Word of Salvation – Vol. 35 No. 29 – August 1990

 

The Only God

 

Sermon by Rev. M. P. Geluk on Lord’s Day 34b, Q/A 93-95
                                                            and Exodus 20:3

 

Today we listen to the first of the Ten Commandments.  Each one expresses the will of God for all people.  The first four describe what our relationship to God should be, and the last six describe to us how we should relate to other people.

There is more to God’s will than what we find expressed in the Ten Commandments.  You need to listen to all of God’s Word in order to know His will more fully.

Yet, the Ten Commandments  are basic to everything else the Bible has to say about our relationship to God and neighbour.  They clearly teach us how to have reverence for God and respect for the neighbour.  Or, as we so often hear it, when the summary of the Ten Commandments is given, they show us how to properly love God and the neighbour.

You will find the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5, but not only there.  Throughout the Bible are found teachings that n are based on the Ten Commandments.  Each one is referred to in the New Testament and the Lord Jesus and His apostles never did away with any one of them.

In fact, they brought out the full meaning of each commandment, like you bring out the full beauty of a diamond when you slowly turn it in the sunlight.  That is the sense in which we should understand the fulfilment of the commandments by Jesus.  He did not do away with them but He makes us see what God really meant when He gave these commandments to man.

Without the Ten Commandments we would not know who God really is, nor what He requires from his creatures.  Imagine the captain of a ship trying to find his way across the endless expanse of the ocean without a compass.  Or the pilot of an aircraft flying high above the clouds.  Without navigational instruments ships and planes would miss their destination and become hopelessly lost, colliding with submerged reefs the ship did not know were there, or the plane crashing somewhere because eventually it had run out of fuel.

In the same way many precious lives have lost their way because they chose to ignore the steering directions God provided in the commandments.

Let us then not repeat the same tragic mistake of others who tried to make it without the compass God supplies in His law.  Let us join the people of God who obeyed the commandments and were able to make the journey of life without destroying themselves and others.

In the first commandment God says: You shall have no other gods before me, or: beside me.  The Bible, being written many centuries before our time, reflects situations where people actually made idols from wood, stone, or metal and worshipped them.  It’s probably more correct to say that what was newly carved, or cut, was not immediately seen as an idol.  Its function was to represent the god they worshipped.  What was made by human hands was only an image of the real thing.  The god, whoever or whatever it was, was believed to have the real power.  Its man-made image was just a representation and it could not move, speak or do anything.

However, as always seems to happen in idolatry, the worship and devotion meant for the god is gradually transferred to its image and after a period of time the representation becomes the real thing.  The man-made thing of wood, stone or whatever, begins to receive all the attention and is then believed to have acquired special powers which make it sacred.  The image has become an idol.  It is worshipped and venerated.  To all intents and purposes the idol is a god.

Now whilst we today in our society hardly know of anyone making images of wood, stone, or metal to represent some false god, every catechism student will quickly tell you that our society still has plenty of false gods.  Money, material possessions, champions in sport, various forms of gambling, film stars, rock stars, sport itself, liquor, beautiful looks and bodies, these and many more are the gods of our time.

These idols weren’t gods to start off with.  They weren’t even idols.  But they became idols and gods when they were seen to provide power, possessions, success, glamour, prestige, and turned you from a nobody into somebody.  And thus the means, or the people, that gave you that power, realised your ambitions, and put you on centre-stage, began to receive your trust and admiration.  People worship money because they trust it to do something for them.  It’s the same with everything else, be it the handiness with your hands, or your high I.Q. level, or one’s sexual attraction, or academic degree.  These and others can open doors and conveniently shut others.  If handled right, they can turn you into a winner.

Not all idols are ugly.  There are some very beautiful things or people, but wrongly used they can receive all of one’s love and trust.  Some people only live for art or music.  Others live only for their wives or husbands, or children.

And that’s what idolatry is.  The catechism in answer 95 defines idolatry as:

“…having or inventing something in which one trusts in place of or alongside of the only true God, who has revealed Himself in His Word.”

Notice the key words in that definition.  They are in place of or alongside of.  An idolater is one who has put his trust in something or someone else in the place of or alongside of God.  How does that happen?

Well, over a period of time a person begins to lose touch with God.  Maybe there was not even a relationship with God in the first place.  Still, the unbeliever in our society will have heard of God at some time or other.  And, the believer, of course, knows even better who God is.  From the Bible we know that God is the Creator of all things.  He gives life and He takes it away.  There are no other gods who are as true as He is.  All false gods are man-made.  This one, true God is a loving God.  He provides man with food and life and all that is needed for body and soul.  He, being the only true God, expects man to worship only Him.

Yes, we know man has fallen into sin and has broken the perfect fellowship he had with God.  But God gave His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, as the Saviour from sin, and whoever believes in Him will not perish but receive salvation.  In Christ, God has opened the way for sinful man to come back to God.  To be at peace with Him and receive from His gracious hand many beautiful blessings, including guidance and direction through the commandments.  In fact, all man’s needs are provided for and with God man will be happy, secure and live forever.

But when a person begins to forsake God and no longer keeps up that personal relationship with God, then a then a vacuum is created.  In that vacuum will enter the various modern gods of our time.  At first, the believer especially does not completely replace God with the false god.  In fact, he would deny that money, or the business, or the family, have pushed God out the perimeter of his life.  After all, such are good things and not evil.  The person may even become fascinated with what science can do, or see a political or military leader as the hope for the future.  It may even be the black race or the white race.

But unless these various things or people are kept in their proper order of priority, they can easily become separated from God.  When that happens they will start to replace God and over a period of time they will turn into gods.  The change-over to idolatry will be complete when the new gods become absolute.  They now rule and the idolaters now serves them.  He is controlled by his gods and obeys them.

It is right here that the jealousy of God is aroused.  You know that the Bible speaks of God being a jealous God.  It’s the kind of jealousy that a husband or wife may rightly have when the one sees the other break the unity of the marriage by committing adultery with a third party.  In marriage, the partners have a right to each other.  When these rights are violated then there is every reason to be jealous.

In the Bible God is portrayed as the husband and His people are the bride.  When this bride leaves God for other gods then God is righteously jealous.  He is deeply hurt and insulted.  He is everything for His people.  He gives them His perfect love, provides all their needs, surrounds them with warmth and protection, and vowed never to leave or forsake His people.

When His people then leave Him and give their love and affection to other things or people in the place of God or alongside of Him, then you can understand how spiritual prostitution is committed.

God’s people have become an adulteress.  They give their love and trust to a third party who has no right to it.

But why should God be worried and why does He say you shall have no other gods before me or beside me?  Surely God can carry on without His people?  If His people want to flirt around and try some other lovers, well, let them.  They will find out sooner or later that other gods are terribly inferior to the true God.

But if you were to think that, then you haven’t really understood the love God has for His people.  Could a husband or a wife who really love each other ever say?  Go ahead, leave if you want to, I can manage by myself.  There is no love for the other here, there is only love for self.  True love is concerned for the other’s well-being.

And God has such true love.  Of course, He can exist and go on by Himself.  He is so glorious, perfect and all-sufficient that He does not need others.  He was perfectly happy before He made the world and its people.  But in His perfect love, God reaches out to His people.  Even when they run after other gods, He did not abandon them but sent His Son Jesus into the world to die for their sins.  Instead of divorcing His adulterous partner, and He had every right to do so, He punished His own Son for the sins of His partner.

You see, God knows so well that we cannot love other gods and still be happy.  He gave this first commandment because He knows other gods will destroy us.

Nowhere is this seen more clearly than in the so-called ‘new age gospel’.  It is saying that self is more important than anything else.  That false gospel is not new of course.  Whenever men turn to false gods then the aim is always to get something out of it for yourself.  People do not worship money, sport, sex or whatever, for what these things are in themselves.  They turn to them because they trust these things will do something for them.  It’s the power, thrills, excitement and self-importance they provide.  So the idol in most cases is really oneself.

The ‘new-age gospel’ recognizes that and speaks of my success, my self-realization, my self- esteem, my satisfaction, my personal good.  People do not in the first place ask: How will this honour God?  Or will this be in accordance with His will?  But what do I get out of it?  Not: what good will it do to my neighbour?  But what good will it do to me?  People are told by the ‘new age gospel’ that they themselves are gods.  Within the human person, they say, are many good things and you have to learn how to be true to yourself.  So the most common false god is self.

But why is it so false and why so dangerous?  Well, for one thing the Bible teaches that only God is good.  The Bible shows that because man has disobeyed God’s will, he is a sinful creature.  Deep within ourselves we are not good but bad.  Only in Christ are we made good.  When Christ lives within us and His Spirit controls us, then we then we are good and do good.

The ‘new-age gospel’ however, has no room for Christ.  That doesn’t mean His name is not used.  On the contrary, Christ is often referred to but only in the sense that he is a teacher, a prophet, who will help and show you how to realise your true potential.  But He is not spoken of as the eternal Son of God who came to tell people that they must turn away from self and turn to God.  He is not referred to as the one who says you must deny yourself and put God and neighbour above yourself.  He is not seen as the One whose death on the cross gives forgiveness and eternal life.  The ‘new- age gospel’ doesn’t refer to any of that and it is therefore a false gospel and its Christ is a false Christ.  And the tragedy is that the ‘new-age gospel’ does not only come to us via the eastern religions but it has found its way into people’s’ thinking everywhere.  It therefore comes to us through our state schools, colleges and universities.  The politicians and many churches and religious leaders have taken it over.

And why is it so dangerous?  Because turning yourself into a god always brings failure.  And with failure comes depression and despair, and increasingly nowadays, suicide.

Last year an anonymous sixteen year old wrote an article called, “No Other Way Out”, in a church magazine.  It was about suicide.  The writing was full of I, me, and my.  “I never seemed to fit in.  I never belonged,” he said.  His self was so bruised that he tried to kill himself.  After recovering in a Christian mental hospital from his suicide attempt, however, he began to sense that there were other selves in the world who might be hurt by his foolish action.  But still his own feelings. and lack of self-confidence remained the central issue of his life.  Everything in his world revolved around his own self.

The first commandment says that this is wrong.  You whole life and the entire world must not centre around your but around God.  He alone is good.  You must not seek self-success, self- expression or self-fulfilment but you must seek God, obey His will and glorify His name.

How can you look to the lottery to give you instant wealth when God has said: “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”?

Before we close we must still ask: “How can false gods be overcome?”  How can the marriage between God and His people be so good that the wife does not even want to think of turning to other gods?  Well, how can any marriage remain good?  Surely the answer must be: when the one partner can see in the other a genuine willingness to do everything that is for the good of the other.

The Christian will always find God doing everything that is good for the Christian.  There is no husband like God, no father like him.  We can trust God completely.

In Christ we see how this first commandment was obeyed perfectly.  The Son always looked to His Father, and never did anything contrary to His Father’s will.  He received all His support and strength from God.  God’s Word upheld and guided Him.  Times spent alone with God in prayer and meditation on His Word refreshed and encouraged Him.  He knew that His Father’s will was good, even in the dark hours in Gethsemane and on the cross.  The Son never had or invented something which replaced God.  If you want to know what trusting God is all about, then you only have to look to Christ.

How then can you and I let go of our false gods and worship and serve God only?  By faith!  We may believe the Word of God which describes Him who is marvellous and great.  We may believe His Word to be true, for no one has ever been disappointed in God.  We may believe His faithfulness and love, for no one has ever been turned away when they came in humility and repentance.  We may believe He truly has our well-being at heart, for He sent His Son to die in our place even while we were still enemies.

When we, in faith, can see how wonderful God is for His people then we will be prepared to give up anything rather than go against His will in any way.  Have a realistic look at your false gods.  Will they love you the way God does?  Will they be as faithful?  Will they go to the same lengths as He did in order to bring you well- being?  Come, step away from these false gods and let them no longer rule you.  Don’t serve them any longer for they are not worth it.  Do not endanger your salvation.  Give your heart, your life, yes, your very self to the one only true God.  Love Him, fear Him, and honour Him with all your heart.  For besides Him, there is really no other.

AMEN