1st Commandment

Sermon by Rev. Erik Sandstrom

Lesson: "You shall have no other Gods before Me”

Sermon: God is infinite but we are finite. God created the finite universe so that there could be human beings to love. For the end or purpose of creation is a Heaven from the human race. People exist on earth so that by living by the Commandments, they are saved and become angels after death. As we read in the Psalm, “I have waited for thy salvation of Jehovah and have done thy Commandments”. And the Lord said on earth, “He who keeps my Commandments, he it is that loves Me, and those who have done good will come forth to the resurrection of life”. And we read, “Every Commandment from the Word has for its end, the salvation of souls”. But since God is infinite and we are finite, He must speak to us in finite, comprehensible terms. For everything God says, the Word of God is written in finite terms which command us how to worship God. And all worship uses finite things from groves of trees, mountains, tabernacles and temples, and images today such things as church buildings, alters, the lectern and the pulpit, sacred equipment and vestments. Finite things take on a holiness by their Divine use. Thus the Word of God is Holy and from it, the alter can be called Holy. The ark was holy from the Commandment Tables in it and from it, the tabernacle and temple of Solomon had the Holy of Holies bound to Herod’s temple at the Advent. All places of worship have sanctuaries, (thus an external such as the alter), can itself be treated as if it is holy.

But human beings, just because we are finite, are likely at times not to believe in God’s message. And so, idolatry began with worshipping external things without the internal. When an external object which is holy by association with God or with worship, is itself treated as holy, then there is idolatry. Thus we read, “Each thing that represents Divine things such as sacrifices, meat offerings, libations, frankincense, perpetual fires and many other things meant something internal but as the internal or the Divine things that were represented were separated, these externals became merely idolatrous”. The more internal the idolatry, the more it condemns. However, some in merely external idolatry can still acknowledge God and be in charity but they do not know who the God of the universe is. After death, if they are good, such people meet sprits who take on the form of the idols that they worshipped and thus they rid themselves of their fantasies.

So there has been a history of idolatry as long as human beings have worshipped. Since we are commanded to worship God so that we can be taught His Word, and how to live by His Commandments for the sake of our salvation, we are, therefore, confused between external things and their internal meanings. This is because when the men of those churches we read from being internal became external, then the celestial and spiritual things which were represented remained as traditions with their priest and wise men. Consequently, the common people, because of their religious principle which their fathers saw in these things, began to worship the priests and the wise men and to call them their God. Church leaders and ancestors ended up being worshipped; their images after their death raised to the power of Gods and Goddesses. The first slip towards idolatry to avoid, therefore, making internal things external.

That is why we have the First Commandment. Its internal meaning is no other God than the Lord Jesus Christ is to be worshipped because He is Jehovah who came into the world and wrought the redemption without which neither man nor angel could have been saved. Applied to the pre-advent eras, this Commandment prohibited the worship of statues and images such as a golden calf or the golden image of Nebuchadnezzar.

Carried over into the post-advent eras, this Commandment prohibits the worship of saints, Mary and icons or pictures of holy events. For even mere mortals such as church leaders or ancestors, to kiss the feet of the images of saints is not even to be Christian but to be a Gentile. And to us, “Thou Shalt Have No Other Gods Before My Faces” means to value all things from the standards of Divine qualities such as infinite love, mercy, peace and good from the Lord himself.

Thus all externals of worship and all mundane things in our lives should be kept subordinate to something of love, mercy, peace and good from the Lord. A sign that we are able to do this is that we should be able to drop everything to talk about the Lord at any time.

So how do we really apply such teachings? A repository for the Word in the home is good, but our mind is the real house where we live. We can promote good love by casting out evil ones or wandering lusts. We are, of course, not guilty of stray thoughts since they come unbidden.

We can check and purify our thoughts especially about the evils of what the Writings call three universal kinds of idolatry; the love of self, the love of the world and the love of pleasures. All three of these know not and care not for eternal life. Idolatry denies that we are saved by God for a heaven after death. Instead, just as in the new age philosophy of today, God is within oneself, We are all one and everyone can save themselves for a heaven of their own making here on earth. Just channel your spirits to the personal enlightenment, they say. But it is just not so.

Worship without the Word of the Lord is either Gentilism or idolatry. This love is idolatrous and has no part of worship. Nothing in worship can be for the sake of mere pleasure. That is why we read in Isaiah, “If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath from doing your pleasure on My Holy Day and call the Sabbath a delight, the Holy Day of the Lord, honourable and shall honour Him, not doing your own ways nor finding your own pleasures, nor speaking your own words, then you shall delight yourself in the Lord.”

This means that nothing is to be done from one’s own but only from the Lord who is the Sabbath. The habits of the natural man don’t care for eternal life. We “turn the foot back from the Sabbath” by removing such habits for Church. The loves of self and the world and their own pleasure can be turned aside before worship by, as it were, dressing our minds, even our bodies for Church. For to be lead by one’s own loves and not by the Lord, who in the supreme sense is the Sabbath, we read, is to profane the Sabbath. Thus the Lord also said, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath”. The Sabbath, therefore, should dress us for itself, not we for ourselves.

And so the internal preface of worship is not pleasure but instruction. We read, “The quality of the worship is from the goods and truths of doctrine for worship is nothing but an external act in which there should be the internals which are of doctrine. Without these, the worship is without its essence, life and soul.” And so inmostly, worship is instruction by the Lord by doctrine. The Lord is doctrine itself. The internal of worship is adoration, the love of truth for its own sake, love of the neighbor or mutual love. But the love of pleasures separates celestial and spiritual things from their proper externals, and they then become mere traditions and people end up worshipping their leaders as gods.

So let us beware of following mere pleasure or mere mortals. Even priests are foolish if they take glory to themselves. Priests teach the truth and we read, “To be taught from the Word is to be taught by the Lord Himself”. Thus, even if the Word is taught by priests, it is still the Lord who teaches it; it is truth, not priests, that leads to good. Thus, the Lord both teaches and leads and is alone to be adored.

We are commanded to adore the Lord alone. This can, of course, take place with rejoicing and glad voices raised to the Lord, exalting Him. That is the Lord’s pleasure. But the Lord does not command this for His own sake which would be selfish, and it is inconceivable we read, that there is anything of love of self in the Divine. But humiliation, adoration and thanksgiving are commanded for the sake of man himself; for when man is in these, he is separated from evils which are obstacles and so, adoration is for man’s own sake so that the Lord can flow in with heavenly good, and the same for humiliation and thanksgiving. (A 5957)

Therefore, since external rituals must be part of worship in order for it to be worship, they must, therefore, correspond to internal things. In the New Church, there is to be no external separate from an internal. Hence, while in the world men ought to be in external worship which keeps him in holiness and excites internal things to flow in. Then, the internal things of the Word, of the church or worship, are received.

The worshipper from internal affection and the love of truth for its own sake rejoices to hear those truths and immediately starts thinking about a life in accordance with them. For real worship is, in fact, the life of charity. When external rituals correspond to internal things, they feed the love of truth for its own sake.

So, what are the truths about external rituals? They are frequenting places of worship, here in sermons, prayers, adorations, confessions, singing devoutly, and approaching the Holy Supper. All of these rituals, we are taught, should proceed from internals of love and charity. If they do not, the worshipers are spiritually like the Canaanites, who had external worship separated from the internal.

Internal worship alone, we read, acts as a bond that withholds man from idolatry. All orderly external rituals, even ancient sacrifices and burnt offerings, replaced today by more suitable rituals, have the Lord’s Divine Human at it’s core. All rituals of worship regard the Lord alone; for the first thing in all worship is an acknowledgement of the Divine in the Lord’s Human.

The Lord’s Divine Human is revealed nowhere more fully than in the Writings of the New Church. The Divine Human is an image that can burn in our hearts. It is the Divine Human that teaches doctrine to our love of truth for the sake of truth and life according to it, in mutual love. This is why the First Commandment means that no other God than the Lord Jesus Christ is to be worshipped because He is Jehovah, who came into the world and wrought redemption. It actually takes an act of faith to see how the Lord is both Creator and Redeemer. That is why the disciples in that boat, worship Him saying, “Truly you are the Son of God”.

In His Second Advent, this same Lord gave us a picture of one Divine person with rays of heavenly light above His head with the inscription over it: “This is Our God”. Such an image of the Divine Human, given us in the Word of Doctrine, is no idol. The inscription has to be read correctly – Creator and Saviour.

It is vital for us, therefore, to see the Lord Jesus Christ as our God, Creator, Redeemer, Regenerator, and therefore, our Savior. The same God who created the universe, also came on earth to redeem mankind and save it from the hell of its own making. He was in the world and the world was made through Him and the world knew Him not. This is the Lord, the Divine Human.

If we remove selfish finite obstacles and subordinate all external things in worship and in life, we live the doctrine of the Word, given at His Second Coming. We turn our path, our external things away from the Sabbath by attending church for the sake of our own spiritual welfare and not for our own pleasure. We worship the Lord directly. Without such an order to our worship and consequent life, we are in danger of following mere traditions or men as idols, and not the Lord.

It is the First Commandment, “I am the Lord Your God, who brought you out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other Gods before My faces”. And so we turn in worship to no other God than the Lord Jesus Christ because He is Jehovah, who came into the world and wrought redemption.

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