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Well, I'd like to say before I get started today that I've had a bad cold this week and

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a little bit of a tickle in my throat.

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So if I cough and do other things up here, contort myself to try to clear my throat,

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you'll understand, won't you?

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I say that to make my wife relax because she always gets very uptight when she hears me

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tightening up here with my throat.

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So honey, just relax, it'll be alright.

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And I also said to my father-in-law that if I can't make it through the message that

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he'll come up and finish it for me.

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Now he's nervous.

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Would you open your Bible, please, to Exodus chapter 20, verses 1 through 3.

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It is impossible to overstate the importance of the Ten Commandments with regard to their

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impact upon the world.

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The Ten Commandments form the basis of law, social order, and our concept of justice throughout

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the world of Judeo-Christian culture.

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The Ten Commandments are protective of life, liberty, relationships, and personal property.

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They also exalt the value of life and the dignity of the individual, man or woman.

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The Ten Commandments are recorded in two Old Testament passages, in Deuteronomy 5 and where

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we are and where we will be in our study for the next few weeks, in Exodus chapter 20.

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Then God spoke all these words, saying, I am the Lord your God, who brought you out

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of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

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You shall have no other gods before me.

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As we look at these words, it's important to note the context, Exodus chapters 1 through

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18 record the stay of the Israelites in Egypt after the death of Joseph, their eventual

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enslavement and oppression cruelly under Pharaoh, the raising up of a deliverer in the person

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of Moses, the awful plagues culminating with the death of the firstborn, and the institution

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of the Passover feast in Israel, and the release and miraculous escape through the Red Sea.

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Three months after they came out of Egypt, they arrived at Mount Sinai.

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In chapter 19 verse 1 it says, in the third month after the sons of Israel had gone out

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of the land of Egypt, on that very day they came into the wilderness of Sinai.

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In verse 2 it says, and there Israel camped in front of the mountain.

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Moses went up onto the mountain to talk with God.

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God said, I want to make a covenant with the people of Israel.

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That is the covenant that begins to be established in chapter 19, the covenant of the law.

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The Ten Commandments, which are stated at the beginning of this covenant, form the moral

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foundation for the covenant.

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That is even symbolized by the placement of the two tablets containing the Ten Commandments

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in the Ark of the Covenant.

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You will recall that God, as a part of all of this, commanded his people to make a box

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of acacia wood, 45 inches long, 27 inches high.

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They were to overlay the wood inside and out with pure gold.

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A lid was replaced on this box out of solid gold.

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It was called the Ark of the Covenant.

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The lid served as the mercy seat.

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It was there that the blood of the sacrifice was sprinkled on the Day of Atonement for

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the nation's sins.

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But that throne of mercy, the mercy seat as it was called, was also the throne of God's

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government in that theocracy which he was establishing.

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So that after the tabernacle was set up, in that inner compartment called the Holy of

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Holies, there was this Ark of the Covenant and God's presence, visibly seen in the

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Shekinah glory over that Ark as God appeared over the mercy seat.

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And just a few inches below that, resting in the Ark, several items including the two

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tablets with the Ten Commandments.

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So you see even there, God's government of his people rested upon the moral foundation

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laid down in these Ten Words as they are called.

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Now the question that might come to your mind is, of what value is a study of the Ten Commandments

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to Christians?

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Don't we live in a different age?

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And the answer is, of course we do.

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Although the covenant of law has been superseded by the covenant, the new covenant of grace

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based upon the finished work of Jesus Christ, this statement of moral code nonetheless has

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never been repealed.

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Indeed, nine-tenths of it was restated in the New Testament for this age.

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Nor can this moral code be repealed, since it expresses the very holiness of God in terms

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of human ethics.

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So what we see here is how God expects us to live in light of the righteousness and

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holiness which is his.

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But the Ten Commandments reveal more than the holiness of God.

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There's a sense in which they also reflect the love of God.

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They tell of how we should supremely enjoy life.

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John MacArthur says, the Ten Commandments were nothing more than ten aspects of love

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verbalized.

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The first four commands showed the characteristics of love toward God, and the last six showed

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the characteristics of love toward others.

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And I think he has a point.

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In fact, you may recall that when Jesus was asked to name the most important commandment,

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what he did was to summarize the Ten Commandments.

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Jesus' summary of the Ten Commandments was, love God and love your neighbor.

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Love.

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So there's a very real sense in which the Ten Commandments not only reveal the holiness

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of God, but the love of God as well.

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We study the Ten Commandments not to place ourselves under the Old Testament legal system,

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but rather to gain an understanding of God's standards in all times with respect to ethics.

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To understand what God says is right or wrong in his eyes.

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The first commandment is found in verse three, you shall have no other gods before me.

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Perhaps it's worthy of note to say that Jews and Roman Catholics and Protestants divide

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the commandments differently.

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The Jewish people usually take verse two as the first commandment.

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Now, I think there's another purpose for verse two that we'll get to in a moment.

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But clearly verse three is a commandment, and I believe the first.

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You shall have no other gods before me.

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Literally God says, no other gods in my sight.

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What he's saying is that you shall have no other gods in addition to me or in opposition

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to me.

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Now we understand something of the importance of that when we look back in verse two and

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we see the identity of the law giver.

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God uses two self-assigned proper names of himself here.

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He says, I am the Lord your God.

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Lord is all in capitals, notice.

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This comes from the Hebrew word that we usually pronounce Yahweh.

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If you looked at it and brought it into English from the Hebrew, it would be just four consonants

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Hebrew does not have any vowels.

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Those have to be assigned.

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The language does not have vowels, and the consonants are YHWH.

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And as we try to say that in English, we assign vowels to it, and it's most commonly thought

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that A and E are assigned there as we would say it, and so it's pronounced Yahweh.

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G. Campbell Morgan suggests that the name Yahweh is a combination of three Hebrew words.

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The first, he will be.

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Second, being.

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And the third, he was.

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That seems to me a reasonable explanation for the origin of Yahweh.

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It is a term that talks about the eternal self-sufficiency of God.

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He is the one who will be, the one who is, and the one who always was eternally self-existent.

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It is a name used of God 6,823 times in the Old Testament when I counted them yesterday.

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No, I read that.

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It is the name by which God revealed himself on Mount Sinai to Moses sometime before Exodus

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chapter 20.

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Who shall I say has sent me?

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I am that I am has sent you.

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That is the name Yahweh as God explained it.

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I am, present tense.

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He is always the same, yesterday, today, and forever.

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This is the name that Jesus picked up on and as it is recorded in the Gospel of John, gave

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seven famous I am statements.

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I am.

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And then the second name that he assigns himself is the name God.

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This is the first one that he uses.

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Genesis 1,1.

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In the beginning Elohim.

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It is a word that is plural.

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In the Hebrew when that is used it can mean the plurality or the plentitude of majesty.

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It also allows for the development of God's revelation of himself as a triunity.

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But the name Elohim does not really say three, it just says plural.

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And the thrust of it in the Old Testament seems to be that God is saying I am the majestic

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one.

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I am the mighty leader.

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I am the strong one.

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I am the one who is the supreme object of worship.

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I am Elohim.

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It is a name that is used sometimes of men, sometimes of angels, but it is a name that

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is used most of the time for God himself.

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Elohim.

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I am Yahweh Elohim.

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And then God reminds them what he has done.

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He says the one who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.

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Egypt for the Israelites was bondage and death.

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They had been redeemed by the blood of the Passover lamb and by the power of God revealed

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at the Red Sea.

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Now to us there is a typical significance.

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In other words, we go back to that and there is a picture there that is made legitimate

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by what the New Testament teaches.

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And that is that we too have been redeemed out of an Egypt.

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Egypt in the Bible always speaks symbolically of sin and bondage.

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We have been redeemed out of our own personal Egypts by the blood of God's Passover lamb,

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the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world by his great sacrifice on the cross

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of Calvary.

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And we have been identified with him in his death and resurrection by the power of God

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so that we are a new people as pictured in their deliverance from the Red Sea.

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God is saying on the basis of who I am and what I have done, I give this commandment

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to you, no other gods in my sight.

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You see God's identity gives great meaning and power to it.

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Now secondly let's look at the meaning of the law given, having looked at the identity

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of the law giver.

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The religions of the world in that day were polytheistic, that is they had many different

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gods.

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Now those of a higher critical background or those who are liberal in their theological

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persuasion try to tell us that man naturally speaking is polytheistic and that like man

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religion has evolved so that Israel came eventually through an evolutionary process to believe

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in one God, monotheism, and that we as Christians today have inherited this evolved concept

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of God.

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Man began polytheistic they say and evolved to monotheism.

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That is absolutely not true.

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In fact the Bible says just the opposite of that.

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The Bible says that man began with the knowledge of the one true God and then degenerated from

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that knowledge, fell away from it to worship many gods.

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And it was through specific revelation to Abraham that God again revealed himself as

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one.

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It was not the result of evolution, it was the result of revelation that monotheism came

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to be.

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Now in Romans chapter 1 God talks about this, I'd like you to turn there with me because

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some of you are in seminary where you confront this.

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In Romans chapter 1, look at verse 18, it says, For the wrath of God is revealed from

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heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth and unrighteousness

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because that which is known about God is evident within them for God has made it evident to

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them.

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Notice within and to.

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For since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes, his eternal power and divine nature

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have been clearly seen, being understood through that which has been made so that they are

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without excuse.

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For even though they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks, but they

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became futile in their speculations and their foolish heart was darkened.

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Professing to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God

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for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling

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creatures.

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Where did polytheism and idolatry come from?

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It came from the rebellious, sinful heart of man when he rejected the knowledge of the

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one true God.

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Now, Israel in that day existed in a sea of polytheism.

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Their monotheism had been passed on to them by their fathers.

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Remember that Abraham too was an idolater.

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So God revealed himself to Abraham, gave a promise to him, called him out of the Ur of

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the Chaldees and Abraham by faith responded.

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So you see the meaning of the first commandment is this.

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It was given to reinforce and to preserve the revelation which God had given of himself.

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It was to protect the uniqueness of their theology and their faith.

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It was a reasonable command if God is who and what he says, for there cannot be two

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gods who are equally supreme.

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There cannot be two gods who are infinite.

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If he is Yahweh Elohim, then there can be none like him if those names mean what they

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say.

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Therefore he says, no other gods in my sight.

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Every man does worship a God.

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G. Campbell Morgan says this in his helpful little book called The Ten Commandments.

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Every man needs a God.

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There is no man who has not somewhere in his heart, in his life, in the essentials of his

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being a shrine in which a deity is a deity in whom he worships.

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It is as impossible for a man to live without having an object of worship as it is for a

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bird to fly if it's taken out of the air.

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The very composition of human life, the mystery of man's being demands a center of worship

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as a necessity of existence.

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All life is worship.

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There may be a false God at the center of the life, but every activity of being, all

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the energy of life, the devotion of powers, these things are all worship.

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There is a center, a motive, a reason, a shrine, a deity somewhere, something which man worships.

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God loved his people too much to allow them to worship other gods, to go astray after

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false gods.

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He demanded of them their singular worship to protect them from immorality and darkness,

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from tragedies and oppressions, from victimizing of the false gods.

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God loved them too much to want them to experience all of that.

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So he says, have no other gods before me.

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Thirdly, I'd like to talk about the application of the law given.

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Does this law seem a little dated to you?

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It would seem in looking at these words in verse 3 that therefore another time, another

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place, I mean when was the last time that you were tempted to worship Zeus?

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When was the last time you offered a sacrifice or were tempted to offer a sacrifice to Hermes?

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Remember that happened in Acts chapter 14 with Paul and Barnabas being thought to be

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gods.

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When was the last time you passed a temple which was overtly dedicated to a pagan deity?

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Doesn't it seem that this law is just a little bit antiquated for us?

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I mean we've come a long way baby, right?

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Polytheism just isn't our thing.

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It's remote to our culture we think.

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We're advanced.

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We're technological.

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We're intelligent.

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We're civilized.

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We're Christian.

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Why we've moved from polytheism to monotheism and there would be some who would say we've

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even moved on to atheism.

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For in some circles to believe that there is no god means that one is an intellectual.

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He's called a brain.

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God calls him a fool.

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Isn't it interesting that the first commandment does not say, and thou shalt believe in the

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Lord thy God?

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It doesn't say that.

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It presupposes a belief in God.

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Why?

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Because a command to believe in God is unnecessary.

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The truth of God is apparent in creation and is written on the conscience.

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So not to believe in God requires one to deny the obvious and overrule the testimony of

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his own conscience.

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Creation was created to worship and to worship the true God.

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But there are many other gods these days.

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Oh, our gods are less visible, less apparent perhaps, but they are just as real.

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They're powerful in our day.

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Even some who claim to be monotheists are practically speaking polytheists.

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Indeed we may even discover that some of us who call ourselves Christians are in truth

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worshippers of other gods.

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Because you see other gods include whatever is the greatest thing in one's life.

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Other gods include whatever receives the most attention.

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Other gods include whatever the pivot is around which all else revolves.

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Other gods include whatever claims one's affection and resources preeminently.

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You see that is a god.

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Intangible, yes, but just as real as any pagan deity worshipped in an idol.

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Indeed today man worships himself and in doing that he's created his own pantheon of deities.

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I'd like to consider three of the gods that are worshiped these days.

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I'm going to use ancient names for them to illustrate something.

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We may not worship in exactly the same way, nor may we use the idols which were common

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in ancient, the ancient days of Israel.

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But I would submit to you that in a certain sense the same gods that were worshiped then

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are still worshiped today.

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The first god I'd like to name, and the ancient name he's known by, is Mammon.

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The name Mammon originally meant a trust, like what you would give to a banker.

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But it came to mean what is trusted instead of God, and it was used that way in Jesus

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Day.

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It refers to money and material things.

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I would suggest to you that Mammon is perhaps the most popular god that people worship in

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our day, even people who call themselves Christian.

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Mammon is an inordinate accumulation of possessions for one's own use.

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I want to hasten to say it's not wrong to have things.

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It is not wrong to accumulate things.

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If that is done as stewardship, if it's done in the context where God is seen as the owner

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and I am but being a faithful steward that I might increase in order to give, that kind

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of accumulation is wise stewardship.

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It's not sinful.

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But when the things that I accumulate begin to direct my life, then it becomes an idol.

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When Mammon and possessions and money become the basis for actions and decisions, then

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those things have become other gods, and God says, no other gods before me.

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Are you serving gold or God?

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Well really, very seldom is it put in such direct terms.

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It's more subtle than that, isn't it?

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One does not have to be wealthy either to serve Mammon.

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Indeed, some of the people who are the most devoted adherents and worshippers of Mammon

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are the poor.

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The worship of things.

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Douglas Beier, who is a pastor in California, compares the subtle bondage of this worship

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to fly and fly paper.

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The fly lights upon the sticky substance.

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And having lit, he says, my paper, only to discover the paper thinking my fly.

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And so we say my things, my money, but I wonder what our things and our money might be thinking.

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My slave, my worshiper.

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There may not be a God that is more tempting than this one to every person sitting in this

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room this morning.

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I would venture to say that there are some of us who have fallen before this God.

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Oh no, there's a place for Yahweh Elohim.

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This is the God we worship, Mammon.

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A second God that was known in that day and widely worshipped in Canaan, Phoenicia, that

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area was the God Baal.

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There are many different Baal gods, but basically the Baal God was the God of rain and fertility.

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And the worship of Baal involved the most lewd, depraved kind of sexual behavior.

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That was all a part of it.

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I want to start by saying that the gift of physical love is a gift from God, and it is

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a wonderful expression of love between a man and woman.

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But like every other good thing that God has given, sin seeks to twist and pervert that

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and to take it out of its place, its context.

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Sin seeks to tempt us to misuse God's good gift for selfish pleasure.

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And yet it is so attractive and so alluring that to say a word against it seems overly

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restrictive, doesn't it?

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It seems Victorian.

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It seems obsolete to talk in terms of this being a God because it is so popularly worshipped

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in our world.

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All you have to do is watch television for one hour during prime time, and you will see

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that to be true.

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You watch it for five minutes in the afternoon.

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Fulfillment of pleasure, even if that pleasure is God-given and intended for good.

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Fulfillment of pleasure as an end in itself is the essence of idolatry.

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When sex is misused, it becomes a cruel, demanding God.

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Douglas Beier says, No idol betrays its worshipper so quickly and obviously as the God of sex.

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No other false god makes greater promises and fails so painfully.

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The sexual revolution of the mid-twentieth century, which promised to cure people's

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Victorian sexual hangups, has created in fact a worse situation.

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It has left in its wake more unwanted pregnancies, more venereal disease, and more broken homes,

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broken hearts, and broken lives than plagued our hung up forebears.

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Are you worshipping at this idol?

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Is this God in some form the one that really controls your life?

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No other gods before me.

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There's a third God I'd like to mention.

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This one's a little more difficult to trace perhaps, but I think it's relevant to our

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day.

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People in that day worshipped in their pagan cultures the god Malik.

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Malik was essentially an Ammonite god worshipped by the sons of Ammon.

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The worship of Malik was unbelievably cruel.

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It involved human sacrifice.

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Malik was sometimes pictured in his idol as one with arms outstretched.

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The idol would be heated until it was red hot, and then parents would come and in worship

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of Malik, place their children in the arms of their god.

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They would be burned alive.

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Now you say, look, that's a long way from where we are today, in one sense.

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But isn't it true that there are people in our society today who offer their children

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in the sterile, polite atmosphere of an abortion clinic?

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Aren't there those who offer human sacrifice through the destruction of the divorce court?

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Aren't children likewise offered up in our day to parentless, hectic schedules of a two

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or three job home?

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Isn't Malik worshipped in our day through the torture chamber of a crazed maniac, as

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in the San Francisco area in this last year as it was discovered?

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Isn't Malik worshipped in the abusive violence of home where wife and children are physically

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and or verbally assaulted?

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Isn't that the worship of Malik?

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Isn't Malik worshipped in the irrational hate and the indiscriminate murder in a crowded

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airport or on a city street?

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And isn't there the offering up of human sacrifice and terrible cruelty through drugs, those

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who use and promote that?

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And alcohol, pornography, rock music.

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Someone told me recently that at some of the rock music concerts there are actually altar

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calls for the young people to give their lives to Satan.

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Cannot we trace the worship of Malik to our day and things like this?

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I believe we can.

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But you see the supreme personal deity of man in our day is really self.

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Oh Baal and Malik and Mammon are there, part of the pantheon.

380
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But the supreme God, the Zeus of our day is self.

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When a man says, well what's in it for me?

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Why does that help me attain my interests, my goals?

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How will it affect me?

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Isn't that self centeredness evidence of self worship?

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Isn't this the kind of worship that Paul suggests in Philippians 3.19 when he says,

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whose God is their belly, in other words whose God is their own selfish appetites?

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The essence of self worship is autonomy from God.

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Even giving him a place out of courtesy is of insufficient of course.

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God is not interested in a place in our lives.

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He's interested in the place of control.

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He wants the throne room and the rights to direct.

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He doesn't want a place given to him out of courtesy.

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Pastor Byers says, God can do little with a person who is self satisfied or self confident.

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God cannot possess the self possessed.

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Those who worship in that way worship themselves with all their hearts, strength, souls and

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minds and themselves only do they serve.

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Why does God make this the first command?

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Why does God insist on worship only of himself?

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I'd like to suggest three reasons for that.

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First because he is Jehovah Yahweh Elohim.

401
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We don't have to go beyond that.

402
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We will.

403
00:37:38,860 --> 00:37:44,840
But the facts are that God is the supreme object of worship.

404
00:37:44,840 --> 00:37:48,440
He is Yahweh, the self existent one who created.

405
00:37:48,440 --> 00:37:51,340
He is the I am that I am.

406
00:37:51,340 --> 00:37:54,840
And if he says no other God is before me, that's all that's necessary.

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It's for him to say that.

408
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There's another reason that I believe God says it.

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That is because he's redeemed his people.

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God says it to you and me today because he has redeemed us from our personal Egypts.

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The blood of his lamb has been sacrificed for us.

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He has purchased us with an awful price.

413
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And so he says, I am the one who redeemed you, no other gods.

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Here's a third reason that God says worship only me.

415
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That is that he doesn't want us to have to experience the emptiness, the frustration,

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the brokenness, the loneliness of other gods.

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You see other gods give promises, but they're unable to fulfill those promises.

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You think about the promises of mammon in your life or the promises of Baal that you

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have listened to.

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Or you think of what Malik has suggested to you or what your Zeus self has said to you.

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Has that false god come through on one promise?

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Rather, your god has left you used, miserable, deceived, and enslaved.

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My friend Jesus Christ is the great liberator.

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He's the one in whom there is true freedom.

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But you must worship him only.

426
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He permits no other gods.

427
00:39:51,320 --> 00:40:04,080
Are you controlled by alcohol, by drugs, by cigarettes?

428
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Are you controlled by them?

429
00:40:06,960 --> 00:40:12,440
The Lord says no other gods before me.

430
00:40:12,440 --> 00:40:16,600
Are you enslaved to rock music?

431
00:40:16,600 --> 00:40:22,760
The Lord says no other gods before me.

432
00:40:22,760 --> 00:40:26,560
You seek after applause and recognition?

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Is that what you seek after?

434
00:40:28,960 --> 00:40:35,160
The Lord says no other gods before me.

435
00:40:35,160 --> 00:40:40,200
Is your number one priority sports?

436
00:40:40,200 --> 00:40:45,480
No other gods before me.

437
00:40:45,480 --> 00:40:51,360
Does your schedule revolve around your television set on Sunday afternoon, Sunday evening, Wednesday

438
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night, other times?

439
00:40:57,160 --> 00:41:03,840
The Lord says no other gods before me.

440
00:41:03,840 --> 00:41:09,040
Are you trusting in your security of investments and savings account?

441
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Is that your trust?

442
00:41:11,480 --> 00:41:18,880
The Lord says no other gods before me.

443
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Is your heart possessed by pride in your intellect, in your education, in your achievements?

444
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The Lord says no other gods before me.

445
00:41:39,400 --> 00:41:49,800
Let's pray.

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Loving Heavenly Father, Yahweh Elohim, graciously reveal to each of us the other gods that we

447
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are worshipping.

448
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Even though we are unwilling to look and reluctant to admit, do not allow us the awful luxury

449
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of escaping that point of conviction.

450
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Do not allow us, Lord, to continue in that idolatry which will ruin our lives, which

451
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will lead us to frustration and emptiness and brokenness and result in our being used

452
00:42:47,920 --> 00:42:50,600
and devastated.

453
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Lord love us more than that.

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Love us to bring us back to the point of faithfulness.

455
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Lord love us and give us hearts of repentance, deep and genuine, until we worship You alone

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00:43:09,480 --> 00:43:15,080
and there are no other gods.

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In Jesus' name, amen.