The so called "Ten Commandment"

1st Commandment

The Meaning of The First Word

{4} "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one! —Deuteronomy 6:4 (NIV)

{28} One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, "Of all the commandments, which is the most important?"

{29} "The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. {30} Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' —Mark 12:28-30 (NIV)

Men Have Forgotten God

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (December 11, 1918 – August 3, 2008) was in London, May 10, 1983, to receive the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion. The address by Mr. Solzhenitsyn at that occasion was titled, "Men Have Forgotten God," and in it he said:

. . . while I was still a child I recall hearing a number of older people offer the following explanation for the great disasters that have befallen Russia: ‘Men have forgotten God: that’s why all this has happened.’ . . . But if I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous Revolution that swallowed up some sixty million of our people. I could not put it more accurately that to repeat, ‘Men have forgotten God: that’s why all this has happened.’¹

We must remember. The consequences of remembering and forgetting are inevitable. Memory is the fertile land where we were planted and have grown up. Remember our fathers and mothers, and their fathers and mothers. Remember the God of our ancestors. Remember six years of age, the first grade teacher, and remember the church of your childhood. Remember when you prayed. Do not forget God.

You were unmindful . . . you [forgot] the [God] who gave you birth. (Deuteronomy 32:18)

They [forgot God], their Savior, who had done great things in Egypt, (Psalms 106:21)

You have [forgotten] the [LORD], your [Maker], who stretched out the heavens and laid the foundations of the earth. (Isaiah 51:13)

A voice on the bare heights is heard, the plaintive weeping of Israel's children, because they have perverted their way, they have [forgotten] the [LORD] their [God]: (Jeremiah 3:21)

This is your lot, the portion I have measured out to you, says the [LORD], because you have [forgotten] me and trusted in lies. (Jeremiah 13:25)

But my people have [forgotten] me, they burn offerings to a delusion; they have stumbled in their ways, (Jeremiah 18:15)

Therefore thus says the [Lord GOD]: Because you have [forgotten] me and cast me behind your back, therefore bear the consequences of your lewdness and whorings. (Ezekiel 23:35)

My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; because you have rejected knowledge, I reject you . . . since you have [forgotten] the law of your [God], I also will forget your children. (Hosea 4:6)

To forget, to disregard, to overlook, to slight, to ignore God and His Name is to abandon the Holy One; none of us can afford that absence. To remember, to recall, to reflect on, to ponder, to contemplate the Holy One and His Name is to be in touch with eternal certainty. Remembering God gives us cause to recall His love for us, His mercy, and that there is a justice, and

"In him we live and move and have our being"

(Acts 17:28).