(Exodus) Exodus 20:3-7

Now, let's look at the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments are divided into two major divisions. One is a man's relationship to God, and the other is a man's relationship to man.

Now, let's look at this, and we'll find that we have four commandments, man's relationship to God. Now, the first, I am the Lord thy God, which hath brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

Now, he condemns polytheism. You see, there's no commandment against atheism. Why? Because there was no atheism in that day.

They were too close to the mooring mask of revelation. You have to wait till you get to the time of David, and at that time atheists began to appear, but he was called a fool. David said, The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God.

Now, today he can be a college professor and considered to be an intellect, a brain, and you wonder whether he's so smart after all. Frankly, I've had to move with that group. I taught for a while in seminary and college, and I've moved with a few of these PhDs and these fellows, they call them brains, they call them an intellect.

And may I say to you, some of the dumbest I've ever met are those that have a PhD degree. That is, they may be smart in one line, they may have a photographic mind, but boy, are they stupid in other relations. So that atheism was not prevalent then.

It's prevalent in our day because we're too far from the mooring mass and men not willing to accept the revelation of God in His Word. He says, Thou shalt have no other gods before me, because in that day the pendulum of the clock was in polytheism, the worship of many gods. And today it's the worship of no god.

The important thing to note here is that God condemns polytheism, that when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, they became vain in their imagination, their foolish heart was darkened, and they began at that time to serve and worship the creature more than the Creator. That's what he's talking about here. Now, this deals with idolatry.

Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image or any likeness of anything that's in heaven above, that's in earth beneath, or that's in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them nor serve them, for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, vesting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me. Now, someone says, well, that sure doesn't touch us today because we don't worship idols.

I think we do. We're told today covetousness is idolatry. And anything that you give yourself to, especially in abandonment, that's your God.

And a great many people today, they don't worship Bacchus, the cloven-footed God, but they worship the bottle. Just same, friends. Just think of the millions of alcoholics in this country right now.

And that's one of the big problems. The liquor interests like to tell us about how much taxes they pay. They are not even paying today one hundredth of the bill of the casualties they're causing in the world.

That is one of the propagandas that is being fed this generation. And if there ever were a group of people that had been brainwashed, we are those people today. And people worship the bottle.

They worship the god Bacchus. And some worship Aphrodite. That's the goddess of sex.

There are those that worship that. Some worship the almighty dollar. That's a great god today.

Anything you give your time to, God says you to have no other gods before you. And then he says here in verse 7, I'm just lifting out these commandments. Thou shall not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.

And that means in the way of blasphemy. And today that's becoming very prevalent. It's still a commandment of God.

Why is it wrong to take his name in vain? Because he's God and he's holy. And it does reveal a lack of vocabulary. A great many people can express themselves without using profanity.

A man that was wonderfully converted several years ago down in Texas, he was telling me in the little town we lived in, he said that when I got converted, I lost over half of my vocabulary. And that's what he meant. He was taking God's name in vain.