The First Commandment - 06/26/2022

First Baptist Church Leominster

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The heart of man is a worshiping heart. Every human heart worships something.

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Every person worships something. This is intrinsic to the composition of human life.

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Every human being exalts, reveres, and worships something. In fact, there's not a man, woman, or child who does not exalt, revere, or worship something or someone.

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Neither is there an atheist, agnostic, humanist, materialist, secularist, rationalist, free -thinker, or a religious skeptic who does not have somewhere, in the deep recesses of his heart, a shrine that houses a

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God. A God who is exalted, a God who is revered, and a

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God who is worshipped above all else. All men worship something or someone.

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And thus, there are only two categories of people in the entire world. There are the true worshipers, and there are the false worshipers.

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There are those who worship the Lord God, which are the true worshipers, and there are those who worship false gods, which are the false worshipers.

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The heart of man is a worshiping heart, and every human heart is either worshiping the true

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God, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Great I Am, the King of Kings, and Lord of Lords, or they are worshiping a lesser and false so -called

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God. Please join with me to the book of Exodus, Exodus chapter 20.

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This morning, we will be examining the first of the Ten Commandments, which will take us at least two weeks to complete.

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Let's look at the text together, Exodus 20, verses 1 to 17. And God spoke all these words, saying,

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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 am the Lord your God, am a jealous

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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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You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.

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Remember the Sabbath, the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a

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Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall do, you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male servant or your female servant or your livestock or the sojourner who is within your gates.

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For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them and rested on the seventh day.

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Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. Honor your father and your mother that your days may be long in the land that the

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Lord your God is giving you. You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery.

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You shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. You shall not covet your neighbor's house, you shall not covet your neighbor's wife or his male servant or his female servant or his ox or his donkey or anything that is your neighbor's.

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The Ten Commandments were given to the Israelites after an awesome display of the power, majesty and glory of the

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Lord God. Loud claps of thunder, lightning, flames of fire, billowing smoke, earthquakes, a trembling mountain, an angelic trumpet blast.

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And after all these things, the Lord God spoke to the Israelites all these words.

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God said, Exodus 20 verse 2, 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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In this verse, the Lord God revealed himself to the Israelites by giving them his name.

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I am the Lord. He then revealed his unique relationship with them.

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I am the Lord your God. The Lord God revealed that he is not a

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God who is distant or far off or unconcerned, but a God who is near, a

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God who is present, a God who is personal. I am the Lord your

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God. Finally, he revealed to them his work. The great

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I am, the Lord your God is he who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

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The Lord God revealed himself as a faithful, redeeming and liberating God. The Lord God with a great and mighty arm brought the

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Israelites out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. And in a similar fashion, the

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Lord God has brought you out of the house of slavery to sin. The Lord God with a great and mighty arm has brought you out of your bondage to slavery to sin and unrighteousness.

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Those who have received the Lord Jesus Christ have been redeemed by the Lord Jesus Christ. You have been delivered.

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You have been purchased. You have been bought out of the slave market of sin by payment of ransom, the precious blood of our

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Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ voluntarily and without any coercion offered himself up as a sacrifice for you.

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He himself carried up to the cross your sins in his body and offered himself as a sacrifice, as a substitute, a propitiation and as atonement for sin.

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According to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, you have been justified.

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You have been redeemed. You have been reconciled, forgiven and adopted into the family of God to forever enjoy the benefits and privileges that a natural born son would possess.

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Beloved, we are the heirs of God and we are fellow heirs with Christ. Therefore, in light of these marvelous and tremendous truths, because of these marvelous and tremendous truths,

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Exodus 20, verse 3, you shall have no other gods before me.

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In this commandment, we see the great theological principle, sola de gloria, which was the motto that grew out of the

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Protestant Reformation. Sola de gloria translates to God alone be the glory.

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You shall have no other gods before me because I am the one and only God. You shall have no other gods before me because I alone am worthy.

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The Lord God will not share his glory with any other person. The Lord God will not share his glory with any other thing.

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The Lord God will not share his glory with any other so -called God. The Lord God demands that we dedicate all that we are, all that we have and all that we ever hope to be to his service, to his honor, to his praise, and to his glory.

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The glory of the Lord God is to be our foremost and supreme desire and passion in life.

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Question number one of the Westminster Shorter Catechism, what is the chief end of man?

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Man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever.

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Beloved, our one ambition, our one objective, our primary goal, our chief end of everything we think, everything we do, everything we say must be to the glory of God alone.

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This principle is seen all throughout the scriptures. Psalm 29, verses 1 to 2, ascribe to the

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Lord, oh heavenly beings, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength. Ascribe to the

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Lord the glory due his name. Worship the Lord in the splendor of holiness.

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Romans 11, 36, for from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever, amen.

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1 Corinthians 10, 31, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

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Romans 16, 27, to the only wise God be glory forevermore through Jesus Christ, amen.

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If the glory of God is to be our chief end, if the glory of God is to be our one purpose and our one goal, then we need to make sure that we fully understand the glory of God.

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I have found that there is often confusion regarding the term glory. For some people the term is somewhat fuzzy and difficult to articulate.

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How do the scriptures define the term glory? How is this term best explained and what does it mean to give glory to the

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Lord God? Well, the Old Testament word for glory comes from the

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Hebrew word that is used to describe weight or a heaviness.

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The term implies both substance and importance and a great example of how this term is used is found in the book of Genesis.

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In Genesis chapter 42, a very severe famine had spread throughout the world and the only place to purchase grain was in the land of Egypt.

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So Jacob commissioned his 10 sons to travel from Canaan to Egypt to purchase grain so that they might live and not die.

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Now unbeknownst to them, their brother Joseph, whom they had kidnapped and sold into slavery years before, was now the second highest ruler in all of the land of Egypt.

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And the only way to purchase grain was to purchase it from their brother Joseph. So the brothers traveled to Egypt and they bowed themselves before Joseph with their faces to the ground.

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Now Joseph saw his brothers and he recognized them, but his brothers did not recognize him.

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Joseph treated them like strangers. He spoke roughly to them and he accused them of being spies and then he tested them.

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And after a series of events, Joseph eventually revealed himself to his brothers.

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And do you remember what he asked of them? Genesis 45 verse 13, he says, you must tell my father of all my honor in Egypt and all that you have seen.

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The term translated honor can also be translated as glory. You must tell my father of all my glory in Egypt and of all that you have seen.

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Joseph wanted his honor, his greatness, his grandeur to be reported back to his father.

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Joseph wanted his prestige, his exalted position, his privileged status, his power, his authority to be known by his father.

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He wanted his father to know the great weight of his value, the great weight of his worth, the weight of his great importance.

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He wanted his father to hear all about his honor and his glory. In the

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New Testament, the term glory also conveys a similar idea. Matthew chapter six, verse two, thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others.

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Truly, I say to you, they have received their award. The phrase that they may be praised by others can also be translated that they may have glory from others.

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In this context, a man's reputation was his glory. In the synagogues and in the streets, the hypocrites would make a huge production of their giving because they wanted the greatness of their generosity to be observed by others, to be known by others.

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The goal of their giving was to receive praise from men, to receive glory from men.

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The glory of God then refers to the public display of his worth. It refers to the public display of his infinite worth and his infinite beauty.

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It refers to the public display of his character and every one of his infinite perfections.

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To glorify God is to honor, praise, and assign to the Lord God the highest and greatest possible status.

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Isaiah chapter six, verses one through three, in the year that King Uzziah died,

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I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up and the train of his robe filled the temple.

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Above him stood the seraphim, each had six wings. With two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew.

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And one called to another and said, holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory.

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According to this passage, what was it of the Lord God that filled the whole earth?

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It wasn't his holiness. You would expect it would be from the holy, holy, holy, but the whole earth was in fact full of his glory.

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The whole world is filled with his glory. It is the glory of God that is the essence of his nature.

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It is the glory of God that is the radiance of his perfections. It is the glory of God that is the awesome brilliance that emanates from him and surrounds him.

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The glory of God is the sum total of his character. It is the sum total of his attributes.

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It is the sum total of his infinite worth manifest. It is the sum total of his infinite worth made obvious.

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Beloved, the glory of the Lord is to be our one consuming passion, which is to make obvious the sum total of the infinite worth of the

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Lord God. To glorify God means that we will acknowledge his awesome character.

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We will exalt his character. We will lift his name on high through our adoration, through our praise, through our obedience, and through our worship of him.

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The Lord God and the Lord God alone is worthy of worship, which is why in Exodus 20, verse three, we are commanded to have no other gods before him.

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You cannot glorify the Lord God if you are seeking to glorify other so -called gods, other false and erroneous gods.

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Years ago, I worked with a woman who was open to spiritual things. She considered herself to be a very spiritual person, not a religious person, a spiritual person.

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And she had grown up in the Greek Orthodox Church and was fairly familiar with the scriptures, but she had some wrong thinking, especially in regards to the first commandment.

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You shall have no other gods before me. In her mind, this verse was actually confirming the existence of other gods.

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And because this passage confirmed the existence of other gods, while other passages denied the existence of other gods, she felt that the scriptures were contradictory.

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She felt that the scriptures could not be trusted. How can there be only one

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God if the Bible repeatedly speaks of other gods? There are many passages that speak of the gods

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Baal -Bareth, Baal -Herman, the god Milcom, the god Chemosh, the god

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Asherah. If there are no other gods to begin with, then how could we possibly have or place another god before the

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Lord God? How can we violate the first commandment if indeed there are no other gods?

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Well, I'd never thought of this before. I thought that was a good question. What's the answer to this question?

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The answer is the Lord God is the one and only living and true

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God. But, man in his unrighteousness has exchanged this truth about the

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Lord God for a lie. Man in his depravity and wickedness has exchanged the glory of the immortal

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God for images resembling mortal man, birds, animals, and creeping things.

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In other words, the natural man worships and serves the creation rather than the creator.

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All other so -called gods which the natural man worships and serves are empty.

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They're non -existent. For the Lord our God is the one and only living and true

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God. However, even these false gods, even though they're empty and even though they're non -existent, these so -called gods still hold a spiritual power over their worshipers.

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False gods can still enslave a man into bondage and servitude. J. Dahmer remarked, people worship powerful forces within creation as if they were deities.

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They are not gods, but only so -called gods. Still, they are very real powers, able to enslave a person totally.

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1 Corinthians 8, verses 4 -6, Therefore, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that an idol has no real existence, and that there is no

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God but one. For although there may be so -called gods in heaven or on earth, as indeed there are many gods and many lords, yet for us there is one

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God, the Father, from whom are all things and from whom we exist. And one

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Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist. The scriptures clearly teach that there is only one

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God, and that every other god, every other so -called god, is a fraud.

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Every other so -called god is an imposter. Every other so -called god is a hoax.

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And yet, these so -called gods can still be very, very dangerous.

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Consider the Canaanite god, Baal. Baal was the personification of the fertility of the field.

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Baal was the god of rain, the god of thunder, the god of fertility. If it was a very hot summer with little rain and the sun scorched the earth so that very little would grow, the people would say that Baal was dying.

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But as soon as the rains returned, as soon as everything was made green again, the people would say that Baal was returning to life.

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Did Baal have anything to do with it? Did Baal even exist? No, Baal was simply a human projection.

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However, drought, rain, and crops were very real.

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New life growing up out of the earth was very real. Even though it was simply a human projection,

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Baal worship was a constant thorn and threat to the people of Israel. A great many problems arose from the worship of this false, nonexistent god.

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In present -day Nigeria, just outside the city of Lagos, there is a village that sits upon the water, the village of Makoko.

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And it is an extremely poor community which is situated in the Lagos Lagoon, and it has an estimated population of 100 ,000 to 300 ,000 people.

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But no one really knows the exact number because there is very little data. Locals estimate the population at somewhere over one million people.

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And if you were to visit Makoko today, you'd be overwhelmed by the smell of rotten fish and burnt garbage and sewage.

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There are no government services, there's no electricity, there's no waste disposal, the water is undrinkable, life expectancy is extremely low, and the infant mortality rate is extremely high.

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Why do so many people live in the village of Makoko? Why not just leave? It's just a short canoe trip from the village to the shore, so why do they stay and continue to live in such deplorable conditions?

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The answer is superstition. If they leave the water, their gods will be unhappy with them, and they will be cursed.

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Even though there is only one true god, the Lord God, the so -called gods of Makoko have tremendous influence and tremendous power and tremendous sway over these people.

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The inhabitants of Makoko are enslaved to the will of their non -existent gods.

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At the time of the exodus, the gods of Egypt held a similar hold over the children of Israel.

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Since the time of Joseph in Genesis 46, for roughly 400 years, the children of Israel had been living in a strange and foreign land, a land which was utterly polytheistic, a land whose inhabitants worshipped hundreds of so -called gods.

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The Israelites had been strict monotheists. The Israelites worshipped the Lord God alone.

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But over the duration of their captivity, they gradually gave in to the worship of these other so -called gods.

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And after centuries and centuries of Egyptian influences, the Israelites no longer worshipped the

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Lord God alone. They worshipped the numerous false gods of the land of Egypt.

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This fact makes the narrative of Exodus 7 -12 all the more sweeter.

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In these chapters, the Lord God utterly decimates the gods of Egypt with ten plagues.

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In these six chapters, the Lord God proves without a shadow of a doubt to the Israelites, to the world, who is the

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Lord God. Who is the one and only living and true God.

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In the first plague, Exodus chapter 7, all of the water in Egypt was turned into blood.

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The Nile River was turned to blood. The canals, the ponds, and every pool of water was turned into blood.

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Even the water in the vessels of wood and stone were turned into blood.

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Where was the Egyptian God happy? Where was the

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God and Spirit of the Nile River? Where was the God Qum, who was the guardian of the river's source?

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Where was Osiris, whose bloodstream was the Nile River itself? All of these gods were silent.

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These gods were nowhere to be found. In the second plague, Exodus chapter 8, the land of Egypt was covered with frogs.

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The land was carpeted and swarming with frogs. Frogs were found in the houses, in the bedrooms, in the beds, in the ovens, in the kneading bowls.

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Frogs, frogs, frogs were everywhere. The Egyptians were actually frog worshippers.

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There were two different frog goddesses, Hapi, who was associated with the Nile, and Hekit. The goddess

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Hekit was represented by the body of a woman with the head of a frog, and she was the symbol of fertility and resurrection.

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Frogs were sacred and revered. If you killed a frog unintentionally, there was a heavy consequence exacted, because killing a frog was an offense and a violation of the gods.

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So you can imagine the horror of the Egyptian people when all the frogs died in their houses, in the courtyards, and in the fields.

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The sacred and revered frog, the symbol of fertility and resurrection, dead and gathered in heaps.

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The third plague was gnats. A gnat is something like a mosquito or a black fly, something that bites or stings.

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Aaron took his staff and he struck the dust of the earth so that it became gnats in all the land.

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Gnats on every man, gnats on every woman, and gnats on every beast. The magicians of Egypt were able to duplicate the first two plagues with their secret arts, the blood and the frogs, but not this one.

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This plague was recognized as coming directly from the finger of God, but not their

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God, not Seb. Seb was the great earth god of Egypt, and Egyptians gave offerings to Seb for a bountiful harvest of the soil, and yet it was from the soil, from the dust of the soil, that this plague originated.

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The fourth plague were flies, swarms and swarms of flies. All throughout the land of Egypt, the houses of the

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Egyptians and the ground on which they stood were ruined by swarms of flies.

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But not in the land of Goshen. Not in the land where the people of the Lord God were dwelling.

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The Lord God made a clear distinction between the Egyptians and the Israelites. And this particular plague proved to be too much for Pharaoh, at least temporarily.

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He pleaded and he begged with Moses to remove the swarms of flies from the land. But why didn't he plead with Udachit, who was the

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Egyptian god connected with flies? Well, maybe he did. But when it didn't work, he pleaded with the

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Lord God for relief. And relief was given, even though Pharaoh's heart would soon be hardened again.

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In the fifth plague, Exodus chapter 9, all of the Egyptian -owned livestock died.

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All of their horses, cattle, donkeys, camels, their herds, and all their flocks of animals died.

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Every last one of them. Even though there were four Egyptian gods who were associated with the protection of flocks and herds and cattle.

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There was Ptah, there was Nevis, there was Hathor, and Ammon. Yet even with their protection, the

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Lord God utterly destroyed all of the Egyptian livestock. The sixth plague was boils and sores.

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Moses took a handful of soot from a kiln and he tossed it into the air and it became a fine dust over all the land of Egypt.

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And boils and sores broke out on both man and beast. Sekhmet was a lion -headed goddess, and she had the power of both creating epidemics and bringing them to an end.

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Serapis was the god of healing, and Imhotep was the god of medicine and the guardian of all the healing sciences.

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And yet, the boils and the sores were so very severe that the

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Egyptian magicians could not even stand before Pharaoh. The seventh plague was hail.

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Thunder, hail, and fire rained down upon the land of Egypt. And the hail struck down everything that was in the fields.

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Both man, beast, every plant, and every tree of the field were utterly destroyed. Only in the land of Goshen, where the people of Israel were, was there no hail.

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Nut was the sky goddess, and she was the mother of five other gods, Osiris, Hathor, Set, Isis, and Nephthys.

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There was also Shu, the wind god, and Horus, the hawk -headed sky god of Upper Egypt, as well as Isis and Seth, who were the gods who were entrusted with protecting the crops.

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But there was no answer. There was no reply. There was no protection from any of these so -called gods.

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The eighth plague was locusts. Swarms and swarms of locusts descended upon the land, and they ate every remaining plant, every remaining plant that the hail had left.

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And these locusts covered the face of the whole land, so that the land was darkened, and not one green thing remained, neither tree nor plant of the field.

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In 1926 and 1927, small swarms of the African migratory locusts were spotted in an area 50 by 120 miles on the plains of the

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River Niger, near Timbuktu. And over the next 14 years, these swarms grew and spread across Ethiopia, Kenya, and the

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Belgian Congo. By 1932, these swarms reached the lush farmlands of Angola and Zimbabwe.

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Before the plague finally sputtered out, it had affected five million miles of Africa, which is nearly double the size of the

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USA. Egypt was utterly wrecked by this plague of locusts.

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But where was the Egyptian god, Nebri, the god of grain? Where was Hermetet, the goddess of crops?

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Where was Thermithes, the goddess of fertility and of the harvest? Where was Serapia, the goddess who specifically was the protector of the

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Egyptian from swarms of locusts? After the locusts,

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Pharaoh sent for Moses and Aaron in haste, and he confessed that he had indeed sinned against the Lord God.

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And Moses and Aaron, and he pleaded for forgiveness and for the plague to cease. Moses went out from Pharaoh, and he pleaded with the

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Lord God. Exodus 1019, and the Lord turned the wind into a very strong west wind, which lifted the locusts and drove them into the

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Red Sea. Not a single locust was left in all the country of Egypt. Not a single locust was left.

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The ninth plague was darkness, a darkness over the entire land of Egypt, a darkness so dark and so black that it could be felt.

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Exodus 1022, Moses stretched out his hand toward heaven, and there was pitch darkness in all the land of Egypt three days.

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They did not see one another, nor did anyone rise from his place for three days. But all the people of Israel had light where they lived.

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Imagine being in utter darkness for three whole days.

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Imagine being in a darkness so dark and so black that you can feel it.

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But where was the chief of all the Egyptian gods? Where was Amun -Ra, the sun god?

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Where was Horus, the god of light? Where was the god of the moon and the god of the stars? And where was

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Pharaoh? Pharaoh was considered to be the son of the gods. Pharaoh was the divine representation of the sun god,

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Amun -Ra. And yet, all of these so -called gods were utterly helpless and powerless against the one and only true

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God. The tenth and final plague was the death of all the firstborn.

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Exodus 12 .12. For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast.

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And on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments. I am the

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Lord. On all the gods of Egypt and on all their worshippers, indeed the

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Lord God did execute his judgment. Exodus 12 .29.

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At midnight the Lord struck down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt. From the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne, to the firstborn of the captive who was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of the livestock.

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And Pharaoh rose up in the night, he and all his servants, and all the Egyptians. And there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was not a house where someone was not dead.

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Imagine what it must have been like to be an Egyptian, and to live through these awful plagues.

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Blood, frogs, gnats, flies, the death of livestock, boils, sores, hail, locusts, darkness, the death of your firstborn child, the death of every firstborn.

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Now imagine what it must have been like to be an Israelite, and to watch these plagues unfold from the security of the land of Goshen.

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The Lord your God battling your oppressors. The Israelites were the front row spectators of the awesome and mighty power of the

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Lord God. The Israelites were the front row spectators of the infinite majesty and splendor of the

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Lord God. The Israelites were the front row spectators of the glory of God.

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He annihilated the gods of Egypt. He decimated the gods of Egypt. He executed his divine judgment upon the gods of Egypt, and he was unchallenged.

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He was uncontested. The Lord God was absolutely victorious over Pharaoh.

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He was absolutely victorious over Pharaoh's magicians. He was absolutely victorious over the legions of false and erroneous so -called gods.

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Beyond a shadow of a doubt, the Lord God proved to the Israelites that he is the

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Lord God. Isaiah 45, 5, I am the Lord, and there is no other.

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Besides me, there is no God. I equip you, though you do not know me, that people may know.

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From the rising of the sun and from the west, that there is none besides me. I am the Lord, and there is no other.

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I form light and create darkness. I make well -being and create calamity.

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I am the Lord who does all these things. Beloved, the ten plagues and the deliverance of the

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Israelites from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, this actually happened.

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This narrative is not a fictional account. This narrative is historical fact.

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And all throughout the scriptures, the Lord God repeatedly refers back to these events to remind us that he is the one and only true

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God. He is the Lord God. He is the Lord your God. He is the

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Lord your God who brought you out of slavery and bondage to sin, and thus he is worthy of all praise, all glory, and all honor.

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Just as the Lord God ruined and decimated the so -called gods of Egypt, he continues to ruin and decimate the so -called gods that we worship and serve today.

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The Lord God is infinitely greater than anything this world has to offer. The Lord God is infinitely greater than money, fame, power, pleasure.

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He is better than all of these things. He's better than security. He's better than possessions, relationships, self.

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The Lord God is better than all of these things. In each one of us, there exists a great hunger for satisfaction and contentment.

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And mankind relentlessly pursues and chases after these things.

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But this hunger and thirst will never be satisfied or content with created things.

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This hunger and thirst cannot be satisfied or content with created things.

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Even if you've accomplished every single one of your goals in life, even if you have exceeded them, you will still remain unsatisfied and discontent because you will always long for more.

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Worshipping and serving the creature rather than the creator will never bring you satisfaction.

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It will never bring you contentment. Only the Lord God and a relationship with him through the

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Lord Jesus Christ can satisfy your hunger and your thirst. Only the

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Lord God can give you peace, rest, purpose, and security.

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As a child of the Lord God, our one supreme passion, our greatest desire, our chief end must be the glory of God alone.

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Sola Dei Gloria. The so -called gods of this world are nothing and they can offer nothing.

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The so -called gods of this world are empty and vain. The so -called gods of this world will leave you destitute and despondent.

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The Lord God is the one and only true God, and he alone can give you satisfaction.

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He alone can give you contentment. He alone can give you purpose and peace.

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Therefore, Exodus 20, verse 3, you shall have no other gods before the

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Lord God, which is where we will continue next week. Let's pray.

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Heavenly Father, we thank you for the scriptures and we thank you for this account. We thank you for the tremendous work that you did.

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Lord, you annihilated the gods of Egypt. You put them in their place. You made everyone know that they are nothing and you are everything.

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And Lord, you are the same today as you were then. You are everything. And Lord, we pray that we would walk in obedience to the first commandment, that we would put no other gods before you.

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Not only the pathetic gods of this world, but the gods that we fabricate in our own hearts.

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Lord, help us to see that you are over all these things and that you are better than all these things.

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And only you can provide contentment. Only you can provide satisfaction. So Lord, help us to live in this truth.

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Help us to rejoice in this truth. And help us to boldly share this truth with those who desperately need it.

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We thank you that you are the Lord God. We thank you that you are the Lord our God.

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And we are thankful, Lord, that you have redeemed us from slavery and bondage to sin. Lord God, we rejoice in who you are.