Thou Shalt Have No Other God’s Before Me.
Exodus 20:2-6 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before Me. “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My Commandments.”
The first two of the Ten Commandments, namely, “having no other gods or making carved image or idols”, are probably the two most commonly broken commandments - even among Christians! The Bible teaches us that God created man in His own image (Genesis 1:26,27). However, after Adam rebelled against God in the Garden of Eden and rejected God's plan for his life, man lost fellowship with the true God and began to "recreate" God in his own image. This sin of "creating" other gods has reached incredible proportions. As Christians, we should have an allegiance to the one true God and recognize the dangers of “idolatry". However, without realizing it, we too have re-created other gods and worshiped them.
Many Christians have turned to worshipping the blessing instead of worshipping the one through whom the blessing came. We have fallen into the same trap as the children of Israel idols out of the blessing instead of keeping their eyes on God. In our worldtoday we see where the church has created a "god of wealth". We have only to switch on to Christian TV where the emphasis is so focused on seeking wealth rather than seeking God. We have created gods of covetousness, greed, envy, pride, bitterness. Sadly this has brought about a lack of concern for the building of God's Kingdom.
We have lost the desire for the salvation of the souls of men and are quite happy in our pursuit for the things of this world. Covetousness is idolatry: We are told, in Ephesians 5:5, that a covetous man is an
idolater - because he depends on his wealth to supply his provision, protection, power and happiness. It is probably true to say that money is the chief god of this world - and that most of what man does (eg. think, talk, read, study, work) is related to this god of money.
Money is a wonderful servant but a terrible master, who leaves his slaves miserable. "Give me neither poverty nor riches.... Lest I be full, and deny thee, and say, who is the LORD?' (Proverbs 30:8,9). Though money is the chief god of this world, there are many other minor gods that are worshipped - even by Christians unknowingly.
Matthew 6:33 says But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. All these things meaning (eg. money, food, health, prosperity) all of them are wonderful blessings from God - but we must not allow these blessings to take the place of God. We must not make the same mistake the children of Israel made and start worshipping the creation instead of the creator.
Thou shalt not bow down thyself to idols: "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in ... the earth....Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them..." (Exodus 20:4,5). How can man-made creations or created beings be God ? How can man - however good - be worshipped as God? "The idols of the heathen are silver and gold, the work of men's hands. They have mouths, but they speak not; eyes have they, but they see not; they have ears, but they hear not; neither is there any breath in their mouths. They that make them are like unto them: so is every one that trusteth in them" (Psalm 135:15-18). God strictly forbids us bowing down in worship to anything or anyone else besides Him yet within Christianity we find that we have crossed the line between genuine respect and idolatry. We need to be careful that what we call respect is not idol worship; there should not be anyone that we reverence or fear more than God. The Word of God supersedes our culture or the times we live in, when our culture or the environment we live in conflicts with the Word of God we are to choose always to obey God rather than man.
We were created to worship the one true God, through His Son Jesus Christ. Let us be careful not to worship other gods because God has told us that: the LORD thy God am a jealous God" (Exodus 20:5).
Take a moment to examine yourself honestly and ask if there are any areas where you are worshipping the creation? If there are other gods in your life then repent of that sin of idolatry and pull down all the high places and make a decision that you will only give worship or bow down to the one and true living God.
Pastor Erica Goodman