you may be seated. Some of you will remember back in November of 2003 Judge Roy Moore was removed from office as office as a justice in the state of Alabama and the Supreme Court of Alabama removed him from office because he would not remove a statue a 2.6 ton statue of the 10 Commandments from under the rotunda of the state building in Montgomery, Alabama. And so because he refused to do this unprincible because one he believed that did not violate the clauses of the First Amendment, the separation clauses of First Amendment, nor did he believe that he should be bound to go against his conscience and so he refused to remove the statue of the 10 Commandments from under the rotunda. And so because he wouldn't remove the statue, he was removed from office. And that's a kind of a telling story in the day in which we live. And you know what's kind of interesting to me is that during that time when this was all going on it created quite a controversy in the midst of our culture and there's a lot of dialogue and a lot of criticism on both sides of the fence and on both sides of the aisle and from Christians and non-Christian to the light. But essentially I think what was most interesting to me is that what the judge was saying in the final analysis was simply this that the way that he saw it, he had to obey God rather than obey man. And so in his mind removing those 10 Commandments would be disobeying God in some way. And so he refused to do it, he would remove from office. But you know there's also another interesting phenomenon as you think about this instance in our nation's history. And that is that a lot of Christians were expressing their outrage that the state through coercion was forcing the removal of this monument which had the 10 Commandments out of this building. And there's a lot of outrage about that. Now that story is calm and gone and it's largely faded from most of our memories although it seemed like it seemed like one of the critical issues of the day at the time but then like most of these critical issues as they sort of rise to the top once they're done and once they're settled it's sort of we go back to business that usually we forget about those things. And what was kind of crossed my mind at the time was, as here you know Christians were outraged about this at the time about the removal of this but yet you know if we think about it the 10 Commandments have long ago been removed from our memories and from our hearts. And there has been little outcry. We get upset, we get mad, we get angry, we protest, we demonstrate when somebody is going to remove a monument out of you know a capital state building but yet the law has been largely removed from our own hearts and from our churches and and yet we sort of may not remain non-response about it. I was again I don't know if this is going to be a habit or not but I was talking with Chuck Michaels this morning on the way and we sort of I don't know why but we always end up in the men's room at the same time and before church and we always you know talk a little bit about what the sermon is going to be and everything and you know Chuck was saying to me that you know it's been it says I'm really looking forward to this because it's been a long time since I have heard a sermon on the 10 Commandments you know and I said well yeah you know I think it's been a long time for me as well and and I suspect the same is true for you it's been a long time probably since you've heard a sermon on the 10 Commandments and so we want we want to begin here again with the 10 Commandments and we want to start looking at this and this morning we're going to try to make our way to the first Commandment. I do want to kind of review what we said last week and and what I want you to see here is that you listen that our obedience to the 10 Commandments is based on three things I think that we can find in this text the first one is that our obedience is based on what God said and that's what we began last week in verse one of chapter 20 it says that and God spoke all of these words God spoke them these are not the words of Moses these are not necessary the words of any other man all right these are the words of God in fact what can be said about the 10 Commandments here and how Moses received them cannot be said about any other words and not even any other words of God in chapter 31 and verse 18 of the same book the book of access we are told that the these words were literally inscribed by the finger of God on these two tablets of stone you know and so you know this this sort of heightens the importance of these words is telling us that look these words are important and they ought to be heard and believed in love and known and obeyed and remember these these words are important they take on an additive they are God's words not man's words and therefore they they take on a kind of heightened significance now to be sure to be sure you know all of scripture as Paul writes the Timothy is inspired by God and is profitable for reprieve for correction for instruction and writing the sick but the man of God might be thoroughly furnished onto what onto every good work all of scripture's God word God's word all of scripture's God breathed see but but think about this this is saying that these words were inscribed by the finger of God even more right it says it says as we read on and as we see what God does with these laws with his people it says that not only did he you know inscribed them with his finger on these tablets of stone but he put them inside of us on the tables of our human hearts God these this is what God said and that is that ought to be an incredible motivation for us you know as we think about the Ten Commandments that this is what God has said you know I was reading a book uh one of the books that I've been using to do research in this and uh J.I. Packer does the forward in in this book and he basically says two things in the forward that I think are important uh the one of which he says the first he says the first thing we can say about the Ten Commandments is that this is what God said that this is God's word he says the second thing we can say about the Ten Commandments is that we have largely lost them and you know that hit me like a ton of bricks uh when I read that and it made me think of a time in Israel's history if you some of you remember King Josiah and uh you know Israel was in sad shape during the reign of the kings and if you read that part of the biblical history you know that uh this was this is really a terrible time in the history of Israel for the most part and uh uh and that you know not only was it terrible morally speaking but you know the the temple was in disrepair and uh and Josiah he came to the throne when he was eight years old and then he says I think in the 18th year that Josiah was the king and the 18th year of his reign he ordered his secretary to go in and collect some of the funds from the temple priest so that he could begin the repair of the temple the temple was so bad and in such disrepair that Josiah was you know doing a little bit of a capital campaign here in order to repair the temple and when he went in there to talk to the priest when the secretary when Josiah said to him to talk to the priest and they were they were milling around in there and they collect the money the priest said to Josiah secretary he said I have I found something I found a book I found the book of the law and I'm just you know I'm just trying to think about this this is Israel this is the people of God these are the people that God spoke to and again think about this think about think about when this is happening this is the people that God spoke to and they've lost the word of God they've lost the law of God nobody knows where it is and nobody cares that it's lost and they just happened to find it when they're cleaning up the temple you are the temple of the Holy Spirit you are the church are the temple of God and have we lost in our temples the law of God if we lost what God has said and again you know the Bible talks about you know God said this God said that so so often and so frequently that I think sometimes we fail to to to to understand the full weight and the full significance that what it means that God has spoken that God said something to his people especially the people of Israel who have just come out of captivity where it had been 400 over 400 years where God had not said where God had not spoken they were invited they were in slavery they're in captivity and there was no word from God there was no voice of God God was not speaking for over 400 years
and then one day Moses is out and the wilderness and the desert taking care of just his ordinary everyday business osmosis is doing is showing up for work one day and what happens he sees a burning bush and he hears the voice of God and God speaks he says Moses take off your shoes for the ground and what you're standing on is holy ground what does Moses say he says basically two things when God tells him that he is calling him to go and tell Pharaoh set my people three and Moses says who am I by that I should go I am not qualified I am not a statesman I don't know anything about international affairs whatsoever not been trained in this area I am not a diplomat I am not an ambassador who am I there's next questions rather interesting too he says to God who are you then God says something rather strange he says I am that I am now you can think of Moses problem here can't you says to God who are you and he says I am that I am Moses said well Lord you know that's a verb can I get a noun here you know work with me a little bit on this God says I am tell the people of Israel that I am has sent you tell the people of Israel that I am the God of Abraham the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob I am the Lord your God you got to understand the significance of God speaking after he had seemingly been silent for so long it's kind of the same thing in the intertest mental period between you know the two testaments there's this there's a silence of God and then suddenly right God breaks in God breaks in on the scene and the person of Jesus Christ as the author of Hebrews says in times past God spoke in many different ways through the prophets but now he has spoken in these last days through his son silence all of this silence hearing nothing from God and then suddenly now God speaks first thing we need to see here is about obeying these commandments is that they are the words of God God spoke them the second thing so this is about what God said our obedience is about what God said the second thing I want you to see is that our obedience is about what God did I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt out of the land of slavery this is about what God did this is the motivation for for our obedience that the sovereign God of heaven and earth has delivered his people out of the bondage of slavery this is this is you know this is something you know when we think about God and we think about God's existence and we think about what God is like so often to us that is merely just some kind of theoretical exercise some kind of philosophical exercise to think about God abstractly but that's not the way the Bible teaches us stuff about God that's not the way God reveals himself God reveals himself through his great acts of creation and redemption and providence God did something here he's revealing himself through what he did this is one of the gracious acts of God one of the most gracious acts of God all times he delivers his people from bondage and from slavery and so this is one of the one of the great acts of God from all God has done something he has revealed himself in what he has done God has delivered us from our bondage and from our slavery to sin and to Satan this is what he did he has revealed himself through his acts this is what you know if you think of the old song from the old slave trader John Newton when he said amazing grace how sweet the sound once was lost but now find it was blind but now I see was grace that taught me to fear and grace my fears relieved how precious did that grace appear the hour I first believe you know what Newton was saying Newton was saying God did something God did something that I could not do myself God has delivered me and think about that line how precious did that grace appear the hour that I first believed beloved do you remember the how are you first believed remember that do you remember how precious that was let me ask you a question this morning is it still precious God has done something God has broken and God has acted this is an act of God is it still precious you know the Heidelberg Catechism is a wonderful beautiful Catechism and it breaks up all of life basically in the three categories to read through the Heidelberg Catechism it breaks all of life up in the three categories the first one is misery the second one is deliverance and the third one is gratitude now you know what you can look around and you can kind of take you can kind of take people and and put all the people you know in the one or those three categories in fact the people that are here this morning you whether you know or not you fit in one of those three categories some of you are miserable not just talking about you woke up in a bad mood or you're just unhappy about some things at the job or at school or with the family or in life in general not talking about that I'm talking about the kind of misery that is associated with sin the kind of misery that stems from sin usually when the the writers of all the Catechism going to talk about sin they always talk about sin and misery sin and misery go together you know one of the one of the one of the one of the problems with behavior in our time and in our culture is that people are you know some of the behavior that we're astounded about that we see some of the more behavior that we you know are shocked by that we see is is nothing more than people trying to sedate themselves because of the misery that they're in because of the sin that they're in some of us are obviously miserable you can see it it's on their faces every day when they wake up in the morning they're disturbed whole life is nothing but a mess everything's a mess other people conceal it really well though have you noticed that sometimes people can see all their misery really really well you'd never even know the misery this is why you look at your neighbors and you say why is it they're doing so good I'm over here slugging it out sweating every day I'm just trying to do right I'm trying to do what God says I'm trying to do what the law requires and I'm and I'm getting killed over here and yet my neighbors they just seem everything is fine they don't they don't go to church they don't they don't try to obey God they're not doing anything and like look everything is fine it looks like don't you believe it for a second some people just cover up their misery better than others and then the second part is deliverance this is this is the part where we are right now in this room and what God did God does something God breaks in and he delivers you from your sin in your misery as he delivered you from your sin and your misery as he set you free as he brought you out of captivity as he broken those chains and those shackles which you were in bondage to that's deliverance and the third category is gratitude thankfulness for God's deliverance and that's what this that's what this is saying so this is about what God said it's about what God did God said I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt out of the land of slavery God did something so our obedience is about what God said it's about what God did and then finally now we're removing to the first commandment it's about what God wants it's about what God requires and what does he say what does God want what does he require you shall have no other gods be for me you should have no other gods be for me now what does this mean well you know if you happen to read the larger catechism we confess the shorter catechism this morning and that's a nice succinct way of saying what this requires but then the larger catechism goes into great detail about the first commandment in fact when I was talking to Chuck this morning says how many sermons you're gonna do on the first commandment I said one he said one how can you do the first commandment one sermon I've already spent 20 minutes wasted out of other stuff already how you're gonna do that I said I don't know I'm gonna try though probably stick to the shorter catechism but you know the the larger catechism basically there are 22 things that are required by the first commandment 22 there are 64 things that are forbidden that's a lot of things that's a big list this is what God requires and while we can't go through all of what this means what I what I want to show you first of all is that this is a declaration of exclusive fidelity you shall have no other gods before me it's a declaration of exclusive fidelity both gods fidelity to us as he binds himself to his people and our fidelity to God it's a declaration of exclusive fidelity in the times of the kings and the ancient near middle east there were kings who ruled over what we today would call a superpower and then there were smaller kings and smaller nations who ruled over small countries and many times these kings that ruled over the small nations they would enter into a covenant or agreement with the kings who ruled over the super powers and as you look at these documents that they form these covenants that they formed they look amazingly a lot of like what we just have been reading here in the Ten Commandments or like the whole entire book of Deuteronomy for instance the came begins by stating his name if you will then he recites a little history about what he has done and then he enters into an agreement that they won't he forbids them to have any kind of similar agreement with any other kings another one is requiring of them is the exclusive fidelity if we go into this agreement then you don't have any agreement with any other kings exclusive fidelity now what's interesting is there is that this exclusive fidelity was characterized in a way that I think we would find surprising that is what they were requiring what those kings of the super powers were requiring of these lesser kings was simply this love let's see when we think of love so often we think of love in this sort of hyper romantic or hyper sentimental way
but when the Bible talks about love and when these covenant agreements talked about love what they were talking about was exclusive fidelity allegiance faithfulness no other gods you're uncover it with me no other gods and this was and I think about that when you know when you go to do it around with me six four where it says here or is it the Lord your God is one God don't you love the Lord that God with all that heart mine strength soul etc etc etc and Jesus said what Jesus said that this is the first and the greatest commandment right exclusive fidelity and then what did Jesus say if you're going to come and follow me right think about the exclusiveness of this then you have to hate your father and your mother and your sister and your brother and your children and your spouse exclusive fidelity no rivals to God are tolerated God requires exclusive fidelity now obviously this also has to do with worship doesn't it you should have no other gods before me and if you think about this what this is saying is essentially that that we are to worship God the true God the one true God alone and we're to worship him the way that he has prescribed for us worship of the one true God and the way that the one true God has published that's sort of the narrow way of looking at this john frame is written in many of his books he talks about worship in terms of the worship in the narrow sense and worship in the broad sense the sense of what the broad sense of worship is that all of life is worship everything we do as a Christian is worship all of life is is worship and you know in understanding that by the way I think is extremely important because if you understand that all of life is worship then suddenly that that becomes a big motivator you see for the living the godly life
all of life is worship you know in the old days during the times of the Puritans and the i will can church in great Britain there was a big dispute about the law uh they all believed in the law they all believed that both tables of the law were important uh and and binding but there was a dispute about which part of the law should be emphasized or which which table of the law took precedence and the the Puritans argued that the first table of the law took precedence the first four commandments have we know the gods before him not creating any graven emiss not taking his name and vain keeping the Sabbath and so forth that was what was preeminent in the minds of the Puritans the anglicans to know it's the other tables of the law the other commandments is the second table of the law that's important that takes preemant and they they began to call each other by the same name they called each other carvers because they were carving up the law and they were trying to they both believe in the law they both believe the part each parts of the law were binding but they were carving up the law as a matter of what they thought uh should receive the emphasis and if you think about that folks we do the same thing today don't we we carve up the law there's a whole group of Christians that think that you know it's the last four of the commandments that ought to be or the what rather the last six of the commandments ought to be emphasized it's about it's about you know how we treat our neighbors and what we do and and all that and then there's the others just say no no no it's all about his first four that's what's really important and the truth of the matter is folks as both of those things are important the first commandment doesn't allow us to be carvers it requires the worship of the true God and the way in which he has prescribed and obedience to that means that that all of the other commandments are important I will say this I believe that this is first not only in terms of the order in which it comes it is first in its rank I'm a little bit of a Puritan in that regard uh but because I think that that that you know this you know the worship of true God is is is the main thing that we are about and the main thing that we're called to do and we can't uh but but nevertheless the whole of the law is important and so worship now the the last thing that I want to say about this commandment is this not only does it require us to have exclusive fidelity to God and not only does it require us to worship God and the way in which God has prescribed us to worship Him but it is also a call to warfare and a call to our no other gods now think about the context of this is given right the people of Israel the people of God have just been brought out of Egypt and and and and prior to that God you know had sent Moses there and there was a battle going on there was a war going on and and so often sometimes I think we miss it and we think this is God fighting against Pharaoh and Pharaoh fighting against God that's not really what's going on there what this is really about is that God is is fighting the gods of the Egyptians or Pharaoh's gods so you know if you look at all the plagues that almost all the plagues can be seen in terms of of defeating conquering some Egyptian God and so this is really about warfare it's you know he says you usually have no other gods before me there's you and me God is saying I one side and there's all the other gods on the other side and this is about defeating and conquering triumphing over those gods both the gods that we we're just defeated in Egypt and all the gods and all the places that they were to go in the future now the early church I think understood this you know it's kind of interesting if you watched a baptism in the early church what you would see is is when the when the candidate for baptism would come up they would turn to the west and they would renounce Satan and all of his demons and all of his ministers and then they would turn to the right or to the east and then they would they would confess Christ and as as the one who is defeated all of their enemies and all of his enemies they grasped that they understood that the that the first commandment is really a call to warfare it's called called arms you know there is a sense in which I wish that we were still fighting the gods of antiquity there is a sense that I wish that we were fighting the gods of the Egyptians or the gods of the ancient Greeks or even the gods of the Canaanites the Presites the Hevites the Philistines because I think in many ways that was an easier battle to fight those gods had shaped those gods had formed those gods had myth and they had mystery you can there there was something sort of tangible about them something sort of that that you know you knew who your enemy was and you could fight them I think it's much harder today to fight gods like the autonomous self the cult of choice the pantheon of consumerism these gods are hard to pin down they're they're you don't see shape or form or myth or mystery sort of built around these gods
and so it's kind of hard to get your arms around fighting and being at war with those gods and largely because they have become so much part of our lives the cult of self the cult of choice the cult of consumerism the cult of pleasure and pleasure seeking and not only that in some ways the church has become complicit in creating the altars in which sacrifices are even made to these gods we've almost become the promoter of some of these gods in the Western world and American life they've they've almost become part and parcel so much with who we are that what we've got to realize is the way to fight against other gods is essentially fighting against ourselves what we are fighting today is the god of self and everything goes that goes with the individual self and with all of our so-called rights and choices and so forth and I would submit to you that that is a much harder god to fight it's a much harder god to defeat it's a much harder god to conquer it's a much harder god to even realize that it is a god or that it has become a god narcissism has become so much a part of who we are and we become so self-absorbed about ourselves that it's almost impossible to separate in any way to understand that that's who we are at war with there are days when I just want for the gods of the Egyptians or the gods of the Greeks it'd be really easy to preach a sermon about that but how do you tell people that the god that they must fight the god that is really a rival to the one true god is their own selves it's warfare beloved the first commandment requires exclusive fidelity exclusive worship warfare against ourselves our so-called rights our choices our consumerism our obsession with pleasure may god help us our hope our trust in this battle is not in ourselves and see in there in there funny we're at war with ourselves and what's the one thing we want to do what's the one one sort of the the culture of the religion is to rely on yourself to defeat yourselves there is no self-help for defeating yourselves you could only rely on Christ you can only rely on the person work of Christ you can only rely on the cross you can only rely on the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ because he has defeated all of these enemies and that your faith and hope and trust put in him that you get the victory over these other gods cast yourself upon him this morning as we pray heavenly Father
Lord Almighty God help us understand that our obedience is based on what you have said upon your word the voice of God the word of God the word of God written by the finger of God on the tablets of our human hearts help us understand Lord that our obedience is based not only on what you said but on what you did that you have delivered us that you have set us free you've brought us out of darkness into your marvelous light and would help us also to believe and to understand that our obedience is based on what you want and not what we want what you require of us and help us Lord they have no other gods before you help us Lord to understand that in many ways and in many respects we are war with ourselves we're at war with choice we're at war with cult of consumerism deliver us on Almighty God we pray in Jesus' name