The First Commandment Series

And God spoke all these words: I am the

Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the

land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me.

In the book, The Doctor Of Crows Nest, and old doctor

Ferguson fell in love with the hands of young Barney Boyle.

"You must be a surgeon, Barney," he said. "You've got the

fingers and the nerves!" Barney was hesitant, but the

doctor pointed out all the advantages and the help he could

be to others. He concluded, "Ah, boy, God knows I'd give

my life to be a great surgeon. But He didn't give me the

fingers. I haven't the touch. But you have! You have the

nerve and the fingers and the mechanical ingenuity; you can

be a great surgeon. You shall have all my time and all my

books and all my money; I'll put you through! You must

think, dream, sleep, eat, drink bones and muscles and sinews

and nerves! Push everything else aside! He cried waving his

great hands excitedly. And remember!.... here his voice took

a solemn tone...let nothing share your heart with your

knife."

Here is an earthly example of the motivation behind the

first commandment. God had great ambitions for Israel. He

wanted a people who would be an instrument of His grace

and love to all the world. Though them He would bring into

the world the Great Physician, who alone would succeed as

an effective surgeon against sin. God had great plans, just

as the doctor did for young Barney, but both God and

doctor Ferguson had the same obstacle to overcome, and

that was the free will of man that can choose, not only less

than the best, but even the worst. Barney could choose to be

a bum and waste his gifts, and Israel could choose to go a

whoring after other gods and bring disgrace upon the name

of Jehovah. As a matter of fact, that is exactly what

happened, and it proves the point that free will is the basic

problem in the God-man relationship. Until the will is

submissive there is no way that man can be successful in

fulfilling the plan of God.

God must win our obedience to the first commandment

or the rest of them become meaningless. If we are not

absolutely loyal to Him and Him alone, we will not be

concerned about being loyal to His standard of morality. Dr.

Ferguson said "if you want to be a successful surgeon you

must let nothing share your heart with your knife." God is

saying in this first commandment, "if you want to be

successful in living a life pleasing to me, let nothing share

your heart with you love for me." In other words, make me

your first priority in all of life. All other loves, such as family,

friends, and neighbors must be subordinate to your love for

me. Love for God must be first and foremost, always.

Thoreau said, "Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say,

let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a

thousand-simplify, simplify." God will not settle even for

two or three, however, but demands we simplify down to one

ultimate loyalty. This is what the first commandment is all

about. Let's look at the implication of this first

commandment.

The first implication of this commandment is that God

has made man free to defy His sovereignty. God does not

impose the benefits of His acts of grace upon man without

their consent. By shear power God brought Israel out of

Egypt, but He did not by shear power compel them to

acknowledge Him as their God. For their good He

commands that they do so, but the very existence of the

command implies that they have the freedom to do

otherwise. They demonstrated their freedom time and time

again by defying this first commandment. The whole history

of the sufferings of Israel is the history of their disobedience

to the first commandment. Yet, God did not by shear force

ever compel them to obey it as he compelled the water of the

Red Sea to separate. Taking Israel out of Egypt was simple

compared to the task of taking Egypt out of Israel. The first

was a matter of power, but the second called for the

cooperation of man's will.

God's sovereignty does not play the same role in the

moral and spiritual realm as it does in the physical. He does

not force men into submission. The poet wrote-

And He that looketh wide and high,

Nor pauses in His plan,

Will take the sun out of the sky,

Ere freedom out of man.

In the very giving of the law God respects man's freedom,

but He gives them the law as another act of sovereign grace,