Israel stands at a crossroads in its history: behind, the pagan gods of the Egyptians; ahead, the pagan gods of the Canaanites. The Israelites have been and will continue to be caught up in cultures of false gods. So the one true God now wants His people to know that He insists on an exclusive relationship with them. There are no others like Him, and they must not allow their spirits to wander after the false hopes of pagan gods.

“If you will have no other gods,” God is saying, “it is only then that you can have Me.” There is no middle ground here; the Lord God will not be one option among many.

It still holds true. Idolatry is no outdated sin but the same threat it has always been and will always be. The gods have changed their names, of course. They are no longer Baal and Ashtoreth, but now they call themselves wealth or power or comfort or appetite—or whatever it is that is controlling your heart today.

Counterfeit gods never die. They simply come up with new disguises and continue trying to lead us away from the only God who offers a relationship of love and care.

Martin Luther wrote, “That to which your heart clings and entrusts itself is… really your God.”7

Recently I read about a series of religious services that were advertised in Scottish newspapers. The first part of the ad was printed on here, and simply directed readers to the last page of the paper. There, in larger print, was the question “Is this where you are putting God?”8

Many Christians today have pushed God to the back page. They have allowed other “gods” to clutter up their lives. God does not ask for a prominent place among all our other gods; He insists that there be no other gods, period. A half-forgotten God is no God at all. He demands here of our lives.

Many in today’s secular culture criticize this commandment as arrogantly exclusive, self-absorbed, and intolerant. Why start this list with a narrow ultimatum?

He starts the list this way for the same reason we take a vow before God and witnesses to love and cherish only one spouse. Few of us would marry someone whose vows included: “For richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, from this day forward until the next cute person catches my eye.”

God wants an exclusive love relationship with you. That’s not arrogance, but a proper understanding of reality—life doesn’t work any other way. A wheel can have only one hub. Try to set it spinning around any other point, and you crash. In the same way, God is the hub of this universe, “the still point in the turning world,” as T. S. Eliot put it.9 No one else can be at the center.