He Will Have No Other Gods Before Him

He will have no other gods before Him (Exodus 20:3).

It has only been three months since God delivered His people from the land of Egypt and from Pharaoh’s armies, and the chariots. He has brought them through the Red Sea on dry ground. He has provided food in the wilderness. He has called his children to Mount Sinai, so that they may become a nation of priests of the Most High God.

The first thing God says is, “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage (Exodus 20:2).” The LORD tells them who He is, and what He has done for them.

And then He says, “You shall have no other gods before Me.”

Exodus 34:14 states, (for you shall worship no other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God). Jealous is jealous of your attention.

He will have no other gods before Him.

So why do we put gods before the LORD?

We reside in the West. We don’t carve images of stone and gold and wood of other gods, but we definitely find other gods to serve. We serve our spouses and significant others, we exalt our occupations, we work our fingers to the bone for things that only bring temporary satisfaction, we magnify our ideologies, our educations, our triumphs, our conceits, and our pursuits (to name a few).

Yes, we have many gods in the West to serve.

But the biggest god in the West that we serve is…

…ourselves.

He will have no other god(s) before Him.

We really enjoy serving ourselves. How often do we say, this is what I want. This is what I must do. I have to accomplish this and that. And slowly but surely, we begin to…

…drift away.

Therefore we must give the more earnest heed to the things we have heard, lest we drift away (Hebrews 2:1). The imagery that is suggested is that of a ship on the ancient seas that required constant attention to the helm and the charts, so that careful calculations must be made in order to keep it en route. And when we set out to serve ourselves, we begin to drift away. We don’t realize it because our lives are like the open sea. When you are in the middle of the sea, everything looks like sea, because that is what it is, open sea. No mile markers, landmarks, or lighthouses.

There is so much about our lives that we don’t know or understand, especially regarding our futures. Since our unknown lives are like the sea, we sometimes panic and begin to make calibrations to our route instead of sticking to the course. So we begin to develop plans and schemes (and I’m not saying it is necessarily wrong to plan ahead). But in our planning and scheming we choose to discard the original map and replace it with ourselves, because it’s easier to serve ourselves. So you might be asking, what is the original map or route or destination? Well, it is…

The Lord.

The Anointed One, Jesus.

The Spirit of Holiness.

God’s intent for the children of Israel was not simply to get them to the Promised Land, a land flowing with milk and honey. The original plan was “Afterward Moses and Aaron went in and told Pharaoh, “Thus says the LORD God of Israel: ‘Let My people go, that they may hold a feast to Me in the wilderness (Exodus 5:1).’” God didn’t send Pharaoh a message, “Hey, tell Pharaoh to let My people go, so that they can escape Egypt and go to the Promised Land.” No, it was let them go so they can worship Me.

Notice that God doesn’t take the Hebrews directly to the Promised Land. Where does He take them?

To Mount Sinai.

But why?

“Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people; for all the earth is Mine. And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation (Exodus 19:5-6).”

And the LORD pours out the Ten Commandments to the Hebrews. Then the people say, “We don’t want God to speak with us, how about God speaks to you and you speak to us?” They forfeit their ability to hear God directly and be His priests.

Then God says, “Okay, Moses, I want you, Aaron, two other cats, and 70 of the elders of Israel to come up to the mount. They come to the mount and see God.

That’s right.

They SEE God.

After six days of smoke, thunder, lightning, and the presence of God on the mount, God speaks and tells Moses to come up into the cloud. It is in the presence of God that Moses was being taught by God, and he would relay the teachings to the children of Israel (Exodus 24). But what happens at the bottom of the mountain?

The children of Israel begin to murmur and complain (Exodus 32). They turn to Aaron and say, “We don’t know what happened to this Moses who brought us out of Egypt (I thought God brought them out of Egypt), so make for us gods to go before us. Now, in Exodus 24, Moses commanded Aaron and the others to wait for him on the mount till he comes from out of the presence of God. Yet somehow, Aaron and the elders made their way back down to the camp of Israel.

And Aaron, who has seen God (Exodus 24:10) tells the children of Israel, “Okay, give me your golden earrings and I’ll go to work.”

Now this is what blows my mind. Aaron and the elders have seen God. On top of that, the children of Israel have seen all the signs and wondrous plagues of Egypt, God’s saving hand bring them out of Egypt, the Red Sea parted, the departure on dry ground, the death of Pharaoh and his armies, provision in the wilderness, and if that wasn’t enough…

God, The LORD Himself is on the top of the mountain. They see the thick cloud. They see lightning and hear thundering flash and zip around the top. They SEE the awesome Presence of the LORD…

…and they don’t care.

Make us a god to go before us.

They see the mountain on fire and they say, “Make us a god to go before us.”

Commandments 2 and 3 out the window.

He will have no other gods before Him.

The golden calf started centuries of idolatry for the children of Israel. You can read every book following Exodus and there is some mentioning or story of an issue with idolatry. One of the most egregious, idolatrous sins that the children of Israel committed was during the times of the kings.

The Canaanites worshipped a goddess named Asherah. As with most pagan worship, sexual immorality was associated with Asherah. Eventually, the Hebrews mix Yahweh (the LORD) with this pagan goddess, Asherah (Watson, 2002). Somewhere and somehow the Hebrews “married” Yahweh to Asherah. There were temples built and dedicated to this marriage with the inscription, “To Yahweh and His Asherah.” And what did the children of Israel do at these temples?

Orgies galore.

There were temple prostitutes that one could engage in covenant breaking, immoral sexuality which was deemed as worship to Yahweh and His Asherah. The Israelites did this despite Exodus 20:23 “You shall not make anything to be with Me….”

I am the Lord, you will have no other gods before Me.

Eventually, God has enough and banishes the children of Israel to Babylon.

Babylon translated means, the gate of the gods.

Babylon was a buffet of gods. Take your pick. Which one or how many do you want to serve and prostitute yourself? Here is Marduk, Sin, Shamash, Nergal. If that doesn’t tickle your fancy, worship Anat, Adramalech, and Nabu. Imagine standing in line at the Golden God Buffet and thinking to yourself, ‘I’ll have some of that fried Marduk. Oh, look at the creamy, mashed Nabu. And I hope that the lady in front of me doesn’t get all the medium rare Nergal, I would really like some.’

And it is here that Israel finally gets it. Once the Hebrews are given a smorgasbord of gods, their indulgence becomes a realization, and they finally see the errors of their ways. After Israel’s captivity, they return to the Promised Land, and they never ever have another problem with idol worship. Sometimes God allows us to be immersed in our idolatrous sin so that we will become sick of it, and never do it again.

And in America, we have our smorgasbord of gods. But our gods aren’t necessarily named Marduk or Asherah or Dagon. Our gods have names like Mercedes Benz, sex, drugs, power, ill-gotten wealth, retirement (and trust me, that is a god here in the West), or my personal, favorite god of choice:

Me.

That’s right.

Me.

Me wants to be happy. Me wants to be comfortable. Don’t ask me to sacrifice or give up something, because gods are all powerful and people give and worship to gods, not vice versa. Don’t get in the way of my personal happiness. And like the Hebrews mixing Yahweh with Asherah, we mix our own personal desires and wills with God. We attempt to justify desires that are not the will of God for our lives by telling God that we are doing it for Him, but really we are just being selfish.

He will have no other gods before Him.

Now for a long time I have changed the wording of this passage. Here is the actual wording: “You will have no other gods before Me.”

You have control of which god or gods you choose to worship. God never says, “I will remove these gods from you so that you won’t have the opportunity to worship them. God says, “You remove the gods from you.” James 4:7 “…Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”

You resist!

Whether it’s your 401k, you career, your significant other, your goals, dreams and aspirations, or yourself – resist!

You have seen the wonderful works of God. The amazing miracles wrought by His hands. Don’t think that He’s forgotten you.

His delay is not a denial.

Whatever it is you’re hanging on to, don’t let it become your god.

Let the LORD be your God.

Hebrews 12:18-24 “For you have not come to the mountain that may be touched and that burned with fire, and to blackness and darkness and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words, so that those who heard it begged that the word should not be spoken to them anymore. (For they could not endure what was commanded: “And if so much as a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned or shot with an arrow.” And so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I am exceedingly afraid and trembling.”)
But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel.

He will have no other gods before Him.

See that you do not refuse Him who speaks (Hebrews 12:25).

(C) Aaron Brown, 2008