The Ten Commandments
“And God spake all these words, saying, I Am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before Me.” Exodus 20:1-3
The Hebrew people had been enslaved by the Egyptians for over 400 years. That’s a long time by human standards. Several generations were born and died during that time. Moses had been rescued as a baby after the Pharaoh issued a command that all baby boys be thrown into the Nile River. This evil Egyptian ruler was fearful of a takeover by the Hebrew people because they were growing in number much more quickly than the Egyptians (Exodus 1). His solution was to get rid of the males so that future generations of Hebrews would eventually be wiped out, and he and those rulers after him would retain power. It seems like the tyrants and evil leaders only care about power. How did the Pharaoh think that his nation could continue to grow and prosper if he eliminated the best workers? He wasn’t the only leader who tried this maneuver. Herod, ruler of Israel, tried the same thing when Jesus was a baby, but he wasn’t successful either.
The Hebrews were worshipers of the LORD God. That was likely another factor to quell their numbers. The Pharoah certainly couldn’t have people give their allegiance to anyone else but himself. After all, it was all about power, his power. This is beginning to sound very familiar. Those running the government want all the power that they can get which means something has to be done about all those Christians. They are gumming up the works. They are too concerned about doing what’s right rather than going along with the schemes of the politicians, who can’t exactly order all babies killed, but they can push abortion, transgender surgery on young girls, and shaming young women into foregoing families in favor of careers. Thus, our present- day politicians are no better that the evil rulers in ancient times. They just have different methods to stay in power. They, whoever “they” are, say that times change but people do not, and I guess they are right. It is a definite fact that we all are born sinners.
Moses, having been taught by his own mother as his nursemaid for the Pharaoh’s daughter who had rescued him from the river, led, under the command of God, the Hebrew people from Egypt to the promised land of which God had intended to bless them. Most everyone knows the account of how God parted the Red Sea to enable His people to cross over and then allowed the water to rush back over the Egyptians. I believe that actually happened, and I get tired of people trying to convince others that many of the miraculous events in scripture were only fables. When people try to diminish the power of God and His plan for the salvation of folks by indicating that His word is nothing more than fables or allegories, that is one way that people do not honor the First Commandment. It is true that Jesus sometimes spoke in parables, which were stories, usually involving nature and things that the people of that day understood, in order to teach them a principle regarding how they were to live before a righteous God, but what is not a parable or hyperbole that Jesus used to emphasize a truth, is to be taken literally.
God was completely literal when He said that we are not to have any other gods before Him. It is not only for His glory and our benefit to give Him all allegiance, loyalty, commitment, and praise, it also makes perfect sense that the Creator of the world, men and women, and the initiator of the plan of salvation should be honored above all else. I was thinking on the way home from church that all people who are not providentially hindered, as one of my former pastors used to say, do not make an effort to gather and worship the Lord, then they have allowed themselves to put their own desires ahead of honoring their Creator. To put it bluntly, they have made a god out of not going to church. If they are ill, taking care of a family member who is ill, working at a job that requires working on the day of worship, and other “providentially-hindered” reasons, God understands that, but still requires to be first in their lives. It’s true that the majority of earth’s population are not born-again believers. If most of the world’s people were born again, this world would be vastly different today. However, God requires to be Number One among the whole world, not just believers. Anyone who practices idolatry has broken the First Commandment and will be held accountable. Whatever becomes more important to a person than the God who made him or her is an idol.
Next time: Make no graven image.