1117. Thou Shalt Have No Other Gods Before Me – First Commandment

Welcome to The Daily Platform from Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina.

The school was founded in 1927 by the evangelist Dr. Bob Jones, Sr. His intent was to make a school where Christ would be the center of everything so he established daily chapel services. Today, that tradition continues with fervent biblical preaching from the University Chapel platform. Today on The Daily Platform, we're continuing a study series entitled, Oh, How I Love Thy Law, which is a study of the Ten Commandments. Today's message will be preached by Dr. Eric Newton of the Bob Jones University Seminary.

BJU President Steve Pettit will introduce him. We are honored this morning to have Dr. Eric Newton speaking today and our theme, Oh, How I Love Thy Law, as we look at God's commandments. And today he is going to bring to us God's first commandment.

And so if it's first in order of, it must be first in order of importance, and it should definitely be first in our hearts, our minds, and our attention. So please give God's word your attention this morning as Dr. Newton comes. Hope you're doing well this morning. In spite of the rain, you sang well.

Hope that's a reflection of your hearts, and it's good to be together. On May 21st, 2005, American novelist David Foster Wallace delivered one of the most notable commencement addresses of the 21st century at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio. And I think it's important that we start by reading some of his words. He said, because here's something else that's weird but true. In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there's actually no such thing as atheism. There's no such thing as not worshiping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of God or spiritual type thing to worship, and then he mentioned some examples, is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you'll never have enough, never feel you have enough. It's the truth.

Worship your body in beauty and sexual allure, and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you'll die a million deaths before they finally grieve you. On one level, we all know this stuff already.

It's been codified as myths, proverbs, cliches, epigrams, parables, the skeleton of every great story. The whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness. Worship power, you'll end up feeling weak and afraid, and you'll need ever more power over others to numb you to your own fear. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart.

You'll end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they're evil or sinful, it's that they're unconscious, they're default settings. And three years later on September 12, 2008, after a long struggle with addictions, Wallace tragically ended his own life at the age of 46. How do you explain his recognition that we all worship? Why were his comments about money and beauty and intellect and power so profound? And why did his interpretation of life and what it means to worship end in that kind of death?

The answer to all those questions is the same. It's our theme this morning. It's the first commandment. The first commandment says in Exodus 23, thou shalt have no other gods before me.

This is the first of ten words, and it's the first as Dr. Pettit mentioned for a reason. If we don't get the first commandment right, none of the others will be right either. So what's the first commandment? What does God expect us to hear when He speaks His first word?

And it's actually quite brief, as you can see. So we want to listen to it this morning by asking two questions. Thou shalt have no other gods before me, so what does the first commandment say about the Lord God? And then what does the first commandment say about us? First of all, what does it say about God? Well it says very clearly that the Lord God, the Lord is His name, God is His category, the Lord is His name, Jehovah, Yahweh, He is sovereignly exclusive. Now the phrase no other gods is pretty clear.

That's not rocket science. But what does before mean? No other gods before me. Does this mean merely that God is the first among many other gods?

He comes first, and then there are several others. Are there lots of gods, but we just emphasize one. Is this really monotheism after all?

But this phrase in the original has the idea of to the face, or before the face. In other words, he's saying emphatically, don't even think about bringing any other substitute God as an alternative before my presence. Because you know there are no other gods. The rest of scripture makes this very clear. Read with me what Psalm 115 says.

But our God is in the heavens, He has done whatsoever He has pleased. Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men's hands. They have mouths, but they speak not. Eyes have they, but they see not. They have ears, but they hear not. Noses have they, but they smell not. They have hands, but they handle not. Feet have they, but they walk not.

Neither speak they through their throat. And then this conclusion, they that make them are like unto them. So is everyone that trusteth in them. As one book title puts it, you become what you worship. You become like what you worship. In other words, here's the point of the first commandment. Thou should have no other gods before me. God, the Lord, is in a class by Himself.

He's the only one. And this is difficult for us to comprehend because we use reference points in order to understand things. You know, Antarctica is the only continent that has no countries. Or Franklin Delano Roosevelt is the only American president that served four terms, parts of four terms. Or Mary is the only one who is a virgin who conceived and bore the Messiah. Now they're unique, but we need reference points for all of those. A unique president, a unique virgin, a unique continent. But this is not just talking about unique among many. It's not talking about the greatest of all time.

You probably saw some headlines over the past week in relation to the Super Bowl, the GOAT, the greatest of all time. This is not what we're talking about. God is the only God.

He's in a class by Himself. Isaiah 40 to 48 is a section of scripture in which the Lord declares how we can know He is the only true God. And we could look if we had more time at many of these passages, but I want to point us to just one. This is Isaiah 45, 5 to 7. And this is particularly significant I think because this is the Lord talking to Cyrus, king of Persia, two centuries before Cyrus lived.

And here's what he says. I'm the Lord and there is none else. There is no God besides me. I girded thee, though thou hast not known me, that they may know from the rising of the sun and from the west that there is none beside me. I'm the Lord and there is none else. I form the light and create darkness. I make peace and create calamity.

I the Lord do all these things. The Lord Jehovah is God alone. Now even the right kind of exclusivism, we all understand there's a very wrong kind of exclusivism, but even the right kind of exclusivism is very unpopular today. If you say you're completely devoted to Christ because He's the only Savior, you're labeled a radical. If you say that marriage is the joining by covenant of one male and one female to become one flesh until parted by death, you're called a bigot.

In fact, entering into an exclusive relationship as a man and a woman, into marriage by vows, isn't itself in vogue. But since there is only one God, as Paul says in Romans 11, 36, of whom and through whom and to whom are all things to whom be glory forever. Amen. Then we owe Him our wholehearted allegiance.

And that word wholehearted is very important because of a second point. The Lord is sovereignly exclusive, but in the verse previous to our text, we see that the Lord is also graciously covenantal. Who is the Lord?

Well notice what He says in Exodus 20 verse 2. I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

This is not the radical monotheism of Islam. This is not a distant God who simply decrees and punishes and rewards. This is a triune God who enters human history himself to rescue rebels from destruction. This is a God who is relational. I am the Lord.

I am bringing you into covenant. This is a God who rescues. He's a God of redemption. He brought them out of Egypt.

He brought them out of bondage. And we find this same order in the New Testament, particularly epistles. Think of Ephesians. In Ephesians 1 through 3, you have this amazing doctrine about who God is and what kind of salvation He's accomplished. And then Ephesians 4 through 6 give us the obligations inherent in being His blood-bought children. In other words, God acted first. This is not a God who sits back and says, alright, prove to me that I should love you. Prove to me that you can really be devoted.

I'm going to sit back and wait. Now He says, I'm the Lord who brought you out of bondage. Now, there are no other gods, so don't try to worship other gods. The Lord's steadfast love, His own faithfulness, are the bedrock and motivation for our devotion to Him.

He never asks us to do what He has not already initiated. So what does the first commandment say about the Lord God? It says that He is God alone, He's sovereignly exclusive, and that He is graciously covenantal.

He is a Savior, the only Savior. Secondly, what does the first commandment say about us? Well, it says this, that our thoughts about God are the most important thing about us.

Romans 1 21 says, because that when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful, but they became vain in their imaginations and their foolish heart was darkened. Do you have that experience of something going wrong and you find yourself saying to somebody else, my bad, I just messed up. It's not really who I am, it's not really what I intended, I just kind of messed up. And we do mess up. We do things we don't intend.

They aren't sinful, they're just mistakes. But the fundamental issue is not simply that we make mistakes or that we commit particular sins. The heart of the problem is in our hearts. It's that we've displaced our Creator in order to worship what He's created instead. We are idolaters. Now this point that the most important thing about us is our thoughts about God comes from, you may know, a famous Christian writer A. W. Tozer and his book The Knowledge of the Holy.

And I want us to look at a portion of what he says. He says, what comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. The history of mankind will probably show that no people has ever risen above its religion and man's spiritual history will positively demonstrate that no religion has ever been greater than its idea of God. Worship is pure or base as the worshiper entertains high or low thoughts of God. For this reason, the gravest question before the church, he's not speaking necessarily to the outside world, although it applies for them as well.

He's talking to us, the church. The gravest question is always God Himself. And the most portentous fact about any man is not what at a given time he may say or do, but what he in his deep heart conceives God to be like. What are your thoughts about God? What are my thoughts about God?

What surfaces in unguarded moments? Where does our heart go when it just follows its natural path? You see, our devotion to God, our healthy fear of Him, concern not only where we would rank Him, that He's God all by Himself, He's the only one in that category and I need to recognize Him as such and worship Him as such, love Him as such. It also has to do with where I rank His opinion of all things, including me. I don't know if you did this, but leading up to Christmas, I did a lot of online shopping. I much prefer online shopping. And so I would go to Amazon and I would search for something and then all of these choices, you know, a gazillion choices, and for me, somebody who really likes simplicity, that's overwhelming. And so I say, okay, how many out of five stars does this product have?

And you compare that and then you start reading some of the reviews and you kind of latch onto a couple of reviews that seal the deal for you or say, now I need to keep looking. But when we're talking about our heart, when we're talking about the Lord God, this isn't just getting a lot of opinion from a lot of places and finding what's best and we know, hopefully, we'll listen to God because we know He's God. This is taking all of those reviews, all of that input, which can be helpful or maybe not so helpful and setting it aside and saying, fundamentally, I'm going to listen to God, where what His opinion is ranks first, far above all else. Now, there's a key passage related to our text and that's Deuteronomy 6.4. It's called the Shema. And I think in many ways it's the foundational verse of the Old Testament, certainly for Jews.

It says, as you can see, hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord. He's the only one. Devote yourself to Him. Fear Him. Love Him. Center your life on Him.

So what does this require? Well, if our thoughts about God are the most important thing about us, then how do we govern those thoughts? Do you ever have the experience of wanting to think about God, wanting to have the right thoughts, wanting to love Him, and you feel like your mind is going in a gazillion different directions? Well, that's how our hearts are. So secondly, right thoughts require united hearts.

This has to do with what's going on inside here. The Ten Commandments are bookended by commandments that focus on the heart. We think of the Ten Commandments, you know, don't steal, don't commit adultery, don't murder.

Those are very visible, sometimes very public actions. But on the front end and the back end of the Ten Commandments, there's a focus that shows us that all of them really come down to what's in the heart. The Sermon on the Mount was not the first time that God had said something about the heart in relation to the commandments. So notice what Deuteronomy 6.5 says. After we should hear that the Lord our God is one Lord, thou shalt love the Lord thy God with what?

All thine heart, and all thy soul, and all thy might. We have to have united hearts in order to have right thoughts. We like to keep our options open, right? You like options? Or do you want me to tell you what you have to eat for lunch today?

Of course not. We bristle when there's only one choice. And we take that kind of mentality so often into our relationship with the Lord, into our worship.

We like to spread our worship around very liberally. It's kind of like a state fair. Have you ever been to a state fair or a carnival of some sort? And maybe your parents gave you this little wad of $1 bills, or maybe you had to actually transfer that into a mound of tickets. And you're going around and you're spending a few tickets on this, and you get some funnel cakes here, and you're riding across the top of things here, and you're buying a little stuffed animal here.

I know it's been a while since you've done that, but just think with me. I think our lives are like that. We just kind of spread our devotion and worship around a little bit here and a little bit there. But listen to what Joshua says in Joshua 24 15. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. We will worship the Lord. Our hearts, by God's grace, will be toward the Lord.

The first commandment is calling for devoted allegiance. When I was thinking about how to picture this, I'd run across several people who had mentioned the illustration of a marriage. And I was thinking about a committed marriage.

Not a perfect marriage, there are none of those, but the kind of marriage that lasts, that bears fruit in so many ways. And by God's providence, the Lord brought my mind to the date today. It's February 7th, 2018. And it just so happens to be my grandparents' 70th anniversary. Today, they've been married 70 years. That's a picture of them, February 7th, 1948. Now, my grandparents are believers. They're wonderful people.

They're not perfect. In fact, my mom just told me a few days ago something I'd never heard before, and that's how they first met. My grandmother transferred high schools, this had been the early 40s, and she walked into the office and she saw my grandfather sitting outside the principal's office with a black eye. He had been in a fight. Alright, this is not love at first sight, alright?

She probably wasn't too impressed by him, and he couldn't see her. But they have lived together faithfully for 70 years. For better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish till death do us part according to God's holy ordinance. God is calling for allegiance. He knows we're not going to be perfect. He knows we're going to have a heart that's tempted to be scattered. But He's calling for our allegiance, and He has loved us more than any husband or wife ever could.

How do we do this? Look what it says in Deuteronomy 6.6, and these words which I command thee this day shall be in thine heart. How do you love God with all your heart? You've got to put your words in His heart. You've got to think about Him.

You've got to converse with Him. You've got to center your everyday existence on Him. And so finally, we see that not only are our thoughts about God the most important thing about us, and therefore, right thoughts require hearts that are united. Finally, everyday life begins and ends with God. What would obeying this command in love by grace look like?

Well, this is not cliché. It would be a radically God-centered life. Our lives, like planets around the sun, would orbit around God.

Everything is coming off the sun. And here's how Christians of the past have applied this commandment. Four ways.

The ways could go on and on, of course, but here are four ways. And think as we look at these how they speak of life. True life. What would it mean to obey this commandment? It would mean that we adore the Lord. What captivates us? Like what excites us? What drives us?

What do we want to talk about? What is our treasured possession? Do we adore the Lord God?

I mean, think of what it's going to be like for eternity. Revelation 4.11, thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power, for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created. This is what God made us for.

He made us with an eternal shaped cavity in our souls that can only be filled by worship for the one true God. Do we adore the Lord? Secondly, do we trust the Lord? Where's our confidence? On whose strength do we depend? We all know this verse, but are we really trusting in the Lord with all our heart? Or are we leaning on our own understanding?

Are we acknowledging Him in all our ways, believing that He'll direct our paths? What question do you have in front of you? What struggle did you bring with you in the rain into FMA this morning? What difficult circumstance are you not sure you're going to be able to get out of?

What unforeseen issue in the future is going to threaten your balance? Trust in the Lord. This is what it means by grace to fulfill this commandment. Thirdly, thank the Lord.

We adore Him, we trust Him, we thank Him. Who gets the credit? You do well on that test, who gets the credit for that? You meet somebody who gives you an entree into an internship for this summer, who gets the credit for that? You get up and read your Bible when you wanted to stay in bed, who gets the credit for that?

You're sitting here in the midst of a Christian college that others have helped you pay for? Who gets the credit for that? We have a great God. He's not distant. He's with us. He loves us. Praise God from whom all blessings flow. And finally, not just adoring and trusting and thanking but obeying. Who gets the deciding vote?

When push comes to shove, who are we going to follow? Jesus said, John 14-15, if you love me, keep my commandments. And that means we're going to have to say no to other people. Saying yes to the Lord in devotion means saying no to other people.

Just like saying yes for my grandmother to my grandfather meant saying no to every other guy in a marriage context. Obedience to God in a fallen world always involves saying no to Satan the world in our own lusts. He's given us a new heart. May we use that new heart in devoted allegiance to Him.

This is what life's all about. This is the first commandment for a reason. God made us so that we would work this way and He gave us His grace so that we could do it when before, outside of Christ, we never could have. I want to close with several verses from the psalm that Dr. Hans Bernard preached just a couple of weeks ago. This, I think, captures the essence of the first commandment and how we should respond.

Follow along with me. Among the gods, Psalm 86, there is none like unto thee, O Lord. Neither are there any works like unto thy works. All nations whom thou hast made shall come and worship before thee, O Lord, and shall glorify thy name. For thou art great and doest wondrous things. Thou art God alone. Teach me thy way, O Lord. I will walk in thy truth. Unite my heart to fear thy name. I will praise thee, O Lord, my God, with all my heart, and I will glorify thy name forevermore. For great is thy mercy toward me, and thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest hell. Amen.

And may it ever be. Would you pray with me? God alone on your throne, you are high and lifted up. And by your grace, we want to bow the knee and worship you with our lives. Help us in Jesus' name. Amen. You've been listening to a sermon preached at Bob Jones University by Dr. Eric Newton. Join us again tomorrow as we continue this series on the Ten Commandments here on The Daily Platform.