ONE GOD

#1 · August 31, 2009, 11:05 am

Quote from Forum Archives on August 31, 2009, 11:05 am
Posted by: bhfbc <bhfbc@...>
ONE GOD

August 30, 2009

Text: Exodus 20:1-21

Having finished last week a series of sermons that came from Julys Vacation Bible School lessons, I pondered where I should proceed from there. Since most of the Scripture lessons from this series were taken from Exodus, I thought about using for at least one more Sunday another Old Testament lesson. As I reviewed my recent sermon topics, I saw that I had not developed many messages from the Old Testament for awhile. I do not mean to ignore Old Testament Scripture, but it can be challenging to read, understand, and preach about. There are so many incidents that are so far removed in time, place, and culture that they are completely foreign to us. We have to put out some effort in order to make sense out of some Old Testament Scripture. Even then, there are some parts of the Old Testament that will forever remain outside of our complete understanding.

At the same time, we cannot appreciate or understand fully the New Testament without knowing testimonies from Old Testament Scripture. I cannot recall where I recently ran across this, but I read about a young man in an African country who was given one of the Gospels in his own language. He joyfully took the copy given him and avidly read it. When he next saw the missionary who had shared the Word with him, he enthusiastically told him that he had read it all and then added, But where can I get volume one? This young man rightly discovered that while God gives us the new covenant of redemption and salvation in Jesus, the new flows from the old. It is a continuation of Gods ongoing revelation to His creation. One expression of this relationship goes like this: The New is in the Old concealed; the Old is in the New revealed. So it is beneficial and appropriate to know - as did Jesus, the disciples, Paul, and others Gods revelation of Himself in the Old Testament.

As we have seen the past few weeks, the Exodus was an eventful time for the Israelites. These are strange times as they witnessed the miracles of the plagues and the Passover and their release from bondage and the destruction of a pursuing army. They have been uprooted from their familiar surroundings and moved to a sparse wilderness, where they have received nourishment from the hand of God. Now they find themselves at the foot of a mountain in the Sinai region, where Moses prepares to meet God. Yes, this has been an eventful time for the Israelites.

It is here that God issues a variety of commands, decrees, and laws for the people to follow. The most well-known portion of these instructions is the Ten Commandments which we find in Exodus 20:1-21.

Chapters 20 through 23 of Exodus are filled mainly with a variety of instructions and laws for the Israelite community. Any agreement between God and His creation, of which this is one, is known as a covenant. In general, a covenant is an agreement that binds the parties to its stipulations. On the human plane, it is equivalent to a contract or similar agreement. Many times it is an agreement that is entered into by all parties. There are those today, then, who consider Biblical covenants unfair since we men and women dont get to have any say in the terms. Yet, not even every human covenant represents an agreement in which all parties get to contribute to the terms. Each one of us is born into a specific country where a covenant of citizenship is imposed upon us. Our covenant of citizenship is quite different than the covenant of citizenship in, say, Cuba. That is just the way things are.

Similarly, we must acknowledge that the relationship between God and His creation is just the way it is. After all, God introduced Himself to Moses, and then through Moses to the Israelites, as I AM. God said to Moses, I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: I AM has sent me to you. God cannot be any other way. He is righteous and holy because He is. From His very being, He is the definition of righteousness and holiness. Consequently, when He makes His covenant, He issues the decrees and laws, not the created.

What He does include, however, is His promise to care for those who accept and obey His covenant. Those who worship and follow God receive His blessings. Our part in the covenant is to learn and obey Gods will and to trust Gods promises.

One of the criticisms that has been leveled at the Ten Commandments and the other laws is that rather from being derived from God, or any god, they were simply a copy of other ancient civilizations legal codes. In other words, the Israelites did not really receive these laws from God; they simply replicated the existing laws from other civilizations, such as Babylon. Much that has been made from this, though, begins to falter when what is known of the two codes are compared. Through His covenant with the Israelites, God places greater value on human life. The Babylonian laws set greater value on property. In Babylonia, many offenses having to do with property were punished by death; however, the Israelite covenant contains no death penalty for theft or damage to property. On the other hand, Babylonian laws allowed for various payments as a means for a murderer to escape punishment. The Hebrew covenant specified the death penalty for intentional murder. The sterner penalty indicates the greater value that the Hebrew covenant placed on human life. Between the two cultures, the Hebrew covenant provided for more protection for women than Babylonian law. There were many laws in Babylonia that gave special positions to the wealthy nobles. Hebrew law provided special concern for the poor and the foreigner. (John H. Dobson, A Guide to the Book of Exodus, Judson Press, 1977, p. 120) All of these differences suggest that the laws of the Israelite community were derived from a different source. They certainly did not represent a mere copying of the laws of surrounding cultures.

One of the significant differences between this covenant and the surrounding cultures is contained in the first two commandments: You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. (Exodus 20:3-4) I do not know if I can say with complete certainty that no other known civilization worshiped only one god, but the civilizations that I do know about were certainly polytheistic. Again, if Israel were merely copying from all these other known cultures, why did they make such significant changes? The only answer that makes the most sense is that it is because they were in a relationship with the one God who revealed Himself to His people through the Exodus.

That being the case, then, we need to honor God for who He is. He does not need anyone else to define Him. He does not need anyone else to determine whether He is right or wrong. As He makes clear, He certainly does not need anyone else to replace Him with other gods. Imagine my disappointment, then, upon recently learning of some church leadership in America doing just that. There is a movement known as the emerging church. A group of emergent Christians, led by influential pastor Brian McLaren, announced this year that they would be observing the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, the month that Muslims thank Allah, their god, for revealing the Quran to Muhammad, their prophet. As reported in a World Net Daily article, McLaren announced his intentions: "We, as Christians, humbly seek to join Muslims in this observance of Ramadan as a God-honoring expression of peace, fellowship, and neighborliness."

Even more disappointing was discovering, as reported in the same article, that another spokesman for the emergent church is well-known speaker and author Tony Campolo. He has come out in favor for this observance as well. In fact, one statement made by him is extremely troubling: "I'm not convinced that Jesus only lives in Christians [W]hat can I say to an Islamic brother who has fed the hungry, and clothed the naked? You say, But he hasn't a personal relationship with Christ. I would argue with that. And I would say from a Christian perspective, in as much as you did it to the least of these you did it unto Christ. You did have a personal relationship with Christ, you just didn't know it." (World Net Daily, 8/25/09, see note 1 for link)

One of the many significant flaws in this approach is that it denies core tenets of both faiths, which reveal that they are mutually exclusive. The Apostle John gives us a clear warning in 1 John 2:22-23: Who is the liar? It is the man who denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a man is the antichrist he denies the Father and the Son. No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also. But the Islamic Quran says that anyone who believes that Jesus is the Son of God commits the greatest blasphemy imaginable. They said, The Most Gracious has begotten a son! You have uttered a gross blasphemy. (Quran 19:88) I find it impossible to reconcile that any believer of a faith system that denies the divine nature of Jesus the Son can be considered a Christian.

I know that I do not have all the answers as to who is saved and who is not. I do not make those judgments. But Gods own Testaments, both Old and New, direct me to believe that a mark of the Christian is to testify that Jesus is the Son of God and to not deny him before men. It is obvious to me that Campolo is replacing Gods saving grace with works righteousness. Does the emerging church sound as if it is honoring the God who revealed Himself to the Israelites? The God who commanded, You shall have no other gods before me? (Exodus 20:2) The clear answer received from the Bible is no!

I use this story to warn you to stay away from the emerging church movement. They clearly intend to stray away from worshiping the one God revealed in Scripture. I do not care how much they try to smooth over differences between differing faiths, denying the saving grace of God in Christ Jesus is wrong, plain and simple. Besides, do not be fooled by their claims of the value of social ministries over doctrinal orthodoxy. Born-again Christians are instructed to actively pursue righteousness through caring for others as laid out in the Bible. But we do so because we are following the one God who revealed Himself not only to the Israelites at Mount Sinai, but also to us through the person of Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son.

Happily, we are far from being alone in this struggle. Included in the same article I cited is the testimony of another movement of born-again Christians led by the 30-Days Prayer Network. This movement and network calls Christians to pray and fast for Muslims during the month of Ramadan. The focus of their prayers is the increase of the ongoing revival among Muslims converting to Christianity. In recent years, a historically unprecedented number of Muslims have come to Christ, many through divine dreams and visions. (see note 1)

As I noted, these were unique times for the Israelites as God led them out of their bondage. Most of them, it would appear, remained very confused about the events going on about them. We, too, are facing events that are strange and challenging to us. But no matter what era we are considering, whether Moses or ours, Gods purpose for His people is made clearly enough for us to understand and follow. You shall have no other gods before me. The Lord is our one God.

Note 1: http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=107812

Rev. Charles A. Layne

First Baptist Church

PO Box 515

179 W. Broadway

Bunker Hill, IN 46914

765-689-7987

bhfbc@bhfirstbaptist.com

www.bhfirstbaptist.com
-- To unsubscribe, send ANY message to: abesermons-unsubscribe@welovegod.org   

Posted by: bhfbc <bhfbc@...>

ONE GOD

August 30, 2009

Text: Exodus 20:1-21

Having finished last week a series of sermons that came from Julys Vacation Bible School lessons, I pondered where I should proceed from there. Since most of the Scripture lessons from this series were taken from Exodus, I thought about using for at least one more Sunday another Old Testament lesson. As I reviewed my recent sermon topics, I saw that I had not developed many messages from the Old Testament for awhile. I do not mean to ignore Old Testament Scripture, but it can be challenging to read, understand, and preach about. There are so many incidents that are so far removed in time, place, and culture that they are completely foreign to us. We have to put out some effort in order to make sense out of some Old Testament Scripture. Even then, there are some parts of the Old Testament that will forever remain outside of our complete understanding.

At the same time, we cannot appreciate or understand fully the New Testament without knowing testimonies from Old Testament Scripture. I cannot recall where I recently ran across this, but I read about a young man in an African country who was given one of the Gospels in his own language. He joyfully took the copy given him and avidly read it. When he next saw the missionary who had shared the Word with him, he enthusiastically told him that he had read it all and then added, But where can I get volume one? This young man rightly discovered that while God gives us the new covenant of redemption and salvation in Jesus, the new flows from the old. It is a continuation of Gods ongoing revelation to His creation. One expression of this relationship goes like this: The New is in the Old concealed; the Old is in the New revealed. So it is beneficial and appropriate to know - as did Jesus, the disciples, Paul, and others Gods revelation of Himself in the Old Testament.

As we have seen the past few weeks, the Exodus was an eventful time for the Israelites. These are strange times as they witnessed the miracles of the plagues and the Passover and their release from bondage and the destruction of a pursuing army. They have been uprooted from their familiar surroundings and moved to a sparse wilderness, where they have received nourishment from the hand of God. Now they find themselves at the foot of a mountain in the Sinai region, where Moses prepares to meet God. Yes, this has been an eventful time for the Israelites.

It is here that God issues a variety of commands, decrees, and laws for the people to follow. The most well-known portion of these instructions is the Ten Commandments which we find in Exodus 20:1-21.

Chapters 20 through 23 of Exodus are filled mainly with a variety of instructions and laws for the Israelite community. Any agreement between God and His creation, of which this is one, is known as a covenant. In general, a covenant is an agreement that binds the parties to its stipulations. On the human plane, it is equivalent to a contract or similar agreement. Many times it is an agreement that is entered into by all parties. There are those today, then, who consider Biblical covenants unfair since we men and women dont get to have any say in the terms. Yet, not even every human covenant represents an agreement in which all parties get to contribute to the terms. Each one of us is born into a specific country where a covenant of citizenship is imposed upon us. Our covenant of citizenship is quite different than the covenant of citizenship in, say, Cuba. That is just the way things are.

Similarly, we must acknowledge that the relationship between God and His creation is just the way it is. After all, God introduced Himself to Moses, and then through Moses to the Israelites, as I AM. God said to Moses, I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: I AM has sent me to you. God cannot be any other way. He is righteous and holy because He is. From His very being, He is the definition of righteousness and holiness. Consequently, when He makes His covenant, He issues the decrees and laws, not the created.

What He does include, however, is His promise to care for those who accept and obey His covenant. Those who worship and follow God receive His blessings. Our part in the covenant is to learn and obey Gods will and to trust Gods promises.

One of the criticisms that has been leveled at the Ten Commandments and the other laws is that rather from being derived from God, or any god, they were simply a copy of other ancient civilizations legal codes. In other words, the Israelites did not really receive these laws from God; they simply replicated the existing laws from other civilizations, such as Babylon. Much that has been made from this, though, begins to falter when what is known of the two codes are compared. Through His covenant with the Israelites, God places greater value on human life. The Babylonian laws set greater value on property. In Babylonia, many offenses having to do with property were punished by death; however, the Israelite covenant contains no death penalty for theft or damage to property. On the other hand, Babylonian laws allowed for various payments as a means for a murderer to escape punishment. The Hebrew covenant specified the death penalty for intentional murder. The sterner penalty indicates the greater value that the Hebrew covenant placed on human life. Between the two cultures, the Hebrew covenant provided for more protection for women than Babylonian law. There were many laws in Babylonia that gave special positions to the wealthy nobles. Hebrew law provided special concern for the poor and the foreigner. (John H. Dobson, A Guide to the Book of Exodus, Judson Press, 1977, p. 120) All of these differences suggest that the laws of the Israelite community were derived from a different source. They certainly did not represent a mere copying of the laws of surrounding cultures.

One of the significant differences between this covenant and the surrounding cultures is contained in the first two commandments: You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. (Exodus 20:3-4) I do not know if I can say with complete certainty that no other known civilization worshiped only one god, but the civilizations that I do know about were certainly polytheistic. Again, if Israel were merely copying from all these other known cultures, why did they make such significant changes? The only answer that makes the most sense is that it is because they were in a relationship with the one God who revealed Himself to His people through the Exodus.

That being the case, then, we need to honor God for who He is. He does not need anyone else to define Him. He does not need anyone else to determine whether He is right or wrong. As He makes clear, He certainly does not need anyone else to replace Him with other gods. Imagine my disappointment, then, upon recently learning of some church leadership in America doing just that. There is a movement known as the emerging church. A group of emergent Christians, led by influential pastor Brian McLaren, announced this year that they would be observing the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, the month that Muslims thank Allah, their god, for revealing the Quran to Muhammad, their prophet. As reported in a World Net Daily article, McLaren announced his intentions: "We, as Christians, humbly seek to join Muslims in this observance of Ramadan as a God-honoring expression of peace, fellowship, and neighborliness."

Even more disappointing was discovering, as reported in the same article, that another spokesman for the emergent church is well-known speaker and author Tony Campolo. He has come out in favor for this observance as well. In fact, one statement made by him is extremely troubling: "I'm not convinced that Jesus only lives in Christians [W]hat can I say to an Islamic brother who has fed the hungry, and clothed the naked? You say, But he hasn't a personal relationship with Christ. I would argue with that. And I would say from a Christian perspective, in as much as you did it to the least of these you did it unto Christ. You did have a personal relationship with Christ, you just didn't know it." (World Net Daily, 8/25/09, see note 1 for link)

One of the many significant flaws in this approach is that it denies core tenets of both faiths, which reveal that they are mutually exclusive. The Apostle John gives us a clear warning in 1 John 2:22-23: Who is the liar? It is the man who denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a man is the antichrist he denies the Father and the Son. No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also. But the Islamic Quran says that anyone who believes that Jesus is the Son of God commits the greatest blasphemy imaginable. They said, The Most Gracious has begotten a son! You have uttered a gross blasphemy. (Quran 19:88) I find it impossible to reconcile that any believer of a faith system that denies the divine nature of Jesus the Son can be considered a Christian.

I know that I do not have all the answers as to who is saved and who is not. I do not make those judgments. But Gods own Testaments, both Old and New, direct me to believe that a mark of the Christian is to testify that Jesus is the Son of God and to not deny him before men. It is obvious to me that Campolo is replacing Gods saving grace with works righteousness. Does the emerging church sound as if it is honoring the God who revealed Himself to the Israelites? The God who commanded, You shall have no other gods before me? (Exodus 20:2) The clear answer received from the Bible is no!

I use this story to warn you to stay away from the emerging church movement. They clearly intend to stray away from worshiping the one God revealed in Scripture. I do not care how much they try to smooth over differences between differing faiths, denying the saving grace of God in Christ Jesus is wrong, plain and simple. Besides, do not be fooled by their claims of the value of social ministries over doctrinal orthodoxy. Born-again Christians are instructed to actively pursue righteousness through caring for others as laid out in the Bible. But we do so because we are following the one God who revealed Himself not only to the Israelites at Mount Sinai, but also to us through the person of Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son.

Happily, we are far from being alone in this struggle. Included in the same article I cited is the testimony of another movement of born-again Christians led by the 30-Days Prayer Network. This movement and network calls Christians to pray and fast for Muslims during the month of Ramadan. The focus of their prayers is the increase of the ongoing revival among Muslims converting to Christianity. In recent years, a historically unprecedented number of Muslims have come to Christ, many through divine dreams and visions. (see note 1)

As I noted, these were unique times for the Israelites as God led them out of their bondage. Most of them, it would appear, remained very confused about the events going on about them. We, too, are facing events that are strange and challenging to us. But no matter what era we are considering, whether Moses or ours, Gods purpose for His people is made clearly enough for us to understand and follow. You shall have no other gods before me. The Lord is our one God.

Note 1: http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=107812

Rev. Charles A. Layne

First Baptist Church

PO Box 515

179 W. Broadway

Bunker Hill, IN 46914

765-689-7987

bhfbc@bhfirstbaptist.com

http://www.bhfirstbaptist.com

-- To unsubscribe, send ANY message to: abesermons-unsubscribe@welovegod.org