No Other Gods
Commandments one and two

The young one found a nice spot to live. He industriously built his dam, then built himself a lodge.

Once his work was done, the young beaver became lonely. He missed his father. So, using his incredible woodcarving skill, the beaver made a statue of his father.

As his loneliness grew, the beaver turned more and more attention to his statue. he would talk to it, telling it all about his day. He would dress it up with hats and scarves. He even started setting a place for it at the table.

After a year had gone by, the father came to visit his son to see how he was doing. But the son, having become so obsessed with his statue, did not even recognize his own father, and drove him from the lodge.

His heart breaking, the father left his son alone.

The young beaver drifted further into lonliness and further into madness, having become convinced that the statue was his actual father. Then one morning, he had a shock. The statue's head fell off. A colony of termites had been living inside the statue and rotted it away. Suddenly, the statue was only a misshapen block of wood once more. The beaver snapped to his senses and realized what a fool he had been. He swam hastily upsream to his father's lodge to beg forgiveness and seek reconciliation. With arms spread wide, the father took his son back into his embrace.

Our God is an extremely patient God. He puts up with a lot of things. He was willing to ignore Solomon's Bigamy. He looked past Samson's self-indulgence. He didn't complain about Noah's drinking. Indeed, to follow His example, I wouldn't even bring these up except to demonstrate God's longsuffering nature. But there is nothing that hurts God's heart like idolatry.

Think about it. When one practices idolatry, they are snubbing the creator who gave his very life for them in favor of some THING. How can God feel anything but hurt? I know I would.

What amazes me is that most of the time, they don't even replace God with something particularly appealing. The Norse, at least, made up gods who valued wisdom and acted as a sort of league of superheroes, though they also included the likes of Loki. Others, such as the Egyptians, created nasty, self-serving gods who had to be appeased, not loved. All over the world, there are religions which worship evil gods out of fear.

Still others carve their own little gods out of stone or wood or iron or gold. They pray to these gods for whatever it is they need, yet they know full well that these gods can do nothing. Take for example a story from recent years about an idol in tibet who was found to "drink" milk. When a spoonful of milk was placed against its lips, the milk would slowly disappear, presumably because the stone was porous and wicked the moisture away. The worshippers were absolutely amazed that their god could do something as simple as drinking milk. I can't imagine that they had high hopes for their little statue to perform miracles.

But it gets even more ridiculous than that. There was one couple who refused to worship God, but could not deny the fact that they were compelled to worship SOMETHING. so they worshipped an orange road pylon. Set up a shrine for it and everything.

I cannot fathom why anyone would want to worship anything but the One True God. Everything else is just a cheap knockoff.

But think also about this: What is idolatry? It is allowing anyone or anything to take the place of God. Who here has done this even recently?

In my local church, there is an idol who has won the hearts of even the most devoted worshippers: Morpheus. The god of sleep. I must confess that I, too, have chosen sleep over the worship of my God as recently as last week.

But that's certainly not the only thing that gets put in place of God. How about money? Who here has ever skimped on their tithes because they wanted to keep something back for themselves? Or how about clothing? I recall a story of a church in indonesia where the locals normally went naked, but for church, would put on clothing. It quickly became more than the practice of modesty and developed into the opposite, turning into a competition to see who could dress the best. The clothing became such a distraction that it interfered with worship. The pastor said that if this was the way it was going to be, it would be better if the congregation stopped wearing clothes to church.

I perceive that many here are already following that tidbit of wisdom. Me, I only wear this robe so that people can find the pastor. But there are those who worship such symbols of piety or authority. There are those to whom a man in a collar or a pointed hat has more authority in their lives than God himself. They'll happily ignore what the bible says, but Heaven forbid they should oppose the pope.

Sex is another HUGE idol. And it is one that I have very little patience with. Now I do understand that it is very difficult to fight instinct, so I do cut people a little slack for stumbling in the heat of the moment. But there are those who completely ignore God's desire for their lives and make sex their god, preaching that we are all obliged to do whatever our gonads tell us to. If this were so, God would never have told us to restrain ourselves. To do so would be entrapment. No, we are free beings and we have the power to follow God's will if we choose.

Perhaps the biggest idol of all is anger. Now it is appropriate to abstain from worship when we are angry. A heart full of anger is not condusive to worship. It is like going to a friend's house for tea when all you can think about is how furious you are at your neighbor for revving his engine between the hours of 11:00 PM and 4:00 AM last night. You're not going to have any meaningful connection to your friend that day and you're going to make her afternoon miserable as well.

But the bible has very specific instructions about anger. For example:

Eph 4:26 Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath: 27 Neither give place to the devil.

Matthew 5:23 Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee; 24 Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.

But there are those who are so desperate to hold onto their anger that they choose to stay away from God because they CAN'T forgive. At least they think they can't. Many times, it's God they're angry at. I know a certain young man who is so angry at God for taking his grandfather away that he has chosen Hell over Heaven, even knowing that it will mean eternal seperation from his Christian grandfather.

Up to this point, I've been talking about commandment number one.

Exodus 20:2 I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
3 Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

4 Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:
5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;
6 And showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.

When God gives this commandment, he is not forbidding the art of sculpture. He is trying to head off a problem that many of us have.

Have you ever wondered why the holy grail hasn't been discovered? Or why the ark of the covenant was hidden so long? Or why we have so very few relics of Jesus' time on Earth. It is simply this. We tend to get so hung up on physical objects that we completely forget what they represent.

I have a few religious items in my home. I have some crosses. I have a rosary. I have a number of bibles. But there are some things I absolutely refuse to have in my home. Beyond the nativity, I refuse to have a figurine of Jesus or Mary in my house. Why? Because there is a temptaion to focus on these things when we worship. Focussing on them soon leads to worship of the item itself.

I won't allow prayer to the saints in this room. Now there are some who say that to pray to a saint is merely the same as asking a friend to pray for you. The truth of the matter is that you don't know these people and they don't know you. You may know them someday. I hope you do, and that you can worship with them. But if you can't pass along your request without praying TO them, it is better to keep silent. The very first time you pray to a saint, you put them in the place of God. This is not appropriate. Prayer is first for Yaweh. If we desire to do so, we can also pray to Jesus or to the Holy Spirit. They are both God. It's unorthodox, but not wrong. But to ask some other person to intercede FOR you instead of praying directly to God is. It would be like me going to the minesterial alliance and saying to the other pastors "Hey, guys, you have a lot of pull with my Dad. Would you ask him to lend me fifteen bucks?" This shows a tremendous amount of disrespect for my father. When I want something from him, I go to him directly because I respect him.

Now for this week's challenge.

If you are unsaved, I want you to ask yourself why. What foolish thing is keeping you from your creator? Fear of persecution? Anger? Jealousy? Have you sworn allegience to some other deity, such as sex or scientism? Make use of your free will and choose that which is better. I can't make you choose. Even if I could, I wouldn't. The choice is yours.

For my fellow Christians, I encourage you to search your hearts and see if there is anything that has taken the place of God in any area of your life and take steps to put your God back in authority where He belongs.

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Pastor Oren Otter
April 22, 2006


Today's scripture reading
Exodus 20:1-6

20:1 And God spake all these words, saying,
2 I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
3 Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
4 Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:
5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;
6 And showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.