WORSHIPING THE ONE ONLY TRUE GOD
Sermon by: Rev. Steven R. KeyL.D. 34, Q & A 94,95
Scripture: Isaiah 46; Exodus 20:3 As we begin our study of the Ten Commandments, it is important that we remember the introduction to the law as recorded in the first two verses of Exodus 20. "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." That is not merely an introductory address. That is the key to understanding the whole law as to its proper place for me, a Christian. Jehovah God spoke to His people by those words. He addressed His Church. There they were, gathered together at Mount Sinai, encamped at the base of the mount, frightened beyond measure. For Moses had told them that on the third day of their encampment there, Jehovah would come down upon Mount Sinai. He Whose holiness would consume any one who crossed the boundaries Moses established around the mount, He Whose holiness would bring death upon anyone who was not sanctified when He appeared, was to come to them the third day. Two days had passed. So we read in Exodus 19:16: "And it came to pass on the third day in the morning, that there were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud; so that all the people that was in the camp trembled." Moreover, we read that "mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the LORD descended upon it in fire: and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly." For a sinful people, it was a terrifying appearance by the Holy God. But that voice, a mighty voice as of a trumpet, was unmistakably clear. It was the voice of that Holy God, Jehovah. And He it was Who said, "I am JEHOVAH thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage."What a wonderful revelation of God to His people! To a people fully conscious of their sin, of their corruption, of their guilt and shame; to a people aware of the fact that they cannot appear before the Holy God and live, Jehovah says, "I am Jehovah thy God." Do you hear Him in that introduction? Before giving them the words of the Ten Commandments, God will reveal Himself in His peculiar and very special covenant relationship to His people. He is Jehovah, their God. Oh, it is true, He is God of heaven and earth, of all men and nations. For He is their Creator, and therefore Lord over all. But in an altogether unique sense He speaks here to His people. He is their covenant God, their Redeemer, Who has given them life and taken them into His own fellowship. They are His peculiar possession. They are the objects of His love — not for anything in themselves or anything they have done, but merely out of His own good pleasure. He has formed them for Himself, to bless them with His favor, to reveal to them His love, to receive them into His fellowship, to make them partakers of His own life, that they might show forth His praise as the One Who has called them out of darkness into His marvelous light.
And the same Lord Who spoke to His people at Sinai is the God Who addresses us with these words! That wonderful deliverance from the bondage of Egypt, typical only of that great salvation from the bondage of sin and death, is now ours in complete fulfillment! Jesus came, Jehovah salvation! He is revealed also in the introduction to the Ten Commandments. It is therefore the God of our salvation in Christ Jesus, Who redeemed and delivered us from the bondage of sin and death and Who continues to lead us to the Canaan of glory, Who is also addressing us in the law of the Ten Commandments.
I say, this address is the key to understanding the place of the law in our life. If you don't have a grasp of this introduction, if you don't live in the consciousness of this wonderful covenant relation to Jehovah, and of the salvation that is yours only by His wonder work of grace; if your heart is not filled with thankfulness for the place which He has given you in the fellowship of His love, then you cannot and you will not keep His commandments. Even though you may conform outwardly to the letter of the law, your walk of life will be an abomination to Jehovah of hosts. But when you live by faith in the consciousness of your great salvation, when you stand before the holy Jehovah and see in Him your loving Redeemer, then you are compelled by the full gratitude of your heart to live according to all His commandments, seeing them as a guide for your willing life of thankfulness to Him. Then you understand that God would have His people, us, reveal our salvation and work it out, by loving Him with all our heart and soul and mind, and by revealing that love in the tenfold form which such love must assume in the midst of this world. Let us give diligent attention, therefore, to this perfect law of liberty, as we begin today with the first commandment. My theme is:
WORSHIPING THE ONE ONLY TRUE GOD
I. THE EXCLUSIVE DEMAND
II. THE SIGNIFICANT IMPLICATIONS
III. THE ONLY POSSIBILITY
WE HAVE HERE A COMMANDMENT THAT IS BASED UPON THE VERY PRINCIPLE OF EXCLUSION, THAT IS, GOD IS GOD ALONE.
Isaiah 46, which we read earlier, sets forth that very truth most emphatically in verses 9,10, a text which our children and we do well to memorize. "Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me. Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure." Really, this truth is emphasized in this entire section of the Book of Isaiah. In chapters 40 through 46 especially, Isaiah is given repeatedly to proclaim the truth of God's absolute sovereignty and exclusive deity. Listen, e.g., to Isaiah 44:6: "Thus saith the LORD the King of Israel, and his redeemer the LORD of hosts; I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God."
That leaves room, you understand, for but two alternatives. We either serve this God or we serve an idol. And by this God, I refer to the God Who reveals Himself in the Scriptures. Jehovah is His name. There are those who say that men just have different names for God. They say that all men really are serving the same God, just by different names. They say, "The Jews call him Elohim; the Muslims call him Allah; other religions have their own names for God. But really, it's all the same. You have your God; we have ours. We all have our own ways of worshiping; we're all going to the same place." And in our politically correct society where everything must be tolerated, except the intolerance of the truth of Scripture, that line of thinking is the philosophy of the age. It is either that, or they will say that there are many gods, and Jehovah is one of them. But all men have the right to have their own god, to make their own choice, to believe what they will, so long as they recognize that right for every one else too. That was the prevalent philosophy in Old Testament times, and is still very much alive today. The Babylonians, the Assyrians, the Moabites, or as we have seen recently in the history of Elijah and the widow of Zarephath, the Sidonians — they all had their gods. And they would all say one to another. We have our gods, you have yours. Your gods are gods too; but we prefer our own.
Let me take this a little further. Within churches that call themselves Christian, there are those who hold this position concerning God Himself. Truth means little to them. So they say, "We believe the way we do; you believe that way. But we're all serving the same God and going to the same place." People of God, if you will walk in obedience to the first commandment, you cannot possibly say that. The believer, the one who serves the only living God, is intolerant of every vain philosophy of man. There is one only true God. And He is not a God of man's imagination, nor of man's interpretation. But He is the God Who reveals Himself in truth in the Holy Scriptures. And therefore to have a wrong conception of Him or to draw a view of God that is based upon our own feelings and desires, but not upon a loving reverence for the infallible Scriptures, is to make an idol. It is to form an idol in our minds, just as really as if you would carve one out of wood, or chisel it out of stone.
Still more, we are inclined to think sometimes of three possibilities: Either one worships God, or one worships an idol, or one is an atheist and has no God at all. But there is no third possibility either. One worships Jehovah God; or an idol. There are no atheists. Romans 1 makes that very clear. There is no man who does not know that God is, and that He must be served and glorified as God alone. It is true that there is a philosophy called "atheism." It is also true that to such who hold to that philosophy, they may imagine that they have ruled God out of their lives. But listen to Psalm 14:1 (and the same is written in Psalm 53:1): "The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God." The Bible calls such a person who attempts to deny God "a fool." He is a fool precisely because he refuses to reckon with the reality that he knows is true — God is God. In that denial of truth, he tells himself, he says in his heart, "There is no God." But just as a drunkard easily denies the truth of his own condition and state, refusing to face the reality of the seriousness and destructiveness of his sin, so the atheist takes what is very real, and denies it to his own damnation.
All men have a god. One either worships and serves the one only true God, or he becomes an idolater, having a god of his own imagination. But every man has a god. That is true because man is a creature. He was created to serve. If he serves not God, he serves an idol. Maybe that idol is self. Oh, how easily we fall into the sin of self-seeking, placing ourselves first, making an idol of self. That, after all, is the very root sin of pride against which every one of us has to struggle. But when God says, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me," that certainly means that God is God alone. "Hear, O Israel: the LORD our God is one LORD." We heard that a couple weeks ago in Deuteronomy 6. How true that is.
THIS EXCLUSIVE NATURE OF THE FIRST COMMANDMENT ALSO MEANS THAT OUR GOD, JEHOVAH, IS LORD OVER ALL.
That also belongs to His absolute sovereignty. Because He is the only God, He is the Maker of all things, the Owner of all things, the Possessor of all things. "The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof." As we read in Isaiah 46: What God has spoken, He shall also bring to pass; what He has purposed, He shall most certainly do. And therefore when the psalmist in Psalm 115 sings of the greatness of our God, he points to the vanity of heathen idols, while saying, "But our God is in the heavens: he hath done whatsoever he hath pleased."
That God is sovereign means that He has full and complete power over all things without exception, that He works all things according to His own good pleasure, right down to the most minute detail. That means, you understand, that when we walk in obedience to the first commandment, we willingly grant that this great God is the One Who has the right to tell us what we shall do and what purpose we shall serve. Still more, we acknowledge that His is the right to do with us and with our lives whatsoever He pleases. After all, He is not simply a Lord, but the Lord. He is Lord not only over the good things, but also over the evil; not only of the righteous, but also of the wicked; not only of life, but also of death; not only of prosperity, but also adversity; not only of health, but also of sickness. All things are under His absolute Lordship. Gladly we acknowledge that. And Him do we serve.
We don't always understand His ways with us. But because He is God, we don't have to understand. When we believe His absolute sovereignty, then, as our Catechism puts it, we "trust in Him alone;" and "with humility and patience submit to Him." There are ways down which He leads us that are most difficult. He is the One Who brings us into sickness. God is the One Who governs our losses. It is His hand that leads us into bereavement, also sustaining us in His mercies. When we have children of sorrows, wayward children whose lives fill our hearts with heaviness that is sometimes beyond expression, we recognize God's sovereignty even over the destiny of our loved ones. And what other comfort is there in the face of such trials? After all, this God that we serve is our God. He is our Guide even unto death. He is our God as Redeemer, Who brought us out of the bondage of sin and death. And therefore, though we often cannot understand, we believe Him when He tells us in His Word that He works all things for the good of us who love Him. He governs all things to accomplish His purpose. Therefore, again as our Catechism puts it, having learned rightly to know this only true God, we "expect all good things from Him only." One of the two authors of the Catechism, Zacharias Ursinus, commented on this aspect of the first commandment as expounded in the 94th answer, saying that we must obey God as we bear every adversity, not grumbling against Him on account of our pain, but rather trusting that He will help us. That is the way of obedience in recognition of God's absolute sovereignty.
But when we speak of Jehovah God as Lord over all, there is one other very important principle that comes out in this first commandment. For God reveals Himself here as a personal God. That is how I have been addressing you with some of these truths, beloved. That is how God Himself would speak to us. In this first commandment of His law, Jehovah confronts you personally. He speaks to you; He reveals His will to you. He demands that you love Him exclusively, and that you stand before Him laying hold of His Word. He speaks of thou, you singular, you personally. "Thou shalt have no other gods." "Thou shalt have no other gods before me." Notice that too. He refers to Himself as a personal God. He is not a vague impersonal power. We ought never speak of Him as "mother nature" or "kind providence." He is a distinct, personal Being, Jehovah your God.
IN THE FIRST PLACE, THE NEGATIVE FORM OF THE COMMANDMENT MAKES VERY CLEAR THAT WE ARE AN IDOLATROUS PEOPLE.
It isn't necessary, you see, to carve or chisel an idol out of wood or stone. Yes, in the Old Testament those idols often took the form of wood or stone. In the Old Testament we think of Baal and Dagon and Molech and all the rest — or Bel and Nebo, as Isaiah referred to them. They were formed by the hands of men. But don't forget, before those idols were ever molded into images, they were conceived in the minds of men. Idols are very easily conceived in our minds. We don't even think of them as idols. But idols abound in our day. An idol is simply that which stands at the very center of a person's life, which that person serves and of which that person says, "This is first, no matter what."
Scripture makes clear that very often that idol is another person. Think of some of the expressions in Scripture. "Put not thy confidence in princes." To trust in those who rule, to put our confidence in mere men, is to make an idol of mere creatures. What does the Bible say? "The hearts of the kings are in the hands of the Lord as the rivers of water; he turneth them whithersoever he will." Or think of another expression: "Put not thy trust in physicians." Now, that does not mean that we may not use physicians. The Bible points us to the fact that medicine and medical treatment is a good gift of God. When we are ill, we use the means which God gives us to diagnose and treat that illness. But to trust in a physician as one who possesses power to deliver is folly. It is idolatry. There is One Who provides healing. His name is Jehovah. There is One Who determines whether I live or die, and when I die, and how I die. His name is Jehovah. When He sends us sickness, we use the doctor, and we submit when need be to the hand of the surgeon; but our confidence must be found in one thing, that we are in the hands of the Lord our God.
But when Scripture warns us against making idols of other persons, Scripture makes clear that it is most often one very close to us that becomes an idol. Remember what I said: An idol is simply that which stands at the very center of a person's life, which that person serves and of which that person says, "This is first, no matter what." Young people are easily inclined to make an idol out of the person with whom they have established a relationship as boyfriend or girlfriend. Maybe it isn't even a healthy relationship. Maybe it's a relationship that God forbids! But every relationship ought to be examined as to whether or not it is a relationship subject to the primary relationship of our life, namely, that in which we stand to our Redeemer, Jehovah. Is God first? And in this given relationship, is my relationship to God being helped or hindered? That is the question. For to put any man or woman first in our life, is to violate the first commandment and to sin against God.
The same holds true with our family members. Do you think our Lord isn't aware of how strong are family relationships? Listen to what Jesus said, as recorded in Matthew 10:37: "He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me." One whose love for a son or daughter is so twisted that they will defend that child who walks in sin, one whose love is so twisted that it refuses the rod of Christian discipline for that child, is one who walks in violation of the first commandment. He or she has made an idol out of a child, putting that child before God. And the Lord says in the Proverbs, that whoso walks that way, in reality does not love that child at all, but hates him. We must guard ourselves against putting any one, be it husband or wife, above our relationship with the Lord our God.
STATED POSITIVELY, THIS FIRST COMMANDMENT, WITH ITS EXCLUSIVE DEMAND, IMPLIES THAT I MUST LOVE THIS ONE GOD, AS HE REVEALS HIMSELF IN HIS WORD, AND I MUST DO SO EXCLUSIVELY, WITH ALL MY HEART AND SOUL AND MIND.
But what does it mean to love God? Certainly love has an emotional aspect. There is an aspect of affection to love. But love is no mere sentiment. Love is a resolution and an activity. And more specifically, it is a work of grace, and therefore our response to God's love revealed to us in Christ Jesus. Remember once again the perspective through which we view the law of God. We are the redeemed in Christ Jesus. We are the objects of God's love, upon which He has bestowed the gift of His grace beyond measure. To love Him, therefore, is that response to His love that moves us to seek His glory, to do His will, to keep His Word. That is love. You cannot seek yourself, reject God's will, and cast off His Word, while claiming to love Him. That is impossible. John puts it very plainly, in I John 5:3: "For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous."
To love God with our whole being means that, knowing Him as the only true God, we now bow before Him, subject ourselves to Him, and say, "My Lord and my God!" It means that we acknowledge and fervently desire to live in harmony with the truth that He is Lord over our whole life. He is Lord over our body and over our soul. After all, He has taken us who are His redeemed people and made our bodies the very temple of His Holy Spirit! He is Lord over our mind and over our will and over all our desires. To serve Him only, therefore, is to submit our mind and will and desires to Him and to His service, unconditionally. We confess that He is Lord over all our relationships in the world. He is Lord in our family life. He is Lord in our marriages. He is Lord over our life on the farm or in the office or in the shop or on the job, Lord over our relationship with our employer or employees. He is Lord over all our possessions, so that in obedience to the first commandment and seeking His glory, we take also our possessions and seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.
AND THEREFORE YOU SEE THAT THIS CALL TO WORSHIP THE ONE ONLY TRUE GOD ALSO IMPLIES THAT WE RENOUNCE EVERY CREATURE AS AN OBJECT OF TRUST, AND PUT OUR TRUST IN GOD ALONE.
The Catechism speaks of such things as superstition and sorcery. Constantly man reveals his superstitious nature. That is exactly what he does when he governs his life by his feelings instead of by the Word of God. And many, living by feelings, would have their feelings directed by other sources. So they turn to the section in the newspaper where the horoscopes are found. And they pick up the tabloid newspapers displayed at the grocery store checkout lanes, where the headlines claim to have prophecies concerning the future. Others govern their life by "Lady Luck," chance, lottery tickets as their attempt to gain their fortune. Others incorporate their superstition in their religion. The Reformed fathers, seeing such idolatry as already prevalent within Roman Catholicism, point to the error of worshipping saints, by praying to them for the fulfillment of requests and desires.
But in our day the idols of our land are legion. There is the idol called money and all that it entails. Jesus spoke of it as mammon. We call it materialism. Let us remember, beloved, this first commandment: "Thou shalt have no other gods before me." It's not that we may not have money, even a lot of money as the Lord prospers some. But the Bible tells us that the love of money is the root of all evil. That ought to cause us to do some soul-searching. It is very easy to live for possessions, to have toys become the focus of our life. That is idolatry. We are to put away the god materialism! Another god goes by the name pleasure. Men live for pleasure. The work world bears overwhelming testimony of that. Men and women alike "live for the weekend." That's what they say. Entertainment and pleasure is an idol. Sports is another activity that is exalted to idolatry in our day. What is the place of such things in our life, beloved? Are they strictly subordinate to the things of the kingdom of God? Let us not forget, the gods of this world are deceitful. They are vanity. They cannot give us rest. They cannot give us peace. Jehovah, He alone is God!
WHEN I HEAR THE WORDS OF THE LAW, AND THIS FIRST COMMANDMENT, I TREMBLE.
I tremble because I know that I have sinned against God. I, who am a creature of God's own hands, I who have received everything from Him and who am totally dependent upon Him; still more, I who have been redeemed by Christ, have often taken it upon myself to trust and to live for things or persons other than this great God. I tremble when I see how easily I would glorify self and seek my own things. I am filled with sorrow when I realize the countless times I have neglected to know Him as He reveals Himself in His Word, when I have ignored Him in my daily life. When I stand before God's law, my sins are exposed to my own conscience. Is it so for you?
If it is, then you must also know this: When God works such a consciousness of sin and sorrow for sin in our hearts, He also works in us the desire to live in the light of His Word. We also long to walk in obedience to His law. And in that longing, we desire to know Him more and more. Jesus said, to know Him is life eternal. And because our purpose in life is to know the only true God and to live before His face, we shall also diligently lay hold of the means whereby He reveals Himself to us and speaks to us. Living in obedience to the first commandment is to lay hold of the gospel and the preaching of His Holy Word. Seeking to know God, we diligently attend to the preaching of the gospel and catechism. To cast off that knowledge is unthinkable to us who desire more and more to know God. The willful neglect of the means of grace, whether the preaching of the Word or catechism instruction, is to say, "I don't need God! I know all I need to know! It's not that important." That attitude is the expression of one who cares not for God's Word, who thinks he can get along fine without this God, who can walk his own way. He is an idolater, who puts self above God. You, however, in whom the Spirit dwells, say, "I want to know Him, my Redeemer! I can't get enough of that! For Him will I trust! Him will I know! Him will I love! He is mine.
BUT THE ONLY POSSIBILITY OF YOU AND ME OBEDIENTLY WORSHIPING THE ONE ONLY TRUE GOD IN THAT WAY IS THAT WE DO SO IN CHRIST JESUS.
The sinner, apart from Christ, cannot walk in this way of obedience and cannot put his trust in the living God. That is impossible for him. Because trust and confidence implies a relationship of love. To trust in the one true God only implies that this great Lord, the only Sovereign of heaven and earth, loves us and that we are assured of that love. But the wicked cannot have that assurance. For God makes clear even in all the creation that He is a God of wrath against all those who oppose and reject Him. That knowledge, we are told by James, makes even the devils tremble.
But in Christ this mighty God has revealed His love. And looking at Jehovah in the face of Jesus Christ, we can see that He loves us, that He has forgiven all our iniquities, that He delivers us from sin and death and leads us in the pathway of righteousness. And we can see that, because the desire of our heart is to walk in the way of His commandments, and to know Him Who is our Redeemer. Then we trust in Him and Him alone. Then we fear Him, and Him alone. Then we fight the good of faith, and obtain the victory that is ours in Christ Jesus. This God is my God forever and ever. Do you confess that, beloved? May it be so. Amen.
Preached: Randolph PRC 8/31/97 (am)
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