The First Four Commandments

Good afternoon brethren. I hope you’re all doing well today. We’re just going to jump right in and open to a verse. I like to quote to those who are newly coming along, newly interested in the truth. We’ll turn over to John chapter six and verse forty-four. John six and verse forty-four. I’ve had the honor, the privilege recently of working with over the last year, primarily, but of course, when I was actively pastoring in the field, I worked with Church Inquiries, those who are interested in attending with us. And it’s been interesting and fun to work with them again.

And a lot of the times it’s fun to watch them being called by God out of the world and see sort of the truth just light up in them, their excitement for it. And when I see that, I often love to turn to this verse in John six. We’ll read it in verse forty-four first. It says this, “No man can come to Me except the Father which has sent Me draw him, and I will raise him up at the last day.” Let’s turn over to John six, sixty-five, just a few verses later. And he said, “Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father.”

We have a very special calling, brethren. The calling that God has given us is not something that you or I have earned or achieved on our own. God selected you from the foundation of the world, we now know, other Bible verses say this, God selected you individually. He’s calling you out of a world that He’s not calling at this present time. The masses will have their chance in time, brethren. We all understand that. God is going to give everybody the same shot at eternal life that you and I have now. But He is calling you. He’s giving you a very specific shot at eternal life now.

God has in effect chosen to open up the line of communication with you and begin a working relationship toward eternal life. Understand that. Now, in John six here, we’ve got this verse that I like to quote to brethren who are new, people who are newly interested in coming with us. But then a companion verse, a verse that’s joined to the hip with John six is in Ephesians four. Ephesians four and verse four. Ephesians four and verse four. Just how special is the calling that God has given us? Let’s read. Ephesians four, four. “There is one body and one spirit, even as you are called in one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God, and Father of all.”

Now, do you understand what this means? We all know and believe, obviously, that there is one God. We know that there is one Lord Jesus Christ. We know that there is one baptism. One faith. You can’t have many different faiths. The world sees that there are... says that what faith are you? What faith are you? I’m of the Catholic faith. I’m of the Protestant faith. There aren’t many different faiths. There’s one faith. There’s one belief in the truth. There’s one baptism. We would believe all these things. So the question becomes, brethren, do we believe and understand the gravity when God says there is one hope of our calling?

We don’t get five or ten or twenty shots at the calling that God has given us. He’s called us once. He’s called us once. Knowing that God doesn’t lie, He’s told us in advance that we are being given our only shot at eternal life right now. We can’t bomb, completely disavow the truth, commit the unpardonable sin, if you will, completely give up on everything. Stop repenting, stop doing everything. Leave God’s Church and then expect God to call us back again. Doesn’t work that way. God doesn’t offer many callings. He gives us one. Let’s turn over to Second Thessalonians chapter one now. We have to appreciate and understand just how special it is to be in God’s Church.

This calling is not something that we should take lightly. God wanted to build a relationship with you, so He personally selected you at the time that He did. You could be twenty years old or ninety years old. Whenever it was... whenever it is in your life that God is calling you, He says, “I’m going to begin to make my relationship with you now. I’m opening up this relationship.” So, Second Thessalonians chapter one, verse eleven adds this. “Wherefore also, we pray always for you that our God would count you worthy of this calling, and fulfill all the good pleasure of his goodness and the work of faith with power.” So, brethren, I’ll ask you this question as I ask myself, are we worthy of our calling? How are we fulfilling our calling?

How is it that we are building the relationship with God, the God who selected you personally? How are we doing? You know, we’ll turn over to Luke chapter ten. Kind of make a side note here. Lawyers in the Bible had a habit of tempting Christ, and oftentimes they would ask a very similar question to what we’re asking right now. How do we live up to our calling? Or how do we fulfill, how do we get eternal life? What do we do to receive all these wonderful things that you’ve laid out in the Bible?

The problem is, the lawyers in the Bible, oftentimes, many of them didn’t come with an open heart and open mind trying to figure out how do they actually receive eternal life. They were just simply trying to entrap Christ in his words. They were trying to catch Him saying something that was against the Bible. Lawyers are very good at that. Lawyers are very good at trying to find the loopholes and ways around the law, different ways of interpreting the law and so forth to manipulate it to say maybe the opposite of what it actually says in the law.

They do that with man’s laws. And of course here we see that they do it with God’s law as well. So we’ll read in Luke chapter ten. We’ll read an account about this lawyer who’s asking a similar question to what we’re asking. How do I receive eternal life? Or how do we live up to the calling that God has given us? Here we see, we read Luke chapter ten, verse twenty-five, “And he said unto him, what is....” Excuse me. Verse twenty-five, I was reading twenty-six. “And behold, a certain lawyer stood up and tempted Him saying, Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”

Except he’s not really interested in the answer. He’s interested in catching Christ. “And Christ said into him, What is written in the law? How read you, what do you see? What does the Bible say? And he answered.” The man answering his own question says, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength and with all your mind and your neighbor as yourself.” He had a correct answer. He answered his own question correctly. And Christ was therefore out of his own mouth, able to tell him, you’ve got that right answer.

And he says so in verse twenty-eight. “And he said, You have answered right, this do, and you shall live.” And his answer was pretty simple, and it was true. There are two paths that summarize how we should receive eternal life. Love God and love your neighbor. Love God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. In other words, live the give way of life. Love God. Live the give way toward God. Live the give way of life toward mankind. Don’t focus on yourself. That’s a lot of what the world does.

That’s why the Ten Commandments are so important because God says that they help us stay outwardly focused. They help us focus our attention on other people, including God. The very God who called us out of the world. So, he gave a correct answer and then he went on and he tried to justify himself and trap him more with his words and so forth. But we all know that Christ, very quickly, was able to shut that down. Now, Matthew chapter twenty-two says something similar with a different lawyer. Matthew twenty-two verse thirty-three. Matthew twenty-two verse thirty-three says this, “And when the multitude heard this, they were astonished at His doctrine.

But when the Pharisees had heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, they were gathered together. Then one of them, which was a lawyer, of course, asked Him a question tempting Him and saying, Master, which is the greatest commandment in the law?” Very similar question. The other man asked, How do I receive eternal life? And the answer is the same. “Jesus said to them, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment.” That summarizes, you could say, the first four commandments in the Bible... in the Ten Commandments. And the second is like unto it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The last six commandments are summarized in love your neighbor as yourself.

On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. Everything we read in the Old Testament, simply put, points back to one of these two commandments. Live the give way of life loving God. Live the give way of life loving mankind. Building your relationship with each according to God’s Word. Now, we all know the Ten Commandments. We’re going to look at the last five here briefly just to list them. We all know the last five are obviously building relationships with other people. The fifth commandment is honor your father and mother. Don’t kill is the sixth commandment.

Surely, loving your neighbor would involve not killing them. Number seven, the seventh commandment is don’t commit adultery. It’s not only an act against God and your own personal self when you commit adultery. It’s an act against your wife, your husband, your spouse. Don’t steal is the eighth commandment. Don’t lie and don’t covet, simply put, are the last six commandments. It’s evident, brethren, that all Ten Commandments are crucial. We know that they all have a place. God wants us to live the give way of life again.

And He says in James chapter two, verses ten and eleven, that if we break even one commandment, we’ve broken them all. The commandments are, therefore, not up for grabs. We can’t pick and choose which commandments we want to keep and which ones we want to throw out. The Bible is very plain. God is very plain. He wrote the commandments on stone twice, stating the same thing so that we would get the point. When we break God’s commandment at any point, we’ve broken the whole law.

So, brethren, we’re going to take an acute focus on the first four commandments to help us evaluate our relationship with God. And we have to understand that God has given us this special calling. And when He did, He didn’t give it to us flippantly. He gave it to us with great purpose. He chose to call you. And He chose to build a relationship with you from that point forward. So, my question to us today is, how do we build that relationship back with God? How do we reciprocate? How do we help ourselves become worthy of the calling that God has given us?

We’re going to take a look at these first four commandments, as I said, and it will help us... all four of them will help us evaluate our current relationship with God, where we could do better, where we’re doing fine already, and everywhere in between. So let’s turn over to Exodus chapter twenty. Turn over to Exodus chapter twenty. In your Bible, you might have one of these book markers. You could set it there in your Bible because we’ll be back to Exodus twenty a few different times.

Exodus twenty, we’ll pick it up in verse one to begin, “And God spoke all these words, saying, I am the Lord your God, which have brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before me.” There’s the First Commandment. “You shall have no other gods before me.” Now, God calls himself a father. We know that we call him the Father in our prayers and to one another, God the Father is his name... one of his names. And as a father myself, I can appreciate better now having a daughter, having another one on the way, what God feels when he sees people break this First Commandment.

“You shall have no other gods before me” could change it and say, “You shall have no other fathers before me.” We all have human fathers, so of course He doesn’t mean don’t have any human fathers, but we shouldn’t put any other gods before God. I try to imagine if my daughter were to walk up to me sometime and say, “I don’t want to be your daughter anymore. I’m not going to consider you my father, my dad. I’m going to go and look to this other person.” And then she goes and selects some new dad and starts to follow him, loves him. After all the work and the effort, the time, the dedication, the night spent up with my daughter, I couldn’t imagine what that would feel like if she abandoned me to go find another dad.

That’s what it’s like from God the Father’s perspective. Even starting with Adam all the way back to the garden, the first two human beings, the first two children of God we know back in, I believe it’s in Luke. Luke’s account of the genealogy it says that Adam was the son of God. He was the first son of God made in God’s image. And immediately Adam turns and starts to obey a different god. Turning away from his Father, the God of the universe. God doesn’t want us to turn away from Him. Turn over to First Corinthians chapter eight. First Corinthians chapter eight. We’ll pick it up in verse five.

I’m just going to read a couple of verses here. Paul speaking to the Corinthians, he says, “For though there are... there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or in earth as there be gods many and lords many, but to us there is but one God.” We read this in Ephesians chapter four. There’s one God, the Father, of whom are all things and we in Him and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things and we by Him.

So brethren, Paul is clearly stating, and I know this is nothing new to us, but we’re going over this First Commandment to help us understand how do we build a better relationship with this very God that called us. And the first way we do that is by recognizing that there is one God. We cannot in any way go off worshiping other gods. You might say, “Well, Mr. Holcomb, that’s pretty obvious. I’m not going to go worship Buddha. I’m not going to go fall back into believing the Trinity again.” My caution is this, brethren, let history be our guide. None of us ever intend to... none of us would ever intend to go worship another god.

But don’t forget the not-too-far-distant future or history past of what happened in the Worldwide Church of God. Mr. Armstrong, as soon as he died, deceivers got... captured the top of the Church and led slowly but pretty quickly actually, the entire Church back into believing an entirely different God. They went back to believing the Trinity and everybody bought it hook, line, and sinker. Those same people back in the early ‘80s or the ‘70s would have probably said they would never believe in the Trinity again, except for when they would.

Brethren, people, never underestimate Satan’s deception. How deceptive he can be. This is why we have to go back and prove and reprove things. God knows that our minds are like sieves. They can slip... stuff can slip through the bottom of it. Things that we’ve proven or known in the past can very easily slip from us if we don’t go back and reprove them. It’s not a wrong thing. It’s a good thing to go back if we haven’t read the Trinity book, for example, to prove that God is not a trinity. God is not three in one. You might say, “Well, yes, but I did that.”

Well, my point is if we’ve proven it in the past, it’s good to go and prove it again every once in a while. Refresh your mind on why it is that you believe, because I bet if we haven’t read the Trinity book in a long time, we could maybe call to mind one or two or five different big points that we can remember from it as to why it is that God is in Trinity. But by going through it again, it bolsters our confidence that wait a minute, I am serving the right God. I’m not serving a false God. I’m serving the God that called me, that opened my mind miraculously. Because this calling is a miracle, brethren, none of us could explain it.

You can’t explain how God could open our mind and the people next to us can read the very same verses about the Sabbath or the Holy Days or read the very same verses about how no man goes to heaven when they die or go to hell when they die. And they just... it’s like a blank stare. You can’t reason with them. You can’t talk with them because why? God is not calling them at this point. And it’s the God of the universe that’s calling us. Prior to being called of God, coming back to this verse here in First Corinthians chapter eight that says that there are many gods, there are gods many and lords many.

And prior to being called of God, we served many of these false gods, albeit unknowingly. But let’s turn over to Galatians chapter four. Galatians chapter four and verse eight will read. Says this, Galatians four eight says, “How be it then, when you knew not God, you did service unto them which by nature are no gods.” We may have believed in the Trinity, or we may have believed... if you come from some other background, non-Christian background, you may have believed in who knows, doubt, you know, all of the different gods, in the Hindu religion or various other gods in this world.

There’s gods many and lords many. We came out of some kind of religion or way of thinking. Even if we’re atheists, we believed that there was no God, which is a wrong way of thinking as well, we’ve come out of that. And we served other gods. Now, I want to caution us when we say that... God says that we served other gods, does it mean that if we want to go back and serve other gods, is that just mean we go back and serve the Trinity, for example? That is a way that we can break the First Commandment. We can fall into the same mindset that those in the apostasy fell into where we begin to worship another god, another Jesus again.

But does the First Commandment start and stop with the letter of the law, if I could put it that way. Or are there other kinds of gods that we can worship that are maybe more subtle? More deceptive, more dangerous? If I could put it that way. Over and over, Christ said in Matthew five, you could turn over there, that He came to magnify and amplify the law. He didn’t come to do away with the law like the masses believe now. He came to magnify, amplify the law. It’s read in verse eighteen of Matthew five.

Matthew five eighteen, “For truly I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass.” That hasn’t happened yet, as far as I can tell. “One jot or one tittle shall in no wise is pass from the law till all be fulfilled.” The law is still intact, including these Ten Commandments. Verse nineteen, “Whosoever, therefore, shall break one of these least commandments and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven, but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I say unto you that except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.”

The scribes and Pharisees were all about the letter of the law. But Christ is saying the law isn’t done away. You have to go beyond what the scribes and Pharisees did. You have to take... you have to not only keep the law, not in the same way that they do, where they’re self-righteous and keep it in their own self-righteous way. But not only do we have to keep the law, we have to go beyond that. We have to take it another step further. And here’s what He means by that.

In verse twenty-one, it says, “You’ve heard that it was said by them of old time that you shall not kill.” We just saw that was the sixth commandment. You shall not kill. The scribes and Pharisees knew that, they were keeping that, but we’re supposed to take... we’re supposed to go beyond what the scribes and Pharisees believed. Our righteousness should exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. How is that? Well, if we look at the sixth commandment, not to kill. Verse twenty-two says this, “But I say unto you that whosoever is angry with his brother without cause shall be in danger of the judgment.

And whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council, but whosoever shall say, You fool, shall be in danger of hell fire. Therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar,” and so forth.” God is saying, not only should you not kill, but you shouldn’t be angry and hate other people. You’ve now broken the law in a different way. God’s expanding the sixth commandment. Let’s come on down to verse twenty-seven. Says, “You’ve heard, it was said of them in old time that you shall not commit adultery.” The letter of the law is… adultery means you don’t go commit... have sexual acts with other people outside of your wife or your husband.

Well, is that all there is? Is it just the letter of the law or does it go further? Christ said in verse twenty-eight, “But I say to you that whosoever looks on a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart.” Christ is taking the law and expanding it. He’s not doing away with it. He’s making it even bigger than it was before. And He does that again in verse thirty-one, “It’s been said, whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement. But I say to you that whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causes her to commit adultery. Whosoever shall marry her that is disavowed commits adultery.”

The law on marriage and divorce is expanded. Verse forty-three, “You have heard that it has been said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy, but I say unto you, love your enemies. Bless them that curse you. Do good to them that hate you and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be the children of your Father, which is in heaven.” All of this culminates in verse forty-eight, saying, “Be you therefore perfect. Become you therefore perfect, even as your Father, which is in heaven, is perfect.”

If we want to become like God and build our relationship with God, we have to understand that this First Commandment of no other gods before me can be expanded as well. It’s not just that we’re not supposed to go off and worship Buddha or worship the false trinity god. God expands in a certain way, this is First Commandment, beyond that. Now, we live in a world filled to the brim with stuff, and things, and ideas, and knowledge. It’s like we’ve come to the point where during Nimrod’s time, if you recall in Genesis eleven. Let’s just quick go over and read that. It’s fascinating. Let’s just quick read that in Genesis eleven. We’re basically at this point. What we’re about to read is almost an exact description of the world that we live in today. Genesis eleven and verse one.

“And the whole world was of one language and of one speech.” Brethren, does the internet not do that for us? Do we not have access to every conceivable language translation and so forth at the palm of our hand, in our pockets? We can do anything with our cell phones now. AI just keeps developing and developing and developing, and it’s like a race. It’s like this... back when they were racing to go to the moon. It’s like that, except for now it’s much bigger than just going to the moon. Technology and advancements in knowledge have allowed us to basically do anything that we want.

Verse two here, and this is exactly what it was like back in Nimrod’s time, “And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and they dwelt there. And they said one to another, Go, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar. And they said, Go, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven, and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which was being built.

And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language, and this they begin to do, and now nothing will be restrained from them.” They could do anything they want. And God knew that. He looked down and said, “Wow, these people are unrestrained. Anything that comes to their mind, they’re going to be able to achieve and accomplish.” End of verse six says, “In which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.” So God had to intervene. Before God intervened though, there was a world full of all kinds of things, interesting, new ideas, technologies, ways to be self-sustainable, self-sufficient. They didn’t need God. They didn’t need God.

“Let’s build a tower so high that it goes up to heaven so that we can basically replace God with all the knowledge and the technologies that we’ve now achieved.” Brethren, we’re right there today. We can replace God with a snap of a fingers if we’re not careful. And we don’t even have to go worship the Trinity. We don’t have to go worship Buddha or any other false god out there. There are gods many and lords many, and brethren, they’re at the tips of our fingers. They’re everywhere. This is where it gets dangerous. We can idolize and worship all kinds of wrong things, wrong ideas, wrong concepts if we let ourselves.

The way we know we are doing this is if we prioritize other things over God. All you have to ask yourself is this, what do I prioritize in my life? Do I prioritize prayer, Bible study, meditation, and so forth over other things in my day? If we prioritize other things over those, then we could consider ourselves potentially in danger of breaking this First Commandment. The spirit of the First Commandment, putting other gods before God. May not be the Trinity, it may not be Buddha, but we’re putting other gods, if you will, ahead of God. That’s where it gets dangerous. Turn over to Matthew chapter six. Matthew six verse twenty-four says this...

Matthew six, twenty-four says, “No man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other.” You cannot serve God and mammon. And mammon being money or any other physical thing in this world. We cannot serve both God and the things, the stuff, the ideas. It could be that you get into conspiracy theories or you get into some wacky idea about this, that, or the other thing. If we start focusing our attention too much on all these other things, we’re getting caught up in the mammon, if you will, the mammon of this world, and we’re not putting God first. We can’t serve the mammon of this world and God. We have to put God first.

And what that means, practically speaking, is we prioritize. We prioritize. In life we prioritize everything. We have to prioritize what we find is most important in our lives. And brethren, God wants us to put Him first. This is how we not only keep the letter of the law, but also the spirit of the law. Turn back to Exodus chapter twenty, got our book marker there. Exodus twenty and verse four says this, “You shall not make unto you any graven image or any likeness of anything that’s in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down yourself to them nor serve them, for I the Lord your God, am a jealous God visiting the iniquities of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Me; and showing mercy unto the thousands of them that love Me and keep My commandments.”

There it is, the Second Commandment. Curiously, the Catholics, the church that I came out of, merged the first and Second Commandments, and it’s not such a surprise seeing all the idolatry that’s seen in the Catholic church. Anywhere you go, when I visited the Vatican back in college, it is miles of relics, miles of gold statues, paintings, every conceivable kind of little trinket that some saint or somebody touched over the last two thousand years or whatever it is. This is what the world focuses on. They focus on the physical things. And the Catholics merged the first and Second Commandments so as to kind of hide this just powerful command that God says He wants us to obey.

God does not want us to make physical representations of Him or any other false God. And the Catholics split the last commandment into two. Don’t covet your neighbor’s wife and don’t cover your neighbor’s stuff, basically. So rather than obeying all ten of the actual commandments, they merge two and bifurcate and split another one. And in simple terms, they don’t like the Second Commandment, committing idolatry. So, they threw it out just like they did the Sabbath back in the three hundreds AD at the Council of Nicaea.

But there’s a distinct difference between the first and Second Commandments because you could say, “Well, isn’t it kind of similar? Aren’t we supposed to not worship or idolize the physical things of this life? Like couldn’t we say that if we put other gods before us, that’s kind of like we’re idolizing other things?” In a certain regard, yes, but here is the... here is the distinction. Mr. Packer wrote in the book on the Ten Commandments and he wrote, “The First Commandment forbids having other gods before the true God. The Second Commandment forbids using an image to represent the true God or any false god.”

This commandment deals specifically with using physical images for worship or as representations of anything related to worship. Now, why they are different... the first two commandments are different is, consider this, you can worship the true God and keep the First Commandment, but you could break the Second Commandment even if you’re worshiping the true God. You can make an idol. Even though you worship the true God, you can make an idol trying to represent the God that you worship, and that’s where the sin lies. So that is the distinction. The Second Commandment deals specifically with building some kind of physical manifestation to help aid in your worship.

John four in verse twenty-three. John four, pick it up in verse twenty-three. “But the hour comes and now is when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such to worship Him.” God is a spirit and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and truth. God does not want us worshiping Him as a spirit being in physical form. We have to worship Him in spirit and truth.

Our physical minds love physical things, though. They do. They do. They’re easier to see, they’re easier to grasp. An invisible God is hard to see. It takes work, takes effort, it takes thought, it takes vision to see the true God, and it takes conviction. If we’re not convicted that the God of the universe exists, that He is alive, and we need to convict ourselves by making some physical statue or picture, then we’re not worshipping God properly.

By not having physical aids, we’re forced to see the invisible. What is invisible? And while it takes more work, it produces far greater character. It takes work to pray and believe that the God that you’re coming before is real. And never mind that it pleases God. It produces powerful character in you, and it’s greatly pleasing to God.

Turn over to Acts seventeen. Acts seventeen, we’ll pick it up in verse sixteen, says this, “Now, while Paul waited for them at Athens,” this is Paul’s account of going to Mars Hill, “Now, while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was stirred up, and when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry, therefore disputed he in the synagogues with the Jews and with the devout persons, and in the market daily with them that met with him.

And certain philosophers of the Epicureans and Stoics encountered him, and some said, What will this babbler say? Other some, He seems to be a setter forth of strange gods because he preached unto them Jesus and the resurrection. And they took him and brought him to Areopagus saying, May we know what this new doctrine is, wherever you speak? For you bring certain strange things to our ears.” They loved hearing new things, and that’s their God. Their God was hearing all these wonderful new things that they could hear. This is a new God. I want to listen to this new God. I want to listen to that new God. They were idolizing and worshiping false gods, many.

In verse twenty-one, “For all the Athenians and the strangers which were there spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing.” That was their God, truly. “Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars Hill and said, You men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are too superstitious. For as I passed by and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription TO THE UNKNOWN GOD.”

This inscription, this altar was there to kind of cover themselves for all of the gods that they weren’t sure of that they wanted to make sure that they were still worshipping as well. And Paul was pointing unto them that God, the God that none of them knew. “Whom therefore you ignorantly worship, Him declare I unto you. God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that He is Lord of heaven and earth dwells not in temples made with hands; neither is worshipped with men’s hands, as though he needed anything, seeing He gives to all life, and breath, and all things, and has made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation, that they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after Him, and find Him, though He be not far from every one of us.”

The God of the heavens and earth, the God of the universe is not to be made into some kind of physical manifestation. We see idolatry everywhere in today’s world. When we’re coming out to the world, where it can be tough is we have to let go of these physical manifestations. I think about my house growing up, a lot of pictures of “Jesus” with the long hair. We know He never had long hair. Those had to go away.

If we have any statues of Mary or any other saints, crosses, you can read articles that we have on our website explaining in detail why it is that crosses are not good. Necklaces of religious icons and so forth, rosaries and relics and all these kinds of things, we don’t deal with any of these things anymore. These are the kinds of physical aids that we may have used to use as representations of God. And we think that it’s okay. We thought that it was okay, but God straightly forbids it.

But it’s just with anything else in life, we can go too far. There’s two ditches on either side of the road. We can either fall into idolatry or we could somehow fall into the other side of the ditch, which is to say, like, for example, I’m sure in my Bible somewhere, there’s probably a cross in here. I don’t know that for sure, but there might be some kind of a cross in here. Does that mean that I need to rip out that page in the Bible because it’s an evil page, it’s just wicked and I need to tear it out? No, you don’t need to tear out your Bible pages if it’s got a cross in it. Use judgment, use some wisdom and discernment on what is okay and what is not.

The other thing that’s interesting too, if you harken back, think back to the Second Commandment, it said, the letter of the law, you shall not make any wooden images of little animals or things like this. Now, if we were to just look at that and say, “Oh, no, does that mean I can’t have a little statue on my mantle for decor of like a whale or a bowl or something like this?” No, it doesn’t mean that. It’s statues and images for the purpose of worship.

If we have a knick-knack on our mantle or wherever it is, on a bookshelf and we’re not worshiping it, it’s okay to have. There’s nothing wrong with that. We could go to the other ditch and start throwing out all these things at our house and not have any kind of décor left. You’ve got empty homes, and that’s not what the intent is here. The intent is that we don’t make images for worshiping. So that is the Second Commandment. That’s the Second Commandment. It’s distinct from the first, but just as important.

Let’s turn over to Exodus chapter twenty again. Read the Third Commandment. Pick it up in verse seven. “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that takes His name in vain.” So the letter of the law is easy to understand on this commandment. Don’t say God’s name in vain. Don’t use it in an empty, flippant form. People say all kinds of terrible things in this world, curse words and so forth, and they often take God’s name in vain. They do.

So it’s easy to understand the letter of the law, that we’re not supposed to do this, but using euphemisms is also something that we in God’s Church do not do. We don’t take-- and I’m going to say the euphemisms so that you can understand what they are, and hopefully, God will forgive me for saying it, but you understand the euphemisms are other ways of saying taking God’s name in vain. We don’t say OMG, for example. We don’t write OMG, we don’t type it out, we don’t say it, because that is what... that is in effect saying God’s name in vain. We don’t do that.

We’re taking God’s name in vain and we’re therefore breaking this Third Commandment. Brethren, remember, we’re trying to build a relationship with God. We’re seeing where it is in our lives that we can bolster and strengthen our relationship that we’re building with the God of the universe. And this is one way we can do that. Other euphemisms are, oh my goodness. We don’t want to say that. We don’t want to say that.

Or gosh. You won’t hear anybody in God’s Church, if you’ve been in God’s Church for any period of time, you won’t hear anybody saying these kinds of things. Because in God’s mind, they’re just as bad. You might as well be saying it. You’re thinking it in your head and you’re just replacing God’s name with these other “lesser words” but you’re in effect saying the same thing. The intent is the same. We don’t want to do that. We don’t want to fall into that. And maybe for some newer brethren, you didn’t know these kinds of things, so it’s good to review them.

Turn over to John seventeen. We will start in verse nine. John seventeen, nine. “I pray for them,” Christ speaking, he’s... this is I believe a prayer to the Father. He’s praying to God saying, “I pray for them. I pray not for the world, but for them which you have given me for they are yours.” Again, God called us and we’re in this world. We can’t sort of leave this world and go to some other world, we have to dwell in this world and overcome in this world.

So Christ is saying, for they’re yours, verse ten, “And all mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I’m glorified in them. And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world and I come to you, Holy Father, keep them, keep through your own name those whom you have given me that they may be one as we are one. While I was with them in the world, I kept them in your name those that you gave me and I kept and none of them is lost but the son of perdition that the scripture might be fulfilled.”

Christ said that God is keeping us in His name. Now, just like with the other commandments, there’s the letter of the law and the spirit of the law. God has expanded in a certain regard the laws, and so I’ll ask this question now, is taking God’s name in vain merely saying His name improperly or in an empty form, saying it incorrectly or using it wrongly, or is saying some kind of euphemism? Is that all there is to taking God’s name in vain or is it bigger than that?

John seventeen verse eleven and twelve here proves that God says that He has given us His name. “Holy Father, keep them through your own name those whom you have given me.” So we in effect carry God’s name with us wherever we go. You realize we are called the Church of God. We’re called the Church of God. The called out ones... church means is ekklesia, and it means the called out ones of God. Church is not a physical building that we go to. The Church is you and I. We are the Church. We are the called-out ones and we’re the called... we are called the called-out ones of God, the Church of God. We carry therefore with us God’s name wherever we go.

You know, you think about names that are passed on from generation to generation. I have an uncle named Chris. He named his son Chris Jr. And it’s an honor to have been given that name, your father’s name. You want to live up to that name. As a son, I want to live up to the Holcombe name. All of us could think about the roots that we come from. We don’t want to dishonor the family that we come from. We want to honor them. We want to make them feel good about their children, that they’re taking the name that they have been given and going on and doing good with it.

God is the same. He doesn’t want us to take His name, carry around His name as the Church of God in vain. So, this Third Commandment can be expanded beyond, of course, just saying God’s name in vain to our actions. What do we do? The things that we do in this life matter. If you think about Second Corinthians chapter five, when we dishonor and displease God, we misrepresent Him and drag His name through the dirt. May we not do that?

No, we may not have said OMG or something like that, we may not have said a euphemism, but we can still break this Third Commandment in the spirit of the law. Second Corinthians five and verse twenty. “Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us, we pray you in Christ’s stead be you reconciled to God.” We are ambassadors for Christ. Representatives is what the word means. We represent Christ and God in all that we do.

Think of an ambassador from the United States. The United States ambassadors carry the United States name in the nation that they’re in. They may be the United States ambassador to Bahrain or the UK. Wherever they are ambassadors, they carry the United States name, and therefore, thereby represent the United States in what they do. So if an ambassador from the United States goes out and gets drunk, goes and gets high, goes to parties all night, does illicit things and it’s then recorded on the news, do you really think that ambassador is going to remain an ambassador? Of course not, because they’re not representing the government by which they carry the name.

Now, Philippians three and verse twenty says that our citizenship is in heaven. We are citizens of heaven. We represent God’s government wherever we go in all that we do. And we cannot take this responsibility lightly. It breaks the spirit of the Third Commandment. So if we... even dressing poorly or acting poorly in public, remember that you’re not just carrying the name of your own family, you’re carrying the name of God around with you wherever you go.

And if we take this seriously, brethren, we will be building our relationship with God even stronger. He’ll look down and say, “My servant, the one that I called is serious. He wants to honor me. He doesn’t want to walk around acting terrible and dragging my name through the dirt. He wants to uphold my name.” We want God to look down like a proud father would. As a proud father, I would look down at my daughter and say, “Wow, I’m proud of you for doing that. I’m glad you chose to do the right thing instead of doing something wrong.” We want God to look down and say the same thing to us, about us.

Galatians one. Brethren for millennia have understood and lived according to this idea that we can take God’s name in vain, or we could uphold God’s name through our actions. Galatians one verse thirteen. Galatians one, thirteen says, “For you have heard of my conversation, my conduct, in time past, in the Jews religion, how that beyond measure I persecuted the church of God and wasted it.”

Now, how did Paul persecute the Church of God? You could ask that question. Digging a little bit deeper into Paul’s thinking. He persecuted the Church of God and knew who was in the Church of God by their actions. Those in God’s Church who carried the name of God around with them were unashamed. And therefore, Paul was able to spot them. He could spot the difference between somebody who followed God and Christ of the Bible versus somebody who was maybe a Jew, who did not, who obeyed their own ideas and thinking.

So Paul was able to discern true Brethren in the first century by their actions. He knew to persecute them for that, too. So it’s one thing to never say God’s name in vain outright, or use euphemisms, as I said, but really, the greater question is, how do we carry ourselves? Do we carry around God’s name in vain? And if we are clean in this matter, brethren, or it strengthens immeasurably our relationship with God.

So let’s come to the fourth and final commandment. Building relationships with God. Exodus chapter twenty. Exodus twenty and verse eight, “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy, six days shall you labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it, you shall not do any work. You, nor your son, nor your daughter, maidservant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger that’s within your gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that’s in them, that all that in them is. And rested the seventh day, wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.”

So the Sabbath is, of course, the Fourth Commandment that the world doesn’t really look to, they explain it all away. Somehow, they believe it’s good to keep all the other commandments. But for some reason, the fourth one wedged in there isn’t important. It’s just not important. It’s explained away as being part of the law. Well, they’re all part of the law. It has nothing to do with anything that’s supposed to be done away. God wants us to keep the Sabbath, and we’ll understand plainly why here in Exodus chapter thirty-one. Just a few chapters over.

Exodus thirty-one and verse fourteen. Why is the Sabbath so important? Verse fourteen says, “You shall keep the Sabbath, therefore, for it is holy unto you. Everyone that defiles it shall surely be put to death. For whosoever does any work therein, that soul shall be cut off from among His people. Six days may your work be done, but in the seventh is the Sabbath of rest, holy to the Lord. Whosoever does any work in the Sabbath, he shall surely be put to death. Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations for a perpetual covenant.” It’s not something that we do away with.

“For it is a sign between me and the children of Israel forever. For in six days, the Lord made heaven and earth, and in the seventh day He rested and was refreshed, and He gave unto Moses, when He had made an end of commuting with Him upon Mount Sinai, two tables of the testimony, tables of stone written with the finger of God.” So, the Sabbath is, even you could argue it’s more special in a certain regard than some of the other commandments, insofar as it is a signal between God, it’s a sign between God and his people. This is yet another way we can distinguish God’s people from the masses.

Look over to Mark chapter two. Mark chapter two, “How well are we keeping the Sabbath? Do we treat it with the respect that God wants us to?” Because, again, this is a sign between He and his people. How we handle the Sabbath is a direct reflection of our relationship with Him. If we just don’t keep it at all, then we don’t have a relationship with Him. By keeping it and fully keeping it, we are strengthening that relationship and that bond that we have with God and Christ.

Mark chapter two in verse twenty-seven, “And He said unto him, the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath. Therefore, the Son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath.” God has given us the Sabbath day, not just as a means by which He can distinctly show who His people are, but the Sabbath is made for us. It’s there to benefit us. Give us time off from all the work that we do in the rest of the week.

We should feel honored to keep the Sabbath, that it’s not grievous to keep. You know, I think about, back when I was in college, the Sabbath was a relief for me. I would have projects with my other architecture friends, and group projects in some cases, where I would have to just simply, come sunset on Friday night, I’d shut it down and I’d say, “Sorry, I got to go. I got to go keep the Sabbath.”

And they’re just sitting there like, “What are you doing? You got to help us here. Why aren’t you helping?” And I said, “Well, you could take this time off too if you wanted. You don’t have to do the work either.” You know, this is something that I was convicted about. And in the end, the project turned out just fine. And it showed me that God... Excuse me, that you can really get by. God wants us to have this day off to relax, to rest, to recharge our batteries, if you will. Draw closer to Him, draw closer to our families, draw closer to the Brethren around the world. Fellowship.

We don’t have this time throughout the week in the rat race that we live in. There’s too much stuff going on. There’s too much stuff to do. And so when God says that we have to keep the Sabbath, we can look at it in one of two ways. We can look at it as a series of lists of things that we’re not allowed to do, or we can look at it and see, “These are all the things we don’t have to do.” Which do we look at? How do we look at the Sabbath? Do we look at it as a series of things that we don’t get to do or do we look at it as a series of things we don’t have to do?

Change your mindset on the Sabbath. It shouldn’t be a burden to any of us. In fact, it should be relieving. And I think that’s the way that it is for most of us. But if there’s ever a time when we get feeling like, “Oh, the Sabbath it’s burdensome, it’s grievous. Oh, I have to drive an hour to get to services,” or “I have to make a potluck dish and it’s difficult,” brethren, think about the alternative. We could not be called of God. We could not be keeping the Sabbath. We could not have this wonderful sign between He and His people.

We could be like the rest of the world who are kind of fat, dumb, and happy living their lives, breaking the Sabbath and no problem, but have all kinds of problems because of it. God has given us this gem of a day that’s sanctified and holy so that we can draw closer to one another and draw closer to God. That’s the great purpose.

Turn over to Isaiah fifty-eight. Isaiah fifty-eight verse eleven. “And the Lord shall guide you continually, and satisfy your soul in drought, and make fat your bones, and then shall you be like a watered garden.” This is speaking in prophecy. “And like a spring of water whose waters fail not, and they shall be... they that shall be of you, shall build the old waste places into the millennium. You shall raise up the foundations of many generations, and you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of paths to dwell in.

If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on my holy day and call the Sabbath a delight, if you stop doing your own pleasures on the Sabbath day and call the Sabbath a delight, then the holy of the Lord, honorable, and shall honor Him, not doing your own ways, nor finding your own pleasure, nor speaking your own words, then shall you delight yourself in the Lord, and I will cause you to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken it.”

It’s an absolute promise of God. How we treat the Sabbath day is directly proportionate to the depth of connection that we have and make with God. And when we have a deep connection with God... because He says here, “You shall delight yourself in the Lord.” Not only if you delight yourself in the Sabbath, you’re going to delight yourself in the Lord, and God says, “I will cause you to ride on the high places of the earth.” It’s a promise. Do we claim it? Do we believe it, that if we actually delight ourselves in the Sabbath, change our mindset, change our perspective, enjoy the Sabbath, then God will cause us to ride on the high places of the earth?

That word, delight, means a luxury. The Sabbath is meant to be a delight, a luxury. It’s a luxury for us. We have to see it that way. For some, it might take work. Might take work. It’s not... sometimes the Sabbath is still work in certain regards. It’s work and effort to get to services. It’s work and effort to do the setup. It’s work and effort to put together your potluck dish, make sure everything looks nice. It’s work and effort to tear down the room or change the room around.

These aren’t the kinds of works that God is talking about, that we’re not supposed to do labor on the Sabbath, these are the kinds of things that can help us to, if we see it as an opportunity, can help us to help other people enjoy the Sabbath, and draw closer to God themselves. So brethren, as we conclude, as we close, go back to Exodus chapter twenty. We’ll just read this last... maybe we saw it. Excuse me. Go over to Deuteronomy chapter five.

Deuteronomy chapter five. Let’s read this Fourth Commandment about the Sabbath in Deuteronomy’s account. And notice something fascinating. It says here in verse... Deuteronomy five and verse fourteen. So verse twelve, “Keep the Sabbath.” Thirteen says, “Six days you’ll labor and do all your work. But the seventh day,” verse fourteen, “Is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall not do any work.” Very similar to Exodus twenty. “You, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your manservant, nor your maidservant, your ox, your ass,” and so forth. All these things that your manservant and your maidservant may rest as well as you.”

Verse fifteen, “And remember that you were a servant in the land of Egypt.” What? Why is this thrown in to the middle of the Sabbath day discussion commandment. “And remember that you were a servant in the land of Egypt and that the Lord your God brought you out from out there through a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm. Therefore, the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.”

Why is in the middle of the account of the commandment to keep the Sabbath did God throw in this seemingly left-handed comment about Israel coming out of Egypt? Well, it might seem out of left field, but it’s absolutely not. Anciently, God did not call the Egyptians out of Egypt. We all know that. He called Israel out of Egypt. God did not call the Egyptians out. They were swallowed in the water when they tried to follow Israel across the Red Sea. He only protected and called out Israel. And Egypt is a type of this world, we’ve heard that said during the days of unleavened bread. Egypt is a type of this world.

So when God called Israel out of Egypt anciently, He wasn’t calling the Egyptians with them. It’s the same today, brethren, God is not calling the masses of proverbial Egypt of this world today. He’s calling a very specific few. And the reason God stuck this account of Israel coming out of Egypt in the middle of the commandment to keep the Sabbath is because God wants us to understand with great depth that we are like Israel coming out of Egypt. We are very select few. God is calling us to keep the Sabbath as a sign between He and His people.

The Egypt of this world does not keep the Sabbath. The people in the world do not keep the Sabbath. The masses, I mean. Some do, Seventh Day Adventists and so forth. Some very few select people, the Jews of course keep the Sabbath, but the masses do not keep the Sabbath. God is not calling them out of the world yet. It’s not their chance. He wants to show the sign between He and His people now.

So brethren, if we have the honor to keep the Sabbath, because God has given us this chance, let’s take advantage of it. Let’s not forget this when we keep the Sabbath. Let’s remember that we are the very select few Israel, spiritual Israel, who are called out of this world, out of this Egypt, to keep this most special day. Let’s never forget it.

So brethren, in conclusion, these first four commandments define our relationship with God. God wants us to live the give way of life, both toward Him in the first four commandments and also toward all mankind in the last six. But these first four were our focus; shall have no other gods before me, don’t create images of God or false gods, don’t take God’s name in vain, and keep the Sabbath honor. Keep it holy. Brethren, let’s never forget these first four commandments, and thereby never forget the great God who gave us our most precious calling.