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The First Commandment II
Last week we looked at the First Commandment, stark, exclusive, forceful, and non-compromising as it is.
You are to have no other gods before me!
We then went on to look at various other Old Testament passages which filled out and gave meaning to the negative aspect, the prohibitive aspect of the First Commandment.
We looked in particular at three verbs – to invoke, sacrifice, and serve. We are not to invoke – or call upon, seek answers from, sacrifice to, or serve other gods. These verbs give us a greater sense of what is being prohibited in the commandment. But we have yet to exhaust the negative meaning, and so I will move on to some other Scriptures in the Old Testament.
There is one Scripture in particular that shows what this Commandment prohibits in the internal sense.
Do you remember the story of Saul, when the Lord stripped him of his kingship? This story is found in First Samuel 15. You might turn there while I bring you up on the story.
You might remember that God had chosen Saul to be king. Samuel the prophet had then anointed Saul. Then through Samuel, YHWH ordered Saul to attack the Amalekites and totally destroy them -- men, woman, children, animals, -- everything. So Saul attacks the Amalekites and defeats them completely, but he spares the king and the best of the loot. Samuel goes to confront Saul This is Saul’s response in verse 20 and 21 of 1 Samuel 15:
"But I did obey the LORD," Saul said. "I went on the mission the LORD assigned me. I completely destroyed the Amalekites and brought back Agag their king. The soldiers took sheep and cattle from the plunder, the best of what was devoted to God, in order to sacrifice them to the LORD your God at Gilgal."
To which Samuel replied:
"Does the LORD delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of the LORD? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams. For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and arrogance like the evil of idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, he has rejected you as king."
This is a very significant passage which says a great deal about what is prohibited in the First Commandment.
First of all Samuel makes it clear that sacrifices, even sacrifices to YHWH, without obedience, are meaningless exercises. That is worth a whole sermon right there.
Second, we get a closer look into just what idolatry is, into what the First Commandment prohibits.
The text sets up a parallelism. It says the same thing in two ways.
Rebellion is like the sin of divination.
Opposition is like iniquity and idolatry.
Saul’s disobedience was rebellion. At the heart of it, of course, all disobedience is rebellion. This rebellion and opposition is likened unto divination and idolatry. Therefore, since disobedience is rebellion, and since rebellion is idolatry, then disobedience is idolatry.
But how or why is it that rebellion is idolatry?
Remember that the First Commandment has to do with monolatry, the exclusive worship of the one God. A god to us is anything we serve over against YHWH. If a thing has authority in our lives over against the authority of YHWH, it is a god to us. An idol is merely a false god.. Saul had exalted his self will to the place of authority. He chose to render service to Himself over against YHWH. Another god, self, had usurped God’s rightful place in Saul’s heart.
In Saul’s case, he either wanted to be loved and adored by his men, considered a great guy and all that, or he feared their response to the “no loot law.” After fighting so hard they could hardly be denied a little reward. In either way he loved himself by serving himself.
Jesus said “if you love me you will keep my commandments.” Our love, our devotion, our worship, is expressed in our service, and our service in our obedience. We worship the only God as we present our bodies to him in service.
There may be a situation in your life right now where you are struggling with God’s revealed moral will in some way. The word of God may say that obedient service of God looks like this, and yet you want to do that. You want to redefine for God what is the good for you, and then you want to do it. Remember, at the root of disobedience is rebellion, and at the root of rebellion is love and worship of self, which is idolatry. God says we are to have no other gods before Him, and that includes ourselves as gods. As Joshua said, “choose you this day who you will serve.”
I would like to mention one more Old Testament Scripture before moving on to the New Testament. This is found in Jeremiah 7:16-19:
So do not pray for this people nor offer any plea or petition for them; do not plead with me, for I will not listen to you. Do you not see what they are doing in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? The children gather wood, the fathers light the fire, and the women knead the dough and make cakes of bread for the Queen of Heaven. They pour out drink offerings to other gods to provoke me to anger. But am I the one they are provoking? declares the LORD. Are they not rather harming themselves, to their own shame?
Idolatry is a family affair -- like parent, like child. Those of us who exercise influence upon children -- as parents or teachers or friends -- must remember that our actions speak even louder than our words. By the way we pray, the way we give priority to God and the word of God, the way we respond to issues and problems, the way we show our devotion to our God, the way we do or don’t walk in obedience, -- well, the little ones are watching, and they likely will follow in our footsteps.
To parents I say these two extra words of encouragement. First, there is nothing more important to your children than your example. If you sacrifice to the Queen of Heaven, then so likely will they. Your gods likely will become their gods, whatever those gods might be. It is primarily not the school’s job, and not even the church’s job in terms of programs and organization, to teach your children how to trust in, follow, love, and live in obedience to the one God. It is your job. These other things may help along the way, but their effect is minuscule compared to your example. Don’t live for status, for money, for your business, for football, for security in things, for a well ordered life as your god, and then expect SS or Awanas or Youth Group to undo that message. Your kids will likely follow who you follow.
Second, remember that you are as God to your little kids. They are completely dependent upon you. You have to do everything for them, and they are as completely dependent upon you as you are upon God. To some extent they are forming a god profile from you, a god image, a god picture, and thus their true worship of the true God may well be affected by their relationship to you. As they grow up they likely will transfer to God Himself what they have learned about you as the god-like figure over them in their young years. Gladly, and we rejoice in this, our children can survive many of our mistakes, and God’s power is greater than our weakness. Yet, many of us here today are still trying to overcome and breakthrough unhealthy views of God that were formed by our view of our parents. We may have been abused. We may have been manipulated through guilt. We may have had to strive hard for a favorable comment. We may have had mothers or fathers who said we would never amount to anything. We may have been abandoned, or just left to fend for ourselves emotionally. We may never have known acceptance and love and affection. And even today these things effect our understanding of God and our relationship with Him. We struggle to overcome the false god picture developed when we were young.
So for both of these reasons we parents have a great responsibility to lead our children into obedience to the First Commandment.
OK, now let’s move to the New Testament. I said before that I would go first to the teaching of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, and then to other Scriptures in the gospels and epistles.
Jesus of course in his life lived out perfect obedience to this commandment. He loved His Father in heaven with all his heart and mind. In his dependence, trust, prayer, obedience to his father’s commands – in all this we see Jesus wearing the perfect righteousness that we now wear.
I need to remind you of something very important. Only Jesus has ever obeyed the Ten Commandments. Sometimes as we hear the preaching of the law, of the commandments of Scripture, we may be made aware of our own shortcomings, our own sin and rebellion. When this happens we should have three responses. First we should humbly confess our sin, our rebellion, and our shortcomings before our Father in heaven. Second, we should resolve to keep striving for holiness, striving to be like the Lord Jesus in every way. Third, we should cast ourselves again upon the mercy of God, and, by faith, rest in and trust in the perfect righteousness of Jesus which saves us. Not only is His perfect righteousness the great example to us of what we have been created to be like. His perfect righteousness is what saves us. Remember we are saved by works -- Jesus’ works. We are saved by His obedience and perfection being credited to us. When I stand before the Father on that great day of judgment this will be my only plea. The law shows me how I am to live. The gospel shows me that even though I fail to live out the law, and thus stand condemned, Jesus has lived it, and I am accepted in the sight of God through His righteousness.
(Continued in The First Commandment III)
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