I expect you are all familiar
with the verses that we read in that chapter in Exodus. I
expect most of you know the Ten Commandments, probably off by
heart, and you could no doubt all speak and tell me them in
Dutch if I asked you. I wouldn't be able to understand
it I'm afraid, but at least you would know the Ten Commandments.
Now the Ten Commandments are of course very important and
they were given by Moses, given to Moses when the children of
Israel were travelling in the wilderness and it was a very
wonderful day when that was given. We read about the mountains smoking
and quaking and fire and it must have been a very frightening
time for all those people. But Moses received these Ten
Commandments and God wrote them on two tables of stone. We know that Moses, when he came
down the mountain, he was so annoyed to find that the Israelites
had made a golden calf and were dancing around the calf. that
he threw those two tables on the ground and they broke. And
then he had to make two more tables. This time he had to make
them and he took them back up the mountain and God again wrote
these Ten Commandments. Now, this evening I want to speak
to you just about one commandment. And I suppose it is a commandment
which almost includes the others. It's the first commandment and
we read it in the third verse in this 20th chapter and it's
this, Thou shalt have no other gods before me. That is a very
simple statement but it is very important. And I want to really
speak to you this evening like this. Considering that verse,
just like this, it means putting God first. And that's a command
by God. All of us need in our lives to
put God first. Now we tend to not put God first
because we tend to do what we want to do and we don't always
put God first. But it is important that we do
put God first. Now what will make us put God
first? What will make us put God first? I believe there are two things.
First of all, we might be frightened of God. The Israelites at this
time, when the mountain was quaking, they were frightened of God.
So that may be one reason. But another reason why we should
want to put God first is a very important reason. And that is
because of God's love. and because of our love to God
now it'll be a good thing if you and I think tonight of that
truth that we want to put God first because we love God we read in the epistle of John
and in the first epistle that's one of the small letters we're
told this We love Him, we love God, and why do we love God? Because He loved us. Because He first loved us. It was not that we loved God
first, it was because God loved us first. Now if you and I know
that God has loved us, and God has loved us so much, that God
the Father sent the Lord Jesus Christ into this world to die
for us so that we might have all our sins forgiven and then
when we come to die to go to be with Jesus forever and ever. So I'm sure we can see perhaps
it was a wonderful love of God the Father sending his son, the
Lord Jesus Christ. And it was a wonderful thing
for the Lord Jesus Christ to love us so much that he was willing
to die so that we might receive the gift of eternal life. And
also, the love of the Holy Spirit was so great because the Holy
Spirit revealed to us, to our hearts, our need of a Saviour,
the Lord Jesus Christ. So, this first command then tells
us, Thou shalt have no other God before me. If we are to obey that command,
it'll be because of our love to God and because of God's love
to us. Now there are a number of very
good words of instruction in the Word of God to us and the Lord Jesus tells us about
this love and in Matthew the 22nd chapter and the 37th verse
we read Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy
God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy
mind. That means loving God a lot,
doesn't it? That doesn't mean we just love
God a little when we think we might want to. It really means
the Lord is telling us we should love the Lord our God with all
our heart all the time every day and every part of us now
it is interesting to just think of love because if we get to heaven we
get to heaven that will be the only grace that will be known
there really. Because there will be no need
for repentance, no need to be sorry then for our sins, because
all our sins would have been taken away and the great wonderful
blessing in heaven will be love. And there will be no need for
repentance because there will be no sin. There will also be
no need for faith. We need faith today on the earth
to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. But we shall not need
faith in heaven because we will be there and we shall be blessed
and we shall be seeing the Lord Jesus Christ. in that wonderful
place in heaven. We will not therefore need faith,
but we will need love. And we shall be surrounded with
God's love in heaven. It's a wonderful thing to consider. Love in heaven. Nothing to detract
from it. It will be a wonderful time.
Love never fails, we read in the first epistle of the Corinthians. And so we should be concerned
that we know this great love, this love of God to us and our
love to God. There are many things in our
lives which we might think are important, and they may be important,
But this is a very important thing, that all of us love God,
and God loves us. And if so, then we shall want
to put God first. In your life and my life, each
day, we shall want to put God first. We shall want to put God
first when we get up in the morning. I wonder, when you wake up in
the morning, what your first thoughts are when you wake up?
Are your thoughts about God? Or are your thoughts about many
other things? What a blessing for you if when
you wake up in the morning, your first thoughts are about God. And then as the day progresses,
We have to study, we have to work, but during the day, to
think about God's love is a wonderful thing. And then, when we go to
bed at night, as we go to sleep, to think of God's love toward
us, the love to us perhaps during the day, his goodness to us,
in helping us, in taking care of us, it's all because of God's
love. So it's a great blessing if we
know something then of God's love. Now, in the Old Testament,
Moses was concerned that the children of Israel did obey God's
laws. Today, most people do not care
about God's laws. Most people you and I meet with
in the world do not care about God's Word. They think they can
do what they want to do. But Moses, when he was an old
man, he wrote out a great many details for Israel that they
might remember. Remember the important things. And in Deuteronomy chapter 6
we read this. thou shalt love the Lord thy
God and serve him and shalt swear by his name ye shall not go after
other gods of the gods of the people which are round about
you now that means they were not to worship other gods And perhaps today you might think,
well, I don't worship other gods. You may not have an actual idol
in your home, but you may have gods that you do worship and
you don't really realise that you are worshipping other gods. For instance, you may worship
the clothes you wear. You may be very concerned about
the clothes you wear. You may want people to think
a lot about you and the clothes you wear. And you might find
then that you're really worshipping these things and they can become
idols. And then we live in a day when
sport, football and that kind of thing is put in a very high
place and many people today worship sport and they worship those
things and they are an idol and we have to be very careful that
we do not worship that because Moses said very clearly don't
go after those things don't go after those things and I'll tell
you why because if you want to love God you won't be able to
love these other things, because what will happen is your love
to God will be reduced. You'll find that all these other
things come into your minds and therefore you won't really be
loving God as you should. And so we see Moses says that
very clearly. And then you may remember the
Lord Jesus Christ. When he was on the earth, shortly
after he was baptised, the devil came and tempted him. The devil tries to trip up the
Lord Jesus. And Jesus answered him, and he
said to him, Jesus answered and said, get thee behind me, Satan. For it is written, Thou shalt
worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. Now if we love God, if we are
putting God first in our lives, we will want to serve God in
our lives. We want to do that which is pleasing
to God. We will not be doing things which
just please ourselves. We want to be serving God. Now there are many things that
we can do in serving God and it's important that we are concerned
that we do serve God and we don't serve the devil because really
we are only serving one or the other. We are serving God or
we are serving the devil. And we want to be found serving
God. That means we are putting God
first. And if we really desire to do
that, from our heart, it will be because we love God. And because of God's love toward
us. Now we should also remember,
as these Ten Commandments tell us, God is a jealous God. God is a jealous God. That means
he wants all the honour and all the glory. He is a very great
God. He's made all of us, he's created
the whole universe, and he is a jealous God. And therefore
we are told, for thou shalt worship no other God, for the Lord, whose
name is jealous, is a jealous God. So we have to be very aware
that we're dealing with a great God. We're not dealing with a
little God. We're dealing with a God who
rules over the whole universe and a God who holds our life
in His hand. So we deal with a very, very
great God. And so we have these examples. I've said this really means putting
God first. What it also means is we are
not to give God the second best. We are to give him the first,
not the second. And in a little prophecy right
at the end of the Old Testament, the prophecy of Malachi, it speaks
about this. And Malachi tells us, he was
speaking to the people in those days when they had to offer sacrifices
and they had to bring animals. And he tells them, ye offer polluted
bread upon mine altar and ye say wherein have we polluted
thee? In that ye say the table of the
Lord is contemptible. That means they didn't value
it. And if you offer the blind for sacrifice, that means they
weren't offering a good animal, they were offering blind animals.
Is it not evil? And if you offer the lame and
the sick, is it not evil? Offer it now unto the governor,
that means the person in charge, and will he be pleased with thee? Or accept by person? Seth, the
Lord of Hosts, so Malachi gives us an example. And the example
is that if these people were to give bad offerings to the
priests, the priests wouldn't accept them. And yet, we today
perhaps, do not give God the best things. Do we give God our
best time? Do we pray to God in our best
time? Do we read the Bible in our best
time? Or do we make God second best? And if there's a bit of time
for God, well, we'll just fit Him in. Do we put God first? Putting God first. Not God second. Not second best. Because God
is a very holy God. And He's a righteous God. The Lord Jesus tells us very
clearly, seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness
and all these things will be added unto you. We are to seek
God, we are to obey God, we are to be concerned to keep His commandments
and we are not to follow other gods. It's very important that
we follow then the Word of God. And so we are to be found serving
the Lord with all our might for the honour and glory of his great
and holy name. Now, we have these commands which
Moses wrote, but as the Spirit of God may speak to our hearts,
and show to us how much we owe the Lord Jesus Christ. You know,
just think, you and I have sinned, we've all sinned, we've all sinned
many sins, and unless our sins are forgiven, unless they are
taken away, we shall never be found in heaven. Who was the
only person then? that could take away our sins.
There was only one person, and that was the person that lived
a perfect life, and that was the Lord Jesus Christ. Now not
only did he live a perfect life, and just think that Jesus left
heaven, that beautiful sinless place, and came down into this
world so that he might save your soul and save my soul. And what did he have to do? He
had to obey God's holy law. This law, thou shalt have no
other gods before me. He kept that law. He kept all
the law of God. He kept it without any sin. So
therefore, he was a perfect man. Why then? Why did Jesus die? Why was Jesus crucified upon
the cross? Why was it? It was because of
your sin and my sin. And why did he do it? Because
of his love. Isn't that amazing? To think
of that. That this great God, the Lord
Jesus Christ, loved his people so much that he died for them
on that cross at Calvary. And what a death it was, wasn't
it? It was tremendous agony. He passed through and he did
it all so that he might give to his people the gift of eternal
life. We cannot work for eternal life. God gives us the gift of eternal
life. But if he has died for us and
given us that gift of eternal life, surely our concern should
be to love God. To love God with all our heart
and to keep his commandments And that will be the great influence,
therefore. It will be love which will make
us want to keep the commands of God. Love. Now the blessing
will be if you and I know this great love of the Lord Jesus
Christ. And we need tonight, everyone
here tonight, all of us need to know the love of God. and in return our love to him. If we do not know that, we won't
want to go to heaven. You might think that's strange.
If you do not love God, you will not want to go to heaven. You
will not find it a place which you will enjoy. But if God loves
you, and you love God, then you can look forward to that wonderful
time when you will be with the Lord Jesus Christ and that will
be forever, forever. Joshua, you know Joshua in his
day, he followed Moses and again when he was an old man he was
facing the children of Israel and he was concerned about what
they were doing and what they were going to do and he said
this if it seemed evil unto you to
serve the Lord, choose you this day whom ye will serve." Whether
the gods which your father served, that were on the other side of
the flood, that was the other side of Jordan, or the gods of
the Amorites, in whose land you dwell, They were the gods? They were serving? Joshua's asking
them. Are you going to serve this God?
What does he say? But as for me and my house, we
will serve the Lord. So tonight, who do we want to
serve? Now, if you truly want to serve
the Lord God, like Joshua did. You truly desire to keep this
command, thou shalt have no other gods before me. What will incline
you to do it, produce a desire for you to do it, will be the
love of God. The love of God to you and your
love to Him. And so tonight, I hope I've explained
this to you, this first command, Thou shalt have no other gods
before me. It means putting God first. And if you are to do this, it
will be because of God's love. Well, may we each know God's
love to us. And tonight, praise and bless
God that he has shown us his love My friends, there are many,
many people in the world today who know nothing of God's love
and don't want to know anything. A great blessing if you and I
tonight know something of God's love. And if we don't, if you
don't know God's love, then do pray that you will know the wonderful
blessing of the love of Christ. Amen.