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Hey, thanks so much for listening to this message. My name is Jason and I'm one of the ministers here at the Madison Church of Christ. It's our hope and prayer that the teaching from God's Word you hear today will bless your life and draw you closer to him. If you're ever in the Madison, Alabama area, we'd love for you to worship with us on Sundays at 8:30 or 10:30am if you have any other questions about the Bible or want to know more about the Madison Church, find us@madisonchurch.org Be sure to also check out our Bible study podcast, Madison Church of Christ Bible Studies. Thanks again for stopping by.

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I know all of you are probably very similar to me in that you enjoy it when you see someone who gets scared to death.

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I know that's terrible. But, you know, Jason Hilton for years has posted a video every year of Gail Ortner, one we love so much. Worked with us in the office, and she would come down the hallways and Jason would jump out and just go, Gail.

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And when he would, she would, you know, make some kind of facial expression and we would capture all that. And, you know, it was always a fun thing. I know you've probably seen some videos online. I know I have. Of like, pets that were scared in moments, you know, they were on the table at a vet and they pull out the needle and that, you know, the dog just spasms and, you know, or screams out and yelps and all those kinds of things. I don't even know if any of those videos are AI or for real. I don't know.

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But I know they make me laugh every single time. But there's also. And you guys on this front little pew section right here are guilty of this. You'll go to a place during the fall, like a haunted house type thing, and you'll go through. And the whole idea is to go through and to be scared, right? And yet you go through. You pretend like you're not scared, you're tough and all those kinds of things. You're turning around a corner and you think somebody's gonna jump out and say something or come with a chainsaw or something. And then you get past that and you kind of relax. And then somebody does jump out and they got it set up so you relax a little bit. So when you hit a certain spot, bam, they get you. And then they capture that moment. And I love the reaction of the three guys you see on the screen here. The first one is just like parallel, you know, like he's. He's kind of in that spot. And then you've got another guy who is burying his head behind the other guy, trying to find a way to get away from everything.

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And then you look up and you have this other person who just leaps into action, I guess. I don't know, he just jumps on top of everybody. And that's what happens when we have that fight or flight moment of fear.

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Where fear hits us in an intense moment and it shocks our system and we go into action.

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But there's another kind of fear that is a little bit deeper. And it's one that kind of brings us to this place. And it's the recognition of God is present.

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We're humbled by his presence. We are in awe of Him. There is a reverential fear that comes to our heart and a reminder that he's great.

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We're going to talk about some things that bring us to this moment, this environment and this scene. As we think about the children of Israel.

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You know, something happens physiologically when we get to this spot where something happens. And it brings us to an awe and a fear and a humility that we have this fight or flight thing that happens in our system just in the same way that we experience like that shock and fear.

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But we're drawn to it. And what happens is our body is sent with adrenaline and all kinds of things to our system. And that adrenaline attaches itself to muscle receptors. And then those muscle receptors are ready for action. They're heightened. They're listening. Your eyes, you know, are wide open. And you begin to see everything around you. And you're ready to listen and to find out what might need to happen if something should happen. But you're paralyzed in that moment. And in that moment when all that's happening and that is not released into action like those pictures we just saw.

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What happens is the competing muscles in our bodies need to release that.

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And it creates a fear and trembling.

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That's the scene we find ourselves in. Exodus, chapter 19. It's not that shock and awe fear. It's that I am in the presence of God Almighty and I don't know what to do but to shake and tremble in his presence.

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Pretty awesome experience when you think about the Israelites coming out of Egyptian slavery.

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And I won't get into all the details of this, but after seeing those 10 plagues that happened to the Egyptians that triggered their departure out of Egypt, being rescued by Moses as he went in there and talked to them, Remember the culmination of that was they were released to go after the death of the firstborn, and they come to the Red Sea, and God and his power and might causes something that doesn't make sense to us. But he parted those waters, and the Israelites walked on dry ground.

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And what's even more powerful about that is as they walked across the dry ground, God caused the waters to collapse on that approaching Egyptian army. And so they were wiped out.

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God had rescued them.

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And so after you see all that and you recognize that for three months they've been going through the wilderness to arrive at this point at Mount Sinai, what happens in this situation is so unbelievable that God's presence descends upon Mount Sinai and he gives to them what we refer to as the Ten Commandments.

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Now, I don't know how it was when you grew up. I grew up. And maybe some of you are hearing it this way even now, is you heard a lot of Thou shalt and thou shalt not, right? And so we talk about the Ten Commandments, and we use them sort of as weapons. Thou shalt and thou shalt not. And we say those things.

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And I think, unfortunately, what happens over time is we make those sort of the identity or the concept of hard and laborious and a heavy burden to bear. They're restrictive and they're difficult to follow. And while we do know that all the 613 commands that we receive in the law are very oppressive to follow, these 10 actually come not as a. Let me set you guys straight, but if we could just stop for a moment and think of these commandments as coming at a time where there was appreciation and love and gratitude and awe of the God who would come to their rescue.

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And so what we want to do in this series as we have begun today, is to talk about each of those Ten Commandments and to explain each one of them, what they meant, how they affected us or how they affected the Israelites, but also what connections it was meant to bring us to. If you'll remember, there's Ten Commandments. And some of those commandments are meant to be a reminder of our relationship with God. And then others of them are meant to be a way for us to relate to one another and to build relationships and connections with each other. And so we've called this Divine Connections, meaning this message. These ten Commandments that we received were not just, you know, kind of ritualistic, obedience type things. It was things meant to draw us into a deeper relationship with God and each other.

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And so before I get to this story at Mount Sinai and we dig deep into that, I just Kind of want you to see the hand of God throughout the history and how it led up to this point. And I'll try to be as brief as I can. But I think it's important for us to be reminded that God's in control. His providence is so powerful, and to see how he has worked things in place to get us to where we are at this moment at Mount Sinai. I'm going to start with Moses at Mount Sinai. And you may say, well, how do we want to go back and talk about Moses at Mount Sinai before this moment? There's another time that God was working, going back to that history. There's a reason that the Israelites were over in Egypt. It was actually through the providence of God. If you'll remember, God promised Abraham that he would make a great nation of him. And he said, the people that bless you will be blessed. The people that curse you will be cursed. And he says, I'm going to make a great nation. Well, of course, he didn't have a descendant. He ultimately has one named Isaac. And we know all the story there. And then from Isaac, you go from Abraham to Isaac to Jacob. Jacob became known later as Israel. And he had 12 sons, and they were known as the 12 Tribes of Israel, we'll later find out.

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But it's those 12 sons, and one of them in particular who was the favorite.

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And that did not sit well with the brothers.

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His name was Joseph. And you'll remember the story. His brothers, out of jealousy, sold him into slavery, faked his death.

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And Joseph was there to serve in different places through a series of God working in Joseph's life. It says that God made everything that he did successful.

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And so for all these providential ways, God brought him back into the palace of the pharaoh and he made him the Pharaoh, made Joseph second in command in all of Egypt.

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In the midst of all this, those brothers that had betrayed him were in the midst of a terrible famine. And because of Joseph's leadership, Egypt was doing really well during that time. And so other nations would come to them for aid.

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And so as the other nations would come, ultimately the family of Jacob, all of Joseph's brothers, came in to ask for aid for him.

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Well, again, this is amazing, but it led to a reunion of sorts and an offering to bring all of his descendants, all of his family, into that area of Egypt, into a land called Goshen. And it's while they were there that there were tons of them that grew like they multiplied in amazing amounts, and they were protected there. But there came A time where there was a pharaoh that did remember Joseph. And because of that, he started looking over there and saying, hey, this is a threatening group.

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This nation has gotten so big and powerful that we need to take hold of them. And so they put them into the bondage of slavery.

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And there's a lot of time that's passed during this time, but they did some things to control the population. And one of those things was they wanted to kill the Hebrew babies. Well, if you remember the story, one mother in particular had the courage to do something about that, and she took her son, who we know now to be baby Moses, put him in that basket, made it so it could float on the water, and by providence of God, he ends up in the palace again of Pharaoh.

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So Pharaoh's daughter takes care of him, and he grows, but he's brought up in large part by his mother.

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And so what happens is he knows he's a Hebrew, but he's there in Egypt, and he begins to really recognize the abuse that's taking place to his, his people. And so he sees a taskmaster who is wearing some slave out, and he goes over and attacks him and he kills him. And in that process, he flees and he ends up in a place called Midian, and he's serving as a shepherd in the house of Jethro, his father in law.

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Amazing story that brings us to this culminating point where while he's out with sheep, God appears to him around the mountain range of Mount Sinai in a burning bush. And you'll remember that right where God says to him, hey, I need you to go into Egypt and to take, to bring them out of that Egyptian slavery. I'll send you there. And so Moses has all kinds of questions and he's got all excuses, but ultimately he says, who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt? He said, but I will be with you, and this shall be a sign for you. This is the sign. Now, this is amazing that I have sent you when you have brought the people out of Egypt.

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You shall serve God on this mountain. Here's the sign Moses is you're going to go to Egypt. All the things that I'm telling you are going to take place. And by the way, he was going to see and experience those 10 plagues. He was going to be the one that delivered the warnings of those things. He was going to see all that happening, and then he was going to bring them out. They were going to cross that Red Sea and find themselves here at Mount Sinai again. And. And that when he shows up at Sinai, would be the reminder, the thing that goes, wow, God is so powerful and he is so amazing.

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So here he is now, back at that mountain with the children of Israel. So let's discuss real quickly what that rescue was like. Chapter 19 of Exodus, if you want to follow with me, will be mostly in chapter 19 and then just a little bit in chapter 20.

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On the third new moon, after the people of Israel had gone out of the land of Egypt, on that day, they came into the wilderness of Sinai.

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There, Israel encamped before the mountain while Moses went up to God and the Lord called to him out of the mountain, saying, thus you shall say to the people of the house of Jacob and tell the people of Israel. Again, connecting the dots back to the promise that was given to Abraham long time ago and the household of Jacob, those 12 sons and. And those 12 tribes, and that nation of Israel. You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians and how I bore you on eagle's wings and brought you to myself.

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Now, this is kind of a Hebrew idiom. It's a phrase that would bring kind of an idea to them.

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The thought was that eagles don't take their young and put them in their talons and fly from place to place, but rather they attach them to their backs and that they fly. Well, I don't know that bird watchers necessarily see this happening necessarily in these times, but the idea was this was a metaphor for protection and watch over your children. In other words, an arrow would have to come through an eagle before it struck their children. It was the idea of, I took you from one place that was terrible, and I brought you into a land of safety. And so he's using this kind of as a way for them to understand exactly what took place. Of course, they've lived it.

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And while it's been three months ago, they still understood and they're still talking and still buzzing about that.

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But God didn't deliver Israel in order to bring them across and say, okay, you guys go somewhere else. No, he brought them out of love, out of concern for them, out of a joy in bringing them back. Because he wanted to be their God and he wanted them to be his people.

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So here's the covenant offering here in chapter 19, verses 5 and 6.

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It says, now, therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine, and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are words you shall speak to the people of Israel.

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And again, as we think about this, there's kind of some imagery that comes to mind, right? Some New Testament connections where, you know, we realize later in the church there's like a spirit, spiritual Israel, so to speak, that we are that royal priesthood, that holy nation set apart by God, people of good works and those kinds of things that God ultimately is using this sort of as a framework to build toward that other thing. But understand what he's saying here. There's going to make a covenant. He's offering a relationship with them. And if you're like me, you grew up maybe confused about what's the difference between a contract and a covenant. Well, here are just a few ways to kind of help us understand that. The first is a contract is an exchange of property in the form of goods and services. In other words, that's mine and this is yours. But a covenant is a little bit different in that it involves people. There's a relationship, I am yours and you are mine. That's why when we talk about wedding ceremonies, we talk about this is a covenant not just between the two of these people, but also a covenant with God. It's a relationship that's not to be broken.

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So I am yours and you are mine. Creating a shared bond or an interpersonal relationship.

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But also a contract stands a little bit differently in that it's temporary. In other words, there may be an expiration date on this contract when it finally finishes up and that contract is no longer valid. Or it could be that there's certain things that have to meet that need to get to a fulfillment. Or it could be that that contract is dissolved because someone failed to meet their end of the bargain.

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Right? But with a covenant, it's not like that. It's meant to be permanent, lifelong, eternal, and it's binding those parties even if one should fail.

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So when we stop and think about that, God is in their culture, in their time, looking to be one who brings them into this close relationship. That's pretty amazing.

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So then we imagine for a moment Israel's response. Now, it comes with conditions, right? As we see this contract, we see the conditions that are there. You need to hear my voice and you need to obey my commands. That's part of that conditional aspect of it. This is like a covenant between, like a king and the people that serve him.

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But it's in the form of a relationship, not in the sense of a task master. So it's a beautiful situation. And I think what we have to do right now, before we start going, oh, well, they're going to find obedience and bow before him and those kinds of things. Yes, they are.

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But stop for just a moment and take in the appreciation for what God has done for them. As you are here on Mount Sinai and you've seen the God of heaven, the God of the universe who has come to you, he has rescued you from that slavery, he has brought you to this place. And now this God is saying, I want a relationship with you. I want to be your God. Of course that response is needed. And this is what it says. They say, so Moses came and called the elders of the people and set before them all these words that the Lord had commanded him. And all the people answered together and said, all that the Lord has spoken, we will do.

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And Moses reported the words back to the Lord. So in other words, they were like, are you kidding me? Of course. This is one of those moments where you're excited about this God who rescued us is now going to be our God.

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You say to yourself, maybe. Well, didn't they already know he was God?

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Well, obviously, God had heard their prayers while they were over in Egypt. He heard their cries for help.

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But as you know, when you live in certain environments and certain cultures, you know, without the absence of being able to freely experience that, you begin to consume and take in some of the surroundings. And in the Egyptian world, there were all kinds of gods.

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And so because of that, God was bringing them back to, like, I'm going to be your God.

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And while some of you may have heard of me, I want to reveal myself to you. So this is a beautiful moment where their response is, they agree to it. But there were some things that had to be done to consecrate them, to set them apart. And again, some of this, as we see it sometimes in our culture, even this may be a little bit offensive to us in that God is kind of setting some parameters. He's putting some boundaries in place. The first thing is he said, hey, you need to cleanse yourself. You need to wash your clothes. You need to clean up and set yourself apart. Make yourself holy. Make yourself clean, okay? And then also, don't go to the edge of this mountain. Listen, that's hard for us, right? Cause we go, there's a boundary there. There's a distance between us and the God who says he loves us. But I want to make clear that when you think about this, God is recognizing just how powerful and how awesome he is.

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And as they are approaching him, he's not trying to create the distance. He's actually creating a safety barrier because they cannot manage to handle his presence. And we'll talk more about that in just a few moments.

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But he also says, be ready for the third day. Don't go into a woman. So he's saying, like, abstain from sexuality.

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He was saying, don't get one foot on the side of this mountain.

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Stay close enough away and consecrate yourselves and be ready for the third day.

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I think in our time, we don't like boundaries.

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We don't like people saying, you can't do this.

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And I think if we're really being honest and maybe this is something to challenge, all of us is on some level, we want to bring our God down to where we are.

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And I think we may be guilty of that. We talk about. We want to be, you know, connecting with and in a relationship that's kind of back and forth. We want kind of a buddy as a God, but that makes a pretty poor God.

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And he is trying to say, hey, there's a difference between me and you. And for your own good, I'm creating this distance so you will understand the awe and the power and the supremacy and the sovereignty of God Almighty. And so he's creating this safety area for them out of love for them to say, you can't handle being in my presence just yet, and you need to take a moment to just check your heart, consecrate yourself, and be ready to receive what is about to happen.

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So let's talk about God's presence here real quick. We read it already, but I want to ask you to do something as we read this this morning.

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Because as I read this, I've read it I don't know how many times this past week, but every time, I kind of get a different image in my mind about what this is. So I encourage you, pick up your Bible and turn with me to Exodus 19 if you can.

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If you don't have your Bible with you, but you can visualize things, I want you to close your eyes as we read this situation where God comes into the camp and lands on Mount Sinai. Starting in verse 16 of Exodus 19, on the morning of the third day, there were thunders and lightnings and a thick cloud on the mountain and a very loud trumpet blast so that all the people in the camp trembled. That's that fear.

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Then Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God, and they took their stand at the foot of the mountain.

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Now Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke because the Lord had descended on it in fire.

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The smoke of it went up like the smoke of a kiln, and the whole mountain trembled greatly.

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And as the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses spoke. And then God answered him in thunder.

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Man, can you just for a moment imagine this scene here?

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I do imagine it looking something like this.

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Maybe there were people who were, you know, protecting people from getting on the. On the. On the base of the mountain. Maybe there were people who were bow down in fear worshiping him. Maybe there were people who were scared to death running around.

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Probably a chaotic scene of sorts. But catch this. God's voice created thunder. Like the power of God's voice leveled them, caused them to tremble, caused the mountain to shake, and his presence was near. Now, if we turn back over to a little bit, to Exodus, chapter 20, I want you to understand that after he reads, after God gives them all these ten commandments, there's something that's said about what all happened in the midst of that. It says now in verse 18. Now, when the people saw the thunder and the flashes of lightning and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking, the people were afraid and trembled and stood afar off and said to Moses, moses, you speak to us and we will listen, but do not let God speak to us, lest we die. Do you understand? Now, looking back at God's presence created such a fear that some of them thought they may die. That's the kind of presence he is. That's the kind of power and sovereignty that he is. And so I say all that to say, look, it's impossible for us to recreate that moment as we imagine it. But I just want you to understand that as God is saying, hey, let's keep this boundary. It's for their own good. It's actually an act of kindness and mercy toward them because he wants them to. To hear him, but he does not want them to be consumed by them in this moment.

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It's a moment of absolute awe.

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And so in that setting, God spoke these words, saying in the voice of thunder, I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

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Understand? What he's saying is it's. I'm the one who did this for you. I'm the one who coordinated. I'm the one who worked all these things. I'm the one that brought the plagues. I'm the one that created the suffering. I'm the one that brought the rescue. I'm the one that opened up the Red Sea. I'm the One that brought you to this place. I am God and I want you to understand that.

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So the Israelites were delivered out of the bondage of Pharaoh and into a place.

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They were invited into, a place of belonging to a God who loves and who rescues. Can we just camp out on that for just a second?

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Think about the God who loves and rescues.

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Doesn't it? If we stop and think about it just a moment bring us kind of visions of what Jesus did for us.

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Doesn't as we understand it, that we're enslaved to sin? We're caught up in a terrible situation. And the only rescue that can be is God comes down in the presence of Jesus.

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He literally clothes himself with flesh and he walks among us. And we behold him as the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. And he comes and he teaches the right things, but he also loves us.

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That's the God that we're talking about. And he's the one that rescued us from slavery. Jesus died on the cross to pay the ultimate price for all of our sins. And so we're freed from that slavery and we're brought into rescue. Don't you understand?

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As he's saying these things to them, he's reminding them of where they've been and what he has brought them to.

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And so we get the Ten Commandments.

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And again, we've always thought of them as thou shalt, Thou shalt nots, and we talk about them being called commandments. But would you know that even the Bible doesn't refer to them as the Ten Commandments?

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It refers to them as the words. If you look in Exodus, chapter 34, verse 28, and I don't understand the Hebrew like some people do.

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Richard Turner's gonna be speaking to us next week, and he does study Hebrew quite a bit. And he can probably dig into this a little bit more. But the way this is structured, and when it refers to these words that Jesus said, it refers to them as the words of the covenant, the ten words. Deuteronomy 4, 13, 4. It refers to them as the ten words.

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When we get into the Greek translations, you know, of the. Of the Hebrew law, and we look at that, it also refers to them as the ten words, or what they refer to as the Decalogue.

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Why am I saying all this?

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It's because we understand them to be commands. We understand them to be authoritative and directions for how we live our lives.

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But I think we think of it as restrictive rules. Whereas God is trying to say this is a connection that I want to feel with you. And the way for you to receive all of these blessings is to understand the things that I need you to do. And so he is telling them very clearly the things that they must do in order to receive his blessing, his protection, his provision, his rescue.

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And so these things are sayings, they're utterances, and yes, they are commands, but they're meant to be a blessing to us, to help us understand how to be pleasing before God. So these words of agreement, they guaranteed this connection and a relationship between us and God, but also to each other.

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And again, how he took us out of bondage, or took them out of bondage and brought rescue to them.

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So here are those ten Commandments, and we're going to go through each one of them. And I think what we are trying to do in this series is to take each one of these commands, help us understand what it meant, but then also show, like, different narratives in the Scriptures that might help support this and kind of give it some substance so we can feel exactly what it meant and how it came to be that God demonstrated these things. And so here are the Ten Commandments as we know them. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.

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Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Honor your father and mother shall not murder, shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. And you shall not covet your neighbor's house or possessions.

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And so These are the 10 principles, guiding thoughts, markers of obedience that I think remind us of what we need to do to find this blessing in God. But when we think about those tablets, it's good to maybe even look at Scripture and see, kind of understand how those things were made. I think we've all wondered, you know, we see these images and movies with Moses and the Ten Commandments and him breaking them in Exodus chapter 32. We're going to talk about that just in a moment.

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But how those tablets kind of came to be. It tells us that they were in Exodus 31, verse 18, and Deuteronomy 9:10, that they were made and etched by the finger of God.

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Wouldn't you love to see that?

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Wouldn't you have loved to have seen God's hand print on those commandments?

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But then In Exodus chapter 32, it gives us the impression there was two stone tablets and they were identical, meaning they were written on the front and the back. And so each one of them were Meant to be a copy for the two parties in the covenant.

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And, you know, we know that later that when Moses came down and he saw the golden calf and he broke those commandments, and, you know, there's something symbolic about that, too, as he came back up, God actually made him chisel out those stone tablets again. And then God etched those rules again. And it was a reminder that it was you guys who broke the covenant, not me.

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And so Moses had to repair those and build them.

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But it's also a picture of God's grace and mercy in that he restored that covenant back again.

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And so that's a powerful thing to be reminded of as well. But also, the place where the tablets were kept was also kind of something to remind us of his presence.

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God was supposed to come when they built the tabernacle. The ark of the covenant was supposed to bear the presence of God. And those tablets were put inside the ark of the covenant in that most holy place in the tabernacle, the place where God would come and meet them. But. But their copy of that was also in the ark because that was the place where they resided together.

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So, again, just a common thing to understand their being together, and they're unified in this covenant. Now, I won't get into all the details here, but over time, these 10 commandments or these 10 words became kind of the foundational principles about everything. We know that God gave them another 600 plus commands to follow.

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But these 10 were kind of the baseline of all of that. And that's good because we see it consistently all the way through Scripture. They're repeated over and over in different prophets and even Jesus himself. Do you remember when the rich young ruler came to him and said, hey, good teacher, what do I do to inherit eternal life? And he says, well, follow the commands, right? Even Jesus understood that these are foundationally principled. If you love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself, as he jailed those commands down, he said, then you'll understand what obedience is all about. And of course, Jesus could see through him and see what his real failings were, that his riches were things that he was holding onto.

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But ultimately, those commands were meant to be understood and lived out. Jesus actually referred to them in that way, that they were a part of the importance, part of our obedience.

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So having that all in the background and understanding that God is here to give them these commands. And here's the first one. You shall have no other gods before me.

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Now it's interesting in Hebrew again, Not a scholar, but as I've looked at this and tried to research this, it literally translates like this, not shall be to you gods, others upon my face.

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And so as you look at that kind of choppy language, and if you look at it from their perspective, what's happened is there's actually a lot of struggle in finding the exact translation of how that goes and the right interpretation for how it should be translated. And so there's all kinds of confusion about this. But in the midst of all this, I think something that's very amazing, and if you like to take pictures and you want something to kind of digest a little bit, here's one where take your camera out and take a photo of this chart. Because it kind of digs into the theology of. Of this command of God, which is, there have no other gods before me. Look at it. There's a hierarchical sense in which you can look at it to say that there's no other gods before me. It's the idea that there's no one in sequence that's higher than God. Also there's the interpretation of, like, proximity. There's no one that can stand in his presence.

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There's exclusivity in the sense that there's no one besides Him.

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There's oppositional meaning. There's no one out there that could possibly defy Him. It gives us kind of a way to look at this, and then finally, you shall have no other gods ahead of me. And the idea is that there is one single rival that could possibly find himself at the same level of our God. And the bottom line is all those things that may be a confusing chart to you, but what I'm telling you is translators for years and years have struggled with this, but they ultimately come to this. And this is the truth, that there's no God higher than him, no God near to him, no God in front of him, no God before him, and no God beside him.

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I can't help in all that confusion to just think that God was right in the middle of all this, to help us realize when he says there's no other God that can stand in my face, what he's saying is there is nothing else that could possibly measure up to the God that we serve.

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So let's look at a real quick story.

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There's so much to absorb here, and I'm going to kind of gel it down as best I can. But in First Kings, chapter 18, you have Elijah and this showdown with the prophets of BAAL on Mount Carmel. If you remember that story Ahab can't stand Elijah, and Elijah can't stand Ahab. And there's this big challenge that's made. And so Elijah says, I want you to take all the prophets of baal.

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This is a God. And there's so much to absorb here that it was a God over weather and a lot of different things, the fertile lands and different things, that BAAL was a representation of all of these different things.

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And there were 450 prophets that helped lead this worship to Baal. There were also 400 other prophets of Asherah, which is another false God that Jezebel, Ahab's wife, had brought into the Israel camp. And so here's the thing that we need to be understanding is Jezebel was one who brought all these false gods into the Israelite camp, but kind of suggested that there was a way for them to do both to serve God and also to serve baal. But again, we know what the command says. We know what this first word of God is, that there is no other God before him.

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And so Elijah brings us all to a head and says, have everyone gather on Mount Carmel.

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They do. And he's standing there and he says this as you guys are, are contemplating in your mind which God you want to serve. He says, how long are you going to stumble around and divided between these two opinions? If God is God, then serve him. If BAAL is God, then serve him. And so he kind of challenges them to stop and just observe what we're about to see. And so he gives the prophets of baal, they already have an altar ready there. He says, go ahead, kill a bull. Put it on the altar. Call fire down from your gods. And if it fires it up, then people will know that your God is real.

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And so the prophets of BAAL began by calling on their gods to bring fire down to ignite that sacrifice, that altar that's already prepared. And they do it for quite a while. And after a while, Elijah gets to where he's kind of smack talking a little bit. He says, well, maybe you need to speak a little bit louder. Maybe he's relieving himself somewhere. Maybe he's on a trip someplace. But ultimately, you know, as the evening and the day went on, from morning until noon, they kept on calling out, and it got more and more accelerated to the point where they started cutting themselves and bleeding out and screaming and calling out for their gods to come down and to light up that sacrifice.

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But there was no sound, no response, no sacrifice burned.

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So then Elijah does kind of an object lesson he goes over and he sees that the.

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The altar has been broken down that was once there to serve God and to worship God. And so very carefully, he takes those 12 stones and reminds all of the people that These are the 12 stones of the tribes of Israel. And he gets that bull and he puts it up on the altar. And then he has them douse the whole thing with water multiple times, just completely saturated.

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And then he turns and he looks to God and he says, God, I need you to show these people that you are the only God and that all the things that I am doing are by your direct command.

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And so, man, God sends fire down from heaven, and it lights up that sacrifice, completely incinerates the bull, the altar, the stones, the dust, and laps up all that water that's around, and it's gone. And immediately all the people in that moment when God's presence showed up did the same thing they did at Mount Sinai.

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They fell to their knees and they said, he is God, the Lord of Israel is God.

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And they were convinced of it.

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That's what happens when God's presence shows up.

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That's why he has proved himself over and over that he alone is God.

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So God in this story is showing us that there's a zero tolerance, you know, on us having a divided loyalty or any kind of compromise at all. He wants all of our love, all of our focus, all of our commitment.

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But then also in this moment, God exposes all other idols. They're just powerless fakes.

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And again, he has proved it. There is no God before him.

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And then finally, this is the one I think probably connects with most of us, is God is a God who responds to our courage, to our faith.

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He is there in those moments where we step up in faith.

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Think about it.

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If something that we teach or that you read in the scriptures convicts you enough to where you change, where you want to repent, what happens?

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God provides the rescue.

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He's there for you. What about if it's a moment where you're looking at something and you haven't been obedient, but you choose to obey, what happens? Well, he provides the blessing as a result of that. And what happens when we stand up in moments where we need to have courage of our faith? Well, guess what? He provides that protection. And what happens when we demonstrate that trust on a daily basis? He gives us the provisions that we need in life?

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Do you see? He is the God that we can pour all of our confidence into, and there's no one like him.

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I think a question for all of us to maybe ponder in our minds is have we really appreciated the awesomeness of the God we serve and how much he loves us and how badly he wants a relationship with you?

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That should cause us to want to do what the Israelites said, Anything you say, I will do. And yeah, we're going to falter. Yeah, we're going to make mistakes from time to time, but our heart should say, no, he is the God of Heaven, and yes, absolutely, I will serve him with all that I've got.

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But then what about this? What happens if all of us get to that spot where we are in absolute awe and reverential fear of God? And what happens when all of us put our trust in him and live for Him? That's a question for all of us to answer today.

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I just think that when it all shakes out, we have to recognize that this God is a God of rescue and there's no one like Him.

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Don't you want to give your life to Him?

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Don't you want to submit and give your life to Him? That just means that Jesus came and died for us. And because he died for us, we. We have this opportunity to respond to that mercy that God has given us. And when we do, we come forward and we say, I want to empty myself. I want to kind of pour this person out and kind of start anew. And so you're baptized into Christ and your sins are washed away and you had this new life in Christ and you can live in fear and awe of him every single day and be joyful in your obedience and to see his blessing and his promises and the way he takes care of his people and the way he loves us. That your life will never be the same.

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But it may be that you are just struggling and that you haven't made following God your priority this morning. If there's anything we can do for you at all, I hope you'll come. While we stand, sing.