1 God Most Plain
Back to 1The Bible’s Greatest Prophecies Unlocked!
These commandments are not difficult to understand. The God of the Bible speaks plainly—He says what He means and means what He says! (Note that God repeats for emphasis in Deuteronomy 5:1-33 the same Ten Commandments, verbatim.)
We might pause at this point and ask: Do these four commands, when understood collectively, sound like the laws of a God who takes lightly those who worship any other but Himself? Do they seem like mere wishful instruction on the part of this God—things that He only hopes His followers will remember to do? Do they sound like the words of a God who is willing to let people worship idols, false gods or even any other wrong form of supposedly who and what He is, as long as the proponent proclaims such to represent the true God? Can you connect all the knowledge throughout this volume to the God who challenges those who read His Book through the additional proof of His existence—that of fulfilled prophecy?
It has been said that the first four commandments reveal how to love God and the last six how to love one’s fellow man. Put another way, the first four commandments reveal and explain how to establish a relationship with the Creator God and the last six how to build relationships with all those He has created.
A relationship with the Bible’s God begins with a recognition, understanding and acceptance of the first four commandments. All other approaches will preclude contact with Him. Obedience to them opens the door to all of God’s truth, prophecy being but one-third.
The Record of Israel
The nation of Israel never lived up to her promises to God made in the book of Exodus. What follows next could all have been part of Chapter Twenty-three, “America and Britain.”
God intended that ancient Israel be a model nation that all other nations would copy. This was always His purpose. He expected His people to set an example for surrounding nations of how happiness, peace, abundance, blessings and protection from enemies would result from obedience to Him. Sadly, despite an early willingness and determination to obey God, starting when the commandments were first given at Sinai, Israel repeatedly found herself copying the nations around her and worshipping their gods, thus achieving the very opposite of God’s purpose! (Israel almost immediately fell into worship of the “golden calf” after the Ten Commandments were given—in fact before Moses could even get down the mountain to them.) This worship of false gods has had repercussions lasting thousands of years.
The long, broken history of Israel is that she turned from the true God and fell into the seductive trap of idolatry and the worship of foreign gods, doing this over and over again. Each time this pattern repeated itself, God sent her back into captivity and slavery. After a time, she would cry out in bondage, offering repentance, and God would raise up a judge and deliver her. But His people would quickly fall right back into the worship of false gods and idols, leading back to captivity, then to later repentance, again followed by God’s merciful deliverance—I repeat, all of this happening time and again.
This centuries-long cycle, described in the book of Judges and elsewhere, was never broken until ancient Israel and Judah finally went into captivity, with ten tribes becoming lost to history as a result. Only the Jews have retained their national identity, and this is almost entirely attributed to their having continued observing God’s Sabbath.
Jeremiah and Isaiah Summarize
Here is how God, through the prophet Jeremiah, describes and laments the continual actions of His people—His “nation”: “Has a nation changed their gods, which are yet no gods? But My people have changed their glory for that which does not profit. Be astonished, O you heavens, at this, and be horribly afraid, be you very desolate, says the Lord. For My people have committed two evils; they have forsaken Me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water” (Jer 2:11-13).
The last phrase in this passage accurately describes all the false gods devised by men and nations over the last 6,000 years. These man-made “gods”—made of wood, stone, metal and false thinking—are truly “broken cisterns, that can hold no water.” Yet, nations (and religions) cleave to these fictional gods with a faithfulness Israel never showed to the true God.
Jeremiah continues, describing Israel’s approach to gods she had copied and created: “Saying to a stock [of wood—a mere carved idol], You are my father; and to a stone, You have brought me forth: for they have turned their back unto Me, and not their face.” Speaking for God, Jeremiah then says of these gods, “but in the time of their trouble they will say, Arise, and save us. But where are your gods that you have made you? Let them arise, if they can save you in the time of your trouble: for according to the number of your cities are your gods, O Judah” (Jer 2:27-28).
This is a classic description of what is seen throughout the world in all the modern nations that consider themselves to be based upon Judeo-Christian roots. Again, idols, carvings, religious statues and stained-glass windows abound on and in every church in every city, with no one thinking anything of it.
Continuing with Jeremiah’s account. God had always made Himself available to Israel, easy to find if she sought Him: “O generation, see you the word of the Lord. Have I been a wilderness unto Israel? A land of darkness? Wherefore [Why] say My people, We are lords; we will come no more unto You? Can a maid forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire? Yet My people have forgotten Me days without number” (Jer 2:31-32). God has never been “a wilderness” to those who seek Him. The question for Israel was always whether she would seek and obey Him.
How many young women would permit themselves to dress up for a special occasion, but forget to put on jewelry—her “ornaments”? Surely few. More, what bride at her wedding could possibly forget to put on her wedding dress—her “attire”? Surely none.
Yet, incredibly, Israel had forgotten their God! And she still does.
Of course, this was only able to happen because she disregarded God’s basic instruction—and Commandments!—and got involved with the gods of surrounding nations.
The prophet Isaiah records this from God about the woeful—and ignorant—state of His people, then and today: “Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: for the Lord has spoken, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against Me. The ox knows his owner, and the ass his master’s crib: but Israel does not know, My people do not consider. Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters: they have forsaken the Lord , they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backward” (Isa 1:2-4).
Isaiah is describing a nation that had fallen into every conceivable kind of corruption, evil and sin, all of which could be attributed to having forsaken the true God!
Worldwide Confusion—Gods and More Gods
What follows in the next two sections could as easily have been in Chapter Twenty-four, “Why World Punishment!”
The world is filled with gods of every sort. It is as though mankind has reserved the very best of its creative powers for the invention of every conceivable type of god and goddess—whether composed of physical matter or defined by ethereal concepts in the mind. The world’s billions worship literally millions of gods.
The apostle Paul expresses it best as he introduces the true God of the Bible: “For though there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or in earth (as there be gods many, and lords many), but to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by Him. Howbeit there is not in every man that knowledge…” (I Cor. 8:5-7). (How interesting that Paul references “the Father” and “Jesus Christ,” differentiating them from all other “gods” and “lords,” but, missing the perfect opportunity, fails to mention the Holy Spirit, the supposed third member of the trinity.)
The Romans worshipped and built temples to an endless array of gods and goddesses. But history reports that the ancient Greeks worshipped as many as 30,000 gods. Not to be outdone, the Hindus of today are said to have 5 million gods, including their own trinity consisting of Shiva, Brahma and Vishnu! Of course, the Egyptians, with Osiris, Horus and Isis, also had their brand of the trinity, as did other civilizations. Then there is Tao, Confucius, Buddha, Allah and a host of other gods, goddesses and idols worshipped today, including totem poles, nature, snakes, other animals and fish in the sea, volcanoes and mountains, fire, wind, rocks, the sun, moon, planets, stars and even certain human beings who are considered divine. And there are all the different kinds of metaphysical concepts of gods that are adored and worshipped in the mind—some of which have been depicted by physical symbols and representations rendered by artists. This describes the trinity.
Yet, and most are probably not aware of this, vastly more people believe in the three-in-one god of modern Christianity than any other form of god.