All right, first of all, we read
from that text in Deuteronomy, the 6th chapter. You'll notice
the 4th verse as we go by. That will principally be our
text or our starting place for today. The first 15 verses, please,
of Deuteronomy chapter 6. Now these are the commandments,
the statutes, and the judgments which the Lord your God commanded
to teach you that you might do them in the land whither you
go to possess it, that thou might fear the Lord thy God, to keep
all his statutes, which I command thee, thou and thy son, and thy
sons' sons, all the days of thy life, and that thou days may
be prolonged. Hear therefore, O Israel, and
observe to do it, that it might be well with thee, and that ye
may increase mightily, as the Lord God of thy fathers hath
promised thee in the land that floweth with milk and honey. Now watch verse 4. Hear, O Israel,
the Lord our God is one Lord. Thou shalt love the Lord thy
God with all thy heart, with all of thy soul, and with all
of thy might. And these words which I command
thee this day shall be in thy heart. Thou shalt teach them
diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou
sittest in thine house, when thou walkest by the way, when
thou liest down, and when thou risest up. Thou shalt bind them
for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between
your eyes. Thou shalt write them upon the
post of thy house and on thy gates. And it shall be when the
Lord thy God shall have brought thee into the land which he sware
unto your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give
thee great and goodly cities, which thou buildest not, houses
full of all good, which thou fillest not, wells digged, which
thou diggest not, vineyards and olive trees which thou planted
not, when thou shalt have eaten and be full, then beware lest
thou forget the Lord which brought thee forth out of the land of
Egypt from the house of bondage. Thou shalt fear 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. For the
Lord your God is a jealous God among you, lest the anger of
the Lord thy God be kindled against thee, and destroy thee from the
face of the earth. Now, flipping to 1 Corinthians
chapter 8, hear the first six verses, please. Now as touching
things offered unto idols. We know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but charity
or love edifies. And if a man think that he knoweth
anything, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know. or if a man love God, the same
is known of him. As concerning, therefore, the
eating of those things that are offered in sacrifice unto idols,
We know, now watch this carefully, we know that an idol is nothing
in the world and that there is none other God but one. For though there be that are
called gods, whether in heaven or in earth, as there be God's
many and Lord's many. But to us there is but one God,
the Father, of whom and we in Him, and one Lord Jesus Christ,
by whom are all things, and we by Him. Now, let's begin in Deuteronomy. Let's work from there and work
then into the New Testament. Let's begin with a few brief
remarks about the Book of Deuteronomy, also known, as the name means,
the second giving of the law. The fifth book of Moses, sometimes
it is called, and though it is large, and lengthy in its volume,
Matthew Henry says and others, that it only covers the history
of about two months in the life of Moses and the children of
Israel. Now as we read the book of Deuteronomy,
we see that most of it contains the last exhortations and the
rebukes and the warning and the instruction from Moses unto the
people. This in preparation for their
soon entering into the land of Prometh. This reminds us that
hardly any of them were yet left alive who left out of the land
of Egypt or who were alive at the giving of the law. Many,
most of them, had deceased. They were dead along the way. Now concerning Deuteronomy, the
New Testament sets the seal of authenticity upon this book of
Moses, as it's several times referred to by the New Testament
speakers and by the New Testament authors, and by the fact that
our Lord Jesus Christ, when He was tempted three times by the
devil, each time our Lord fetched the answer to the devil out of
this book of Deuteronomy. All three of them coming from
this book. See that in Matthew chapter 4. Now, let's repeat the thought.
Moses speaks these things unto them with a view of them going
in to possess and build, to dwell in the land of Canaan. This was the land first promised
to Abraham, then again to Isaac, and then again unto Jacob. And Moses makes mention of this
frequently in these discourses in Deuteronomy, and he treats
it as a fact that God will be true, He will bring to pass His
promise that He made unto Abraham and unto his offspring. That Abraham would inherit a
land that flows with milk and with honey. That's in verse 3
of our chapter. It's cities would be there which
they would not have to build. They're already there. That's
in verse 10. Houses which they neither built
nor furnished would they inhabit. That was in verse 11, as we saw. And they would fetch waters out
of wells or cisterns which they themselves did not dig. That's also in verse 11. And there would be vineyards
there, waiting for them, which they did not plant, nor did they
work. That also in verse 11. Now, let's settle in at Deuteronomy
chapter 6 and verse 4. Here is the sum of that text. and the present study of the
morning. Now we may sum it up under two
heads. We look at that verse of the
scripture and let's see that there are two heads or two points
here that we want to garner our notice. Number one, there is
but one God, one and only one God, one God and no more. In all of creation, there is
only one that is truly and absolutely
God. Secondly, we notice that that
one God is Jehovah. This God is Jehovah God. It is the God that brought Israel
out of the house of bondage. It is the one that sent the plagues
upon the house of Israel. It is the one that parted the
Red Sea so that they went across on dry land. It is that one God
that appeared unto Abraham in Acts chapter 7 and verse 2. It is that one God who made the
heavens and the earth and all things that are in them. It is the one known as the Most
High God in Genesis 14 and 18. It is Elohim, Jehovah, El Shaddai,
the Lord of hosts. the Almighty and the True and
the Living God as He is described in the Scripture. And here is
how I propose to handle this subject and this matter. It will
be in this order, please. First, we will look at it as
it pertained to Israel of old. Because in our text we see that
it is directed toward them. Look at the fourth verse again. Hear, O Israel, It is to them that Moses directs
these words. Also, in verse 3, and to gain
their attention, Hear, O Israel. Now, compare the words of the
Apostle Peter in the second chapter of the book of Acts. He calls
the attention of Israel, ye men of Judea and all that dwell in
Jerusalem. Again he says, ye men of Israel,
for he has a message for them. Let all the house of Israel know
assuredly, said the apostle Peter. So the words principally, foremost,
are directed unto the nation of Israel. Secondly, we notice,
as it pertains to the people of God, the New Testament people
of God as well, and to the world at large, whether people may
choose whatsoever so-called God they will, whether they may make
their choice, pick them out of God from the many that are propagated
in the world today, and serve that God and love Him, and whether
that is all right, as long as they are sincere, and whether
there is yet and still but one true and living God to worship,
one God to save the soul of sinners, one God to love and to serve. But the first point, the monotheism,
as it pertains to the nation of Israel. Hear, O Israel, the
Lord our God is one Lord. Now, the name or the word Lord,
you will notice, is twice in this one verse, and it is what
some have called the Jehovah national name of God, or should
have said, the Jewish national name of God. It is in the Old
Testament, not dozens, not hundreds, but thousands of times, this
name of God appears in the Old Testament. It is the name Jehovah. And it means the self-existent
one. We pronounce it and call it Jehovah. And the other word, our name
in the verse, is the word Elohim, which is plural Eloah, and it
refers to the Supreme and the Almighty God. Matthew Henry said of Deuteronomy
6, verse 4 and verse 5, that they contain the first principles
of faith and obedience found in the Word of the Lord. Both
Matthew Henry, also the commentator John Giel, emphasized the importance
the Jews attach to these words and under these verses. And that
spiritual Jews who had grace in their heart and believed and
looked forward to the Messiah counted them as being some of
the most choice words in all of their canon of the Scripture. This is evidence in and among
the Jews by the fact that some say that they quoted these words
twice a day, once in the morning and again in the evening. Bind them on thy hand, remember
that? Some of them even wrote these
words put them upon their phylacteries, which we read about in the New
Testament. Strips of parchment that were
then fastened or sewed to those leather things that they wore.
upon their arms and their wrists. And some of them put the words
even upon their forehead. And the Pharisees went to excess
in this, as we see in Matthew 2, 23 and verse 5. But this verse
was the creed of Israel, their confession of faith. This was
the heart and soul of their theology. And the theocracy that God established
with Israel was founded and built upon this very principle. their lives and their public
life and their worship life were to revolve around this great
declaration, Our God is One. God was their Lord. They were
to love Him. and to serve Him and no other
gods. Not only so, but we read, they
were to teach this unto their children. And they were to carry
this confession with them into the land of Canaan. And they were neither to neglect
it nor to forget it when they came into the land of Canaan,
because it made them adverse to espousing any of the false
gods that they would encounter there, worshipped by the heathen
in the land of Canaan. Now let's just keep coming over
them again. How weighty are the word! The Lord our God is one Lord. Here are some thoughts I gleaned
from John Gill on verse 4 and share with you for a moment. Jehovah is the being of beings. Yes, the being of being. That
because he is a self-existent being. He owes His existence
to none other. He has always been. There never
was a time when He was not. Not only is He eternal, but He
is also immutable. He is one in nature. He is one
in essence. He is omnipotent and He is omnipresent. And Gil wrote these words, quote,
there can be but one eternal, one omnipotent, one omnipresent,
one infinite, one that is originally of Himself God, unquote. At the same time, this God being
one in nature, And in essence, we must not forget, exist in
three persons, as revealed to us in the Word of God. They are Father, and Son, and
Holy Spirit. the Holy Trinity, the Blessed
Three, we might refer unto them, three in one. Now, not three
manifestations of one and the same person, but three persons
sharing the one nature or essence of the Divine Being. Hear it
again. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our
God is one Lord. And we focus now upon the two
words, our God. And we know that the formula,
Hear O Israel, is meant to call attention to a very important
announcement that Moses is about to make unto them. The text not
only declares that God is one, but that he is the one absolute
God, and there is no other that is God. He is not a god among many gods. He alone is God. He is God and there is none else. Now Jehovah Himself frequently
declares this in the Scripture. We'll look at but a few of them.
Deuteronomy 32 and verse 39, See now that I, even I, I am
He, there is no God with me, Now, Isaiah 44 and verse 8, Is
there a God beside me? Yea, there is no God, I know
not any. Isaiah 42 and verse 8, I am the
Lord, that is my name. My glory will I not give unto
another, neither my praise, unto graven images." So the term of
words, our God. By the way, consider how many
times He is called the God of Israel, even over in the New
Testament. And so we ask, how did God get
to be the God of Israel? How is it? that He can say to them, God
is our one Lord. Did they choose this God to be
their Jehovah? Was it that Israel said, of all
the gods we choose this one to be our God? No, they did not
choose Him, rather He chose them." Deuteronomy chapter 7 and verse
6 and verse 9. He chose first Abraham as the
head and the fountain of that race of people. He made a covenant
with his friend Abraham And then, in due time, he delivered Abraham's
seed out of the house of bondage down in the land of Egypt. And he made a covenant with them
at Mount Sinai, at which time he declared unto Israel, found
in Exodus chapter 20, verse 2 and verse 3, these words, I am the Lord, that is, Jehovah,
thy God, which delivered you out of the land of Egypt. You
shall have no other gods before me. Then, in Exodus chapter 20,
verse 4 and 5, neither were they to make any kind of graven image. out of any kind of material at
all for the purpose of bowing down or for the purpose of worshipping
them. And hear this, they were not
even to make them as supposed representative of the one true
God and they were not to make or to use them as pictures or
age of worship as some do today. God was their God. He chose them to be his peculiar
people above all people on the earth. Exodus 19 and verse 5,
they were to forsake all other gods, they were to worship and
to serve Jehovah, and to serve and worship Him and Him only. Now, back in Deuteronomy chapter
6, let's scan that chapter, then even beyond, to see two things
here that we want to emphasize. Number one, they in Canaan, when
they got there, were to remember and worship Jehovah only. Number
two, they were to avoid any and all worship and all reverence
to those heathen deities that they would find in that land. Now, here goes our scan. First of all, chapter 6 and verse
12. Beware lest thou forget the Lord
which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt from the
house of bondage. The reason is in verse 13 of
chapter 6. Thou shalt fear the Lord thy
God, serve Him, and swear by His name. Now, look at verse
14. Ye shall not go after other gods,
or the gods of the people which are round about you. And the
reason? Look at verse 15. For the Lord
thy God is a jealous God. Now, jumping over into chapter
7 and verse 2. When the Lord thy God shall deliver
them before thee, thou shalt smite them, utterly destroy them,
thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor show mercy unto them. Look at verse 3, neither shall
thou make marriages with them. Thy daughter shall not give unto
them his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son. The reason, look at verse 4,
for he will turn away thy son from following after God. The reason, verse 6, the Lord
chose you to be a special, peculiar people unto Himself. Now the
question again, how is it that Israel became the people of God
and God became the God of Israel? And how is it that they are bound
to Him only? Why must they eschew all other
gods, the gods of the heathen? Well, the answer is, that by
sovereign election, God chose Abraham out of the heathen people,
took him and them in covenant with himself, separated them
from all of the other nation. He also did something else. He
left all other nations to walk in their own way. Acts 14 and
verse 16. He winked at their ignorance,
Acts 17 and 30, leaving them in darkness. For, now hear this,
God made an exclusive revelation unto Israel. That is, he revealed
himself in a particular way, up to a particular point, unto
that particular nation, and excluded all others from that revelation. Now, upon this ground they were
to worship only God, only Jehovah, and the worship of any other
would be reckoned as idolatry. Now, by whose decree does that
stand? We answer, by the Lord Jehovah. Now, at this point, let's go
to that passage in the New Testament, bringing in those words from
Paul in 1 Corinthians 8. Verse 5 and verse 6, and may
I read it again. For though there be that are
called gods, whether in heaven or in earth, as there be gods
many and lords many, but to us there is but one God, the Father,
of whom are all things, and we in Him, and one Lord Jesus Christ,
by whom are all things, and we in Him. Now, to me, this is one of the
most interesting passages of Scripture in the New Testament,
and that would be 1 Corinthians chapter 8, chapter 9, and chapter
10. For it gives us here, it concerns
the eating of meat that had been sacrificed unto idols, if you
remember that, and it gives us an opportunity to view the work
of the conscience, of the strong and then of the weak. It brings
before us the subject and matter of Christian liberty and Christian
charity. And it brings before us the matter
of how we as Christian ought to view idols and so forth, as
well as being another declaration of monotheism. There is to us
but one God. Now, the passage or the section
was written because some in the Corinthian church had sent the
question unto Paul, asking him for guidance on the matter of
eating the meat that had been sacrificed unto heathen deities
in the idol temples there in Corinth. And some of the meat
was given to the pagan priest to be used upon his table, some
of the unused meat found its way into the marketplace, there
was sold with the common meat, then found its way onto the public
tables in that city. Now this issue was very complicated. Paul deals with it from several
aspects. But please notice that he begins
with the premise in verse 4, and let me read it again. As
concerning therefore the eating, are those things that are offered
in sacrifice unto idols, We know that an idol is nothing in the
world and that there is none other God but One. First of all, he grants to the
knowledgeable believer, to that mature believer who has learned
what we might call the strong believer in the faith. Notice
he includes himself with them and among them. To us, he says,
an idol is nothing in this world and we know. that there is no
God but One. Now Paul does not deny the existence
of idols, absolutely, because when he came to Athens, he saw
them everywhere that he looked in the city. You'll find that
in Acts 17. And verse 16, yet what Paul is
saying is that idols have no divinity. They have not the nature
of God. And in verse 5, Paul concedes
that there are many called gods, there are many that are called
lords, or as John Gill put it, they have the name but not the
nature of God. They are only fictitious gods,
dreamed up in the vain imagination of depraved sinners. Whether
a god so-called of something which God has created, whether
in heaven or in earth, such as the sun, the moon, the stars,
or things that fly, or things that creep or crawl upon the
ground, or they might be some material object fashioned by
the hands of men Anything from gold down unto wood, which they
worship, which they offer sacrifice to, and which they venerate. How many such gods do we meet
in the Old Testament. There was Baal, one of the more
famous, a Phoenician deity, the Canaanite god of fertility and
the god of fire. Several went by the name of Baalism
in the Old Testament. Then there's the god Dagon, the
fish god, a Philistine deity, if you would, in the land of
Canaan. were the Egyptian, the Edomite,
the Moabite, the Philistine, the Amorite, upon which Gill
rightly did remark, quote, all of which had their particular
deities," unquote. But Israel could worship only
one and serve only one God. And that one God was not left
to their choosing. It was God Jehovah. No other gods before me. So, in 1 Corinthians, So the
Christians, those that are chosen in Christ, those that are called
and that are formed into bodies of believers or churches, and
have grown in grace and in knowledge of God, they are of the firm
persuasion that there is but one true God, only one who is
God, that even if there are many call-gods, and many call lords,
many are doing service unto them, yet they are not true gods at
all. Calling them gods does not make
them so, and every enlightened Christian says the same thing. One and only one God. Not only is there only one God,
but we hasten to add There is only one Lord. There is one and
only one Lord. And what's more, Paul leaves
no doubt as to the identity of this one God and this one Lord. For here he says in the text,
the one God is the Father. The one Lord is Christ the Son. The Puritan Goodwin wrote that
both of the designations, father and son, are relate, or E-L-A-T-E. That as father, it implies a
son or children. just as Christ being called son
implies a father. One cannot be a father unless
he begat a son. One cannot be a son unless he
be begatten of a father. And in the case of the Son of
God, it is eternal generation and an eternal sonship that our
Lord possesses. Now, as Judaism was exclusive,
only one was God. So Christianity is exclusive
in that we reckon and acknowledge only one God and only one Lord. As Paul states it clearly, though
many are called such and reverenced as such, unto us there is but
one God, the Father, and one Lord, the Lord and Savior Jesus
Christ. There is none other. There is
none other that is able to save. There is none other name under
heaven given among men. Acts 4, 12, and 13. But notice
something else in 1 Corinthians 8, And verse 6, what is said
of and attributed to the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. After the Father, Paul writes,
of whom are all things. That is, from whom all things
are. have their origin, have their
beginning. And then he says, and we in Him. Notice that the margin said,
for Him. The NIV has it this way, quote,
from whom all things come and for whom we live, unquote. Only He is God who can and has
brought all things into being. He's given life and breath unto
all things. Acts 17 and 25. He being the origin and the source
of all things that appear and of all things that are. Then
Paul adds, one Lord, who is Jesus Christ, then notice, by whom,
through whom, all things, and we in Him. God created all things through,
for, by His Son. Ephesians 3, 9, who created all
things by Jesus Christ. Hebrews 1 and verse 2, by whom,
that is the Son, also He made the worlds. And He made the Son
to have dominion and lordship over all things. He made Him
Lord and He made Him Christ. He gave Him a sovereign lordship
over all of the works of the hands of the Father. Now, we
acknowledge but one God, nor is that all. We acknowledge that
that one God is Jehovah, the God of Christianity, the God
of the Bible. What's more, as stated earlier,
that God Jehovah, the one God, exists in Trinity, one essence,
three persons. Now be careful, not three manifestations
of the same person, as some have said, but three persons sharing
one and the same essence. And not three gods, we are not
tritheists, but three divine persons existing in one divine
essence or nature, which in scripture, those three are identified as
God, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Consider Isaiah 44 and verse
8. Is there a God beside me? No, I know not one. Those are the words of God. Now, Thomas Goodwin again, the
Puritan, wrote, God possesses omniism. That is, He knows all. He knows everything. So, if there is another God,
that God too would He be immense. He would fill all places. And if another God is, would
there not be enmity between them? For God, our God, is a jealous
God, who will not give his glory to another, not share his glory
with another. If there is another, where is
his throne and where is his footstool? What has He created and brought
into being? What provision has that God made
for the putting away of sin? Has He been manifested in the
flesh whereby He might re-reveal unto us? It would be more natural
to doubt the existence of God than to accept the existence
of other gods beside Him. Now let us remember some of the
ways that the scripture describes our one God, the one we worship,
true God. One God, only God, and living
God. In all of these ways is our God
time and time again described in the scripture. He's the true
one. He's one. He's the only. He's the living. And this to
distinguish God from other false and non-existent gods of the
imagination. We close with this. If one is
a Christian, has been regenerate, called, and converted, then by
having the Spirit of God, believe in only one God, they do not
accept that there is any other who is God, who might be worshipped,
and is worthy of reverence. To us there is but one God. One God is not as good as another. There is one and only one God. Our God is one, is one God. And
that is the testimony of Christianity.