In his sermon 'No Other gods!', Mike Davenport explores the First Commandment, emphasizing its enduring relevance and profound implications for both ancient and modern believers. The sermon details the historical context of the Ten Commandments, given by God to the Israelites at Mount Sinai, highlighting the gravity of God's instructions to Moses about consecrating the people and setting boundaries around the mountain. Davenport argues that the First Commandment requires believers to know, fear, and love God, rejecting idolatry and recognizing God as the ultimate Redeemer. The sermon warns against modern-day idolatry and calls for a deeper, experiential knowledge of God, urging believers to prioritize their relationship with Him above all else. The speaker also touches on the role of the Ten Commandments in shaping moral standards and how their removal from public spaces reflects a broader cultural shift away from divine principles. Davenport concludes by reinforcing that the commandments are not about earning God's love but expressing love and obedience to Him, reminding listeners of the transformative power of God's Word and the necessity of teaching these truths to future generations.

Exodus chapter 19, beginning with verse 10. Then the Lord said to Moses, go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow, and let them wash their clothes, and let them be ready for the third day, for on the third day, the Lord will come down upon Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people. You shall set bounds for the people all around, saying, take heed to yourselves that you do not go up to the mountain or touch its base. Whoever touches the mountain shall surely be put to death. Not a hand shall touch him, but he shall surely be stoned or shot with an arrow.

Whether man or beast, he shall not live. When the trumpet sounds long, they shall come near the mountain." So Moses went down from the mountain to the people and sanctified the people, and they washed their clothes. And he said to the people, Be ready for the third day. Do not come near your wives. Then it came to pass on the third day in the morning that there were thunderings and lightnings and a thick cloud on the mountain and the sound of the trumpet was very loud so that all the people who were in the camp trembled and Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet with God and they stood at the foot of the mountain.

Now Mount Sinai was completely in smoke because the Lord descended upon it in fire. Its smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace and the whole mountain quaked greatly. And when the blast of the trumpet sounded long and became louder and louder, Moses spoke and God answered him by voice. Then the Lord came down upon Mount Sinai on the top of the mountain and the Lord called Moses to the top of the mountain and Moses went up And the Lord said to Moses, Go down and warn the people lest they break through to gaze at the Lord, and many of them perish. Also let the priests to come near the Lord, consecrate themselves, lest the Lord break out against them.

But Moses said to the Lord, The people cannot come up to Mount Sinai, for you warned us, saying, Set bounds around the mountain and consecrate it. Then the Lord said to him, "'Away! Get down and then come up, you and Aaron with you. But do not let the priest and the people break through to come up to the Lord, lest he break out against them.' So Moses went down to the people and spoke to them. And God spoke all these words, saying, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, you shall have no other gods before me.

Amen. Let's seek the Lord in prayer. Gracious God, we come to this passage remembering how Moses was instructed coming to that burning bush, the bush that burned but was not consumed. And Lord, you commanded him to take off his shoes for where he stood was holy ground. Lord, this is holy ground.

Coming before the God of all the earth who condescended to speak to man these very words, oh Lord, help us to know that though these surroundings have changed, Our God has not changed. You are a consuming fire. So help us to come in a sense of humility as we consider these words of our great God today. Help us, we pray. Lord, help my words to fall to the ground.

Lord use only your words. May all that is spoken be in accordance with your word And may you use it by the power of your Spirit to change us, we pray, in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, you may be seated. I am sure most of you are familiar with the battles throughout our nation, still going on, revolving the removal of the Ten Commandments from public buildings, from courtrooms, municipal buildings, memorials, government buildings, and the like.

In such places, these replicas and pictures of the Ten Commandments have often been removed. Well, their removal has not changed their binding relevance. Rather, it has increased this nation's culpability in the very breaking of those commands. Yet I am afraid that in the modern church here in America, the professed church of Jesus Christ has removed these same Ten Commandments, maybe not from their walls, not from their Bibles, but certainly from their pulpits. Well, may God continue to make us a humble people who receive all the implanted word, every word of it with meekness and to walk by it and not just to be hearers of it.

And so we come to these words in Exodus chapter 20 and in verse 1 we read, and God spoke all these words. So easy to pass by those words and get to the next verse. But brethren, God spoke all these words. Note first in the opening verse that it is God Himself who speaks. God is the author of these commandments.

Let's not hurry past this reality, but rather let us marvel. The God of heaven and earth condescends to speak to sinful man. We are not at liberty to ignore these words. We are not at liberty to change what is said. We are not at liberty to add to this word or to take from it.

I believe we can narrow it down even further. This is Jesus who is meeting with Moses, who is speaking the words of these commandments. In the sermon of Stephen found in Acts chapter 7, we read in verse 30, and when 40 years had passed, an angel of the Lord appeared to Moses in a flame of fire in a bush in the wilderness of Mount Sinai. And we read on further that he is the giver of this law. Christ is known to be the angel of the Lord, a designation we find throughout the entire Old Testament.

It was Christ who appeared to Hagar. It was Christ who appeared to Abraham. It was Christ who, as we read there in Acts 7, was in the burning bush. It was Christ who appeared to Gideon, who appeared to Manoah and his wife. It was Christ who was in the fiery furnace with the three Hebrew men.

And we find Christ on Mount Sinai as Stephen explains the giving of the law, Acts 7 38. This is that same Moses who was in the congregation or the church in the wilderness with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai and with our fathers, the one who received the living oracles to give to us. These verses in Acts 7 coupled with the teaching of the word that Christ is the eternal Word of God and the very image of the invisible God, these point to Jesus as the giver of the law. And if that is the case, then these very commandments must be included if we are to fulfill the Great Commission to teach the nations all things that Jesus himself has commanded. Second, note that God determines the audience.

Not only is he the author of these words, God determines the audience. This is not intended to be a casual conversation. God has a purpose. God has a plan. Look back at chapter 19 verse 9 and we see God here speaking to Moses.

And the Lord said to Moses, Behold, I come to you in the thick cloud that the people may hear when I speak with you and believe you forever." God tells Moses that he intends to meet with Moses, but he wants the people within hearing distance. He wants them to hear what he is delivering to Moses. Also in regard to this audience, God has also made it clear that the people must be made ready. Let your eyes fall upon chapter 9 verses 10 and 11. Then the Lord said to Moses, go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow and let them wash their clothes and let them be ready for the third day.

For on the third day, the Lord will come down upon Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people." God requires the people to prepare themselves over the span of two full days, and then to draw near to the mountain when he descends in the cloud. Even after being consecrated, after washing their clothes, after refraining from conjugal relations, they still are commanded to not touch the mountain. They must be ready. God says this will be the audience. Note third, within this very context, that what is spoken are the Ten Commandments.

What is spoken are the Ten Commandments. Now if we were to turn to chapters 31 and 32 of Exodus, we would find God writing these very commandments on two tablets of stone and giving them to Moses. And we must note that God draws special attention to these Ten Commandments not only by engraving those particular commandments on stone, writing them with His own finger, and commanding Moses to keep them in the ark of the covenant, but also he sets these words aside by actually speaking these laws and only these laws in the hearing of all the people. Once given, God stops speaking in the hearing of the people. The remainder of the law of God is given later to Moses alone.

But these, these, God wanted the people to hear after having been consecrated. Hold your place here in Exodus 20 and turn back or turn over to Deuteronomy chapter 4. Deuteronomy chapter 4. In Deuteronomy 4, let your eyes fall upon verse 9 and following. Deuteronomy 4.9, Only take heed to yourself and diligently keep yourself lest you forget the things your eyes have seen, unless they depart from your heart all the days of your life and teach them to your children and your grandchildren especially concerning the day you stood before the Lord your God in Horeb when the Lord said to me gather the people to me and I will let them hear my words, that they may learn to fear me all the days that they live on the earth, and that they may teach their children.

Then you came near and stood at the foot of the mountain and the mountain burned with fire to the midst of heaven with darkness, cloud and thick darkness. And the Lord spoke to you out of the midst of the fire. You heard the sound of the words, but saw no form. You only heard a voice. So he declared to you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, the Ten Commandments, and He wrote them on two tablets of stone.

And the Lord commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and judgments that you might observe them in the land which you cross over to possess." Now, did you catch several things in the text? First, the reason God declared these commandments in the hearing of the people, what's that reason? Verse 10, so that they may learn to fear me all the days they live on the earth and so that they may teach their children. These commandments were given so that they might fear and their children might fear as well. Second, in this text here in Deuteronomy, we see God's expectation of the people with regard to the things he was giving to them.

Verse 9, keep, keep the commandments and teach your children and grandchildren to keep the commandments. That's the expectation. That's why he wanted the people there to hear, to fear God and keep His commandments, and teach their children to fear God and to keep his commandments. In Deuteronomy 5 23 and following we read of Moses' account of the people who had heard God speak these very commandments. They were afraid and asked that they might be relieved and and returned to their tents and let Moses alone meet with God for the receiving of the remainder of the law.

Listen to God's response to this request. Oh, that they had such a heart in them that they would fear me and always keep all my commandments that it might be well with them and with their children forever. Go and say to them, return to your tents, but ask for you. Stand here by me and I will speak to you all the commandments, the statutes, and the judgments which you shall teach them. Therefore you shall be careful to do as the Lord your God has commanded you.

You shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left. You shall walk in all the ways which the Lord your God has commanded you. But this is the Lord who is speaking. He has spoken, he has said who the audience will be, and we see in this other text why he wants the people to hear that they might fear God and that they might keep his commandments, that they might teach their children and their grandchildren to fear God and to keep these commandments. Well, we come next in our text to the actual words God speaks.

And if you are familiar with the Ten Commandments at all, you should immediately notice that the very first words out of God's mouth are not commandments at all. There is a preface or a preamble given, an important preface. This preface or preamble frames everything God is getting ready to say to this people. And so these are the first words of God to this gathered people. Verse 2, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage." What do we see in this preface?

Well, the first thing we see is that God declares who He is. God declares who He is. That is where we must start. We must always start with who God is. Why is it that God can determine who the audience will be?

Why is it that he can demand that the people consecrate themselves for two days before he'll meet with them? Why is it that he can pronounce judgment upon any who would dare draw near the mountain because he is the Lord. He is the God of all the earth and he is also the God of this people in a peculiar way. Well this now opens the door to the second thing we see. God declares who the people are.

He's just declared who He is. Now he declares who the people are. They are his people, whom he, by his own arm, brought out of Egypt, the very house of bondage. He is declaring them to be a redeemed people. He is declaring himself to be their Redeemer.

They have been brought out. They have been set free. And note that their identity is tied up in his identity. They are the redeemed because he is the Redeemer. Well, the Baptist Catechism poses the following, question number 47, what does the preface of the Ten commandments teach us?

The answer, the preface to the Ten Commandments teaches us that because God is the Lord and our God and the Redeemer, therefore we are bound to keep all His commandments. These Ten Commandments about to be declared, as we have said, are being given to a redeemed people, a people God has rescued from bondage. In essence, he is declaring to them the very thing that he declared to his disciples in the upper room back in John 14. If you love me, keep my commandments. He who has my commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves me, and he who loves me will be loved by my father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.

Keeping the commandments of God has never, never been about earning his love. It has always been about demonstrating our love, a love that we have because he first loved us. This people were owned by God. They were his people. The people were counted among the redeemed because of the application of the blood of the lamb upon the doorpost and lintel of their house on the night when the angel of death passed through the land of Egypt.

This people had a memorial set up to testify of God's promise to redeem them, a memorial they carried with them all their days, the Passover. Having been set free, this people had need to pass through the waters of the Red Sea, all of them, baptized into Moses, as Paul says, in the cloud and in the sea, and it was to this covenant group that God was giving this law. If you are sitting here today and you proclaim that the Lord is your God, it is because he has brought you out of the land of your bondage, because he has redeemed you, because he purposed to covenant with you. He said to your previous master, let this one go that he may come aside to worship and serve me. You have taken part in the communion table, the blood of Christ having been applied to the doorpost and lintel of your heart, you have passed through the waters of baptism which distinguishes you as a covenant member of the household of faith.

And this same God comes to you and declares, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of spiritual Egypt out of the house of your Spiritual bondage if you love me Keep my commandments That's what he's telling us today It's really nothing other than the fulfillment of Zacharias' prophecy in Luke 1, 68 to 75. If you remember there, he prophesies about how God is going to use his son, John the Baptist, and he talks about John the Baptist and his relation that he will have to Jesus Christ. And Zacharias prophesies, blessed is the Lord God of Israel, for He has visited and redeemed His people and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of His servant David as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets who have been since the world began, that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us to perform the mercy promised to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant, the oath which he swore to our father Abraham to grant us that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies might serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness before him all the days of our life.

It was almost as if Zacharias had just passed through the Red Sea, the way he's talking. A redemption from the hand of our enemies so that we might serve God without a servile fear, but rather in holiness and righteousness before Him all the days of our life." Well, that's the preface to what God is getting ready to say to this people. Now we come in our text to the very first commandment, and we will give ourselves to a consideration of it in the remainder of our time. Verse 3, You shall have no other gods before me." Now before we unpack this first commandment, I think it wise and profitable to consider the weightiness of the study that we are about to enter into, these Ten Commandments, this summary of the moral law of God that flows out of the being and attributes of God. In these laws, we will discover more about our great and awesome God, but in these laws, we will also discover more about the depravity of our own hearts.

In these laws we will discover what sin really is. The Puritan Ralph Venning in his work, the sinfulness of sin, opens up his treatise on sin in this way. Sin is a transgression of the law, yea of a good law, yea of God's law. Sin presupposes that there is a law in being, for when there is no law, there is no transgression Romans 4.15. But where there is sin, there is a law and a transgression of the law.

Whoever commiteth sin transgresseth also the law, for sin is a transgression of the law." 1 John 3, 4. He goes on to say, now the law not only forbids the doing of evil, whether by thought, word, or deed, but also commands the doing of good. So to omit the good commanded is sin, as well as is doing of the evil, that is forbidden. Against the fruit of the Spirit there is no law, but against the works of the flesh there is law. Further, they are all against the law as the Apostle tells us, Galatians 5, 19 to 24.

Whatever then transgresses, goes against the law of God in whole or in part is therefore and therein a sin, whether it break an affirmation or a negative precept. That is, whether it is the omission of the good or the commission of evil." End quote. And because the law is so tied up with the reality of who God is and His covenant dealings with His people, Mr. Vending goes on to say that the following are the realities having to do with sin. First, sin is contrary to the very existence of God.

Second, sin is contrary to the nature of God. Thirdly, sin is contrary to all the names and attributes of God. Fourth, sin is contrary to the works of God. Fifth, sin is contrary to the law and will of God. Sixth, sin is contrary to the image of God.

Seventh, sin is contrary to the people of God. And eighth, sin is contrary to, yes, set against the very glory of God. Sin is a heinous thing. The breaking of any of these commandments is a heinous thing. The word that we saw Mr.

Vinnie use, contrary, contrary, contrary, contrary. That's the transgress to go against. That's what sin is. So With that groundwork, let's consider this first commandment together. You shall have no other gods before me.

To rightly understand our duty in this command, we will need to work to find both the good that is commanded as well as the evil that is forbidden. Turning to the Baptist Catechism once again, we find the following two questions regarding this first commandment. Question 49, What is required in the First Commandment? Answer, the First Commandment requires us to know and acknowledge God to be the only true God and our God, and to worship and glorify Him accordingly. But what is positively required is not the whole duty, and so question 50 asks, what is forbidden in the first commandment?

The first commandment forbids the denying or not worshipping and glorifying the true God as God and our God and the giving of that worship and glory to any other which is due to him alone. So let's look first at what is required, what's required in the first commandment. Well There are three things that we shall focus on. The first thing that is required is that we must rightly know our God. We must rightly know our God.

We are to know and acknowledge God to be the only true God and our God. We must know Him. Not just know about Him, not just know of Him, but know Him really and experientially. To know God in this way involves proper doctrine. It involves proper doctrine.

We see from the answer given to the Catechism question that This involves acknowledging God to be the only true God. As we saw in John 17, just this previous week, this, this is eternal life. To know Jehovah, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom he sent." The words are right there. And what Christ prayed to his Father. This is eternal life, to know you, oh Father, you the only true God and to know Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

And so we could argue from this commandment that we must be students of the Word of God, constantly studying, constantly learning, constantly deepening our convictions and what it tells us. And brothers and sisters, not simply studying the Word of God, but studying the God of the Word. There's a difference. There's a difference. Remember what Christ told the Pharisees, you search the Scriptures, you search them, for in them you think you have life.

You can find what it is that you can do to earn a salvation, but they speak of me. Brothers and sisters, if we just study the Word of God and not the God of the Word, we're no better than the Pharisees. We can't miss our God in the Scriptures. What does this teach us about Him. We must know our God.

But to know our God in this way involves not only doctrine, It involves relationship. It involves relationship to know him not only as the only true God but also to know him as our God, our God. To know Him in this way involves the whole heart. In Jeremiah 24-7, God is promising to bring the people back from captivity, and He says this of them, then I will give them a heart to know me that I am the Lord and they shall be my people and I will be their God for they shall return to me with all or their whole heart I will give them a heart to know me and they'll return to me with their whole heart. It involves relationship.

In Hosea 13, 4, God is reminding the people of Israel of their covenant duty, of their duty to keep this very commandment given to them on Mount Sinai, and the duty entailed recognizes him as Redeemer, as Savior, and therefore is Lord." Hosea 13, 4, "'Yet I am the Lord your God, ever since the land of Egypt, and you shall know no God but me, for there is no Savior besides me." That's why in the preamble he says, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. I'm your God. I'm your Redeemer. Know me, but have a relationship with me." And so we could argue from this commandment that we must live our days as those who have been bought with the price, the very blood of Jesus Christ. The world has a duty.

The world outside, those people who are doing their own thing on this God's day, those people have a duty to keep His commandments simply due to the fact that He is the only true God, the Creator of all things, their Creator. But our duty to these commandments as Christians is heightened by the reality that we belong to Him, that He is not simply the only true God, He's our God, ours. We're His people, the sheep of His pasture. Dear ones, it's not enough to know about God. It's not enough.

You young people, you young people, Listen to me. Listen. Do you really know God? Do you really know God? I know you know a lot about Him.

You hear it every day. You know about Him. But do you know Him? Do you know Him? The disciples of the Pharisees, along with the Herodians, said of Jesus, Teacher, we know, we know that you say and teach rightly and you do not show personal favoritism but teach the way of God in truth.

An unclean spirit, an unclean spirit, a demon coming face to face with Jesus Christ cried out, I know who you are, the Holy One of God. The demons know Him. God. The demons know Him. They believe Him.

They believe who He is, and their knowledge of Him is so deep that we're told they tremble. They tremble. The very people receiving this commandment by the voice of God trembled at His presence, trembled at His Word. And will you sit there, will you sit there in your seat this morning as God's Word is preached and simply yawn? Look down at your phone, look over at your friends, or think about how that person needs the word really bad to not off to sleep when the God of heaven has descended to this place to make his word known to us.

And yet you think all the time, I know God, I've known him since I was small, I know him. Do you really, really know Him? Or do you just know about Him? There's a difference. The second thing required in this commandment flows out of that right knowledge, we must fear our God.

We must fear our God. Do you recall from our recent study of the book of Ecclesiastes, Solomon's conclusion of the whole matter, as he stopped to consider everything that he had tried, all the avenues, all the money spent, all the entertainments entertained, and he comes to the end of this meaningless experience, this pursuit that got him nowhere, and what does he say? Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter. Fear God And keep His commandments, for this is man's all. This is Adam.

It is Adam. It is what man is all about, fearing God, keeping His commandments." And this conclusion, you will remember, came after a plea there at the beginning of chapter 12 for the youth to remember their Creator, to know Him in the days of their youth. Know Him so that you will understand that man's all is to fear Him and keep His commandments." Isaiah received a word from the Lord in chapter 8 and verse 13 when people were running around with this conspiracy and that conspiracy and I feel like he's watching CNN. I mean we're filled with conspiracies left and right. And what does God say?

The Lord of hosts, him you shall hallow. Let him be your fear and let him be your dread. Hallow your God! Fear him." Not all this other stuff. Fear God.

Brothers and sisters, if we don't have a proper fear of the living God, the one who is a consuming fire, the one who is the thrice holy one, he who is the blessed and only potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see, to whom be honor and everlasting power. If we don't have a proper fear of Him, we are breaking this commandment. You shall have no other gods before me." In volume three of his marvelous work, the Christian's reasonable service, Wilhelmus Abrakel, describes how the knowledge of God makes way for the fear of God, which in turn makes way for love and obedience to God. Note the progression. If the soul may perceive God in His majesty, glory, and holiness, it cannot but be that the soul will tremble out of respect for God.

This will manifest itself in deep humility, in the manner of approach unto God, in fellowship with God, and in giving careful heed not to conduct one's self in a manner contrary to his will." End quote. And so that quote opens up for us the third thing that is required in this commandment, not only to know God, not only to fear God, we must love and obey God. We must love and obey God. We are, the Catechism says, to worship and glorify Him." What was that last word? Accordingly.

We are to worship and glorify Him accordingly. Now before we quickly check off the box beside the requirement of knowing our God and fearing Him rightly, thinking that we have not failed or even struggled in the knowledge or that fear, we need to consider the words of the psalmist in the opening verses of both Psalm 14 and Psalm 53. The fool has said in his heart, there is no God. The fool has said in his heart, There is no God. This fool's intellectual knowledge and conscience may tell him there is a God.

His lips may even declare it to you. Yes, there's a God. But the outworking of his heart day in and day out screams to the contrary, there is no God. We are, the answer to the catechism question says, to worship and glorify Him accordingly. According to what?

According to what? What's that word tied to? Well, do you see that our worshiping and glorifying are shaped by the knowledge that we have of our God. Our worship and our glorification of God are shaped by our knowledge of God. That's why doctrine matters, brothers and sisters.

Doctrine matters. Wrong understanding about who God is will lead to wrong ways of worshiping and glorifying Him. Little understanding of our God will lead to weak and pitiful attempts to worship and glorify Him." We see this in the very Shema declared in Deuteronomy 6. It's very familiar, right? But think about how this is framed, right?

Here, O Israel, The Lord our God, the Lord is one." Okay? There you have our duty to know God, our God, and to know Him as He is. And then, then we are to worship and glorify Him accordingly. You see, the Lord is gives way to you shall. So here, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is, The Lord is one.

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart." Not just in your head, It's going to be in your heart. Then you see that the knowledge of God that is shaping our lives, that knowledge is to be passed to our children. Not just for the sake of knowledge itself, but so that they may themselves worship and glorify God accordingly. You shall teach them, " that's the knowledge, "'you shall teach them diligently to your children and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up.

You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorpost of your house and on your gates." And why are they supposed to teach their children that the Lord, the Lord God is one? So that they can take those to heart. So that they can then put them in their heart. Whatever's not in the mind is not going to make it to the heart.

We have to teach our children in hopes that God will bring it to bear. But that's our duty. It's our hearts. We got to bring our hearts to God, our minds to God, and our hearts to God. The First Commandment requires us to know and acknowledge God to be the only true God and to be our God and according to that knowledge to worship and glorify Him.

Well, let us look secondly at what is forbidden. What is forbidden in the First Commandment? Question 50 asks that very question. What is forbidden in the First Commandment? The answer, the first commandment forbids the denying or not worshiping and glorifying the true God as God and our God and the giving of that worship and glory to any other which is due to Him alone.

So first, we are not at liberty to hold back from Him the worship and glory that He is due. We are not at liberty to hold back from Him the worship and the glory that He is due. In the book of Malachi, God, through the prophet, asks the people, A son honors his father and a servant his master. If then I am the father, where is my honor? And if I am a master, where is my reverence?

In Isaiah 1, God calls the heavens and the earth to witness His charge against His people. The ox knows its owner and the donkey its master's crib, But Israel does not know, my people do not consider. Alas, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a brood of evildoers, children who are corruptors, They have forsaken the Lord. They have provoked to anger the Holy One of Israel. They have turned away backward.

What then, is forbidden in this command? It's to withhold the honor, the glory, and the worship due to our God. Because of who he is, he is to be honored, glorified, and worshiped. We are not at liberty to decide if we will or if we will not. You, my friends, sitting here this morning, you are not at liberty to be an atheist.

If some of you kids are starting to harden your heart to the Word of God preached here, you're not at liberty to be an atheist. You're not. You are not at liberty to deny the true and living God the glory he is due by your foolish, prideful notions that there is no God when in your heart you know there is. You only deny what you know. You're not at liberty.

Dear ones, we must strip from our lives everything that hinders us from knowing our God more, from fearing our God more, loving our God more, and obeying Him more. So much of fundamentalism wants a list of rules. Tell me what to do. Tell me what I shouldn't do. Here it is.

Give God glory. If you can't do what you're about to do and say, this is going to help me glorify God more, obey Him more, fear Him more, know Him more. Don't do it. It will mean that we will not only need to cast aside the sin that so easily ensnares us, we will also need to cast aside everything that hinders, that keeps us down or holds us back. Every additional weight must be laid aside.

Cast it all from you. Heed the words of Paul in Philippians 3, yet indeed I also count all things lost for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, not just a knowledge of Christ Jesus. My Lord, it's a relationship for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness which is from the law. We're not doing this to gain a righteousness. It's to know a God.

It's to have fellowship with this God. But that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith, that I may know Him, and I may know Him, and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, being conformed to his death if by any means I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already attained or am already perfected, but I press on that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended, but one thing I Do. One thing.

Are you a one thing man? Are you a one thing woman? This one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus." Well, the second thing this commandment forbids is the giving of this glory, of this worship to another, not withholding it necessarily from Him, but turning and giving it to another. Whereas, the first item forbids us to be atheists, this item forbids us to be idolaters, ascribing glory to something or someone that is not worthy, not deserving. What God, what idol, what other thing has demand on your worship?

What thing is it in your life that keeps you from giving God the totality of your heart, mind, soul, and strength? Oh, I know He has a portion. I know that. But the Shema says, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, all your strength, all. What has a demand on your heart that only God deserves?

You must seek it out. You must root it out. You must destroy it. And godly men are always about the business of rooting out idols. Godly men are...

John Calvin said, our heart, our human heart, is a factory for idols. Oh, we just spit one out after the other. We may crush one and bring it down. Oh, our heart's busy making another to fill its place. It's almost like the Philistines when they brought the Ark of the Covenant and their God falling over and breaking off parts and pieces and falling down and they're setting it back up.

That's our heart. God comes and demolishes an idol. We're going back in the temple and picking our God back up again, propping him back up. That's what our heart tends to do. But godly men are always about the business of rooting out idols.

Jacob addressed the idolatry in his family, put away the foreign gods that are among you, purify yourselves and change your garments, then let us arise and go to Bethel, the house of God, and I will make an altar there to God who answered me in the day of my distress and has been with me in the way which I have gone. Joshua, in his farewell address to the people of Israel, addressed the idolatry in the nation. Now, therefore, Fear the Lord, serve Him in sincerity and truth, and put away the gods which your father served on the other side of the river and in Egypt. Serve the Lord. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." The prophet Elijah, as well, declared to the idolatrous people of Israel, how long will you falter between two opinions?

If the Lord is God, follow him, but if Baal, follow him. Gideon, before he could be used in the service of God, he had to go and face the idolatry that was occurring within his own family. This was his dad, and he had to go and destroy the idol that was in his dad's backyard. It had to come down before he could serve. Calvin states, we are to drive away all invented gods and are not to rend asunder the worship that the one God claims for himself.

For it is un... Listen to this... It is unlawful to take away even a particle from his glory. Rather, all things proper to him must remain with him." It's beautiful. It's just the particle.

It's to remain with Him. And children, you may think, idols? Boy, I read about all these idols in the Old Testament. We don't have anything like that in our home. Yeah, I hope you don't have anything like that in your home.

But there's the idolatry of the heart. We don't have to have all these molded things that we may see in other nations still today, but we've replaced them. We're further along than that. We're not quite foolish enough to bow down something made with our hands. We'll make something with our minds.

And so, children, an idol is anything that we give preeminence in to our heart, that we don't love something as a gift from God, we love that thing. And it has our heart, it has our attention, and all our waking moments are given to thinking about that thing. Unless you think that it's just an old covenant problem, don't forget the words of the Apostle John as he closes his first epistle, little children keep yourselves from idols. This is the New Testament church. Who does John think he's writing to?

He's writing to people like him who have this factory going on in the heart. Demolish it. Demolish it. Well, you shall have no other gods before me. My friends, God will have no rivals.

No rivals. And we know that in our marriages, right? Men, are you willing to have a rival in your marriage? God will have no rivals. He's a jealous God.

He redeemed us. He wants us for Himself. He will not share his glory with another. Well, if you're an unbeliever here this morning, then this commandment acts as a schoolmaster to bring you to Christ that you might be justified. You can never keep this commandment, oh, I'll put away my gods.

No, you won't. No, you won't. You need the atoning sacrifice of Christ on your behalf. You need His blood to cover your sins and His righteousness to cover your nakedness. His and His alone will only do.

Let this commandment be a schoolmaster so as to show you how far you fall short and go to Christ and go to Christ. But if you know Christ, then as a new covenant believer, this commandment shows you how to serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear, for our God is a consuming fire. Let us pray. Father, we thank you. Your Word applies to our hearts in so many more ways than we're even aware.

So God, we pray that you would take this word now and write it upon our hearts. We pray that you would cause your Word to do what it's intended to do. Lord, the law does not want to make us think that we can gain salvation through it. It wants to point us to Christ. It's never been about justification.

Lord, the promise was given to Abraham. And so we pray, Lord, that we would cling to that promise, that our faith would be counted for righteousness. And then, Lord, as Your redeemed people, that we would be the doers of this very Word to have no other gods before You. We pray in Christ's holy name. Amen.