Thou Shalt Have No Other Gods Before Me

THOU SHALT HAVE NO OTHER GODS BEFORE ME

By

Dr. Gale A. Ragan-Reid (March 24, 2018)

“I have sent also unto you all my servants the prophets, rising up early and sending them, saying, Return ye now every man from his evil way, and amend your doings, and go not after other gods to serve them, and ye shall dwell in the land which I have given to you and to your fathers: but ye have not inclined your ear, nor hearkened unto me” (Jeremiah 35:15, King James Version [Jews’ disobedience condemned]).

Greetings in the Holy Name of Jesus,

My sisters and brothers, in times like these we look back in reflection of those times like these to the trials and tribulations---issues at hand---that made the Jews disobedient to God, as in the days of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah [Jeremiah 35:1]. The sins of man are many---a multitude of sins, however, it is the multitude of man who is sinful. We look at the story of each man, for even one man is the one body as the one body is one man. Inasmuch as all is said and done, we look to God. BOW DOWN---one man refused to bow in prayer because he felt an offense to his person in his intimacy with God and preferred to look up in prayer. Do you think less of a man who bows down, looks up, looks to the side, crawls on the floor to the altar, and prays on bended knee?

The flesh is still weak, in man and the test is still real---really testing, in your heart and in your mind---searching out in the midst of all your rebellious thoughts and all the hate in your heart, for the Truth---the Spirit of God, Christ Jesus, and the Holy Ghost. Sometimes when you are in the test you do not see the demons crept in as the fog since the storm or the thieves that roam by day and night. You feel you have control of your faculties, when you are in fact a broken vessel, for what value is it for man to consider whether to bow your head is not to honor God, or not when even God bowed the heavens to deliver David from the hand of all his enemies and from the hand of Saul [Psalm 18, KJV, God’s manifold blessing “He bowed the heavens also, and came down: and darkness was under his feet.” [18:9]]. David prayed for God to bow the heavens---to come down, for David fought so many battles and his life was on the line so much he was in constant need of God’s favor of protection for God to walk with him to be in the midst, for God to come down from heaven to see about him as a father sees about his son, David said, “Bow thy heavens, O LORD, and come down: touch the mountains, and they shall smoke.” [144:5, KJV}. For David knew God bowed the heavens for him before so he prayed for God to bow the heavens again for he needed him.

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What about Jacob, his wives and his servants bowing when he met his brother Esau? “And he passed over before them, and bowed himself to the ground seven times, until he came near to his brother.” [Genesis 33:3, KJV Jacob meeteth Esau]. More so, “Then the handmaidens came near, they and their children, and they bowed themselves. And Leah came near, and bowed themselves: and after came Joseph near and Rachel, and they bowed themselves” [33:6-7, KJV]. Interesting enough, we find singularly in the one body---one man---in dark thoughts thinking he is in the light to rebuke bowing, in respectful prayer as a disrespect for he feels man needs to look up to God, in prayer for what is man doing when he looks down to the ground---who is he honoring? What grave thoughts of darkness when the earth belongs to God, is a creation of God for “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” [Genesis1:1, KJV, the Creation]?

Most importantly, the man was not totally confused for he said there is more than one God. We find when the whole earth spoke one language, of one speech decided to build a tower, God said, “Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.” [Genesis 11:7, KJV, The tower of Babel]. Understandably, God did not come alone because he said, let us go down [11:7]. God spoke the same, Let us---when he made man in the image of God using the word “our image” for in Genesis 1: 26, God said, “…Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.” With that said, John 1:1 said, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”