Worship Only One Exodus 20: 1-6

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In the history of the world, there have been hundreds of nations.
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Presently, in the world, we have 195. In the midst of all of these nations, there is one nation that God has chosen.
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The nation of Israel. Israel started 4 ,000 years ago with the man
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Abraham. God called him Abram at first, but then changed his name to Abraham because Abraham would be the father of many nations.
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And in Genesis 12, the Lord promised him land, offspring, and blessing.
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It took over 500 years for Abraham's offspring to receive the land that the
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Lord promised that his offspring would have. The land of Canaan. This happened under the leadership of Joshua.
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Before Joshua, the appointed leader over Israel was Moses. You've heard the story of Moses in the second book of the
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Old Testament, the book of Exodus. He was born a Hebrew, and at this time, a pharaoh arose in Egypt that wasn't friendly to the people of Israel.
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There was a time when the pharaoh had a great relationship with the people of Israel because of Joseph.
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Joseph was, of course, the governor of Egypt at the end of the book of Genesis who, because of his wisdom, helped the people of Egypt survive the great famine that came on the land.
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But of course, time passes by and the new pharaoh notices that the people of Israel are getting bigger and he starts to feel threatened by them.
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And so he forces them into slavery. And by forcing the Israelites into slavery, he was not only imposing his will over the
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Israelites, but he was also hindering population growth. But what the pharaoh found is that the
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Israelite children were still being born at the same high rate.
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The next measure this evil pharaoh did is he called for the slaughter of all the
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Hebrew male children. This same act would be done by a different evil leader 1 ,500 years later in Bethlehem when
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King Herod, threatened by the child king Jesus, called for the extermination of all male children in Bethlehem two years old and under.
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This is what evil leaders do. They want to get rid of the threat to their power.
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This happened in times of old and this happens in the present day as well. Now Moses was spared because righteous midwives did not put him nor the other
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Hebrew children to death. They protected them. And when this happened,
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Pharaoh told all the people of Egypt to do what the Hebrew midwives refused to do, exterminate all the
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Hebrew male children. When Moses was born, he was hid for three months and at that point he could be hid no longer.
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And so Moses' mother made a basket and put Moses in it and placed him at the bank of the river by the plants by the river.
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This was desperation by Moses' mother. She hoped that good would come from placing him in a basket and good did come as Pharaoh's daughter finds baby
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Moses by the river. She takes pity on baby
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Moses. And what happened is that she found out who the mother was from Moses' sister.
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And the baby was nursed by Moses' mother. And when Moses became older,
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Moses' mother passed the baby on to the Pharaoh's daughter and Moses became a
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Hebrew raised by the Egyptians. You can see
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God's providence at work here. God had big plans for Moses. God would use
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Moses to deliver the people of Israel out of bondage that was put in place by the
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Pharaoh. And we know the story of Moses demanding
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Pharaoh let the people of Israel go. We know the ten plagues that God sent on Egypt.
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We know the story of Moses and Israel fleeing, crossing the Red Sea and Pharaoh's armies being drowned as the waters crashed over them.
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All of this was taking place to lead the people of Israel into the land of Canaan, the land the
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Lord promised Abraham about 500 years before. Before the
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Lord led Israel into this land, they needed to know how to live. They needed the law.
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The law of the land. When a people is going to live in a particular land, they need a law that is going to tell them how to live.
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The law will list out standards of justice. When America started as a nation in 1776, of course, we have the
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Declaration of Independence, but we need something that tells the people what the law of the land is.
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And that's what we call the United States Constitution. As Israel is going into the land, well, guess what?
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They need a law. They need a constitution. They need to know what is expected of them.
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What are the standards of justice? And this comes in the law that comes from God that was given to Moses.
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Before Israel officially entered the land, this law was given from Exodus to Deuteronomy. There are many laws found.
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To be exact, there are 613 laws that the
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Lord gave to the people of Israel that they were to keep in the land that they were going to dwell in.
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But the first commands the Lord gave would be at the center of all of these commands.
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And these commands are what we call the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments.
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The Lord gave these commandments to Moses and the people of Israel at Mount Sinai. Over the next 10
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Sundays, we are going to look at these Ten Commandments given to the people of Israel. And these commands have been given to us as well.
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We are going to take 10 Sundays. We're actually going to take one Sunday to go through the first two commandments today and then one for each other one.
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The only one we're going to take two Sundays on is the Sabbath because there's a big conversation around the Sabbath.
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So we'll take two Sundays on that one. But this is where we're going to be, the next 10 Sundays. So at this time,
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I encourage you to turn in a Bible with me to Exodus chapter 20. This morning, we're going to look at the biggest section because typically it's one verse.
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Verses 1 through 6 of Exodus 20. This sermon is titled,
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Worship Only One. And I'm going to begin by reading these verses.
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Exodus 20, verses 1 through 6. And if you don't have a Bible, we do have those red Bibles that I encourage you to follow along in.
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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 slavery.
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You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth.
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You shall not bow down to them or serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.
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Okay, so here's the big idea. What this text, what this sermon is calling you to do.
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Worship the only one who is worthy. Worship the only one who is worthy.
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And we're gonna see two practices how. The first practice how is this, through holding him first in your heart.
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Holding him first in your heart. We're gonna see this in verses one through three. The first thing that God does is that he reminds the people of Israel concerning their past.
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We see this here. He tells them, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
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He tells them their history. He tells them of his redemption as he led them out of Pharaoh's tyranny to the promised land that the
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Lord had promised that the people of Israel would have. Abraham's immediate descendants,
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Jacob's 12 sons, went to Egypt where they discovered that Joseph was the governor of Egypt.
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And this is where the people of Israel dwelt for generations until the time of Moses. And as I already explained, the
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Lord raised up Moses to lead the people of Israel out of Egypt. And before the
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Lord gives the 10 commandments to the people of Israel, he reminds them of what he has done on their behalf.
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He brought them out of the land. And why is he telling them this? He is telling them this for several reasons.
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One, he wanted to remind them of his commitment to them. He made a forever covenant with Abraham and he showed his commitment to them by leading them out of the bondage that they were in.
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He was also leading them to a specific place, the land the Lord promised to Abraham that he and his descendants would dwell in forever.
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The Lord is not only their God, he's also their king. In theology, this is called a theocracy.
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God is their king. And as their king, he's laying down rules that the people of Israel need to follow as they are going to live in this new land.
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And as I mentioned in the introduction, there are 613 rules.
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That's a lot of rules that he gave the people of Israel. But to start off, he keeps it simple.
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Okay, I'll give you 10. These are the 10 big ones, the 10 commandments. The first command the
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Lord gives is the most important one. Upon this first commandment, all other commandments are built.
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This is what we call in building the foundation. The first and foundational commandment in verse three that the
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Lord gave the people of Israel is, you shall have no other gods before me.
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There's only one God and every other so -called God is a false
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God. You shall have no other gods before me.
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The first commandment is the most controversial in our day. Think about the state religion in America and frankly, the world religion that we see.
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Social justice, wokeism, cultural
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Marxism, whatever you wanna call it. They believe that there are multiple gods.
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Right at the center of social justice is diversity, equity and inclusion. Of course, as Christians, we believe that there are no inferior humans.
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Every human is created in the image of God. Every human is equal, has equal value.
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But diversity, equity and inclusion isn't focused on that. It is built on a
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Marxist system of oppressors and the oppressed. In this system, equality means not equal rights, equal
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God -given rights. It means equality of outcomes. Okay, equality of outcomes.
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And you see this, we need to have a certain number of ethnic groups represented at businesses and on boards and in churches.
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And this one always gets me. If you go to China, what should the church look like in China?
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Chinese. Go to Africa, what should the church look like in Africa?
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Africans, right? Go to South America, go to Argentina, go to Brazil.
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In Brazil, they're gonna be Brazilian. In Argentina, they're gonna be Argentinian. If you go to Polk County, what is the church gonna look like?
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Well, you're looking at it, right? So are we sinning by not having all these different ethnic groups in our church?
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This is the demographic we have, right? And in fact, Acts 17 explains that God puts people in certain boundaries.
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Revelation 5, when it talks about different tribes and ethnic groups, it's not a command. Social justice people treat it like it's a command.
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We must have this. What that verse is saying is that all these different groups, all these different ethnicities are gonna be in heaven together.
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It doesn't mean our churches need to have this and this and this and this. You see how they're being influenced by the world with this thinking?
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And you see this in businesses. You hire based on merit, based on qualifications. You don't hire based on someone's skin color.
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To hire based on someone's skin color is in fact racist. In their effort at not being racist, they're actually being racist.
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Very interesting. So there's an injustice if we don't have an equal number.
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And it's not only with ethnicity and gender, it's also with religion. Okay, this is this connection with the first commandment.
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Please understand this. This agenda, which dominates America and is all over the world, the
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Western world is pushing it, is committed to having a diversity of religions.
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So this means Islam is welcome. Hinduism is welcome. Buddhism is welcome.
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Judaism is welcome. And Christianity is welcome as long as the Christians don't insist that Christianity is the one true religion.
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So in other words, liberal Christianity is welcome. So this climate that we live in in America is opposed to the first and most foundational, most fundamental commandment.
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You shall have no other gods before me. Satan loves to take the honor, praise, and glory away from God.
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And he does it in a very sly, stealth way. He loves to do this by creating other religions where a different false god is worshiped.
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Other religions, by the way, believe that they are the one true religion. Islam believes this. Judaism believes that they're the only way.
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But again, they reject Jesus as the Messiah. There are other false religions that believe that they are the only way also.
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But what is interesting about this state religion, this cultural Marxism, this social justice, which dominates
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American society, is that it doesn't insist on one religion. This is
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Satan's masterpiece. Let's get people to think that there isn't only one way, but there are multiple ways.
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Let's get people to think that there isn't one superior religion, but that all religions are really the same.
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And as long as you follow your cultural ethnic religion, you will reach heaven.
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This is the lie that Satan spreads. And this is called comparative religions.
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They all really are the same. And you'll see this in academia. If there's a course on religion in academia, they're all really the same.
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You can find good here, you can find good here, you can find good here, you can find good here. They all really lead to the same destination.
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This is the lie that Satan spreads. And you can see how this is all playing out before our eyes.
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The book of Revelation explains in chapter 13 that there is a false prophet.
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And this false prophet is the greatest false prophet in world history.
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His task is to get people to worship the Antichrist. And the
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Antichrist is possessed by Satan himself. So when you look at this comparative religions, this diversity of religions, this is what it's all leading to.
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Revelation 17 describes the mystery of Babylon. In the English standard version of the
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Bible, the heading of Revelation 17 calls it the great prostitute and the beast.
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Revelation 17 five says Babylon the great, mother of prostitutes and of earth's abominations.
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This has been called by some the mystery religion of Babylon.
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The mystery religion of Babylon is the final one world religion.
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And so I wrote my sermon this week thinking it's all done, it's all ready to go. And then the Olympic ceremony happens.
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I'm like, okay, I gotta mention this. So here it comes. Great queens doing the last supper.
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Leonardo da Vinci's painting of the last supper.
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I mean, there was a clear mockery of Christianity at the opening ceremony of the
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Olympics. There was a golden calf. There was someone riding on a horse.
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Revelation 6, eight says, and I looked and behold a pale horse and its rider's name was
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Death in Hades. And they were given authority over a fourth of the earth to kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence and by wild beasts of the earth.
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This is describing the Antichrist. They gave a nod to the
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Antichrist at the opening ceremony of the Olympics.
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They prayed to Zeus and Apollo at the opening ceremony of the
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Olympics. There's an agenda at work here. I remember previous
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Olympics in Rio, they were pushing the climate change agenda.
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You see this one world, this globalistic thinking. They're putting it right on display at the opening ceremony of the
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Olympics. And what greater time to do it? All the world's coming together. All the world's coming together. This is where the world is going.
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This is the final one world government. This is the final one world religion. And the only religion that we're gonna overtly mock is the one true one, biblical
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Christianity. That's what we saw on Friday night. And hopefully you didn't see it, but you heard about it.
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This is what we see. This final one world religion is directly opposed to the first and most fundamental commandment, you shall have no other gods before me.
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And it's offensive and it's controversial, but it's the first commandment that God gives.
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The Lord would not tolerate the people of Israel worshiping any other than him.
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And he doesn't tolerate us or anyone else worshiping anyone other than him.
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France used to be a bastion of Christianity. Oh my, how has it fallen?
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He is God and there is no other. He alone has always existed. He alone is the creator of all things.
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He alone deserves that special place in our hearts, what we call worship.
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There are lots of things we can praise in our lives and we don't call this praise worship.
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When our child does something well, we praise our child. When we see someone who is very good at something, we praise that person.
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When we're training our dog, we praise them when they do good so that they learn to do good things.
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We want to be these kinds of people that praise and in so doing, we are being encouragers.
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But there's only one praise that elevates to the level of worship. And that is worship of God.
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But when we praise people, sometimes it elevates too far. I think of someone like Taylor Swift.
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Taylor Swift is worshiped by millions of people. She's a human.
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No human deserves worship. No angel deserves worship.
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Remember this in Revelation 19 .10, the Apostle John, after seeing all these visions that this angel had taken him to see, he said, then
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I fell down at his feet to worship him. But he said to me, you must not do that.
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I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers who hold to the testimony of Jesus. Worship God.
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For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. This angel who is without sin isn't worthy of worship.
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This is the most glorious being he had ever seen, John. But it's just an angel, not worthy of the highest praise that we call worship.
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So what is worship? Worship comes from the old English word worth -ship.
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Worth -ship. Ship. Within that word, worth -ship is the word worthy.
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He is worthy. There's a worth to him that makes him deserving of praise.
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He is God. He is great. He is awesome. That word's been hijacked.
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How many, you know, hey dude, it was awesome. That word has been forgot.
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God. Awesome. He is awe -inspiring.
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He is worthy. We give him the highest praise, honor, and glory.
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He alone is meant to be first in our hearts. He needs to be on the throne of our hearts.
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One of the rich hymns that we sing in this church, it's actually the oldest hymn in the black hymnal, written in the 500s,
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Be Thou My Vision. There's a line in there that tells us what worship is.
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Riches I heed not, nor vain empty praise.
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Thou mine inheritance, now and always. Thou and thou only, first in my heart.
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High King of heaven, my treasure thou art. What a beautiful song. That's what worship is.
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And he alone is worthy of worship. We must never be ashamed to proclaim to the entire world that he alone is
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God. To say that the Bible is just like any other religious book, to say that Christianity is just one of many religions, this is blasphemous, and this is what the
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Antichrist agenda is all about. Let's bring Jesus, the one who deserves to be praised, the one who should be on the throne, let's bring him down to size.
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Let's make him not glorious. Let's make him just another sage from history. Just another teacher.
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That's what the goal is. But the highest praise, the highest honor, the highest glory is reserved for one.
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This is the message the world needs to hear. So worship the only one who is worthy, and the first practice, how?
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Is through holding him first in your heart. The second practice, how?
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You are to worship the only one who is worthy. Is through rejecting all other competitors to him.
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Let's read this in verse four through six. You shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth.
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You shall not bow down to them or serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers and the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.
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Once again, as we read this, as we jump into the second point, we need to understand the historical context.
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The people of Israel have been taken out of Egypt, and as the Lord gives these commands, they are standing next to Mount Sinai.
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Some call the 10 commandments and all the laws the Sinai Code. Moses just met the
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Lord on Mount Sinai and received the 10 commandments on stone tablets, and he came down to tell the people what the
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Lord commanded them. In the first point, we looked at the first commandment that the people were not to worship any gods, but the
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Lord God. Now, the reason I am doing these two commandments together is because the second commandment is very much related to the first commandment.
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If you were to summarize these commandments, the first commandment is worship the Lord, and the second commandment is don't worship idols.
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And I already alluded to idol worship in our day in point one with the modern religion and what we saw on Friday night at the opening ceremony of the
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Olympics. There is, to oppose this world agenda, this social justice, this cultural
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Marxism, this comparative religions, to oppose this is to be called hateful and judgmental.
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At this time, when the Lord gave the 10 commandments to the people of Israel, the nations of the world, including the nation of Egypt, where they came from, worshiped other gods.
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They were neck high in idolatry. The Canaanite peoples that lived in the land where the
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Israelites were going also worshiped their own gods. And what the Lord highlights to the people of Israel is what it was like in their day.
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People made carved images that resembled things in heaven, like the sun and moon, and they made things that resembled things on earth, and they made things that resembled the water below.
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These nations that lived in and among Israel worshiped false gods during the entirety of Old Testament history.
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And the people of Israel always needed to be reminded to stay away from these false gods, these idols, and worship the one true
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God. But sadly, the Israelites often worshiped false gods while giving lip service to the one true
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God, to Yahweh, the Lord. And when we think about well -known false gods in the
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Old Testament, Baal comes to mind. Baal was first worshipped by the
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Israelites in Numbers 25, when the people of Israel engaged in pagan practices as they worshipped this false god of the
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Moabites and the Midianites. Baal was a god of fertility, and the people of Israel engaged in immorality as they worshipped this false god.
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Closely connected with Baal was the goddess Asherah. They're often mentioned together in the
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Old Testament. While Baal was the fertility god, Asherah was the fertility goddess.
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These two were considered married. So this explains why in many places in the
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Old Testament, these two idols are mentioned together. One source said that Baal was often depicted wearing a bull's helmet and holding a lightning bolt or weed stock, symbols of his ability to bring rain and fertility to the land.
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Asherah also had an image, and these images were made of gold, silver, bronze, and clay.
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And when the Israelites worshipped these gods as they also gave lip service to the Lord, they would offer sacrifices, they would say that they follow the
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Lord, but they would be worshipping these false gods simultaneously. They had idols among them.
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Asherah was symbolized by a wooden pole, a tree, or a statue of her.
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These two Canaanite gods were prominent, and the Lord is telling the people of Israel, do not worship them as the nations worship them.
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Another nation that is well -known in Old Testament history are the Philistines. The Philistines were the thorn in the side of the
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Israelites many times. And the most famous Philistine is Goliath, of course, that David killed with three stones and a slingshot.
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The Philistines worshipped a false god. They worshipped a fish god. So he said, don't worship things on earth and things under the sea, like the
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Philistine god, this fish god known as Dagon. To the Philistines, Dagon was the greatest of the gods.
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A lot of these peoples, they believed in multiple gods. They believed that one god was over the other gods.
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Other areas said that Baal was the highest god. While the Philistines believed that Dagon was
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Baal's father. Okay, so you see there's some competition here. Some of you are saying,
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Baal is the greatest god, and they're like, nope, Dagon is the greatest god. He's his father. And Dagon was basically a merman, if you try to picture that.
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Half man, half fish. So long before Ariel was on the scene.
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This image of Dagon as half man and half fish is found in ancient literature.
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And this is what the Lord commanded the Israelites to do with these idols in Deuteronomy 12, two through four. You shall surely destroy all the places where the nations whom you shall dispossess serve their gods.
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On the high mountains and on the hills and under every green tree, you shall tear down their altars and dash in pieces their pillars and burn their ashram with fire.
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You shall chop down the carved images of their gods and destroy their name out of that place.
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You shall not worship the Lord your God in that way. This was tearing down the high places.
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They weren't supposed to worship God in these places that were set up for these idols. I love
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Jeff Clewer's podcast, Tearing Down the High Places. And the whole point of the podcast is we're tearing down the modern day high places, these threats to biblical
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Christianity. That's why the podcast is called that. And that's what Israel was told to do in the Old Testament. We gotta worship the
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Lord God alone. We can't have these idols here with us. They gotta be kicked out. They gotta be torn down.
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The Lord also told the Israelites not to worship him like the nations worship their idols. The nations made images of their gods.
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This is what ancient false religions did. When false religions are invented, they made these gods to be like man or some creative thing.
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And the Lord is telling Israel in the second commandment, don't make me like any creative thing because I am not like any creative thing.
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In our first sermon in the sermon series, we looked at the importance of understanding who
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God is. God is unlike any creature. He is infinite, which means he has no limits.
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He is omnipresent, eternal, all -knowing, and all -powerful.
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He is invisible. You can't see him. Remember, Christ is the image of the invisible
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God. We can see Christ. We can't see God. God is perfect in every way.
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He is not like these false gods of the Old Testament. Listen to what the psalmist writes in Psalm 115 verses two through nine.
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Why should the nation say, where is their God? Our God is in the heavens. He does all that he pleases.
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Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands. They have mouths, but do not speak.
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Eyes, but do not see. They have ears, but do not hear. Noses, but do not smell.
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They have hands, but do not feel. Feet, but do not walk. And they do not make a sound in their throat.
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Those who make them become like them. So do all who trust in them.
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Oh boy, they didn't pull punches. This is what idols are.
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They're made up. They're inventions of man, inspired by Satan. That's what idols are.
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That's what false religions are. The Bible makes fun of them.
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They're not real. They're made by man and no one should follow them.
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And think of the false religions of our day. Atheism, yes, atheism is a religion. Atheism, Islam, Judaism, that doesn't believe in Jesus as the
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Messiah. Hinduism, Buddhism, Mormonism, Jehovah Witnesses who come to your door.
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These and more were all created by Satan and by man. But idols are not just assigned to religion.
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Think of the idols that we can have. In our society, sports. Sports are on Sundays now.
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It didn't used to be that way. Competition, and that's a conversation we're gonna have with our kids.
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If it interferes with Sunday worship, we wanna take that stand and say no. And that's my encouragement to parents.
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If sports starting to get away of Sunday worship, take a stand. I know
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I might be controversial in saying this, but take a stand on that. We don't want them to confuse worship because sports are worshiped in our society.
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Every NFL game is sold out. Find a church that is completely packed.
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Very hard to find a church that's completely packed on a Sunday. In fact, most are half empty or even less than that. People worship sports.
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And by the way, I used to worship sports. I know what it's like. I used to be my God. They competed with Christ.
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Music, movies, TV shows. Our phone, right?
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We need to get away. And I'm talking to myself here. We need to get away from our phone. It's interesting. I was one of those dumb phone people.
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I never wanted to have one of these fancy smartphones. And Brianna's like,
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Seth, you should get one. It'd be really useful to you. And I didn't realize how big of a temptation it would be because once I got it,
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I'm glued to it. So I'm teaching myself right now. And with my family, put the phone away.
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Put the phone away. Because the most important people are not the people far away on the phone.
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The most important people in the room are the people who are with you, right? That's what we need to remember. Phones can be our idols.
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Our hobbies can be our idols. These things aren't bad in themselves. That's the thing.
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I mean, these carved images, oh yeah, those are bad. But there's good things that can be idols. But if they hold first place in our heart, then these are idols.
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Only God deserves first place in our heart. Idols are what holds first place in what you truly live for, what you find your joy in, your peace in, your satisfaction, your security.
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That's your idol. So ask yourself, what are some threats in your life?
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What are some idols that are some threats to the worship of the Lord? This is what the
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Lord says in verse five about things that are temptations for us to worship. He says this. You shall not bow down to them or serve them for I, the
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Lord your God, am a jealous God. He's a jealous, it's interesting.
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Oprah Winfrey cites this verse as to why she doesn't believe in God. He is jealous and I don't want to serve a jealous
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God. Now, jealousy is usually a bad thing, right? If someone has something and we get jealous of them.
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But what God is saying here is I am the only true God. To worship another God is sinful.
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I am the only God there is. All these other ones are false. So I am jealous for the glory that I deserve.
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Only God can talk like this, by the way. No human can talk like this. Only God can because he is the highest.
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To ask for him to say, oh yeah, I'm humble, worship other gods, he can't do that.
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It would be sinful because he is the only God. He is jealous for his glory.
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So that's why he says, worship me. Don't worship all these false gods. It makes him angry when we worship things that are not worthy.
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When we hold things that are too high of place in our hearts, that only belongs to him.
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And when people worship other gods, not wrestling with other gods, as believers can certainly do.
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When we wrestle, that means we're trying to kill it. That's a good thing. But some are, but much of the world are utterly devoted to false gods.
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And the Lord brings judgment on these people. In verse five, it says here that he visits the iniquity of the fathers on the children of the third and fourth generation of those who hate me.
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What does that mean? What it means is generations commit the same kinds of sins.
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And when they commit those same kinds of sins of going after these false gods, well guess what? God is going to judge them the same way in every single generation.
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It doesn't mean you're guilty because this guy was bad and you were born to him. No, you're guilty because you're committing the same kinds of sins that he committed.
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So that's what the Lord is saying in this verse. But to those who belong to the
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Lord, those who love the Lord, he is faithful, as he says in verse six, showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.
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Sometimes you hear people say everyone are God's children because he created them.
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The Bible doesn't teach that. The Bible teaches that yes, he created everyone, but not everyone is
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God's child. You're only God's child if you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you turn from your sins and you follow him.
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That's the only way you become one of God's children. And this is what we have seen in these two commandments.
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Pursue him and don't go after other gods. That's the path of blessing.
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I mean, these people who are worshiping false gods all over the world, and we saw it in the Olympic ceremony, they're miserable.
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If you want blessing, if you want joy, follow the Lord God. Psalm 16, verse four says, the sorrows of those who run after another
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God shall multiply. And then verse five writes, the Lord is my chosen portion in my cup.
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And then verse 11 of Psalm 16 is my favorite verse. You make known to me the path of life.
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In your presence, there is fullness of joy. At your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
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That's the experience of following the Lord. So when the Lord is jealous, when we go after other gods, you know what he cares about?
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He cares about us. He doesn't wanna see his image bearers go down some horrible path where they're gonna be miserable.
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He wants to see his image bearers fully joyful forever in him.
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So it's not only about his glory, it's about our blessing that he says these things in these verses.
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He alone is worthy of worship, and we are blessed when we listen to him and worship him alone.
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So as we summarize this sermon, worship the only one who is worthy. And in this text, we have two practices how.
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Holding him first in your heart is number one, and rejecting all other competitors to him.
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These first two commandments are first for a reason. They are foundational to the other eight commandments and all the laws that the
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Lord gave to the people of Israel and all these universal commands that are given to us as well.
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This is not just for Israel. This is for us. At the center of our lives must be worship of the
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Lord. If we worship him, everything else falls into place. And as we do this, he is glorified in what enormous satisfaction it brings to us to worship the one true
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God. Next Sunday focuses on the name of the
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Lord and specifically how his name must be treated. So we'll look at the third commandment.
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You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. Next Sunday.
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At this time, let's pray. Father in Heaven, we do come before you right now and we say thank you for the
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Word of God that is living and active and sharper than any two -edged sword. Lord, this message speaks to all of us because all of us know what it's like to go after idols.
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And so help us not to go after idols, but to worship you, the one true God, the
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Creator of all things, the only one who is worthy, the one we will be with forever in the age to come.
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May we fend off, may we destroy these competitors that want to be first in our heart.