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The heart of man is a worshiping heart.
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Every human heart worships something.
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Every person worships something.
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This is intrinsic to the composition of human life.
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Every human being exalts, reveres, and worships something.
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In fact, there's not a man, woman, or child who does not exalt, revere, or worship something or
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Neither is there an atheist, agnostic, humanist, materialist, secularist, rationalist, free
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thinker, or a religious skeptic who does not have somewhere in the deep
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recesses of his heart a shrine that houses a God.
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A God who is exalted, a God who is revered, and a God who is
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worshiped above all else.
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All men worship something or someone.
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And thus, there are only two categories of people in the entire world.
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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,
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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,
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or they are worshiping a lesser and false so -called God.
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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
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Let's look at the text together, Exodus 20, verses 1 to 17.
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And God spoke all these words, saying, I am the Lord your God,
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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.
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You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above,
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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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Visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me,
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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
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Remember the Sabbath, the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.
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Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God.
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On it you shall do, you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your
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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
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rested on the seventh day.
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Therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
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Honor your father and your mother that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.
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You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not
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bear false witness against your neighbor.
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You shall not covet your neighbor's house, you shall not covet your neighbor's wife or his male servant, or his
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female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that.
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The Ten Commandments were given to the Israelites after an awesome display of the power,
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majesty, and glory of the Lord God.
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Loud claps of thunder, lightning, flames of fire, billowing smoke, earthquakes,
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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
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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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He then revealed his unique relationship with them.
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The Lord God revealed that he is not a God who is distant or far off or unconcerned,
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but a God who is near, a God who is present, a God who is personal.
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Finally, he revealed to them his work.
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The great I am, the Lord your God, is he who brought you out of the land of Egypt,
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out of the house of slavery.
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The Lord God revealed himself as a faithful, redeeming, and liberating God.
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The Lord God with a great and mighty arm brought the Israelites out of the land of Egypt, out of the
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And in a similar fashion, the Lord God has brought you out of the house of slavery to.
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The Lord God with a great and mighty arm has brought you out of your bondage to slavery to sin and
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Those who have received the Lord Jesus Christ have been redeemed by the Lord Jesus Christ.
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You have been bought out of the slave market of sin by payment of ransom,
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the precious blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.
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The Lord Jesus Christ voluntarily and without any coercion offered himself up as a
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He himself carried up to the cross your sins in his body and offered himself as a sacrifice,
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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 reconciled, forgiven, and adopted into the family of God to forever enjoy
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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.
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Therefore, in light of these marvelous and tremendous truths, because of these
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marvelous and tremendous truths, Exodus 20, verse 3, you
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shall have no other gods before me.
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In this commandment, we see the great theological principle, sola de gloria, which
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was the motto that grew out of the Protestant Reformation.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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The Lord God demands that we dedicate all that we are, all that we have, and all that we ever hope to
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be to his service, to his honor, to his praise,
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The glory of the Lord God is to be our foremost and supreme desire and passion in
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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
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of everything we think, everything we do, everything we say must be to
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This principle is seen all throughout the scriptures.
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Psalm 29 verses 1 to 2, ascribe to the Lord, O heavenly beings, ascribe to
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the Lord glory and strength.
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Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name.
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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.
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First Corinthians 10 31, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do
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Romans 16 27, to the only wise God be glory forevermore through Jesus
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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
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and our one goal, then we need to make sure that we fully understand the glory
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I have found that there is often confusion regarding the term glory.
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For some people, the term is somewhat fuzzy and difficult to articulate.
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How do the scriptures define the term glory?
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How is this term best explained?
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And what does it mean to give glory to the Lord God?
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Well, the Old Testament word for glory comes from the Hebrew word that is used to describe
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The term implies both substance and importance.
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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.
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And the only place to purchase grain was in the land of Egypt.
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So Jacob commissioned his tents, his 10 sons to travel from Canaan.
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So Jacob commissioned his 10 sons to travel from Canaan to Egypt to
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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,
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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.
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So the brothers traveled to Egypt and they bowed themselves before Joseph with their faces
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Now Joseph saw his brothers and he recognized them.
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But his brothers did not recognize him.
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Joseph treated them like strangers.
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He spoke roughly to them and he accused them of being spies.
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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?
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He says, you must tell my father of all my honor in Egypt and all
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The term translated honor can also be translated as glory.
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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
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Joseph wanted his prestige, his exalted position, his privileged status, his power,
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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,
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the weight of his great importance.
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He wanted his father to hear all about his honor and his glory.
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In the New Testament, the term glory also conveys a similar idea.
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Matthew chapter 6, verse 2.
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Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the
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streets, that they may be praised by others.
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Truly, I say to you, they have received their award.
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The phrase that they may be praised by others can also be translated that they may have glory
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In this context, a man's reputation was his glory.
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In the synagogues and in the streets, the hypocrites would make a huge production of their giving because
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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.
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To receive glory from men.
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The glory of God then refers to the public display of his worth.
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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
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Isaiah chapter 6, verses 1 through 3.
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In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up.
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And the train of his robe filled the temple.
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Above him stood the seraphim.
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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.
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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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You'd expect it would be from the holy, holy, holy.
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But the whole earth was in fact full of his glory.
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The whole world is filled with his glory.
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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.
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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.
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It is the sum total of his attributes.
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It is the sum total of his infinite worth manifest.
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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
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obvious the sum total of the infinite worth of the Lord God.
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To glorify God means that we will acknowledge his awesome character.
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We will exalt his character.
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We will lift his name on high.
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Through our adoration, through our praise, through our obedience, and through our worship of
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The Lord God and the Lord God alone is worthy of worship.
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Which is why in Exodus 20, verse 3, 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.
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Other false and erroneous gods.
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Years ago, I worked with a woman who was open to spiritual things.
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She considered herself to be a very spiritual person.
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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.
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But she had some wrong thinking.
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Especially in regards to the first commandment.
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You shall have no other gods before me.
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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
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existence of other gods, she felt that the scriptures were contradictory.
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She felt that the scriptures could not be trusted.
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How can there be only one God if the Bible repeatedly speaks of other gods?
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There are many passages that speak of the gods Baal -Bareth, Baal -Herman, the god
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Milcom, the god Chemosh, the god Asherah.
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If there are no other gods to begin with, then how could we possibly have or place another god
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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.
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I thought that was a good question.
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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 God.
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But man in his unrighteousness has exchanged this truth about the Lord
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Man in his depravity and wickedness has exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling
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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
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All other so -called gods which the natural man worships and serves are empty.
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For the Lord our God is the one and only living and true God.
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However, even these false gods, even though they're
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empty and even though they're nonexistent, these so -called gods still hold a spiritual
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power over their worshipers.
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False gods can still enslave a man into bondage and servitude.
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Jay Dama remarked, people worship powerful forces within creation as if they were
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They are not gods but only so -called gods.
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Still, they are very real powers able to enslave a person totally.
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Therefore, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that
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an idol has no real existence and that there is no God but one.
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For although there may be so -called gods in heaven or on earth, as indeed there are many gods and many
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lords, yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and from whom
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we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.
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The scriptures clearly teach that there is only one God and that every other
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God, every other so -called God is a fraud.
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Every other so -called God is an imposter.
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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.
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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.
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If it was a very hot summer with little rain and the sun scorched the earth so that
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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
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Did Baal have anything to do with it?
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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.
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Even though it was simply a human projection, Baal worship was a constant thorn and threat to the people
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A great many problems arose from the worship of this false, non -existent 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
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It is an extremely poor community, which is situated in the Lagos Lagoon.
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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.
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Locals estimate the population at somewhere over one million people.
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If you were to visit Makoko today, you'd be overwhelmed by the smell of rotten fish
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and burnt garbage and sewage.
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There are no government services.
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There's no waste disposal.
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The water is undrinkable.
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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?
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It's just a short canoe trip from the village to the shore so why do they stay and continue to live in
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such deplorable conditions?
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The answer is superstition.
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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
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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
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Since the time of Joseph in Genesis 46, for roughly 400 years the children of Israel had been living
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in a strange and foreign land, a land which was utterly polytheistic, a
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land whose inhabitants worshipped hundreds of so -called gods.
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The Israelites had been strict monotheists.
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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
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And after centuries and centuries of Egyptian influences, the Israelites no longer worshipped the Lord
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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,
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who is the Lord God, who is the one and only living and true
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In the first plague, Exodus 7, all of the water in Egypt was turned into
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The Nile River was turned to blood.
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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?
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Where was the god and spirit of the Nile River?
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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?
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All of these gods were silent.
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These gods were nowhere to be found.
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In the second plague, Exodus 8, the land of Egypt was covered with frogs.
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The land was carpeted and swarming with frogs.
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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.
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The Egyptians were actually frog worshipers.
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There were two different frog goddesses, Happy, who was associated with the Nile, and Heket.
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The goddess Heket was represented by the body of a woman with the head of a frog, and she was the symbol of
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fertility and resurrection.
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Frogs were sacred and revered.
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If you killed a frog unintentionally, there was a heavy consequence exacted, because killing a
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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
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houses, in the courtyards, and in the fields.
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The sacred and revered frog, the symbol of fertility and resurrection, died and
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The third plague was gnats.
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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.
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The magicians of Egypt were able to duplicate the first two plagues with their secret arts,
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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
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Seb was the great earth god of Egypt, and Egyptians gave offerings to Seb for a bountiful harvest
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of the soil, and yet it was from the soil, from the dust of the soil, that this plague
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The fourth plague were flies, swarms and swarms of flies.
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All throughout the land of Egypt, the houses of the Egyptians and the ground on which they stood were
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ruined by swarms of flies, but not in the land of Goshen,
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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,
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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
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didn't he plead with Udachit, who was the Egyptian god connected with flies?
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Well, maybe he did, but when it didn't work, he pleaded with the Lord God for relief, and relief was given,
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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
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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
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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
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with their protection, the Lord God utterly destroyed all of the Egyptian livestock.
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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
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land of Egypt, and boils and sores broke out on both man and beast.
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Sekhmet was a lion -headed goddess, and she had the power of both creating
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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
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And yet, the boils and the sores were so very severe that the Egyptian
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magicians could not even stand before Pharaoh.
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The seventh plague was hail.
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Thunder, hail, and fire rained down upon the land of Egypt, and the hail struck
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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.
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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,
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There was also Shu, the wind god, and Horus, the hawk -headed sky god of Upper Egypt, as well as
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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
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The eighth plague was locusts.
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Swarms and swarms of locusts descended upon the land, and they ate every remaining
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plant, every remaining plant that the hail had left, and these locusts covered the face of the whole land
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so that the land was darkened and not one green thing remained, neither tree nor
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In 1926 and 1927, small swarms of the African migratory locusts were
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spotted in an area 50 by 120 miles on the plains of the River Niger near Timbuktu.
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And over the next 14 years, these swarms grew and spread across Ethiopia, Kenya, and the Belgian
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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 5 million miles of Africa, which is
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nearly double the size of the USA.
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Egypt was utterly wrecked by this plague of locusts.
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But where was the Egyptian god Nebri, the god of grain?
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Where was Hermetet, the goddess of crops?
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Where was Thermithes, the goddess of fertility and of the harvest?
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Where was Serapia, the goddess who specifically was the protector of the Egyptian from
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After the locusts, Pharaoh sent for Moses and Aaron in haste, and he confessed that he had indeed sinned against the
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And Moses and Aaron, and he pleaded for forgiveness and for the plague to cease.
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Moses went out from Pharaoh, and he pleaded with the Lord God.
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Exodus 10 -19, And the Lord turned the wind into a very strong west wind, which
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lifted the locusts and drove them into the Red Sea.
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Not a single locust was left in all the country of Egypt.
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Not a single locust was left.
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The ninth plague was darkness.
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A darkness over the entire land of Egypt.
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A darkness so dark and so black that it could be felt.
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Exodus 10 -22, Moses stretched out his hand toward heaven, and there was pitch darkness in all the
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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.
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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?
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Where was Amun -Ra, the sun god?
37:58
Where was Horus, the god of light?
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Where was the god of the moon and the god of the stars?
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Pharaoh was considered to be the son of the gods.
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Pharaoh was the divine representation of the sun god, Amun -Ra.
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And yet, all of these so -called gods were utterly helpless and powerless
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against the one and only true God.
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The tenth and final plague was the death of all the firstborn.
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For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt,
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And on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments.
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On all the gods of Egypt and on all their worshipers, indeed the Lord God did execute his
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At midnight the Lord struck down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the
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firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive who was in the dungeon and
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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.
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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
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Blood, frogs, gnats, flies, the death of livestock,
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boils, sores, hail, locusts, darkness, the death of your firstborn child,
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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
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of the land of Goshen, the Lord your God battling your oppressors.
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The Israelites were the front row spectators of the awesome and mighty power of the Lord God.
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The Israelites were the front row spectators of the infinite majesty and splendor of the Lord God.
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The Israelites were the front row spectators of the glory of God.
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He annihilated the gods of Egypt.
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He decimated the gods of Egypt.
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He executed his divine judgment upon the gods of Egypt and he was unchallenged.
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The Lord God was absolutely victorious over Pharaoh.
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He was absolutely victorious over Pharaoh's magicians.
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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
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Isaiah 45, 5, I am the Lord and there is no other.
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Besides me, there is no God.
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I equip you, though you do not know me, that people may know from the rising of the sun and from the west that there
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I am the Lord and there is no other.
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I form light and create darkness.
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I make well -being and create calamity.
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I am the Lord who does all these things.
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Beloved, the ten plagues and the deliverance of the Israelites from the land of Egypt out of the house of
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slavery, this actually happened.
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This narrative is not a fictional account.
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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
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the one and only true God.
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He is the Lord your God who brought you out of slavery and bondage to sin, and thus
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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
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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.
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The Lord God is infinitely greater than money, fame, power, pleasure.
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He is better than all of these things.
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He's better than security.
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He's better than possessions, relationships, self.
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The Lord God is better than all of these things.
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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
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still remain unsatisfied and discontent because you will always long for more.
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Worshiping and serving the creature rather than the creator will never bring you satisfaction.
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It will never bring you contentment.
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Only the Lord God and a relationship with him through the Lord Jesus Christ can satisfy your hunger
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Only the 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
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be the glory of God alone.
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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.
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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.
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He alone can give you purpose and peace.
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Therefore, Exodus 20 verse 3, you shall have no other gods
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before the Lord God, which is where we will continue next week.
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Heavenly Father, we thank you for the scriptures and we thank you for this account.
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We thank you for the tremendous work that you did.
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Lord, you annihilated the gods of Egypt.
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You put them in their place.
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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.
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And Lord, we pray that we would walk in obedience to the first commandment, that we would put no other
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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.
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Only you can provide satisfaction.
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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.
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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.
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Lord God, we rejoice in who you are.
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We rejoice that we know you.