All right, we have been in chapter 20. We'll be in chapter 20 for a while. We closed out a couple of Wednesday nights ago with talking about a number of things that is occurring here with these first four commandments. And Alec Redpath wrote, the great message of the Christian faith is, therefore, that we are free from the law's condemnation in order that we might be able to fulfill its obligation by the power of Jesus within us. My obedience, therefore, is not legal, but inspired by love and empowered by God's Holy Spirit. Does the New Testament grace allow a lower standard than Old Testament law? The answer to that is no. The standard under grace is higher. So here we have, in these first couple of verses, in verses one and two, God spoke all these words saying, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, and you shall have no other gods before me. So the Ten Commandments, and of course they run down through verse 17, are segmented into two groups, our conduct before God in the first four, and our conduct before people in the last six. Important for these to remember, of course. They're listed here and then I've closed out that particular study reading the latter part of Exodus chapter 20, which is where God states that I am your law. When our conduct is before God, he says I am your law because I am. When our conduct is before people, he said I am your law because you are my people. And then, as he closed out chapter 20, he said, I am your law, therefore you are to fear me. So God obviously speaks and he expresses his will to Moses who then conveys it to the Hebrew people. Next slide, Brother Tim. So the first commandment, The Lord states again his character. I am the Lord your God. And then he states something that he has done for the Hebrew people. I brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. So there's a qualifying statement right in the middle of this verse. And then he closes this verse with the commandment. You shall have no other gods before me. And so he states who he is, He states what he's done, he states his expectation. And so this, in verses two and three, he begins with, I am the Lord your God. So that carries through the remainder of the ten. In fact, it carries through the remainder of what we have here in the book of Exodus into other portions of scripture. So why does he make these statements? All right, I am the Lord your God. At the time the Decalogue was given, these Ten Commandments here, the ancient worlds were polytheistic. We've just seen the release of the Hebrew people out of the house of bondage where the Egyptians worshiped a plethora of gods. and that the 10 plagues were focused on basically their top 10 deities, if you please, okay? So Yahweh, who is the covenant Lord, we talked about that this morning, you will notice in verse two in your Bibles, I am the Lord, that's capitalized, that's always the covenant God, that's always Yahweh. So, The covenant God of Israel separates himself from any and all the pagan, other pagan supposed deities. Not only the Egyptians, but all pagan deities for all time. The Hindu faith has literally millions of deities. Anytime you stump your toe, there's a different deity that you're to pray for. Or you have a hangnail, different deity that you're to pray to. So how confusing for those that would worship such inanimate and, of course, unreliable deities. So he starts with that. He reminds that he teaches Israel essential principles about who he is as these first four are established. And they teach to us something about his nature, and that is that he is solely interested in worship from his creatures. In fact, there's an entire realm of other created beings in heaven that are there to worship him. And so he has dispensed to us, men and women, The opportunity, since we're made in his image, quite a bit different from the angels. The opportunity to be involved in his creation, not so the angels. So one of the things that he's teaching here, and this is carried through these commandments, that God is above, and we've used this word a number of times, that he transcends nature. Nothing in this world, nothing natural in this world impacts him. He transcends, he goes in and out in some fashion, omnipresent, always here with us, always here in the natural world, but it doesn't impact him. He's not merely the personification of fire. We see that at the close of chapter 19, and we see it also in the close of chapter 20. Or the wind, or the sun, or the sky, or any other created thing. He is above all of that. He's not in the trees. He's not in the soil. He's not in the fruit. He's not in the animals. This is entirely different from any and all pagan gods. So that God, and what we also learn is God's personal. He's not an impersonal force. He relates with and communicates to man in an understandable way. There's nothing in the scripture, now there are portions of scripture that are difficult to interpret and imply. I grant you that. But the vast majority, especially as it deals with salvation, is extremely simple because God's simple. Not in the makeup that he has, the way that as spirit he moves and so forth, but the fact that he is not made up of a number of parts, he's spirit. So God's personal. He's not impersonal. He cares for you and I. He became a person. So he has teeth at the game, so to speak. He relates with and he communicates to man in an understandable way. And we see that because he's given to us the written word. We know that God has a mind. We know that God has a will. We know from this that God has a voice. God has a personal nature. He's got a transcendent nature and all these other things. So God relates to us that way and God related to the Hebrew people that way. So he's different from all the other gods. We also learn from this that God is good. It brought Israel out of a pagan land into freedom. And that's what he says. I brought you out of the land of Egypt. You were in bondage and I freed you. And because of that, you're not gonna have any other gods before me. Oh, you may. In fact, the story of the Old Testament into the New Testament is the idolatrous nature of humanity. You may have them. but they will not answer any of your prayers, you will be confused and confounded the entire time, and eventually you will lose what foresight you have because you have forgotten that God is good. So he brought them out of a pagan land, he freed them, and now he demonstrates his goodness to them and to you and I by giving these commands. The keeping of which not only pleases him, but we know that if we keep them, if humanity were to keep them, it would be genuinely best. So he's presented and he's talked through in this, or he sets the stage, so to speak, for these first four commandments. Next slide, Bo. We learn also that God is holy, he's other, He is different. And the psalmist talk a great deal about the differences of God and man. He's different. He's other than the pantheon of any pagan gods. Any that we may construct. Any that we may wish existed. So he therefore expects, we talked about this this morning, that God has created us to be a peculiar people. He therefore expects his people to be different. We are to be other than the remainder of the world, lost mankind. So it seems that the structure of these commands, and the covenant, this mosaic, this is the mosaic covenant. The structure of these commands and the covenant were familiar in the ancient world. In other words, there were some similarities. Okay? And one of the commentaries by Kaiser said this, most scholars point to the similarity between this historical prologue followed by its stipulations, its witnesses, and its provisions for succession, and the great suzerain, vassal, treaty forms of the ancient Near East." Now don't get wound up, oh, it's another large term, what does that mean? This is just the way that much of the Old Testament unfolds, and it's the way that Egypt unfolded, and many of the other nations that are represented in the Old Testament. A suzerain vassal simply means there were treaties, or the suzerain is the superior king. In this nature, it would be Yahweh. The vassal, of course, is the lesser king, or in the case we're reading here, Moses, who is the Hebrew representative before Yahweh. So you have a superior being, and you have a lesser being, and in the Old Testament times, in fact, this continued, and in some cases of the world, some places of the world, still exists today. There were treaties or covenants that were made between the supreme being or the superior king and the vassal, or those that actually did the work, all right? And so remember that. This particular outline of the suzerain vassal is different from the pagans in that here we have the absolute God speaking to Moses, giving him the law so that the people may be free. That's the reason for the giving of the law, that the people may be free. Now, that middle portion who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of bondage, before God gave the law to Israel, he reminded them what he had done for them. And that's a good God. Oh, by the way, I did this for you. There's a clear foundation because of who God is and of what he has done for us. He rightly tells us what to do and we are obligated to obey him. Now, we may choose to disobey. That doesn't change the goodness of God. It changes and it points out the nature of who we are, but it doesn't change his nature. So G. Campbell Morgan wrote, God did not disseminate the law for Israel while they were in bondage. He told them that if they would obey it, he would deliver them. He didn't do that. He delivered them, he brought them out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, and then he gave them his law. They are now a free people. In fact, they are a people of slaves that had been freed and now are a nation that's never occurred in the history of humanity. Slaves, freed, nation. We certainly abolished slavery in this country. They were freed, but they didn't become a separate nation. They were absolved into the United States of America. So this is unique in all the world. And that's the reason for the giving of the law. Next slide. John Trapp, who was a Puritan, wrote, God's blessings abounders. Every deliverance is a tie to obedience. And we see this time and again all through the Old Testament, even into the New Testament. And he reminds them, you'll have no other gods before me, or he commands rather, you'll have no other gods before me. It flows logically from understanding who God was, who God is, and what he had done for Israel. The same thing applies for those of us that know Jesus as Savior. What has he done for us? Well, obviously, He has delivered us from the wretched, sinful nature that we have. He has brought us into His marvelous light. He has imputed His righteousness to us, taken on our sin for Him, all of these things, and many, many others, justified us before His Father, sanctifies us by the power of the Spirit and the Word. He's done all of this for us. And so Jesus is good, like his father is good. Literally, what God is saying is nothing comes before God. And he alone was the only God to be worshiped and served. Now he begins here with Israel. But one of the things that he charges Israel with as we go into the other five books, or the remaining three books now, the five books of the Pentateuch, one of the things he charges Israel with is that they are to be evangelistic. And one of the things Israel never did was to be evangelistic. They were in the crossroads of a number of trade routes. Many, many, many different peoples and nations passed through Israel. And they were to reflect God in them, but they didn't. Oh yeah, some did, but very few. And it eventually led to their recapture as slaves, first by the Assyrians, and then by the Babylonians. There's always been great temptation to worship the ancient gods of materialism, such as Baal, the god of weather and greed, and immorality, such as Astaroth, the goddess of sex, romance, and reproduction, or any number of other gods made in our fashion, We are tempted to worship similar gods, but they are now anonymous. That's important to remember. John Calvin, great reformer. Human nature is like an idle factory that operates constantly. Temptation is strong to permit things or persons to compete with God in his preeminent place in our life. We, all of us understand that. So he finishes this particular phrase by saying, no other gods before me. This does not imply that it is permissible to have other gods as long as they are lesser than, as long as they are the vassal. That's not the implication at all. The law compels that there are to be no other gods before the sight of the true God in our life. And the phrase before me is literally you'll have no other gods to my face, before my face. And so where's God's face? All right, we'll close with that this evening. Where is God's face? If we sneak up behind, can we sneak up behind God? If we turn and we move rapidly, is God going to miss the fact that we perhaps have other gods in our sight? No. When we are before the face of God, that literally means that all of our sinfulness is seen and witnessed by him, is known by him. So he is saying, listen, I know other gods before my face. Don't worship or attempt to worship any other gods. Now this is, it's an amazing thing that just shortly after this, the very first thing Israel does is build a golden calf. After the commandments are given, after they are read, Moses distributes them, they build a golden calf. How idolatrous is man? Calvin said, human nature is like an idol factory that operates constantly. So we'll stop there this evening. Any comments or questions on what we've covered? Let's pray. Father, we thank you this evening for your son, the Lord Jesus Christ. We thank you for the first great commandment and how pertinent it is to us today. Teach us. That there is no room in our life for any other God that may come before your faith, which means obviously within your omnipresence. Lord, I pray that you would be with every individual that is here tonight. Bless them and be with them. We pray that you would keep us safe as we come back and worship you on Wednesday evening. In Jesus' name we pray.