to you. God's personal name describing who he is and the people's relationship to him. I am your God. You are my people. The text literally reads, I am Jehovah, thy God. Jehovah comes from three words, three Hebrew words, meaning, number one, he that is.

Number two, He that will be, and number three, he that will be. was. Alan Redpath in his commentary on the Ten Commandment says this about the Hebrew word Jehovah. At once we are brought into the presence of the supreme eternal God. If I reach out into the unknown future that has no ending, I am he that will be. If I think of the present moment of life with all its problems, its mystery, and all the things I don't understand and find hard to cope with, I am he that is. If I think back, into the infinite past, God says, I am he that was.

Whether we think of our origin or present condition today or our future, he says, I am. I don't think any of us can escape that immense revelation of a covenant-keeping God, Jehovah, who never breaks His word. He was, he is, and he will be. I am Jehovah, thy God, Elohim. It's a second word meaning the supreme object of worship, the absolute omnipotent God.

And upon this fact rests the first commandment. If he is who he is, why would you want to worship any other God? There can only be one unipotent one. Everyone else is powerless. So we are motivated to obey this, number one, because of who he is.

Number two, because of what he's done. He says in verse number two, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt out of the house of slavery.

The strongest argument for obedience is the experience of past deliverance. And the nation of Israel had experienced the hand of God. He had taken them out of the grip of the Pharaoh. He had rolled back the Red Sea, and they were delivered. He provided manna by day and quail by nights. He was the one that always supplied their needs. He brought forth water from the rock. God's grace had been displayed in living color. And over in Deuteronomy chapter 7, the Lord says this in verses 7 and 8. The Lord did not set his love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any of the peoples.

For you were the fewest of all peoples, but because the Lord loved you and kept the oath, which he swore to your forefathers, the Lord brought you out by a mighty hand, and he redeemed you from the house of slavery from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt. You see, why were they to obey God? Because of what he did. And what he did was based on who he was. Why do we obey God? Because of what he did. And because of who he is. Is he not the one who delivered us from slavery? Is he not the one who delivered us from bondage?

We were in iniquity. We were in sin. And God delivered us from that. John says it well in 1 John 410. This is love, not that we love God, but that he loved us and sent his son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. That's our God. Paul said over in Ephesians, Chapter 2, these words, and you were dead in your trespasses and sins. in which you formally walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air of the spirit, that is now working in the sons of disobedience.

Among them, we too all formerly lived in the lust of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. But God, being rich in mercy, because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead and our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ, by grace. you have been saved and raise us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus in order that in the ages to come he might show the surpassing riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus for by grace you have been saved through faith and that not of yourselves that is the gift of God not as a result of works that no one should boast for we are as workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

The motivation behind the command is that God is a loving God. He is the only God, and he is the one who sent his son to die for us and delivered us from our sin, for there is no God but God. Number two, what is the meaning of this command?

thou shalt have no other gods before me. Simply, meaning that there is nothing to be placed before God. No person, no thing, no ideology, no purpose. God demands exclusive loyalty. By delivering Israel out of bondage, he showed himself superior over all the false gods. So therefore there is no middle ground. You can't serve two masters. There are only two categories of people, idolaters and worshippers. And God seeks what? Two worshippers. John 4, verse number 23. G. Camel Morgan says this. It is as impossible for a man to live without having an object of worship as it is for a bird to fly if it is taken out of the air.

The very composition of human life, The mystery of man's being demands a center of worship as a necessity of existence. All life is worship. The question is whether the life and powers of man are devoted to the worship of the true God or that of a false God, end quote. We all worship. The question is, what do you bow to? And so in understanding the meaning of this command, I want to draw your attention to three areas. Number one, it means that there are no rivals.

to God. Nothing is to be put before him. He says thou shalt have no other gods before me, literally before my face or in my sight. Don't bring anything into my presence that will rival your affection toward me. And if God is omnipresent, and if God is everywhere, so no matter where you go, no matter what you do, you can't bring anything out of his presence. Everything is in his presence, right? So whatever it is you do, wherever it is you go, whoever it is you admire, is never to rival your affection and your loyalty to God.

There is to be no rivals to God. The Israelites were to live in a different culture. And in the culture they were moving into in Canaan, there were all kinds of religious structures. And he warned them that they needed to be different than everyone else round about them. And who they worshipped would be a testimony to the pagan gods. It says in Deuteronomy chapter 6, we read this a couple of weeks ago, then it shall come about when the Lord your God brings you into the land which he swore to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to give to you, great and splendid cities which you did not build, and houses full of good things which you did not fill, and hewn cisterns which you did not dig, vineyards in all of trees which you did not plant, and you shall eat and be satisfied, then watch yourself, lest you forget the Lord, who brought you from the land of Egypt out of the house of slavery.

You shall fear only the Lord your God, and you shall worship Him and swear by His name. God says the same thing to you and me.

We live in a fluent America, and in America we've got to especially be careful. because God sets around us all kinds of things, all kinds of stuff. And if we're not careful, those things will begin to rival our affection toward God. And God says you can't do that.

You shall have no other gods before me. No other God shall come before my presence. Nothing shall rival your affection with me. Number two, no rebuttals.

to God. Deutorme 6, verses 4 and 5, Hero Israel, the Lord, your God is one. The first commandment doesn't say thou shalt not be an atheist.

It says, thou shalt have no other God before me. The Bible never argues theism with atheism. It doesn't do that. God's word opens up at the very beginning of chapter 1 of Genesis with the very first verse.

In the beginning, God. God was always there. He was there in the beginning. He will be there at the end and after the end. Surely, suddenly, the Bible presents us with the fact that God exists. In fact, God gives only one half verse in the Bible to atheists. It's written in Psalm 141 what it says, The Fool has said in his heart. there is no God. That's why when we talked about why we teach the Ten Commandments, is because man is accountable to God. And man doesn't want to be accountable to anybody.

And for him to say there is a God, means he must submit to God. And man's not going to do that. And that's what salvation is. Submitting to the rulership and the kingship and the lordship of who Christ is. And we don't want to do that. We want to be our own God. We want to do our own thing. And God says, no, you can't do that.

for I am the Lord God. I'm the one you worship. You shall have no other gods before me, including yourself. And yet we fight against that. You know, it's amazing that children are born with that innate ability to believe in God. That's why Jesus said in Matthew 19, verse number 14, let the children alone. And do not hinder them from coming to me, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these. You don't have to convince a child about, God, do you? You've got to retrain him to think there isn't a God.

The story is told of an atheistic father who was trying to teach his child that God doesn't exist. And after he'd finished his long, drawn-out explanation of how everything around us, quote, just happened. The little child looked at his father and said, Daddy, do you think God knows that we don't believe in him? Belief in God is innate to human nature Everybody has a God But there's only one God Here O Israel, the Lord our God is one You should worship the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and strength And thirdly, no refusal to God the meaning of this commandment says there is to be no rivals to God it means that there's no rebuttal to God and it means that there is to be no refusal of God or anything I have to God that's what it means God wants your service he wants your time he wants your money he wants your heart he wants you this commandment means that because he is before everything, all else is subject to him.

Worship costs everything, and God permits no substitutes. That's why Paul says, I beg you, present your bodies a living sacrifice. Romans chapter 12, he spends the first 11 chapters talking about God, his mercy, his grace, his loving kindness, all about who he is, all about what he's done.

The only logical form of worship, he says, in Romans 12, 1 or 2, is to present your body in living sacrifice. Everything else you do, other than that, is illogical. Everything else you do other than that is real sheer stupidity. That's what Paul says. You're an idiot, he says, if you do that. You have got to present yourself a living sacrifice. What other rationale is there? What else can you do than to give yourself to God? after all he's done for you. No refusals to God. You see, when God draws men to himself, doesn't even make any difference what his demands are, he'll accomplish it.

But he says, you've got to be careful here. There's a lot of people who jump on the bandwagon. Simon Magus was one of those guys. Acts chapter 8. Remember him? Saw the power. saw Philip and all that he did. Peter and John come along. Oh man, this guy's great. Man, he was baptized, and he believed, and he was a part of the people there, and he wanted to really get on, and then he said, hey, I want to buy some of this Holy Spirit thing. Peter and John came down and laid hands on the people there in Samaria, and they received the gift of the Spirit, and evidently there was some miraculous thing that happened, maybe spoken tongues or something, and Philip had never seen anything like it.

He wanted that, let me purchase that, let me have that. How can I buy it? Peter in his great discernment said, man, you need to repent from your wickedness for you are in the gall of iniquity. You're in trouble, man. You don't know Jesus. You see, Philip said, or Peter would not Peter, but Simon Magus would close, say you pray for me. You pray for me that the bad things that you said don't happen to me. He didn't come to Christ. He didn't repent from his sins. He didn't ask for forgiveness for his sins.

He was just fearful of the bad things happening to him. Christ said, you count the cost. You count the cost. No refusals. Let me ask you a question.

Are you refusing God anything? Are you refusing God anything? If you are, that which you refuse him is your God. Some people don't want to give their children to the Lord For fear of what God might do Take them to the mission field Put them in the ministry Take their lives Your children then become your God Because you put them on a higher plane than the Lord God Some people don't want to give God their money They want to hold on to it You know those kind of people? They want to put too much in the offering place Might not have enough for lunch today Or might not have enough to pay my bills next week or might not have enough to be able to go golf in this week.

You know, so I've got to keep some money back. Don't want to give too much to God. After all, he owns a cattle in a thousand hills. My, you know, 20 bucks ain't going to help much anyway. So we don't want to give too much to God for fear of what I might not have. Realizing that when we keep it back, we refuse to give it to him, it becomes our God. Because he prized it more than we prize him. See that? People sometimes refuse God to give them their time, don't they? Don't spend any time with God. I don't have any time.

I got to get up at 6, 5, got to go to work. Don't get them to 8 o'clock, 9 o'clock at 9. I'm dead tired. I've got to rest. I've got to get my sleep. I work 6 days a week. Man, I got to sleep in on Sundays. Man, I can't go to church, man. It's just too much work. You can handle it. Don't give God time. You're more important than God is. Therefore, you become your God. you refuse God His time Which leads us to our third point The manifestation of this command How is it manifested in our lives?

Three ways Ask yourself the question Number one, what does God desire of you? Number two, what does God deserve from you And number three, what does God demand Of you?

In order to manifest this commandment And obey it properly, we've got to ask ourselves three questions. What does God desire of you? Turn with me to Joshua 24, please.

Verse number 14. Joshua in chapter 23 addressed the leaders. In chapter 24, he addressed the people. Now therefore fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and truth. And put away the gods which your fathers serve beyond the river and then Egypt and serve the Lord. And if it is disagreeable in your sight to serve the Lord, choose for yourself today whom you will serve whether the gods which your father served which are beyond the river or the gods of the emirites in whose land you are living but as for me and my house we will serve the lord what does god desire of you he wants you serve him with all your heart with all your strength to those people who had seen the goodness and power and grace of God, Joshua put forth this challenge.

Are you going to obey the gods around you? Are you going to obey the one and only true God? Worship of 16, follow with me. And the people answered and said, far be it from us that we should forsake the Lord to serve other gods. Far be it from us, Joshua. For the Lord our God is he who brought us and our fathers up out of the land of Egypt from the house of bondage and who did these great signs in our sight and preserved us the way in which we went and among all the peoples to whose midst we passed.

And the Lord drove out from before us all the peoples, even the Amarites who lived in the land. We also will serve the Lord, for he is our God. He is our God. Look what he has done. Joshua, wise man. Verse number 19, said to the people, you will not be able to serve the Lord. For he is a holy God. That's great, man. Joshua wasn't stupid. He remembered when Moses first came down with the tablets.

He was gone for just a few short weeks. And the people said, we will obey all the commandments that the Lord our God gives to us this day. And Moses went up on Sinai. It was there for 40 days. We received the tablets from the Lord. Came down. And what were they doing? They were all naked and they were worshiping the golden calf. Joshua knew. All these words sound familiar. Oh, my memory's coming back to me. I can just see Joshua now.

You can't do that. You see, it's one thing to promise obedience. It's another thing to practice obedience. And the nation of Israel had the history of saying, oh yes, we will serve the Lord, our God, And a few weeks later, boom, they were serving other gods. How quickly they forget what God had done for them and who he was. But God says, it is written, you shall worship the only true God and serve Him.

What does God desire for you? He wants you to serve Him with all your heart. That's what he wants. Number two, what does God deserve from you?

He deserves the fact that you seek after him. Psalm 10, verse 4 says, The wicked, in the hotiness of his countenance, does not seek him. All his thoughts are, there is no God. We live as if there is no God. He's never in our thoughts, and from the moment a man loses the vision, the vision that the Lord, our God is one, and that you want to have no other God, before the great God Jehovah. At that moment, you lose that vision, something else takes the place of God and you worship that instead of the Lord God of the universe.

You can't lose that vision. That's why he deserves that you seek after him with all of your heart and with all of your soul that you seek him. It's the wicked who does not seek him. And we are the true worshippers. We should be ones who seek him day in and day out who constantly have him on our mind because at the moment he's not on your mind, the moment he is not permeating every thought in your life, something else takes a place of your worship and you begin to bow down to that. You say, man, we're all guilty and yet we are.

But thank God for his grace and mercy who forgives us and says, I love you. And lastly, and not least, what does God demand of you? he demands that you sacrifice to him that you present your body a living sacrifice God commandments are not for our punishment therefore our welfare eight of the ten commandments are our state of the negative but there is a positive implied in each one of them every time he says thou shalt not he says look you be careful be careful because if you do this if you break this it will be worse for you than anything so don't break this it's a warning give your life to me follow me and I will bless you Thank you.