James Nisbet Commentary - Exodus 20:3 - 20:3

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James Nisbet Commentary - Exodus 20:3 - 20:3


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THE ONLY GOD

‘Thou shalt have no other gods before Me.’

Exo_20:3

I do not know whether you have ever noticed the great part which the Commandments play in the instruction of members of the Church of England. In the early days of our English Church every clergyman was commanded to explain the Ten Commandments every quarter. When children come to be baptised the learning of the Ten Commandments and their meaning is placed on the same footing as the learning of the Lord’s Prayer and the Creed. We are told to place these Commandments up in our churches; they are read at every celebration of the Holy Communion; they are the standard according to the Church of England by which you are to examine yourselves to see whether you are living a godly, righteous, and sober life, and whether you are fit and prepared to come to the Holy Communion. Therefore it is necessary for us to know what is the meaning of these Commandments; and I want to speak about this first one, ‘Thou shalt have no other gods before Me.’

I. It tells you this—first, that there is a God; second, that you are to have that God for your God; and third, that you are not to have any other. Some people tell you these Commandments are old-fashioned, that they need not be read now. The man who says they are old-fashioned probably has something in his character that the Commandments touch, and he does not like that. We must judge ourselves by them as the Prayer Book tells us to do. Why is this Commandment, ‘Thou shalt have no other gods before Me,’ placed first? The reason is this—that there is no ground for morality, and truth and justice, and purity except the belief in religion and the basis of the love of God.

II. Are we putting it first? That is the question which we have to ask. It was first put to the Jews because they were tempted to have a great many gods. We know that one of their great sins was idolatry, that they made images and worshipped them, and so God says: ‘Thou shalt have no other gods before Me.’ But that is not the temptation with you and me. We are not likely to have a number of gods of that nature. The temptation to us is to have no God at all. Somebody says: ‘You never would think I would say there is no God.’ No; I have never met a man yet who said there was no God. I have read about them. But many of us act as if there were no God, and that is just the same thing. Whether we believe in a God does not depend on what we say, but it depends upon the life we live.

III. Look at the gods which your forefathers had. Take the Egyptians, for instance. The Egyptians worshipped the river Nile. Why? The river Nile is the fertiliser of Egypt. That is the reason that when there was a famine in the land of Canaan there was still corn in Egypt. The Egyptian said: ‘The river Nile is good to me. It makes the corn and the rice grow in my country. I will thank it and bow down to it.’ What a beautiful spirit, though he was wrong in his worship! Does he not set us a beautiful example? We know that it is not the creature but the Creator Who made the river, Who caused it to overflow its banks. Do we turn to the Creator with the same thankfulness as the old Egyptian turned to the Nile? Or take your own forefathers. They looked up to the sun, and they said: ‘The sun warms us, gives us light, makes the things grow in our land. Oh, the sun is good! We will bow down and worship it. It is the kindest thing we know.’ And so they worshipped the sun, and the sun was one of their gods. We know that we ought not to worship the sun, and moon, and stars, and suchlike, because we know that we must go behind those to the Creator Who made them. But have we the same spirit of thankfulness and praise to Him Who gave the sun to shine on us, to Him Who sends every good and every perfect gift to each one of us, and has given the Saviour to die for us? Do we thank Him, worship Him, bow down before Him as these heathen did to the river, and the sun and the moon? But is there nothing that we are likely to make a god of? I think there is. I am perfectly certain there is many a person in this church who is making a god of something. Anything which comes between you and the great God Himself is your god. Now, is there anything? Look into your own life and soul. You can find numbers of examples in the Bible of people who put things before their God. Nobody and nothing must stand between you and God. Your love must always be submissive to the Will of God. ‘I am to be first,’ God says; and if there come a conflict between God’s Will and your own, then God’s Will must come first.

IV. Is there anybody here who is putting all his life and soul into getting money? There are hosts of men and women who do it. The one thing in life is money, to some people. It is getting such a power in the world that everybody is grasping after it. Money is their god. If they do anything in the pursuit of this money which is contrary to the law of God, in which they have to shut God from their eyes and dare not look at Him, then that is their god. Do you think there is anything necessary in your life that God will not give you? Of course there is not. It is because we do not trust Him, it is because we grasp things which are not necessary to our life, that we have to do such things as that. There are others who put their pleasure first, and who, if there is a conflict between duty and pleasure, will take the pleasure and leave the duty to their God. They must have their pleasure whatever else comes. Then pleasure is their god.

Oh! do not let us put things before God. Let us try day by day to be conscious of the Presence of God. It is a wonderful strength and power which God has given you, which will help you whatever trials and difficulties come in your life. You must make an effort to be really conscious of your God. That is the only way to make Him really your God, and place Him first.

V. How can I do this? How am I to be conscious of Him? Well, my answer is, It is a very slow process, and a very difficult one. The first thing you do should be to ask God to help you to be conscious of His Presence. If you do not, it will become a habit in your life when a difficulty comes to you to turn and try to realise the fact that you are in the presence of God; and God is only our God when it becomes natural to us in all difficulties to turn our mind to Him. But you can never do anything that is worth anything without work and labour. You cannot set God as your God before everything else without an effort. Oh! a tremendous effort it will be sometimes, and the more you try the more you may depend upon it the devil will try to take God out of your presence. But do not be afraid. The Lord Jesus Christ is stronger than Satan, and it is not a sign that you are getting on when the devil does not trouble you. Life is full of difficulties and trials, and it sometimes seems as if you are going to give way. That is the time when you are making real progress. ‘Thou shalt have no other gods before Me.’

Illustration

‘The First Commandment sounds as if moulded by consideration for the comparatively rude people of the Exodus, for it does not proclaim monotheism as plainly as later prophets would probably have done, but confines itself to strictly enjoining forbidding polytheism for Israel. It leaves the question of the existence of “other gods” undealt with, only sternly demanding that they shall not be recognised by the people. Surely that tone is a trace of the early origin of the Decalogue. This Commandment has no reason annexed; the reason lies in the redemptive act just spoken of. Idolatry is forbidden in the Second Commandment. We cannot realise the tremendous force of the temptation to worshipping a visible representation of God which still holds so many peoples in its grip; but we can see that even now it has not lost all its seducing power, and that fibres of that root of bitterness still remain even in the soil of the church.

For Israel the temptation was overwhelming. To stand alone against the world was beyond them. Let us not blame them harshly, since we have little of their temptations, and since some parts of the church are not wholly free from their sin.’