You're listening to the teaching ministry of Harvest Fellowship Church in Boyertown, Pennsylvania. You can find out more about us on the web at www.harvestfellowshipchurch.org. We pray that through our teaching we may present everyone mature in Christ. Father in heaven, we bow before you on this Wednesday night. We thank you for the very temperate weather we've experienced. Lord, and we thank you for your word. Your word is a lamp to our feet and a light into our path. It is the true guide and playbook for our lives. We pray, Lord, that as we look to your word, that you will pour out lavish wisdom upon us. O Spirit of God, apply it to our hearts. We pray this now in the name of Jesus. Amen. All right, what I want to do tonight is I just want to start by reading. I'm only going to go back to verse 4 when we do pick up tonight. So I'm not planning on doing a full-scale review of last week. I trust just about all of you are here anyway. I'd like to read just Deuteronomy 5, verses 1 through 7. Perhaps in the coming weeks, one of our men will read all the way through the law. But I have a lot of material tonight, so I would like to read through just through verse 7. So hear now the word of the Lord from Deuteronomy chapter 5. And Moses summoned all Israel and said to them, hear, O Israel, the statutes and the rules that I speak in your hearing today, and you shall learn them and be careful to do them. The Lord our God made a covenant with us in Horeb. Not with our fathers did the Lord make this covenant, but with us, who are all of us here alive today. The Lord spoke with you face to face at the mountain, out of the midst of the fire, while I stood between the Lord and you at that time to declare to you the word of the Lord. For you were afraid because of the fire, and you did not go up into the mountain. He said, I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. And may the Lord write the truths of his word to our hearts on this Wednesday night. So we're up to our 16th teaching. And as I said, I would like to just go back to verse 4. not to reteach it, just to give a little bit of context as we ramp into the text for tonight. Of course, we see in verse 4 where Moses had said, the Lord spoke with you face to face at the mountain out of the midst of the fire. Of course, Horeb, Sinai is where they were years ago. And the initial covenant bearers, which was their fathers, their mothers, their parents had perished in the wilderness. But there was that emphasis that the people may die, but the covenant continues on. God's covenant has continuing, ongoing relevance and continuity with this second generation. Of course, this second generation is the people group that Moses is addressing here. And he's reminding them of this covenant, it has a binding nature on you too. And it's just as binding on them. And of course, by binding, we mean the obligations that they're required to do and also the blessings. And it's just as binding on them so much so that they were considered to have been there at the mountain when God spoke to his people. And of course, they weren't. These are relatively young people. But their parents were, and they were considered to be there in, I think, It was mentioned last week that the immutability of God was on full display here at the mountain, the unchangeableness of God. And it's in this way then the Lord spoke, he says, with you face to face at the mountain, out in the midst of the fire. He spoke to them in a very direct, personal way. He spoke to them also, we could say, in a dramatic, sensational way. a way that showcased something, and that was the power and the formidable presence of God. And so this is the speaking, saving God who engages with his people, and of course he expects something from them. He expects them to hear him, and he expects them to obey him. And this God here, the Lord, is the one who communicates with his people. He's an approachable God in real relationship with his people. And Moses carried on in verse 5 saying, So the Lord spoke with you while I stood between you and the Lord, the Lord and you at that time to declare to you the word of the Lord, for you were afraid because of the fire and you did not go up into the mountain. Of course we saw that. And if you can remember back to Exodus as well, that mediation was needed. They needed a mediator, Moses being the mediator to relay God's covenant words to his people. The all-inspiring manifestations of God, which we have seen here, we saw in Exodus 20 as well. What did it do to the people? fire, the thundering. What did it do to the people? Terrified them? Overwhelmed them? They were in dread, you could say, at the face of the fire. And so, they said, we're going to keep a careful distance from the fiery mountain. In Exodus 20 verse 18 it says, now when all the people saw the thunder, and the flashes of lightning, and the sound of the trumpet, and the mountains smoking, the people were afraid and trembled, and And they stood far off and said to Moses, you speak to us and we will listen, but do not let God speak to us lest we die. And in verse 21, it says, the people stood far off while Moses drew near to the thick darkness where God was. So that was their response. And Moses said, it was necessary for me to declare. We could also use the word preach or proclaim. It was necessary for me to proclaim or preach to you the word of the Lord. And you didn't go up. You didn't go up. You did not ascend towards God's presence. You know, this is why it's good to keep reading sometimes, because I just read the beginning of chapter 5 here in Deuteronomy 5, and I was thinking to myself that that was, in some sense, an act of disobedience or rebellion. But if you read further down, and I'm not going to hopefully take away from whoever teaches these verses, but if you look at verse 28 here in Deuteronomy 5, It says, the Lord heard your words when you spoke to me. And the Lord said to me, I have heard the words of this people, which they have spoken to you. They are right in all that they have spoken. Oh, that they had such a heart as this always. There's a bit of wistfulness, I think, you can hear almost in those words, because you know that they will not have this kind of heart very long. Oh, that they had such a heart as this always to fear me and to keep all my commandments that it might go well with them and with their descendants forever. And he sends them back to their tents. And so they respond. According to God, they respond with the right words. But ultimately, that generation proves to be unbelieving. And of course, they die in the wilderness. But it is now then here in Deuteronomy 5 that Moses preaches to this second generation or reiterates or repeats to them the same law, the same law that their parents heard, the same covenant demands to this second generation that's poised to enter into Canaan. And it's amazing to me how many different ways that people try to break apart the commandments. I'm going to stick with one of the more common ways, which is the first four, dealing with a right relationship with God. We call that perhaps the vertical commandments. And then the final six, dealing with right relationships with others, or you could even say with neighbor, and that's the horizontal aspect. And it really is impossible, I believe, to have a right relationship with others and with neighbor if we don't have a right relationship with God. These commandments that God gives to his people, they're based on who God is and what he has done. We're going to see that in the very next verse, or the end of verse 5 here. It is of utmost importance for these people, for all people, to always know that salvation comes through God alone, not through keeping of the law. In fact, if you were to read through Exodus, what do you find in the first 19 chapters before you get to chapter 20 in the Law? You could say you have 19 chapters of God's grace, or God's salvation. So, the salvation, or the grace of God precedes the giving of the Law to covenant people. We see at the end of verse 5, and then rolling into verse 6, He said, I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. Of course, this is the Lord speaking. I, emphatic. This is an emphatic. We could say, I myself. I am the Lord your God. I, Yahweh, am your God. I'm the one who led you out of Egypt. Or perhaps you might think of that shepherd picture, the one who shepherded you. you from Egypt." Now what kind of place was Egypt? Well it says there, out of the house of slavery. The house of slavery. They were enslaved in Egypt and also Egypt was led by Pharaoh. And who did Pharaoh declare himself to be? or at least a deity. So, He declared Himself to be God. Remember, He says, I don't know this God that you speak of, Moses. Who is He? Who is the Lord that I should listen to Him? This is where God had liberated these people from such bondage, wholly by his power alone. And now that they had been liberated, now that they had been brought out, and when these people came to Sinai, and it was only, I think, a few weeks after crossing the Red Sea, there's this big question mark. We're free people now. How should we order our lives? How should our community life be ordered and structured and governed? It's under that kind of backdrop that the Lord is telling them, I am your deliverer. I am your rescuer. I am your savior. And because of that, by virtue of that, I am therefore making my covenant with you. Now, we've talked quite a bit. through Deuteronomy about typical covenants, and in many ways this is not a typical covenant because the typical covenant was the superior comes in, I'm stronger than you, and here's my covenantal demands and I'm going to make you do them. because I'm more powerful. Now there may be some benefits, but I'm just more superior. That's the typical type of, you know, the feudal lord exercising his dominion over his subjects. This is quite different. God had redeemed his people out of slavery in Egypt for a purpose, and that was to establish them in a land that he had promised to them. And if you remember, it also says in Exodus, so that they would become what to the world? Remember? Priests. Priests that showcase the glory of God. I could be wrong. I think it's Exodus 33, but I don't have that written down. But nevertheless, that was the purpose of Israel, to be a light to the world of darkness, to showcase the attributes and the glory of God through the law, the covenant stipulations that He gave to them. And so, in this verse here, in verse 6, as we've talked before about the covenantal aspect, we could call this verse the historical prologue to the covenant. Or maybe you would prefer the word preamble. covenant treaty, or perhaps the word preface, three P's, prologue, preamble, preface to God's stipulations. And this prologue demonstrates something. Just in this short phrases here it demonstrates that God has the right to do this. He has the right to enact and to enjoin the people of Israel laws upon them. And they are under obligation to obey them with reverence, to cheerfully obey them because He was the Lord. He was their covenant God and He is their King. So it's as if God is speaking to the people saying, these are my demands as the greater to the lesser party. covenant terms that you are going to follow, as I just mentioned a few minutes ago, the law is preceded by His grace. Or we could say the law is preceded by the Gospel. And so, the perspective then is, what does obedience represent? Obedience to His will, as He outlines in these laws? Obedience represents worship. This is true worship. To obey God's laws is the supreme act of worship. And I don't think we're going to find it immediately here at the beginning of Chapter 5, but we're going to see it show up in the rest of Deuteronomy, that the heaviest obligation falls upon the heads of households, which is the men, the fathers. They have an even greater obligation before God in leading their families, leading their households to obey God's law. So, this verse 6 here introduces what we also call the Ten Words. If you look in Exodus 34, 28, or I think even in Deuteronomy 4, 13, you may have a little footnote in your Bible that mentions that, that it could also be just called the Ten Words instead of the Ten Commandments, or the Decalogue. So it introduces the 10 words, but it's also, of course, setting the stage for the first word, which is what we're looking at tonight. And when we get to verse 22, which you'll see this is the end of what Moses records the Lord saying there and says, and he added no more. And I think that's significant because I believe that that is showing to us the absolute superlative nature of the 10 words. The 10 words have the superlative quality over all the rest of the law that's going to continue to follow. And as we look at these 10 words, and we're going to spend quite some time looking at just 10 words, we're going to see that through these 10 words, or through the Decalogue, that it provides two things. And one is a hermeneutical grid, or really a way of just interpretation, theological interpretation, that these 10 words provide a systematic understanding for all the rest of the laws. that in countless ways reflect and apply the fundamental principles found in these 10 words, but also an ethical lens to look at everything, an ethical lens because no matter what society, no matter what human culture and whatever problems they're dealing with, these 10 words give them the ethical lens to know how to act in accordance with God's will. And so, We use the word demands a lot, but really these 10 words are a gift. This is a gift by God to people who have been subjected to evil, upon evil, upon evil in Egypt. So think of all the things that they experienced in Egypt. They experienced polytheism. They experienced idolatry. They experienced no rest. Did Pharaoh give them a Sabbath? No, it was work, work, work, work. They were subjected to murder, kill your babies. They were, of course, subjected to exploitation, injustice, and many other things. And so now they have this gift from their Savior, the 10 words. And I would say we could say the same thing to ourselves. We also were a people once subjected in slavery to sin, And it's once the Spirit of God makes you alive in Christ that suddenly you can look at these 10 words and you can delight in them as the psalmist does. In fact, in Psalm 119, at least according to the, I believe, the ESV, there are mentions of delighting in God's law 10 times. Coincidental? I don't know. And of course, the verse that you may be familiar with, Psalm 1-2, but he delights in the law of the Lord. So the law is not intended to enslave. So God did not say, I've taken you out of slavery and here's some new shackles for you. No, but it's intended to enhance, we could say, the liberated life or the liberated soul. So what's our obedience then? When we obey God's commands, it is an expression of our love for God. That's what it is. When we obey God, we are expressing to Him that we love Him. And where does that love come from? Of course, John tells us we love Him because He loved us first, because of the love that He demonstrated toward us in Jesus Christ. A love that we should never be able to get over. A love that sometimes we cry and weep over. How can it be that God should save a wretch like me? So he gives the law as a means of grace to his people. Well, let's look now at verse 7. exclusive, absolute allegiance to Yahweh, or we could just call it a little shorter, covenant loyalty. And by the way, I give a very brief intro to the 10 words there. And I was telling Ron before we started that that way, in case anybody who teaches the next nine lessons, if they want to come back and give more meat on the 10 commandments in general, they can do so. Verse 7. You shall have no other gods before me. This is Yahweh speaking as if he's saying, I am Yahweh, no other gods before my face, which is more of like a literalistic translation, before my face. You must only possess me. There can be no spiritual adultery. It's very interesting that we cross paths with this verse here. And then James 4 on Sunday, where James calls them, you adulterers, or adulterous people. And there's this demand from God for covenant loyalty to him alone. Sounds simple, but practically speaking, even in our sinful hearts, it's very difficult. And I don't think the point of the passage here is to necessarily teach monotheism. We're going to find monotheism very prominent in just the very next chapter. Hero, Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Nevertheless, the Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God, but there's not three gods. There are three persons and these three are one God. This is the God that they are to worship. There must not be any other gods that you worship or obey before or over against my face. Psalm 81 says this, there shall be no strange God among you. We could also use the word foreign or enemy there, or think even of sometimes, I don't know if the ESV does it, but some of the translations, when they talk about that seductive woman in Proverbs, it calls her the strange woman, the forbidden woman. There shall be no strange god among you. You shall not bow down to a foreign god. I am the Lord your God who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it. What does that last part there mean? It really is just getting at the only person who can provide and satisfy and fulfill our physical and spiritual needs is Yahweh. And only He can do that. But the question is, is will they be loyal? Will we be loyal? Now think of the experience of these people here. They had seen God's presence in the wilderness. They saw all the things that He did in the desert, but they're not going to be in the desert anymore. They're going to be in a new place, a promised land, a lavish land. And so when they are out in the harvest fields, are they going to have the same covenant loyalty God? Are they going to believe it regarding their farming? They're going to be around a lot of pagan people, and the pagan people are going to have certain practices. This is what we have to do to please the gods to get a good crop. Are they going to believe it in their fertility? Every culture around them offering their firstborn child to the gods. in hopes that the gods will somehow cause great fertility in their families? Are they going to believe it for their personal safety when it seems like their enemies are pressing in all around them? Are they going to believe and trust and worship in this God for their health and well-being, remembering how he kept them healthy in the wilderness? Are they going to believe it in moments of prosperity and great plenty. So this commandment here, it calls for a style of life, not a style of life that kind of is around Yahweh, but a style of life that is dominated by a relationship to Yahweh. And it's very clear that covenant fidelity, or being true to Yahweh, will result in His blessing. It will. And so he's telling them here, in very clear terms, that no other god is to be worshipped in replacement of me. No other god is to be worshipped alongside of me, in conjunction. I'm not to be called or referred to as just one of the gods or another god. Both of those things are relational treachery, we could say. We could ask ourselves the question, does relationship to Yahweh, The one true God, does it dominate every sphere of our life? It's what this law, this command calls for. Does it dominate every sphere of our life in our actions, words, thoughts, and motives? The Israelite people are now going into a new land. They're actually going to encounter people with, we could say, new deities. And their journeys, they've already passed alongside of all other people groups. They saw the gods that the Egyptians worshipped. They saw other gods along the way. They're going to meet more. But God is telling them, that is not for you. You are my people. The God that you are to worship, the God that we are to worship, is the God of revelation. So remember, this is how he reveals himself, I am that I am, in Exodus 3. The God of revelation, but also the God of redemption, the one who saves from enslavement, the one true God. Now consider this, for Israel who knew this God, and by knowing it means that they had seen everything he did. He appeared to them. He made himself known to them by his name, both by his word and his works. And we could say that he united or espoused himself to them as his chosen, we could use the word virgin, his virgin bride for them. commit idolatry, for them to walk away in worship of other gods, which is spiritual adultery. And this would be in the presence of Him, for where can you go where you're not in the presence of God? The one who had taken them by the hand and leading them out of Egypt who had been a husband to them, John Gill says, to do that must be shocking, impiety, monstrous ingratitude, and extremely displeasing to God. And he even gives the picture of this would be akin to a woman committing adultery in the very presence of her own husband. To violate this covenant here, this command, would be an audacious action, kind of like that, you remember that man who brings the, I think it's a Midianite woman, directly into the camp, the audaciousness of such a thing? So it's an audacious action, but it's also a supremely wicked action. So having any other gods before Yahweh is in opposition to the God of the covenant Any other god is in opposition to Yahweh. Why? Because Yahweh has supreme rule of the entire created universe. So there's no place in their lives, there's no place in our lives for subservience to any other power. The notion that there could be some contributing power to them as a redeemed people is an affront to God and would provoke his, of course, righteous jealousy. And with that, we're done. Just kidding. Now, I want to take a step back. And I do want to tread very carefully here. But I just want to provide a slightly, not a unique perspective, maybe just a different perspective. I'm going to give you a lot of information here. I would encourage you not to draw immediate conclusions. This is good things to think about. It's something I've been looking at probably for a couple of years. And hopefully it's not contradictory or confrontational. But I do want to go back to ask this question here. What about the gods? And I want to start with the word here that we find in the Hebrew, which is Elohim. And when we look at this word here, Elohim, where God says to his people here that I am the Lord your God. So that word God there, which we translate to God, is the Hebrew word Elohim. Now Elohim here, and as you'll be able to find as you look all throughout your Old Testament, is not really a name. But it's a category. And I think you can even see that there. He doesn't just say, I am God. He qualifies the God by saying, I am the Lord, your God. Or any time you see capital L, or Lord just capitalized all the way through, that's Yahweh there. That is his name. So I am Yahweh, your God. And so it's really not his name. So God is not his name. but rather a category, we could say, or even, we could say, an ontological qualifier, meaning that it speaks to the type or the nature of who he is. And of course, God, or Yahweh, is a spirit. He is a spiritual being. We've already covered that in the attributes of God. When we find this word Elohim then, what it is referring to then is spiritual beings. And if you were to look through any type of easy word search, Step Bible is a very good one where you can just look at words in the English and it will show you the Hebrew word. But you'll find that this word is used interchangeably then with the word God that we capitalize, and also God that is not capitalized, and sometimes even the word goddess. And also consider this, is that when this is being written in Hebrew, there's no capital letters. So, anytime that the translator comes along, they're making a contextual decision here in verse 6 that I'm going to capitalize this word Elohim, capital God, and then in verse 7, God, which is the same word, there notice of course that it is lowercase. I bring that up to point out this, that really then this word Elohim relates, as I said, not to a name, but it relates to a quality. We could say it relates to power or might. I know we haven't gotten to that yet in the attributes of God, but power and might, to a certain extent, we could say is a communicable attribute. Now, of course, omnipotence is not communicable. There is no other being besides divine God who is omnipotent. But nevertheless, there are others that he gives power to. Of course, we see that even in the angels. And so hopefully this statement doesn't trip you up. Yahweh is an Elohim. But no other Elohim is Yahweh. And I'm going to go on to expand on this. When we speak of Yahweh, we are speaking about the one, of course, and we can't really say this enough, who is utterly unique. There is no one like the one true God. He is utterly unique. He is eternal, uncreated, all-wise, infinite. And you could go on and on and on. Of course, that is in His essence. In His essence, there is no comparison. It's an infinite dimension between Him and any other created being. And that's why we see Psalm 86, "'There is none like you among the gods, O Lord, nor are there any works like yours.'" Psalm 95, 3, "'For the Lord is a great God and a great King above all gods.'" Psalm 135.5, for I know that the Lord is great and that our Lord is above all gods. And of course, you're probably very familiar with Isaiah 46.9, I am God and there is none like me. But notice the expression in these next three verses. Deuteronomy 10, which will probably be there in a year, I guess. Notice how he's described here, for the Lord your God. Again, notice that God there is qualified. But notice what it says next, is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God who is not partial and takes no bribe. Psalm 136.2, give thanks to the God of gods, for his steadfast love endures forever. Daniel chapter 2, verse 47, the king said to Daniel, this was after Daniel interprets his dream, truly your God is God of gods and Lord of kings. I bring that out to just demonstrate a smattering of verses throughout the Old Testament that give some credence to this word God or lowercase g, God. Now, as we consider this word Elohim, which we just talked about, who could be included in the Elohim? Any time you find that as you come across the Hebrew, as you're reading through Genesis, through Malachi, Well, of course, it begins with Yahweh. Again, all by himself, the one uncreated creator, the one who is supreme over all. And that would include being supreme over all spiritual beings, as well as the physical beings. There is also, Elohim would include the members of the divine council. You see the divine council described in Psalm 82. going to read one of those verses later. But also there is that funny, well I think it's a funny story in 1 Kings 22, if you remember that when the two kings, the north and the southern king, I think it was Jehoshaphat and Ahab are united together to go to battle and they are looking for a true prophet of the Lord. And you get to the guy who is in prison and he is the true prophet of the Lord. And he actually is able to see the what we call the Divine Council. In 1 Kings 22.19 it says, Micaiah said, And what's very interesting is who goes forth from the midst there? A good person or a bad person? It's a lying spirit. So we know a lying spirit cannot be a good spiritual being, but rather an evil spiritual being who goes forth, and you can read the rest in 1 Kings 22. So we have these members of the divine council, which is a study all in and of itself. We also have the holy angels. We have these loyal spirits who carry out God's commands and protect his people. We see a very interesting element of that, that we see that they're able to occasionally take on human form. When the Lord appears to Abram in Genesis, who's with him? Two other men, two Elohim, two holy angels are there. And I'll bring them up again in a little bit. Of course, we see Gabriel who comes and he appears to Daniel in Daniel 9. And of course, he is also featured in Luke chapter 1 as well. else is in this Elohim? We have the rebellious, unclean spirits. You could also call these demons. Spiritual beings that are in active opposition to God and to His people. We're going to read a few verses later that sort of describe that. But of course you can think of the ministry of Jesus and the demonic activity going on there. And of course it's a spiritual thing, it's not people walking around, it's a spiritual component. We also see what we might semi-classify away from those, but we might call these hostile spiritual powers, or even the word princes. If you remember in Daniel chapter 10, what happens in Daniel 10 that there's this messenger, and I'm going to mention this again later, who's delayed. Why is he delayed? Because he's opposed by this evil spiritual being, and he calls for Michael the archangel. And then we also have spirits of the human dead. So we could call these disembodied humans that are now in the spiritual realm. We see a very good example of that in 1 Samuel. Samuel's dead and Saul is desperate. And where does Saul go when he was desperate in chapter 28? To a witch. communicating with the evil spiritual world we could say. Verse 13, the king said to her, do not be afraid, what do you see? This is after she somehow communicated. And the woman said to Saul, and this is referring of Samuel here, she says, I see a God, that's the word Elohim there, I see a God coming up out of the earth. Very interesting. And then one other thing to note is you have all throughout the Old Testament, we have these names of gods and goddesses. I just picked two out here just to kind of illustrate the way that they're used at times. In 2 Kings 1, this is of the king Ahaziah, who is from the northern tribe, the tribe that apostatized first. It says, Ahaziah fell through the lattice in his upper chamber in Samaria and lay sick. So he sent messengers telling them, go inquire of Yahweh. Go inquire of Beelzebub, the god of Ekron, whether I shall recover from this sickness. But the angel of the Lord said to Elijah the Tishbite, Arise, go up to meet the messengers of the king of Samaria, and say to them, Is it because there is no god in Israel that you are going to inquire of Beelzebub, the god of Ekron? Have you forgotten commandment one? Do you not remember the God who saved you out of Egypt? And on and on with the rhetorical. And also consider this, Jeremiah 46, 25, the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, notice again how that's qualified there. said, behold, I am bringing punishment upon Ammon of Thebes and Pharaoh in Egypt and her gods and her kings upon Pharaoh and those who trust in him. So notice there that God is promising judgment even upon the gods that these people worship here in Egypt. And so that is the first part here that I want to look at is Elohim as a category, not a name. Secondly, I just want to briefly consider this idea of biblical monotheism versus polytheism. This is probably the third or fourth time that I've said this, but the Bible absolutely affirms that there is one supreme uncreated God. And that's really a massive distinction here. He is the uncreated. supreme God, Yahweh. But through some of the verses we've already seen, and that we are going to look at a few more, I believe that it demonstrates that there are other gods who exist, but they are created, finite, and subordinate. And that would include Satan. We're going to talk a little bit about his power in just a bit. And so that does not mean, then, that this is giving way or believing in polytheism, but rather it's demonstrating, as you can see all throughout the Bible, that there is a divine hierarchy. We see that even in the divine council. And that there is singular worship of Yahweh. Here's a few more verses that affirm the existence of other gods, but still distinguish Yahweh as supreme. Deuteronomy 32. Well, I don't know, that might be three years away. Verse 43, rejoice with him, O heavens. Bow down to him. Of course, this is referring to Yahweh. Bow down to him, all gods. There's that word again. For he avenges the blood of his children and takes vengeance on his adversaries. Psalm 82, which I said we would get to. Psalm 82, 1, God has taken His place in the divine counsel. In the midst of the gods, He holds judgment. And you go on to read that passage there in Deuteronomy 32. You go on to read the full context of Psalm 82. And both passages show divine judgment toward rebellious creatures. I think you must infer that they're rebellious spiritual creatures. Psalm 138, verse 1, the psalmist says, I give you thanks, O Lord, with my whole heart. Before the gods, I sing your praise. Of course, Paul talks about this reality in the New Testament in 1 Corinthians 8, verse 5. He says, for although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth, gods that are called by various names, as indeed there are many gods and many lords, which by the way I should point out to you there, You'll see in that verse that the translator put quotes around gods and lords. And that's simply just a translator's decision. Again, just like there's no capitals, there's no... First Corinthians 8, 5, and 6. And I think a majority of translations have the quotes there. So he's pointing out that there are many gods called by other names. He says, yet for us, covenant people of God, there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things, and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and through whom we exist." In the very next book, 2 Corinthians 4, He says, in their case, and he's talking about people who don't believe, he says, the God of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel, the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. And of course, that refers to Satan. And so there is, again, and we've seen this in scripture, one true God. There's only one true God. Jesus said in John 14, He said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. And I think that really is the sense there of that true. Not that He is actual, but that He is the God of all truth. And we'll get to that eventually, that God is true, or God is truth when we go through the essential attributes. He's the God who will never lie to you. What did the very first confrontation between Satan and the woman? Did he lie to her? Yeah, he lied to her. Did God really say? He lied. He is the father of lies. So there are many, we could say there's one true God. There are many false gods, the gods of lies. And as Jesus even called the Pharisees in John 8, 44, he said, you are just like your father, the father of lies. And he has lied from the beginning, he said. Number three here, I just want to draw a brief comparison between idols and gods. This has been said, I think, a few times already. Idols are physical objects, but the gods are presented in scripture as spiritual beings. Now, you read through the Old Testament prophets, and what do they do when they're talking about the idols? They mock them. They mock them as being absolutely lifeless. Can stone have life? Can wood have life? You carved this. You did this. So there is a mockery, a divine mockery. But nevertheless, Scripture also warns in both the Old Testament and the New Testament that there is a connection between these lifeless idols, but also real spiritual beings. Psalm 106 verse 37 says, they sacrificed their sons and their daughters. Now of course this would have been in front of a physical idol, but what does the psalmist say? He says, they sacrificed their sons and their daughters to the demons. spiritual connotation. Paul talks about the exact same thing in 1 Corinthians 10. This is his preface to the Lord's Table, and how he talks in 1 Corinthians about eating that meat that's been sacrificed to idols. And of course it doesn't mean anything because those idols are damned, but he says there is a correlation to the spiritual world. He says in verse 20, I imply that what pagan sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God. And he says, I do not want you, O believer, I do not want you to be participants with demons. So what did the ancient peoples believe? It's pretty remarkable because you can go around the entire world and you can find every civilization caught up in this, every single one in the worship of idols, but believing that these idols house a presence of some form of a God. And so they believe that. How did they believe that? Now, Scripture does not make that abundantly clear. But it seems like some type of communication would take place. Even consider what I just mentioned before, the witch at Endor. How did she know how to communicate with the spiritual realm? How did she know that? Why was God so strong about killing the necromancers, and the mediums, and the witches, and the sorcerers? Again, the danger is not in the wood or the stone. but in spiritual allegiance with evil spiritual entities. And so we'll find both this week, not next week, two weeks from now, because we have prayer meeting next week, that both idol worship and allegiance to rival Elohim are forbidden by God. But we should keep in our minds that those two commandments are distinct. It's not one and two are blended together and it's just one commandment. It's not that they're saying the exact same thing. They're saying two different things. Number one is forbidding the worship of other gods and number two is forbidding the making of idols. Now fortunately Ron's the one teaching commandment too. Am I right on that? Okay. I don't want to surprise you. Number four, let's then jump squarely into the New Testament. The New Testament confirmation, and we could even say the spiritual warfare connection that is even implied in this. Spiritual warfare began in Genesis chapter 3. the woman being confronted, and Adam spiritually failing. He spiritually failed. But in the New Testament we find the New Testament affirms, we could say or even intensifies the Old Testament's depiction of these Elohim as what? As active opponents of God's people. They hate God, and they hate God's people. The real rebellious beings and their influence persist into the Church Age. Now, we had already mentioned the name Beelzebub, but you remember in Matthew 12 Jesus casts a demon out of somebody. And what was he accused of? Yeah, well he was essentially accused of just being an agent of Satan. But notice, if you were to look at Matthew 12, 27, you'll notice that Jesus speaks of Beelzebul there as a real spiritual entity. 2 Corinthians 4, 4, we had already mentioned, portrays the God of this world, blinding minds. It assumes the ongoing agency of a personal spiritual enemy. If you remember the beginning of Galatians 1, So as if you could almost see in Galatians 1, Paul's almost pulling out his hair. You guys had the true, pure gospel. And in verses 8 and 9, he portrays a reality of what could happen. He says, a false gospel being preached to you by an angelic being opposed to God. And he said, and if that were to happen, let him be accursed. Ephesians 6.12. was not too long ago, roughly a little over a year, we saw the description of cosmic powers by Paul. Paul talks so much in Ephesians especially about spiritual warfare, the cosmic powers over this present darkness, the spiritual forces that are arrayed against the followers of Christ. We're going to see that coming up in James 4, that we must resist the devil and submit to God. But Paul said, in Ephesians 6, he says, we wrestle against principalities and powers. So this is more than ideas. It is real spiritual warfare. Second Thessalonians 2 describes a man of lawlessness. And it actually describes him as someone, it says, that opposes every God and object of worship. And of course, we've already seen a lot of this element in James. We've seen the tongue that can be inspired by hell, the hell-inspired tongue. We saw the type of wisdom, it says, that is not from above, it is earthly, unspiritual, and demonic. spiritually influenced, and what does that do? That draws us away from our united devotion, singular devotion to God, the one true God. Now finally, number five, what power do the gods possess? And these spiritual beings throughout Scripture in the various different categories of them are described in different ways as having real power and agency, never equal to Yahweh, never, not even close, not even scratching a thumbnail. But they are part of a structured supernatural, we could say, hierarchy. And so we could say these other Elohim, or these other gods, lowercase g, gods, are created beings. We've got to keep saying that. They're created beings with limited power, but it's a delegated authority. And sometimes it's good, and sometimes it's not good. Now consider this. Genesis 19, I mentioned those two men, those two holy angels. They have the power to strike all the men of Sodom with blindness. So they have that power. You get to Exodus, and I went back and reread the passage, and Moses goes down into Egypt, and he performs a miracle, and he also starts to perform the plagues, and it's the staff. Remember that? So he throws down the staff, the staff becomes a snake. It's the blood and the frogs. that scripture records that Pharaoh's magicians are able to also do. It doesn't say that they were sleight of hand, they didn't pour red dye into the water and say, this is blood. And you remember Moses's, or was it Moses's staff or was it Aaron's staff? Aaron's staff, and it eats up the other snakes. And then you get to after the frogs, and I don't know why they would have wanted to create more But it says they could not do the gnats, which is probably a good thing, but they couldn't do that. So there was a limit to what they could do, a limit, of course, placed upon them by God. You fast forward to the story of Job. And if you remember that the way that that starts out where who's the initiator? It's God. God says to Job, or God says to Satan, have you considered my servant Job? And he's like, yeah, you put him in a cocoon. And so, God says, well here's your limit. Here's the limit of what you can do and what happens after that. We see that Satan has the power to able to convince other people to come and attack his children, and take all of his livestock. But he also has the power to bring about a storm, the storm that flattens the house and all the children are killed. And later he is also given the ability to afflict Job, but not to take his life. So, again there is still a parameter of what Satan is able to do. I had this thought today. as I was just thinking about this, just that Satan is a created being and everything that Satan does is sustained by God. Sort of just a bizarre thing to think about, but in some ways it's also comforting because Satan can do nothing outside of God's perfect plan. perfect plan. I mentioned this before, but I just want to mention it again, this angelic messenger who's delayed by what Daniel calls the Prince of Persia in Daniel 10, and that's what prompts them to call for Michael to come help. Why do they need his help? Because they don't seem to have enough strength to overcome whatever power, spiritual power this Prince of Persia has. And also think of, going back to Satan again, that offer that he makes to Jesus. He offers to him the kingdoms of this world, if you will do this. Now, of course, Jesus refutes him through scripture, and that's the way that we ought to refute these types of temptations in our lives. But Jesus doesn't say to him, you don't have the ability to offer this to me. And of course we've seen Him referred to already as the God of this world. In the life of Jesus we see very clearly this ability that demons have to torment people, throw them around. We saw the man at Gennesaret tearing chains apart. He can't do that in his own strength, but he can do it through this demonic oppression. And there's even some people who have these demons within them that the disciples can't even cast out. So they're able to withstand some exorcisms. And finally, and this is not an exhaustive list, we see even in Revelation 20 that Satan had a certain element of power, but we see a restriction there, a chain placed upon him. His ability to deceive the nations, which is a real thing, is finally limited by God. Now again, whatever limited delegated power they possess can never compare, even begin to scratch the surface of the infinite power of Yahweh. And it's almost, I guess in some ways you could say it's almost amusing that Satan thinks that he can defeat God. The Exodus was a decisive example of God's power, or Yahweh's power over the gods. And as you read through the Old Testament you see that display of power again, and again, and again. They have a very finite, limited power, and he says, I don't. I will do exactly what I want to do in my time to demonstrate my glory and power. that is on grand display in the life of Jesus. Everything that Jesus does shows that He is divine. He has the ability to conquer this evil spiritual world. He has the ability, it says, to bind the strongman, and to take what is His. You see that is the same picture as Egypt. He is binding the strongman to pull His people out of Egypt. He is binding the strongman at the cross to people from sinful slavery. Of course, that culminates, I said, at the cross, and especially at the resurrection. Did Satan have any power to keep him in the grave? No. What's the What's the simple implication then? To follow anyone or anything besides the Lord God is to the peril of your soul. It's a simple thing, but simple things are not always easy things. What is our obedience then to this commander? We could even say, what is our obedience to the Decalogue, to the Ten Words? It is a joyful response. a joyful response to the God who has loved and redeemed us. As we read this, this was a word, the first word. It's a word from our loving Redeemer, you could say, and so it has a sweet sound to it, like a wonderful song. So, we must come to grips then, just as these people had to as well, it is presented a lot more clearly in the New Testament, is this, is that spiritual warfare which competes for something, it competes for our affections. I don't want you to be covenantally faithful to Yahweh. That's what this spiritual warfare is coming in to do, to make us covenantally unfaithful, to seek to make us spiritually anemic. To seek to lead us into sin, all of those things are the real ongoing battle for the believer. But we're not without hope. We have the Spirit of Christ. We have the Word of God. We have the unshakable promises of God. And so let us draw near to Yahweh and to Him alone. As I said, next week we have prayer meeting and then we'll pick up with the second word the following Wednesday. Let's close in prayer and then I want to give you just a brief announcement and then we'll dismiss. Father in heaven, thank you for your word. Lord, there's times I know that I do not feel this kind of love for your law. We know that that love is produced in our hearts through the work of the Holy Spirit. We pray, Lord, this week we will love your law. That we will have eyes to identify those things, those affections that seek to divide our love. How could we be so unfaithful in your very presence? and yet we do it so often. But you are kind, you are gracious, you are merciful, you are abundant and steadfast love to your new covenant people. And we thank you for that. We thank you that you have not discarded us. So help us, Lord, that we might have undivided love for you in every aspect of our lives this week. We pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.