Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Let's take our Bible and turn to the book of Exodus. Exodus, exodus. Chapter 20.
[00:00:13] We will not be here very long though, so I hope you brought your Bible and I hope you're ready to follow along.
[00:00:21] Oh, no, we're gonna look at a bunch of verses.
[00:00:24] So going to be a long sermon, long message.
[00:00:29] Now, a few weeks ago, I think a couple of weeks ago, I spent a message on Wednesday night talking about the purpose of the law. How many of you remember that? We talked about the purpose of the law and it was to what's the purpose of the law? Somebody give me a short summary.
[00:00:50] Exactly. It's to let us know what is good, what is evil, and to help us, cause us to have the knowledge of sin. That's the purpose of the law. The law has no provision whatsoever to take sin away.
[00:01:05] There's a covering for it when you get into the sacrifices and stuff like that.
[00:01:10] So we looked at the law and to whom was the law given? Somebody help me with that.
[00:01:18] To whom was the law given? Come on now.
[00:01:22] Israel. It was given to Israel.
[00:01:26] The law was not a general command that God gave to all of humanity. He gave it to a specific group of people.
[00:01:34] And so even though the law was not given to us as the Church, as Gentiles, yet we learn a great deal from the law. And that's how God communicated his truth through Israel. He gave them the oracles of God. That's what Romans tells us. And so what I want to do tonight is I want to go to Exodus 20. And what I'm trying to do is go through and study and do kind of a brief study on each of the Ten Commandments.
[00:02:01] And we're going to look at the first one tonight. Now again, the commandments are really pivotal as a turning point. In fact, we talk about dispensations and God's dealing with men changes. One of the ways God one turning point or a point at which God kind of turned the page and the way he dealt with mankind, specifically with Israel, was that when he gave the law on Mount Sinai. Now remember, these commandments that we read in chapter 20 were audibly spoken from the top of Mount Sinai in the hearing of all of the children of Israel. They heard it. I mentioned this a couple of weeks ago when we studied this. So let's look at chapter 20, verse number one. The Bible says and God spake all these words saying, I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Now the lord identifies himself. Notice he says in verse two, I am the Lord thy God, that capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D, a reference to God's name as he revealed it to Israel. The I am that I am this is an important point, because one thing, even shortly after this, when the children of Israel make the golden calf, what do they say? They say of this golden animal that they have made with their hands. They say, These be thy gods which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. They said this was the Lord. They misidentified the Lord. And so verse two is kind of the introduction until we get to verse number three, which is the Ten Commandments. The first one says, Thou shalt have no other gods before me. All right, let's pray together.
[00:03:56] Lord, we thank you for Your word, even the much maligned law of God, the commandments of God. Yet they show us so many wonderful things about you, about Your standard of righteousness and holiness. Thank you for your word. Thank you for the law of God given to Israel, preserved for us. Lord, we thank you for that foundation that indeed has caused us to understand and know what sin is.
[00:04:26] And I pray, Lord, as we look at Your word tonight that you would bless our time together in Your word that you would teach us, instruct us, and especially, Lord, we pray two things that you would help us learn more about who you are and that you would also help us to understand more of the gospel. Because we look at the law of God.
[00:04:47] So bless our time together. We commit it to you in Jesus name. Amen.
[00:04:52] The First Commandment thou shalt have no other gods before me. Now, let's do a little bit of clarification, if you will. Look at Exodus. Chapter ten. Seeing how you're already in Exodus, I want to just clarify what this verse means.
[00:05:06] What this verse means, Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Now, this is not a statement that the Lord is not saying that he wants to be first among the gods that Israel held. He's not saying, of all the gods that you have, I don't want any of them to be before me. He is not saying that. All right? So just throw that out of your mind. When we read it, we can misinterpret and misunderstand what the Lord is saying. That is not what he's saying. All right, let me explain to you why that's true. Look at Exodus ten and verse number three.
[00:05:48] Because you'll see, the same construction, same word used this word before me. Look at verse three. The Bible says, and Moses and Aaron came in unto Pharaoh and said unto him, thus saith the Lord, God of the Hebrews, how long? Now, this is what God is saying to Pharaoh, how long wilt thou refuse to humble thyself before me?
[00:06:15] Now, he's not saying, Pharaoh, you need to stop humbling yourself more than me.
[00:06:23] No, that's not what it means. He's saying, how long wilt thou refuse to humble thyself in front of me? That's what it means. The word before means in front of. Okay, so go back to Exodus, chapter 20. It says, Thou shalt have no other gods before me. So this is not a statement that the Lord wants to be first among the gods.
[00:06:47] This is a clear statement that the Lord was to be the only God that Israel held.
[00:06:56] He was to be the only God that Israel held. In other words, not before as in priority. But the Lord says before Him, thou shalt have no other gods before me, as in before in front of his eyes. In other words, when God looked at Israel, he did not want to see another God.
[00:07:17] Now we just got to clarify what the Lord is saying.
[00:07:25] This is this First Commandment is the reason why it's so important. As you go down into the Commandments, what you'll find is the first set of the Commandments deals primarily with one's relationship to God. Then it deals with one's relationship to one another. But then as it goes on, it starts to deal like the last Commandment, as an example, starts to deal with a matter of the heart, the inside of a man.
[00:07:50] But this is a pivotal command here's. Why? Because this is the first great statement of monotheism in all of the Bible.
[00:08:02] This is a direct statement of monotheism. That is, that the teaching the truth, that there is but and only one God. One God.
[00:08:15] Now, later on, as an example, look at Deuteronomy if you would. I told you we wouldn't stay there long. Chapter four.
[00:08:25] So what I'm saying is you look at Genesis, you look at the whole book of Genesis, the beginning of Exodus, you do not see the Lord say you would think and in the beginning parts of the Scripture, god would say, by the way, I'm the only one here. But he doesn't, not until Exodus 20. Exodus 20, even Exodus 20, verse number three, he does not say I am the only God. But the Command, the prohibition against having any other God is built upon that truth.
[00:08:58] Okay? That's what we'll see tonight. So deuteronomy four verse 35 this is the first time in the Bible in which God explicitly, or the Scripture rather explicitly says that there is but one God. Deuteronomy four, verse number 35 pages stuck together, says this unto thee it was showed that thou mightest know that the Lord, he is God.
[00:09:28] There is none else beside Him. Verse 39 says, know therefore this day and consider it in thine heart that the Lord, he is God in heaven above and upon the earth beneath. There is none else we could go to first Kings, chapter eight, verse 60. We could go to isaiah 44, verse eight. Isaiah 45, verse five. Isaiah 45, verse six, verse 14, verse 18, verse 21, verse 22. Isaiah 46, verse 947, verse eight and verse ten. Joel, chapter two, verse 27. All of them say that. They all say I am the Lord. God speaking. So you can't say what a man is saying of God.
[00:10:11] This is what God is saying of himself. He says in one place in Isaiah 45, he says, I am the Lord, there is none beside me. I know not any.
[00:10:21] In other words, I who am omniscient, I know everything there is to know. There is none beside me. I stand alone. I stand alone.
[00:10:36] This is the exclusivity of God, and this is the basis of the command, thou shalt have no other gods before me.
[00:10:47] The God of the Bible is alone as God.
[00:10:52] There's none like him. There's none similar.
[00:10:58] There's not a plurality.
[00:11:01] He stands alone. He stands alone. And the reality is that what is called the absolute exclusivity of God. That's his nature that finds its roots in the creation story. In the creation story.
[00:11:24] Now, here's what I mean by that. We'll see this more in just a minute. You can actually go ahead and turn to Genesis, chapter one.
[00:11:33] Go ahead and turn there.
[00:11:38] From an apologetic point of view, some of you are interested in that. I'm thinking brother Joseph, Brother David, brother Ben probably is interested in that. Miss Judy right.
[00:11:51] Something that is created cannot be by definition, by biblical definition of so I just have to stop and ask this what is God? Okay? What is God? That's kind of where we have to start. So we say there is but one God, but the question must be asked, what is God?
[00:12:10] What is a God? What does the word mean?
[00:12:14] Because of course we see it in our Bible as God referring to the true God. And then we see all these other we call them little God, little G-O-D. It's the same word. It's just in English, we have capitals and other languages don't have capital, like Cambodian doesn't have capital. So if it's talking about the Bible, is talking about the God of the Bible, the true God, or it's talking about a false God, it's the same word used. The word is the same. And that's the way it is here. So what is a god, though? Because it says, thou shalt have no other gods before me.
[00:12:47] A God is simply defined, and this might surprise you.
[00:12:52] A God is simply a being that's above a human.
[00:12:56] That's how the word is used.
[00:13:00] Technically, it's this a God is a being that is regarded by men. That's the key as any supernatural being who has power over nature or human affairs. That's what a god is. Now, you can cram a whole lot of things that people call God. Remember, this is not what God says God is, but this is what humans regard as a divine being.
[00:13:26] But here's the problem. From a biblical perspective, something that has been created cannot by its very nature be God.
[00:13:36] The definition of the true God excludes that. We'll see that more in just a second.
[00:13:45] Now, when we get to Genesis chapter one and verse one. The Bible says this in the beginning, God created the heaven and the Earth. Now of course we know there's no explanation, there's no identification.
[00:13:57] Like we don't learn God's name here.
[00:14:00] We really don't learn his character here. In verse one, we don't know anything about Him because Genesis chapter one is not trying to tell us who he is.
[00:14:12] It assumes what he is.
[00:14:17] That's. What? Genesis, Chapter One. There's no explanation about God here.
[00:14:21] There's no explanation.
[00:14:24] But what you do know from reading Genesis one one in the beginning, God created the heaven and the Earth before that first verse. What is there? What is there? Nothing.
[00:14:35] There's not think about all the things that are created in the six days of creation.
[00:14:41] There is no Earth before verse one. There is no Earth before verse one. There is no space. There's no sun, there's no moon, there's no stars haven't been created yet. There's no human beings, of course, no animals, no plants, there's no atoms, not this kind, but the little kind.
[00:15:03] There's no light, there's no darkness, there's no space, there's no time.
[00:15:10] There's nothing.
[00:15:12] Nothing in the material universe exists.
[00:15:16] God has not made it yet before verse one, nothing except God.
[00:15:25] So here's what that means. That means that everything, or rather put it like this, nothing that was created can be this God because he was already there before anything was created.
[00:15:42] That gives us a little hint about the definition. When we say the God of the Bible, what are we talking about? We're talking about the one, the being who existed before anything.
[00:15:57] Anything. The Bible uses the very simple term beginning. And to us, beginning can be beginning of something. But this is the absolute beginning. The God of the Bible, the true God of the Bible is the God who was already there before anything that was created, was created, that identifies him, that identifies him. And then someone in apologetics, someone will ask a question. And you guys probably have seen videos and stuff on social media where people that they ask, well, a college student, which this seems to be an obvious question and obvious answer, but a college student will say, well, okay, so if God created everything, who created God? As if that's a got you question. That's actually an easy one. You get into other questions that are a little more complicated.
[00:16:48] But listen, god, by his very nature, according to how he's revealed in the Bible, does not have a beginning. He was already present at the beginning. There was no starting point. There was no cause of God. But when you say who created God, you're supposing that he had a beginning and that he was created, but he wasn't.
[00:17:09] See, the premise of that question is wrong because he had no beginning. And besides that, the Bible reveals that God created the entire material universe.
[00:17:22] So therefore none of those things that he created could have created him. You see, the logic doesn't work.
[00:17:33] That's why they say in science, they will say this is the fundamental problem. For those of you that like apologetics, this is a fundamental problem with people coming at God with that concept of God is they come at God as if science as if the physical universe that they understand is the absolute law.
[00:17:57] And that is the reality of what is behind a lot of people's rejection of God is science, which is supposed to be anyway, the observation of the created universe, right? That's what science is supposed to be, the knowledge of the created universe.
[00:18:16] Science is supposed to be humble enough to acknowledge what it cannot know. But that's not allowed anymore. That's not allowed anymore. Science is God.
[00:18:26] And so because science is God, science should be able to explain where God came from and who created God. But that's not how it works. God was present before science.
[00:18:39] When you ask the question who created God? Everything had a beginning. No, you're talking about this created universe that God made. Yes, everything in this had a beginning, but God's not in that he is the technical word. Anybody know what that's called? The what? The first cause. The first cause.
[00:19:04] But how do we know God? How do we know?
[00:19:08] We'll see in a minute.
[00:19:11] There are many gods things that are called God. You have the gods of Buddhism, the God of Buddhism, you have gods of Hinduism. Many things are called God angels, all kinds of things in other cultures. And things are called God, not just one. How do you identify the right one?
[00:19:28] Like in Cambodia, that's the question we would get. Well, our God is Buddha and your God is Jesus. How do you know your god's right and our God's not right? How do you know your God is true and our God isn't?
[00:19:44] Do you know? There's a biblical definition of who God is? And this all goes back to Exodus 20, verse three.
[00:19:52] We can't obey that command. Thou shalt have no other god before me unless we understand who this one true God is.
[00:20:01] Simply put, he is identified by his position as the Creator. The true God is whom? The true God is the Creator. If you want to know who he is, he's the Creator.
[00:20:16] So god a god. The word God is not. Just look at Jeremiah, chapter ten.
[00:20:21] God is not just someone that's greater than a human being.
[00:20:25] The true God is the one who created all things. Jeremiah, chapter ten. Don't take my word for it. The Bible actually defines almighty God by that term.
[00:20:40] Jeremiah, chapter ten, verse ten says this if you read verse nine, you'll see the contrast being made. Silver spread into plates is brought from Tarshish and gold from Ufaz. The work of the workmen and of the hands of the founder. Blue and purple is their clothing. They are all the work of cunning men.
[00:21:06] But the Lord is the true God.
[00:21:09] He is the living God and an everlasting king. At his wrath, the Earth shall tremble and the nation shall not be able to abide his indignation.
[00:21:19] Thus shall you say unto them, the gods. Listen now. The gods that have not made the heavens and the Earth, even they shall perish from the Earth and from under these heavens.
[00:21:34] He hath made the Earth by his power. He hath established the world by his wisdom and hath stretched out the heavens by his discretion. You see that the Lord identifies a false God by whatever that man might call God that did not create the heavens and the Earth is a false God. That's what he says. And by contrast and by extension, he says, and therefore, the God who created the heavens and the earth, that is the true God. That's the true God. So God, the true God is identified by his position as Creator. We could go into Isaiah 45, verse five. Acts 17, verse number 24 talks about gods that are made by the hands of men.
[00:22:19] You see, God has what are called essential attributes.
[00:22:24] These are a few of them. God is eternal. He has no beginning.
[00:22:30] How do we know that?
[00:22:34] How do we know that?
[00:22:36] Because say again, he told us in Genesis one one which is the absolute beginning of everything, he's already there.
[00:22:46] Besides that, the scripture actually says from everlasting to everlasting now our God. And furthermore, god is eternal. He exists outside of his creation. He was already there. He brought it into being. Number two, god is self existence. He has no cause or maker. That's what we also see in Genesis one. You say all from Genesis one one. Exactly.
[00:23:07] And number three, god is omnipotent. And you see that from all the things he created. So if you think of the most marvelous, the most powerful, the most magnificent, the largest whatever, they talk about the sizes of stars and galaxies and the multitude of galaxies. How many of you have ever seen that?
[00:23:26] The one especially famous Hubble image where the Hubble Space Telescope, which is orbiting the Earth, it opened its shutter because it's a camera, right? It opened its shutter for I want to say it was like two weeks at 1.1 black spot in space.
[00:23:50] It opened the shutter for like two weeks. You can find this picture on the Internet and it received all the light from that black spot for the entire length of time the shutter was open as if it was one photograph.
[00:24:03] And when that photograph was received and analyzed and you zoom in because this whole ultra high resolution you zoom into what is black in space and it magnifies into literally millions not of stars, but of galaxies.
[00:24:25] These are observable now because of technology. These are not observable with a naked eye. These are observable with scientific instruments, which is that's not against the Bible, is it? Right. It's not against the Bible.
[00:24:39] Observable.
[00:24:42] Now you think, all right, these things boggle the mind. Even a million and a million galaxies in one tiny little spot of black space, god made that. What does that say about him?
[00:25:01] The Bible says his knowledge, his power is just absolutely unsearchable. I mean, it's such puny words for such a magnificent attribute.
[00:25:11] But see that those are what are called his essential attributes, those things, those characteristics of the Lord that make him God, and that also exclude everything that is called God.
[00:25:28] All right, first Corinthians, chapter eight. Look at that real quick.
[00:25:33] One Corinthians, chapter eight.
[00:25:36] We're hurrying.
[00:25:43] One Corinthians eight, verse number four. Look at what the Bible says here.
[00:25:49] As concerning, therefore, the eating of those things that are offered in sacrifice unto idols. We know listen to what he says, the Christian. Now, we know that an idol is nothing in the world and that there is none other God but one. All right, that's pretty clear. How many of you agree with that statement?
[00:26:06] How much of the Bible is dedicated to that question, whether there actually is another God?
[00:26:15] I mean, Israel, all the way up until the Babylonian captivity, they grappled with that question. They constantly served what they thought were gods.
[00:26:26] And yet in Christianity, it's settled.
[00:26:30] It's settled. Nobody questions this.
[00:26:34] Notice how he's identified, though.
[00:26:37] He says verse five. For though there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or on earth, as there be God's many and Lord's many, but unto us there is but one God. Who is he? The Father of whom are all things. You see that? You see how he has identified. How is he identified? By his creative acts.
[00:26:59] That's who God is, the one who created all things.
[00:27:03] But notice what says in verse five. As there be God's many and Lord's many, in my notes, I put, there be God's many and Lord's many. So we talk about the first commandment, thou shalt have no other gods before me, which presupposes, there is but one God. But we know in this world there are many gods.
[00:27:20] There be God's many and Lord's many. Right called of men, created of men.
[00:27:29] Look at Galatians. Turn over to the to the right, just a few pages. Chapter four, galatians, chapter four, verse number eight. Now, I know I'm picking out little parts of verses and things, but there's a lot of good stuff in parts of verses. You don't exclude the context, but there's a lot of good stuff kind of you grab as you're walking through it, right? Chapter four, verse eight is a good one. Look at what it says. Now in the context. He's talking about how the Galatians, how they came to know Christ and the change that was made in their life. Look what he says. How be it then when ye knew not God, ye did service unto them, which what's the next two words by nature are no gods. What does that mean?
[00:28:26] They served those things that were by nature no god. Here's what that means, that by their very nature, these things that are called gods that these Galatians used to serve, right, the Roman gods, the Greek gods, by their very nature are disqualified from being called God. They're disqualified what might call Godhood godhood because in order to meet that criteria, to be caught, to have what we might call, and I'm using this loosely, godhood, you've got to meet the biblical qualifications.
[00:29:05] So anything that doesn't meet those qualifications, what does that mean? The Creator, eternal, self existent, omnipotent, these gods that they serve, all these fantasies of these gods. And listen, I know we look back at Greek and Roman mythology some of you have heard of, you study that in school especially you went to public school, you probably studied Greek and Roman gods.
[00:29:32] And we study it as kind of a cultural, western civilization type of thing. People believe that. How many of you remember in Ephesus there was a riot and they brought Paul to theater, right?
[00:29:50] What did they yell for? Was like 2 hours on end or something. I think it was 2 hours in Acts. What did they yell? Great is Diana of the Ephesians. Diana's one of those myths that we read about in school.
[00:30:04] People worshipped her, worshiped that God. But here's the thing, she doesn't qualify. She doesn't measure up.
[00:30:14] She doesn't meet the criteria to be worthy of the name God.
[00:30:21] Anything that doesn't meet those criteria that we see in scripture, regardless of what it's called, is not God and cannot be God because by its very nature it can't be.
[00:30:32] You know what this means? This includes every spiritual and material thing that exists. That means angels, devils. In the Bible you have cherubim, seraphim, men, animals, trees, rocks, planets, stars.
[00:30:47] Why can't those things be God? People want to honor those and worship those. Why can't they do that? Here's why.
[00:30:56] Because all of those things are not the Creator, are not omnipotent, and are not self existent and are not eternal.
[00:31:07] Those things are all, every one of them, without exception, is created.
[00:31:14] Now go back to Genesis, chapter three. Now we're on the subject of God's many and Lord's many.
[00:31:20] Genesis three.
[00:31:37] Serpent talking to the woman Eve in Genesis three, verse number five. You're all familiar with this passage I'll just read. Verse five.
[00:31:50] The serpent says to the woman, you shall not surely die, for God doth know that in the day you eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
[00:32:07] Satan is the first one to introduce the possibility into the human mind that there could be a God beside the one who had created Adam and Eve.
[00:32:20] Chapter three, verse five.
[00:32:23] That was Satan's idea.
[00:32:27] This is the first instance of the word gods in his plural form.
[00:32:34] Note, though, that Satan did not say that they and this is often misquoted. Verse five does not say ye shall be as god.
[00:32:46] That would be bad enough, but this says Ye shall be as gods.
[00:32:52] So in one sentence, the devil introduces polytheism, the false idea that there are other gods beside the true god.
[00:33:05] And also he implants this seed into the woman's mind that she can be like God. In other words, remember our definition of god at the beginning. It's a superhuman being.
[00:33:20] That's essentially how it's used in the world is anything that's greater than a human being is called god in some place.
[00:33:29] Like even as an example, even Buddha in Buddhism, Buddha is understood to be a man. He was a man from India. He's understood to be by Buddhists, they know he's a man, but he achieved a level, he achieved enlightenment. And so he's worthy of worship. You see, he's a superhuman.
[00:33:52] So the devil introduced and he introduced the possibility into the mind, something they never even considered, no doubt had never even considered. They knew of only one god. It probably never entered their mind at all that even the idea that there could be a different one, especially in the state of innocence, because they knew God, he created them, they knew him.
[00:34:20] And Satan said deceive them by saying that not that they would be as god, but as gods. So not only did he introduce the false idea of multiple gods, he also in his infernal introduction, he indicated that Adam and Eve would be those gods. Think about it. He introduced the idea of multiple gods and then he said, you can be those gods which was trying to convince them that they could be more than what they were. They were but human beings. They could never be anything but a human being. You know, when you go to heaven, you're not going to be anything but a human being. You know that? You're not going to be an angel.
[00:35:06] You're going to be a human, a glorified, supremely happy, eternally happy human, but you're going to be a human. That's your nature. You can't be anything else. That's what you are.
[00:35:19] Boy, this rubs the wrong way with a lot of ideologies these days.
[00:35:26] Satan introduced from Genesis three the idea that Exodus 20, verse three was given to combat.
[00:35:37] Now, what does that tell us?
[00:35:39] So I know this is elementary stuff. I know this, I know you all know this. You all believe there's just one God. And you know all these fault, these things called god aren't god. I know this, I know all that. I'm not telling you anything new. But what does this teach us? What does the first commandment? Thou shalt have no other gods before me that God expects to Israel. He said there are no other gods, and so you don't need to have any. Other gods, right? That's what's being conveyed there. But what does that tell us?
[00:36:14] This commandment means that because there is but one God, number one, all others are therefore faults.
[00:36:25] All others are therefore faults. You say, well, the Buddhist might be offended, or this person or that. The Hindu, they have literally millions of gods. Won't they have be offended at that? Maybe, but that's what that means. There is but one.
[00:36:45] And the second thing is, it means that every listen now, each person you think of, there'd be remember what I said, there'd be God's. Many lords, many from first corinthians everybody's got gods they worship.
[00:36:59] Think outside of the American mindset. Think transport yourself like Brazil went to India, right? All right. Is that in any way it's hard to comprehend what they think of as god, right? It's just there's so much. It's so different.
[00:37:20] The idolatry, everything is worshipped. Everything. Animals, people, angels, spirits, figments of their imagination, everything. Objects are worshipped. Rocks, trees, planets, stars, everything. Listen, mankind never runs out of things to worship.
[00:37:42] As many people as there are, there are gods. There be gods. Many lords, many.
[00:37:49] But this commandment thou shalt have no other gods before me tells us that every person's faith in his or her god is not equally valid.
[00:38:02] That's what we call pluralism.
[00:38:04] Pluralism is the idea that things that are all different are all equally valid.
[00:38:13] God's commandment excludes that.
[00:38:19] What are we left with? We're left with the god and we're left with the way to Him, which is Jesus Christ. Notice this interesting note one, Timothy, chapter two, verse five, says this for there is one God.
[00:38:39] Y'all know this verse, right? For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. Notice how it starts.
[00:38:49] There is one God.
[00:38:53] But lest we get too haughty in the fact that we know that there's just one God, and we're not ignorant of all these created things that are proclaimed to be god, the Lord reminds us in James Two, verse 19, thou believest that there is one God.
[00:39:08] Thou DOST. Well, the devils also believe and tremble. They're monotheists.
[00:39:15] They know the gods are false.
[00:39:20] There's one last thing that this shows us, the fact that the Lord says, thou shalt have no other gods before me because there is but one true God and we know Him. He's identified by his creative acts. That is, he created the world and everything in it. That means all people are responsible to Him, regardless of whatever their cultural god is, regardless of whatever the religious system that they were born into, because he created them, right? He created the world upon which they live. In which they live.
[00:40:01] He created themselves, the person himself.
[00:40:07] And because there is but one who did that, he is actually god of all. They don't acknowledge him. They don't know him. And I didn't even know him. I knew of him, but I didn't know him when I was younger.
[00:40:21] None of that matters.
[00:40:24] None of that matters when God says, I am the Lord. There's none else. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. It excludes everything else.
[00:40:34] It makes all of it vain.
[00:40:37] All of the plurality of worship, the forms of worship, the gods that men worship, all of it's vain. It just blows away like smoke.
[00:40:47] Because there is but one God, and he's the Creator.
[00:40:52] And you think about those in those countries, how we just accept that that's their culture. But every moment, every moment of their life, every act of devotion that they're giving to a God who is by nature not God, cannot be, doesn't meet the criteria, is an offense to the God who said, thou shalt have no way to God before me. Think about that.
[00:41:28] Is an offense to him.
[00:41:31] See, when the Bible says God is jealous, it's not the petty jealousy that we're familiar with as human beings. God is jealous because he really is the only one, like all the others, are impostors, they're fake.
[00:41:49] And so he says, I'm a jealous God.
[00:41:54] But that's a terrible thought to think about how the law purpose of the Law to make men see that they are sinners, to make them have the knowledge of sin.
[00:42:12] Some writer once said, we breathe sin, we drink it like water. And that's what happens. That's what the first command that shows us in this world. Let's pray together.
