Of course any simple or complex answer falls short of describing Almighty God. But the Apostles’ Creed adds:
Maker of Heaven and Earth.
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth… And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
Genesis 1:1-3 excerpt KJV
The Lord God created every thing and all life!
God — ONE God.
There IS no other being — an Existing One — capable of speaking any created being of substance into existence.
Therefore, THE LORD GOD is neither plural, as in, “gods,” nor is ‘god‘ in all creation and creatures, as some falsely claim.
Hear – šāmaʿ -שְׁמַע
Do you hear what I hear? – a well-known Christmas song
You with ears to hear, let him hear… – Jesus, the Messiah
Today, if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion. – Hebrews 3:15
And oft-repeated by sons of a chosen people of all the earth — our spoken truth of monotheism (One God worshiped):
Hear, O Israel: Our God YHWH—YHWH [is] one!
Deuteronomy 6:4 LSV
Hear, H8085 O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD:
שָׁמַע shâmaʻ, shaw-mah’; a primitive root;
to hear intelligently
(often with implication of attention, obedience, etc.; causatively, to tell, etc.):
.. witness
God IS ONE!
There are no other gods (though the world worships them).
Yea, they made their hearts as an adamant stone, lest they should hear the law, and the words which the LORD of hosts hath sent in his spirit by the former prophets: therefore came a great wrath from the LORD of hosts.
WHY is the One God of monotheism the first key doctrine of the Apostles’ Creed?
To begin, God speaks authoritatively through Scripture. The word ‘God’ occurs more than 20,000 times in the BIBLE.
Jesus, born of a Jewish mother, Mary — through Joseph to whom she was betrothed, a son of the house of David — received His covenantal circumcision on the eighth day
— the incarnate Messiah of Israel would have recited the šāmaʿ and later taught directly from it.
the MANY gods of a polytheistic world
Like the Jews, the early saints lived in a polytheistic world, as do Christians now in the Common Era.
ROMANS worshiped many gods.
GREEK gods were created from their ancient myths.
(Even Zeus was born from other gods, therefore created and not an eternal being.)
330 million gods, ~20 deities of India,
(where Hinduism remains practically the State religion).
Largest number of Buddhistslive in ‘modern‘ China plus Buddhism is the State religion of at least four Asian nations
and practiced in other countries —
yoga, meaning “to yoke” or “union” (from the Sanskrit root yuj), has its genesis in ancient India,
Karma Yoga (the yoga of action),
Bhakti Yoga (the yoga of devotion), and
Jnana Yoga (the yoga of knowledge) – source: yoga.org
The Father Almighty
And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, the LORD appeared to Abram, and said unto him,
I am the Almighty God;
walk before me, and be thou perfect.
Genesis 17:1 KJV
Hear of Israel (Jacob, that is), sons of David, of Moses, of Jacob and Isaac — and ALL sons of our father Abram, who the LORD named, Abraham:
Creator of heaven and earth
Not only is the One God and Father of all fathers, including the Father of Israel, Abraham, the ALMIGHTY, IS Creator of the heavens and the earth.
God is NOT the earth. Nor is the Almighty many gods of the heavens named for suns and planets and meteoric phenomena beyond the reach of man’s understanding.
Have we not all one father?
hath not one God created us?
why do we deal treacherously every man against his brother, by profaning the covenant of our fathers?
Malachi 2:10 KJV
Yet THE LORD GOD will bring a Redeemer to Israel and reveal a new covenant to the nations in a Person who was from the beginning.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
Observe carefully those faithful to the LORD and also leaders faithful to Moses. Then listen to the grumbling rabble of the disobedient and see a stark contrast.
Two faithful successors stand out because these contemporaries of Moses (who began this forty year exodus at age 80) stood faithfully with the LORD’s anointed leader: Joshua and Caleb.
So the people quarreled with Moses and said, “Give us water so that we may drink!” And Moses said to them, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the LORD?”
We could have begun our pilgrimage much earlier than Noah.
“I establish My covenant with you; and all flesh shall never again be cut off by the water of the flood, neither shall there again be a flood to destroy the earth.”
Genesis 9:11
Even though Abraham was far from sinless, the Books of Moses follow his blessings and covenants with the LORD.
As we approached the Promised Land we noted the disobedience of Lot’s wife, sin in the cities pervasive beyond the Jordan near the Dead Sea.
And it would seem that Moses, the LORD’s chosen leader in the wilderness encounters nothing but complaint, disobedience and sin by the ‘chosen’ now stranded in the desert.
While journeying from Mount Sinai to the promised land, although mention is made of important events delaying the Hebrews in the wilderness, I have not dwelled on an important consequence of disobedience we suppose to be just part of the Hebrew journey —
25 When they returned from spying out the land, at the end of forty days, they went on and came to Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation of the sons of Israel, in the wilderness of Paran at Kadesh..
.. “We came into the land where you sent us, and it certainly does flow with milk and honey, and this is its fruit.
28 Nevertheless, the people who live in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large. And indeed, we saw the descendants of Anak there!
30 Then Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, “We should by all means go up and take possession of it, for we will certainly prevail over it.”
31 But the men who had gone up with him said, “We are not able to go up against the people, because they are too strong for us.” 32 So they brought a bad report of the land which they had spied out to the sons of Israel…
And all the congregation lifted up their voice, and cried; and the people wept that night.
2 And all the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron: and the whole congregation said unto them, Would God that we had died in the land of Egypt! or would God we had died in this wilderness!
5 Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces in the presence of all the assembly of the congregation of the sons of Israel.
6 And Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, of those who had spied out the land, tore their clothes…
10 But all the congregation said to stone them with stones. Then the glory of the Lord appeared in the tent of meeting to all the sons of Israel…
Moses then pleads for their lives
11 And the Lord said, “.. I will strike them with plague and dispossess them, and I will make you into a nation greater and mightier than they.”
13 But Moses said to the Lord, “Then the Egyptians will hear of it, for by Your strength You brought this people up from their midst…
19 .. Please forgive the guilt of this people in accordance with the greatness of Your mercy, just as You also have forgiven this people, from Egypt even until now.” So the Lord said,
“I have forgiven them in accordance with your word..”
and have not hearkened [šāmaʿ– shaw-mah’ ] to my voice…
shâmaʻ, shaw-mah’ – שָׁמַע
Strong’s Definitions – H8085matches the Hebrew שָׁמַע (šāmaʿ), which occurs 1,169 times in 1,072 verses in the Hebrew concordance of the NASB
to hear intelligently (often with implication of attention, obedience, etc.; causatively, to tell, etc.):—× attentively, call (gather) together, × carefully, × certainly, consent, consider, be content, declare, × diligently, discern, give ear, (cause to, let, make to) hear(-ken, tell), × indeed, listen, make (a) noise, (be) obedient, obey, perceive, (make a) proclaim(-ation), publish, regard, report, shew (forth), (make a) sound, × surely, tell, understand, whosoever (heareth), witness.
Surely they shall not see the land which I sware unto their fathers, neither shall any of them that provoked me see it:
Numbers 14:23 KJV
A spirit of obedience perseveres
24 But as for My servant Caleb, because he has had a different spirit and has followed Me fully, I will bring him into the land which he entered, and his descendants shall take possession of it…
We read the following previously in "You Will Not Be Led."
26 The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron again, saying,
27 “How long shall I put up with this evil congregation who are grumbling against Me? I have heard the complaints of the sons of Israel which they are voicing against Me.
28 Say to them, ‘As I live,’ declares the Lord, ‘just as you have spoken in My hearing, so I will do to you;
‘your dead bodies will fall in this wilderness,’
‘all your numbered men according to your complete number from twenty years old and upward, who have grumbled against Me…’
31 ‘Your children, however,
whom you said would become plunder—I will bring them in,
and they will know the land which you have rejected.
But as for you, your dead bodies will fall in this wilderness.”
And your children shall wander in the wilderness forty years, and bear your whoredoms, until your carcases be wasted in the wilderness.
Numbers 14:33 KJV
Why 40 Years?
The distance from Mount Sinai to the place where the Hebrews crossed the Jordan into the promised land is about 400 kilometers or only about 250 miles.
‘In accordance with the number of days that you spied out the land, forty days, for every day you shall suffer the punishment for your [fn]guilt a year, that is, forty years, and you will know My opposition.
39 Now when Moses spoke these words to all the sons of Israel, the people mourned greatly…
41 But Moses said, “Why then are you violating the command of the Lord, when doing so will not succeed? 42 Do not go up, for the Lord is not among you, to prevent you from being defeated by your enemies.
44 But they presumed to go up unto the hill top.. (while Moses and the Ark of the Covenant remained) .. 45 Then the Amalekites and the Canaanites .. struck them and scattered them…
Shema, Yisroel: Thou art to pass over Yarden today, to go in to possess Goyim greater and mightier than thyself, cities great and walled up to Shomayim
Devarim 9:1 Orthodox Jewish Bible
Hear, O Israel: You are crossing the Jordan today…3 Understand therefore this day, that the Lord thy God
is he which goeth over before thee;
as a consuming fire he shall destroy them,
and he shall bring them down before thy face:
so shalt thou drive them out, and destroy them quickly,
as the Lord hath said unto thee.
a few REMINDERS:
4 “Do not say in your heart when the Lord your God has driven them away from you,
‘Because of my righteousness the Lord has brought me in to take possession of this land.’
Rather, it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is dispossessing them before you.
5 It is not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart that you are going in to take possession of their land,
but it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord your God is driving them out from before you,
and in order to confirm the oath which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
6 “Know, then, that it is not because of your righteousness that the Lord your God is giving you this good land to possess, for you are a stubborn people.
.. 27 Remember Your servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; do not turn Your attention to the stubbornness of this people, or to their wickedness, or their sin.
Do YOU turn with the 10 against the Lord in the Wilderness?
And they said to Joshua, “The LORD has indeed handed over to us all the land; furthermore, all the inhabitants of the land have despaired because of us.” -Joshua 2:24
OR do you follow His leadership like Joshua & Caleb?
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