As we look this morning at questions 45 to 8 in relation to the First Commandment, we do so under the heading Evangelical Heathenism Exposed. Evangelical Heathenism Exposed. Question 45, which is the First Commandment. The First Commandment is, Thou shalt have no other gods before me. What is required in the First Commandment? The First Commandment requires of us to know and acknowledge God, to be the only true God and our God and to worship and glorify Him accordingly. What is forbidden in the First Commandment? The First Commandment forbids the denying or not worshipping and glorifying the true God as God and our God and giving of that worship and glory to any other which is due to him alone. What are we especially taught by these words before me in the first commandment? These words before me in the first commandment teach us that God who seeth all things taketh notice of and is much displeased with the sin of having any other God. Evangelicals are sadly today, by and large, heathens. Now that may surprise you, shock you, it might even annoy you, or it may even raise a question. How could anyone make such a statement? Let me give you very, very quickly five reasons. First of all, evangelicals are pagans. because they believe God exists to please them, whereas scripture says man exists to please God. Evangelicals proclaim the idea that we decree our blessing, that there is a power in faith, whereas the Bible says it is God who decrees and there is no power in faith. Secondly, evangelicals are pagans because although they assemble on the Sabbath day to praise God, during the week they have a pantheon of gods that they bow and scrape to. Career, possessions, friends, entertainment, fashion, and so on. All these gods they give all their time and energy to. a pantheon of gods and the one true God is sadly ignored for that whole week. Thirdly, evangelicals are pagans because they make a multitude of decisions without consulting God or seeking God's guidance or blessing upon those decisions. They make major decisions and minor decisions. And they never stop to ask, what saith the Lord God? And fourthly, evangelicals are pagans because they compartmentalise their life into little segments. And so they have a little segment called religion. That's where they put God. But then they have other little compartments work, recreation, friendship, marriage and so on. But God does not seem to be present, but he's present in the little segment called religion. It's as if the rest of their life has nothing to do with God at all. Evangelicals are pagans because of their tendency to place divinity within themselves. In other words, that tendency to inordinate self-love, to promote self-esteem, to the exclusion almost of God's glory and God's honour. This first commandment is an indictment of much of modern evangelicalism. But what about ourselves? Because this first commandment speaks personally and directly to every man, woman, teenager, boy and girl and infant. Firstly then, are there other gods? Are there other gods? Deuteronomy 6 verse 14 says, Ye shall not go after other gods, of the gods of the people which are round about you. You see, the Canaanites had many gods. Indeed, the nations outside of the Canaanites also had many gods. And the Bible tells us the names of some of these gods that existed So there was Baal, Ashtaroth, Milcom and Shemosh. But there is often an objection. For those who say, well, yes, the Canaanites and the other nations, they had these gods, but these Canaanites and these nations, they're gone. Surely their gods have gone with them. Now it is true that the Canaanites, the nations around Israel, are gone. But their gods have not gone. Their gods live on. And we can see the ideas of many of these gods if we simply look at a number of tacts of scripture. So the first god that we draw attention to is in Job 31 verse 24. Job 31 verse 24. If I have made gold my hope or have said to the fine gold, thou art my confidence. Here gold, as a precious metal, is called a god. Well of course the Canaanites did precisely this. So they made their gods of gold. Why gold? Because gold was ascribed supernatural properties. It could accomplish so much. When men and women cast their eyes upon gold and it glittered in their eyes, they instantly became enslaved to it. They wanted this God. They wanted this gold in their life and in their home. Habakkuk 1 verse 11 gives us another God. Then shall his mind change. But he shall pass over in the fan, imputing this his power unto his God. Here strength is called a God. Well, you have this in some of these Norwegian gods that existed in the past, or Scandinavian gods that existed in the past, just as they existed amongst the Canaanites. A God of power. So they said, strength, that we are a strong people. This means we are divine. And how many people think that their strength, their powers, may be an intellectual power, it may be a physical power, or whatever. And they think strength, to be strong. That is a God. In Matthew chapter 6, We are given yet a further God. Matthew 6 verse 24, No man can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. He cannot serve God and mammon. So money or material things is a God. This seeking after material possessions and hankering after them. And to serve nothing but these things is to make of a god. Philippians chapter 3. We have yet a further god. Philippians chapter 3 verse 19. Whose end is destruction. Whose god is their belly. The stomach as a god. To be an Epicurean. Well, Epicurus was a Greek philosopher. But of course, it was that whole philosophy that exemplified a source of divinity, they thought. So the stomach as a god, the belly as a god. And how often we have it said, you are what you eat. What are they saying? They're ascribing divine properties to the stomach. Colossians 3. verse 5, the one we know so well, covetousness, which is idolatry, so covetousness as a God. And there's something else we must bear in mind as we think of this first commandment and it is this, the first commandment is internal, the second commandment is external. As Calvin puts it, God calls for the affections of the heart that he alone may be spiritually worshipped. So you see, idolatry does not begin outside of us. It starts in the heart. It starts in the affections. So let me ask you, where lie your affections today? Do your affections lie Monday to Saturday towards one of these gods. Is it gold or strength? Possessions? The stomach? Covetousness? Where lies your affections? Do you have any of these gods? You see, what we do externally is but a reflection of what we are internally. There are other gods. But then secondly, what it means to have Jehovah alone as the only true God. What it means to have Jehovah alone as the only true God. Four things the Bible teaches us. First of all, to have, recognize and acknowledge no other God. There's the first thing it means. If we say Jehovah is the only true God and our God, it means that we have recognized and acknowledged no other God. Deuteronomy 6, verse 4. Here, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord. Now that word, one, in one God, is not so much a reference to God's essence as to His glory and His power. When Israel said, Jehovah our God is one Lord, they were saying, we have no other God. We recognize no other God. We acknowledge no other God. In fact, they were saying there is no other God but Jehovah. They were saying this God is unique, singular. There is no other God like this God. That's what they were saying always when they said there's only one Lord. There's no other God like this God. In this confession, they were to demonstrate in three ways. First, holiness of life. Leviticus chapter 19. Leviticus chapter 19, verse 1 and 2. And the Lord speak unto Moses saying, speak unto the congregation of the children of Israel and say unto them, ye shall be holy, for I The Lord, your God, I'm holy. So when these people said, the Lord our God is one Lord, meaning we have, we recognize, we acknowledge no other God, they were to go further and they were to demonstrate that in holiness of life. Your holiness. is a statement. It says we have no other God but this God who made us and who commands us, who directs us and who keeps us. This God who redeems sinners. Holiness of life is an expression of having, recognizing and acknowledging no other God. And there was a second way, exclusiveness and loyalty. Deuteronomy 6.14, ye shall not go after other gods of the gods of the people which are round about you. So there was an exclusiveness of loyalty. At no time would they ever entertain the worship of any other god. They would never acknowledge that this god was in any way equal in any way to any other God. So when a politician says, but we all worship the same God, Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, he's a liar. It's a violation of the first commandment. God's people would never have said this. They would never have said, we Israelites, why we worship the same God as the Canaanites. It would be a direct violation of this confession. There's only one God, to have no other gods before us. Exclusiveness and loyalty. If there's one people who are to be loyal, it ought to be God's people who have been made by this God and redeemed by this God. And there's a third element, abstaining from inventiveness in worship. Deuteronomy 18, verse 9. when thou art come into the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not learn to do after the abominations of those nations. There shall not be found among you anyone that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire. There be no fire walks done amongst God's people, for that use of divination or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, or a charmer, or a consultant with familiar spirits, or a wizard. In other words, there won't be any person claiming, I've got a revelation from God. Because God has already spoken his word. And the prophet who comes amongst God's people will be the one who brings the word that God has spoken. All these other characters are all claiming new revelations, fresh revelations from God, that they can discern the times. They can predict, we know what's going to happen. No, says God. All that do these things are an abomination unto the Lord. And because of these abominations, the Lord thy God that drive them out from before thee, thou shalt be perfect with the Lord thy God. for these nations which thou shalt possess, hearkened unto observers of times and unto diviners. But as for thee, the Lord thy God hath not suffered thee, so to do." Abstaining from indentiveness in worship, claiming new revelations. But then secondly, to fear and serve him alone. Here's the second thing it means when we say we have no other God but this God. It means to fear and serve him alone. Deuteronomy 6.13, Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God and serve him and shalt swear by his name. The word fear means reverence and the word serve refers to worship. There's a reason why these two words are often put together in scripture. You see, without fear, worship will not exist. You're to fear him and serve him. You're to reverence him and worship him. Fear precedes worship. And there is to be a fear of God amongst Christians. A godly, holy, reverential fear. But if there's one thing evangelicals by and large are not showing, it's fear of God. And they speak so flippantly of God. Some even talk about telling God what to do. It is not uncommon to hear some say that Paul's thorn in the flesh, that even God could not take away Paul's thorn in the flesh. Only Paul could deal with it and he was to speak the word of faith to drive it out of himself. This is not fearing God. How can any worship of God who is impotent Evangelicalism has become heathen because it knows nothing, it seems, of this first commandment. Reverence for God, fear of God will lead to worship of God. And you know, we demonstrate that ourselves when we come to worship God. I know that when we come to worship God and we haven't seen one another, we like to talk. But there reaches a point when we have to settle ourselves and say, we're coming to worship God. We must now be still, gather our thoughts. He's a God to be feared. He's a holy and righteous and awesome God, surrounded with glory and honor. Thine, O Lord, is the greatness. Thine, O Lord, is the power and the glory. Thine, O Lord, is the majesty. We must fear him in order to worship him. And the third element, to be completely submissive to him. When you say, I have no other God but Jehovah, what does it mean? It means, yes, to recognize and acknowledge no other God. It means to fear and serve him alone. But it means, thirdly, to be completely submissive to him. Deuteronomy 6, verse 16. Ye shall not tempt the Lord your God as ye tempted him in Massa. The foundation of piety. is to give to God what He has owed, to be completely submissive. We sang in that psalm a moment ago, God does whatever He pleases in heaven and on earth. God does what He pleases. Now the mark of owning no other God is to be entirely submissive to that. and say, yes, I submit entirely to this. Now this will mean that the following shall be repudiated. Neglect, unbelief, heresy, distrust and lukewarmness. These are the things that we will repudiate. Neglect of God, unbelief, of God, heresy in regards to God, distrust of God, lukewarmness towards God. All this will be repudiated. On the other hand, this God is to be trusted and loved, known, acknowledged and praised. That's what happens when we are submissive to God. We will love Him. We will trust Him. We will acknowledge Him. We will own Him. We will praise Him. We will make Him known. We will say to those around us, let me talk to you about our God, about Jehovah, the God who made us. I must tell you about Him. And the fourth element, to cleave to him. Deuteronomy 10 verse 20, Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God, him shalt thou serve, and to him shalt thou cleave. Again you see that combination, to fear and to serve, to reverence and worship. Now it is added, and cleaving to him. That word cleaving refers to being so united to God as to be glued to Him. Calvin makes this comment on that point. As soon as we decline from God in the least degree, worship is corrupted. As soon as we decline from God in the least degree, Worship is corrupted. We must cleave to God. To be so united as it were to God as to be almost glued to God, not declining in the least iota from anything God commands. Thirdly, how do you show that Jehovah is your only God. How do you show that Jehovah is your only God? We have shown what it means. Now we need to go one step further, how we actually demonstrate it, how we show it. And here, too, there are four ways. First, you must think about God. You must think about God. Malachi 3, verse 16, Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another, and the Lord hearkened and heard it. And a book of remembrance was written before them for them that feared the Lord and that thought upon his name. So here God is saying that He records all these thoughts of God's people as they think about Him. A book of remembrance for them that fear the Lord. If we fear God, what does it mean? It means you'll think about Him. When you think about Him, you'll talk about Him. But you must think about Him first. Now if we think about God, then the following will be rejected. Ignorance, forgetfulness, false opinions, unworthy and wicked thoughts. Let me repeat that. Ignorance, forgetfulness, false opinions, unworthy and wicked thoughts. All this will be repudiated. Let me ask you now, have you thought about God? What have you thought about God today? Did you think about God yesterday? When you were going about your chores, were you thinking about God? Did you think about Him last Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and so on? Did you think about Him even as you were lying sleeping? Did you think about God? Did you? You must think about God. If you're going to say this, God is my God. And secondly, you must have a high estimation of God. To have a high estimation of God. Psalm 71 verse 19. Psalm 71 verse 19 says, Thy righteousness also, O God, is very high. Who has done great things? O God, who is like unto thee? Here is having a high estimation of God. As we have thought about God, The more we know about God, then the more this will be our constant confession. There is no one like God. That will mean then that self-love and self-seeking are cast to one side. Because inordinate self-love and self-seeking is an act of heathenism. And as we cast aside self-love and self-seeking, as the Catechism puts it, all other inordinate and immoderate setting of your mind will or affections upon other things. Taking your mind will or affections from God either partially or entirely. If God does not have a high estimation in your mind, then you will not only cease to think about God, but you will put yourself further up the ladder of estimation. Other things will gain at the start equality with God, and then before long they will gain superiority over God. Other things will dominate your life. If you want to show that God is your God, have a high estimation of God. Develop a high estimation of God. A third means you must honour this God alone. You must honour God alone. Malachi 1 verse 6. A son honoureth his father, and a servant his master. If I then be a father, where is mine honour? And if I be a master, where is my fear? Saith the Lord of hosts unto you, O priest that despise my name, and say, Wherein have we despised my name? You must honour God alone. That means you acknowledge God in everything. In all your decisions, in your career, your marriage, your home, your recreation. You acknowledge God over you. His rule over you. His reign over you. He keeps you. He sustains you. That is why before you eat, you give thanks. You don't simply put your nose in the trough and eat everything and go on your way. You stop. You pause. You give thanks. You are honoring God. You are giving God his place over you. This means then that gullibility is to be repudiated. That is a readiness to believe anything you hear without testing it by God's Word. Misbelief or delusion is to be cast off, distrust of God, despair before the face of God. Oh, this is a dishonouring of God. If you say you are a Christian and then Providence sends you a tragedy, do you simply then distrust God? Do you turn around and say, well, God has failed. God has let me down. Is that an honouring of God? In all your ways you acknowledge Him. In all your tragedies you confess Him. Isn't that what Job did? He honoured God. The Lord gave. The Lord had taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. He honoured God. In all things that come your way, you must say the Lord gave. In all your disappointments, the Lord had taken away. in all your possessions, the Lord gave. God gave me this house. God gave me this set of clothes. God gave me this wardrobe. God gave me this bed. God gave me. And if you don't have, the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. He knows what is right. The Lord is good. The Lord is kind. That's what you must do. That's how we honour him. And the fourth means you must obey God totally. You must obey God totally. Jeremiah 7 verse 23, But this thing commanded I then, saying, Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and ye shall be my people, and walk ye in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well with you. God says, for this covenant promise to be demonstrated, obey. I will be your God and ye shall be my people. Well, how is anyone to know obey? Obey my voice and I will be your God and ye shall be my people. That's how. Are we obedient to God? That means then, by contrast, hardness of heart. pride, presumption, carnal security. All these hinder proper obedience. Hardness of heart. How hard the heart can become. Lukewarmness. But oh, there will be difficulties if I do this. Of course there are difficulties. Luke warmness says, say nothing. Luke warmness says, hold back. Let everybody else run on ahead. You hold back. Wait and see what happens. And then if it goes okay, then you take a stand. But don't you be the martyr. That's what Luke warmness says. You be quiet. You say nothing. You just smile and hope that the wind is going to pass on to someone else. Lukewarmness says, be quiet. But obedience to God says, can I do this great wickedness and sin against God? I must take a stand. I must raise my voice. I must say I cannot. Conscience will not let me. And though it may make you a martyr, I must honour God. I must obey Him. Because this covenant promise matters more than my life. I will be your God. What a marvellous foundation to stand on. This God is my God. I belong to Him. Well, if that is so, then I will obey. I will obey Him entirely. And that's what you're called to do, friends. In the school, in the university, in the workplace, wherever you may be, this promise, this statement goes with you. I will be your God. It whispers to us, I will be your God, ye shall be my people. Now, child of God, you better stand firm. Don't be ashamed. Don't be embarrassed. Don't let lukewarmness hold you back. Don't let lukewarmness and self-love and self-esteem say, wait, pause. Let others be killed. Maybe they'll run out of bullets by the time they get to me. I'm going to run out of steam and then I'll survive. That's not what our forefathers thought, was it? No, they said, if this God is my God and I confess him as the only true God, then I will obey him. Well, let's come to the application of this. First of all, beware of practical atheism. What is practical atheism? You say, how on earth can anyone be a practical atheist? Well, it's very simple. You may, as a matter of belief, say, Jehovah is my God. You may say that openly on the Lord's Day and then live Monday to Saturday as though you were an atheist. To live your life as though there were no God, as though you didn't know this God, even though in belief You say, I know this God and he is mine. Practical atheism, it just creeps in little by little. So that finally, we're living our life almost entirely, six days a week, as though God did not exist at all. And then we seem to remember on the Lord's Day, oh yes, today, God's Day, I will worship God. And then we slide back to practical atheism on Monday. We need to watch that. We better fight that. And secondly, thinking rightly of God will be demonstrated in your speaking of God. If you think right about God, then you will speak right about God. Yes, you may reject atheism and yet still have wrong ideas about God. Let me give you an example of this. An evangelical who says, God is love and love is God. That's heretical, that statement. God is love, that is true. But to say love is God is heresy, blasphemy. And yet how often we come across evangelicals, both verbally and in writing, who make this very point. They say these kind of things. God cannot and must not be reduced to either one attribute or to a sentiment called love. Love is not God, no matter how often it may be repeated. Remember when the law was introduced, what God said. When God introduced the law, he pointed to his glory, to the sovereignty of his power, to that covenant of promise. These are the things he pointed to when he introduced the law. You see, having false ideas of God is just as much a sin as unbelief, as atheism. If you are to speak right of God, you must think right of God. And that will require that you study the Word of God And it may mean you may have to get out a Confession of Faith, which I hope you have to hand, and a Catechism, which I hope you have to hand, and some other good books, which I hope you have in your library, and say, I need to know about God and God's attributes, and I need to think it right about God, and then I'll talk right about God. And I won't come off with nonsense and foolish ideas. And when I hear foolish things about God, I will be able to say, as a very minimum. I cannot accept that and I do not think you're right and I may not have the answer immediately but I will go get you the answer and I'll come back to you with the answer but I do know that you're wrong. You must think rightly of God and then you'll speak rightly of God. Don't you want to talk right about God? Don't you want to say things that are right about God? This is why even the content of some praise is important. One of the reasons why we sing the Book of Psalms is to do with the content, that we will think rightly about God. And thirdly, backsliding and apostasy are to be feared. A larger catechism puts it this way, estranging ourselves and apostatizing from God. Estranging ourselves from God, what does that mean? It's referring to a spiritual declension on a large scale. We know what apostatizing is, that's to repudiate the very truth we once professed. If there's two things that we should fear, it's these two things, spiritual declension an apostasy. Spiritual declension may be an indication that we were never converted in the first place. That it may end up an apostasy. We should fear both. In this land in which we live, backsliding is virtually like a public profession. Who are you? I'm a backslider. Friends, we should fear Such a thing. It should make us tremble, such a thing. Because such a thing may say, God is not my God at all. I was only fooling myself. Backsliding and apostasy, they are to be feared. Fourthly, worship must demonstrate faithful adherence to the First Commandment. Worship must demonstrate faithful adherence to the First Commandment. Now, we all rightly repudiate Romish worship. We could get on a high horse and say, Romish worship, how wrong, how terrible it is. And it is terrible. It's a blasphemy. And yet, if you attend a Romish Mass, Because somebody has died, you know, or a wedding, a funeral mass or a wedding mass or whatever kind of mass you attend. Attendance at such a thing is a violation of the first commandment. It's a rejection of the first commandment. Also, signing declarations drawn up with Rome. is also a violation of the First Commandment. Take this latest declaration, it's called the Manhattan Declaration. Evangelicals are queuing up to get their name on it. And we have been staggered at some of those signing it. Albert Mohler, Wayne Cruden, Timothy George, Peter Lilback, Cornelius Plantica, Josh McDowell and so on. All these big names in evangelical circles all signing up to the Manhattan Declaration and defending what they're doing. As I was reading the larger catechism in relation to this, it left me with a question. Does signing the Manhattan Declaration come under what the larger catechism calls making a compact with the devil and hearkening to his suggestions. Is it making a compact with the devil? The sin of signing Romish inspired declarations. Something will have to be done about that, won't it? Sooner or later. Our worship of God must be demonstrated that we adhere to the first commandment. We own no other God but this God and everything we do must show that. Fifthly, the sole object of faith is this God. The sole object of faith is this God. You know within evangelicalism There's a huge mountain of books written. Most of the literature that strikes me of the present age is garbage. I've read a fair bit of it, I think, over the last 30 years, but the literature that we have talks about the following. Faith in faith. What kind of nonsense is this? Having faith in your faith. You know, believing in yourself. This is Joel Osteen. Believe in yourself. What nonsense is that? That is not the gospel. It's certainly not biblical. Having faith in your experience. How often we come across this. But I have experienced it, therefore it must be right. Friends, I don't care what kind of experiences people have. If the Bible gives no warrant for It must be rejected. You cannot put faith in your experience. Your experience or anybody else's experience is not the point of authority. And yet isn't that how people say, well in my experience, I experienced this and I experienced that. Faith in love is another one. Having faith in love. This is what you get from the like of Joyce Meyer. Faith and love. If you love, you must be a Christian. Faith and love. Does love exist? Because love is God. Having faith and love. Having faith in self. There's another common one. Schuller's self-esteem. Having faith in happiness. You know, Michael Horton. In one of his book comments, people forget that they are condemned eternally, not primarily because they didn't accept Christ, but because God did not, could not accept them. What a powerful comment. People think God's just going to accept anybody and everybody on any grounds whatever. No, God will not. This God is sovereign. This God is holy. This God is righteous. This God is all-glorious. This holy God, He cannot, He could not, and He will not except any outside of Christ. Sixthly and finally, no room for pluralism. Christianity is exclusivist. That's what the first commandment says. The claims of God are exclusivist. The first commandment is exclusivist. When Christ said, I am the way, the truth and the life, no man cometh unto the Father but by me, it was an exclusivist claim. Now let me ask you in closing, are you an exclusivist? Are you one of these modern shallow kind of people, inclusivist? Friends, if you believe the first commandment, you will be an exclusivist. There's only one way to heaven, only one way to God, and that's through Jesus Christ. And you must set your face against all the isms of our society, all the gods of our world, and say, there is no other God save one, Jehovah. The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Our God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Our Triune God is the only God. And this God says, thou shalt have no other gods before me. Are you an exclusivist? Oh, I know. You'll be called a bigot, fanatical, sectarian. Some will say you'll end up in a mental institution. All kinds of things will be said about you. But if you know the first commandment and you believe it, no matter what anybody says about you, you must be faithful to God. Amen.