Deut 4:35, "To you it was shown that you might know that the Lord, He is God; there is no other besides Him. 
	The reading this morning is filled with the encouragement from Moses to the Children of Israel to always, always honor the Lord God Almighty with all their heart and soul and being. They are to never go after the worthless idols of this age that will serve no other purpose than to provoke the righteous judgment of the Lord upon them and their children after them. 
	Moses detailed the entire manner in which the Lord had made Himself known to His Chosen Nation in ways that no other people had ever witnessed. This was all in an effort to reinforce and establish that thoroughly passionate heart in the people to so hold true to the Lord all the days of their lives. Thus they were to teach each succeeding generation of the goodness and the majesty and the lovingkindness and the faithfulness of the Lord for all time.
	Moses reinforced this truth, in verse 39 of this 4th Chapter, to encourage the people to recognize and to take to heart that there is only the One True Living Lord God. He, Alone, deserves all their fidelity and honor and worship. 
Deut 4:39, Know therefore today, and take it to your heart, that the Lord, He is God in heaven above and on the earth below; there is no other. 
	 This is such a vital reality that needed to be engrained into the very essence of the people. Accordingly, just two chapters later, in Deut 6:4+5, Moses declared the glorious pronouncement that many of the Israelites hold onto even to this very day. 
Deut 6:4+5, "Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one! "And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 
  	There was no leeway given for half-hearted adherence to the truth of the One True Lord God Jehovah, Creator of heaven and earth. The people were to honor Him with the complete obeisance which signified His place in their hearts, their minds, their culture, their understanding of the manner in how to live their lives, and the full essence of what life was about. Their entire focus was to be embedded with the understanding of how He was the One going before them every day of their lives. He was to be so much more than merely the religious deity of their nation. To know Him meant to invest themselves wholly unto Him and to His commandments as the very course of the testimony unto the whole world which He had created, as His own Chosen people. In the course of how they lived their lives as His people, they would show forth His majesty and His praise and the truth of His presence within the whole realm of His creation.
	Much later, in 1 Sam 2:1+2, after the Promised Land was inhabited by the Lord’s people, we see the full measure of how this love for the Lord and the stand for His Honor, as the Only Living Lord God Almighty, was expressed by Hannah. This was in the prayer of her dedication of her child to the Lord. 
1 Sam 2:1+2, Then Hannah prayed and said, "My heart exults in the Lord; My horn is exalted in the Lord, My mouth speaks boldly against my enemies, Because I rejoice in Thy salvation. "There is no one holy like the Lord, Indeed, there is no one besides Thee, Nor is there any rock like our God. 
	Here again is voiced the recognition from Hannah that there is only one True and Living God. While the other nations may have their man-made deities and idols that they have created, the people of God, unto whom He has revealed His heart for this relationship with Himself, know the certainty and the veracity of Who God is and all that He does. He is the rock, the bedrock of life. There is none like Him. He, Alone, is holy and in Him, Alone, is found salvation.
	In 1 Sam 17:45-47, we have the fact of the Lord God Jehovah being declared by the shepherd boy, David. This was when he was dealing with the Philistine, Goliath. 
1 Sam 17:45-47, Then David said to the Philistine, "You come to me with a sword, a spear, and a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have taunted. This day the Lord will deliver you up into my hands, and I will strike you down and remove your head from you. And I will give the dead bodies of the army of the Philistines this day to the birds of the sky and the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, and that all this assembly may know that the Lord does not deliver by sword or by spear; for the battle is the Lord's and He will give you into our hands." 
    	Notice that David never claimed to be able to defeat the giant by his own terms and skill and expertise. It was all accounted unto the Lord with the full assurance that the Lord God of Israel would go before His people and give them the victory. This was in order for, not just the Philistines to know that He lived, but for the very people of God to be reminded of the fact that it was the Lord Who was going before them in this battle. It was just as He had done for the generation which had been given the conquest of the land by the Lord God Almighty, when they inhabited the land and dispossessed the nations that were there.
	This generation of David needed to be reminded of the fact that they served the Lord God. As well, they needed to have it reinforced that God was the One in Whom they could place their trust as their Deliverer and their Savior and their Victory.
	The Prophet Elijah also had to deal with this forgetfulness of the people later in 1 Kings 18:36-39. The people had turned to other deities and were serving the idols of the other nations. There was the great conflict when the Prophet was standing alone against all the priests of Baal in order to prove to the nation that the Lord God Jehovah was the Only True and Living God. The 450 prophets of Baal spent all day, futilely and vilely and bloodily trying to bring forth fire for their sacrifice to Baal with absolutely no hope of success.
	We have the following recorded for us in 1 Kings 18:36-39, when it was Elijah’s time to offer the sacrifice to the True Lord God, Creator of Heaven and Earth. If you will recall, he even poured water upon the sacrifice until it was filling the ground around the altar. 
1 Kings 18:36-39. Then it came about at the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice, that Elijah the prophet came near and said, "O Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, today let it be known that Thou art God in Israel, and that I am Thy servant, and that I have done all these things at Thy word. Answer me, O Lord, answer me, that this people may know that Thou, O Lord, art God, and that Thou hast turned their heart back again." Then the fire of the Lord fell, and consumed the burnt offering and the wood and the stones and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench. And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces; and they said, "The Lord, He is God; the Lord, He is God." 
    	Notice the chant of the people which hearkens us back to Moses’ declaration in Deut 4:39, Know therefore today, and take it to your heart, that the Lord, He is God in heaven above and on the earth below; there is no other. This was something that, sadly, the nation of God’s choosing had to learn again and again, as is still the case in our lives. We have this tendency to find ourselves in trouble and forget that we can simply trust the Lord with all our hearts and all our minds and all our beings. He will take care of us. We need those reminders that He is the One Who is fighting all our battles. We need to have reinforced on a most regular basis that "The Lord, He is God; the Lord, He is God."
	This was evidenced once more in 2 Kings 19:15-20, when the nation of Judah was being threatened by Assyria. King Hezekiah was at an utter loss as to what to do other than to pray and to trust the Lord God of Israel, the Only Living God, with the preservation of His people. Let us read this together.
	2 Kings 19:15-20, And Hezekiah prayed before the Lord and said, "O Lord, the God of Israel, who art enthroned above the cherubim, Thou art the God, Thou alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth. Thou hast made heaven and earth. Incline Thine ear, O Lord, and hear; open Thine eyes, O Lord, and see; and listen to the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to reproach the living God. Truly, O Lord, the kings of Assyria have devastated the nations and their lands and have cast their gods into the fire, for they were not gods but the work of men's hands, wood and stone. So they have destroyed them. And now, O Lord our God, I pray, deliver us from his hand that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that Thou alone, O Lord, art God." Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah saying, "Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, 'Because you have prayed to Me about Sennacherib king of Assyria, I have heard you.' 
    	Sennacherib had destroyed the gods of all the nations that he had conquered, and he thought that the God of Israel was just like those other idols which he had utterly destroyed. He had no regard for the Lord God Jehovah and openly maligned and ridiculed the Lord and all those who trusted in Him. As is often the case in this age, we are ridiculed and taunted because we hold to the Lord as Our God and Savior. 
Hezekiah put the whole basis of the dealing with Assyria exactly where it needed to be, on the testimony of the Lord God Almighty before all the nations of the world. They were watching and expecting the Assyrians to do to Judah what had been done to all the other countries. As He always does, the Lord proved Himself faithful and true.
The Lord saved Hezekiah and Judah. He caused Sennacherib to return to his own land. There, he was assassinated by a couple of his own people.
	This brings us to a most wonderful Psalm. Ps 100. Here is declared the truth of God and how we are to rejoice in Him and give Him all thanksgiving and honor as the Lord God Creator and Our Redeemer. 
Ps 100, Shout joyfully to the Lord, all the earth. Serve the Lord with gladness; Come before Him with joyful singing. Know that the Lord Himself is God; It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves; We are His people and the sheep of His pasture. Enter His gates with thanksgiving, And His courts with praise. Give thanks to Him; bless His name. For the Lord is good; His lovingkindness is everlasting, And His faithfulness to all generations. 
	We are to …Know that the Lord Himself is God…. This is the living reality of our lives as His people. Accordingly, we are to be characterized with joyful gladness in the Lord. We are to be a people filled with thankfulness and with praise, seeking to bless Him and to offer sacrifices of gratitude at all times because the Lord is good and faithful. He is constantly showering us with His essential essence of Lovingkindness. This was to be the way the Children of Israel showed forth His testimony in the Land of Promise. This is the way we are to be today in the every place into which the Lord has planted us.
	Sadly, as the Prophet Isaiah had to voice over and over again, this Chosen Nation of God would constantly forget the Lord and would not abide by His holy Word. We can read several of the encouragements and declarations of the Lord to His people through this Prophet.
	We begin with Isa 44:6-8, Isa 44:6-8, "Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel And his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts: 'I am the first and I am the last, And there is no God besides Me. 'And who is like Me? Let him proclaim and declare it; Yes, let him recount it to Me in order, From the time that I established the ancient nation. And let them declare to them the things that are coming And the events that are going to take place. 'Do not tremble and do not be afraid; Have I not long since announced it to you and declared it? And you are My witnesses. Is there any God besides Me, Or is there any other Rock? I know of none.'" 
    	Again we hear this cry to remember to Whom the people belonged in Isa 45:5-8. Isa 45:5-8, "I am the Lord, and there is no other; Besides Me there is no God. I will gird you, though you have not known Me; That men may know from the rising to the setting of the sun That there is no one besides Me. I am the Lord, and there is no other, The One forming light and creating darkness, Causing well-being and creating calamity; I am the Lord who does all these. "Drip down, O heavens, from above, And let the clouds pour down righteousness; Let the earth open up and salvation bear fruit, And righteousness spring up with it. I, the Lord, have created it. 
    	Herein we have the reason expressed again by the Lord as to the fact that it will be through the testimony of His faithfulness in righteousness. It is His salvation in His dealing with His people that will be the witness to the fact that He, Alone, is the Living Lord God of all of Creation. His Being will be witnessed in the glory of that which He has created.
	And furthermore, we hear Him, again, through Isaiah, in Isa 45:18-24, as He declares the vital difference between those who trust in Him and those who trust in the works of their own hands. Isa 45:18-24, For thus says the Lord, who created the heavens (He is the God who formed the earth and made it, He established it and did not create it a waste place, But formed it to be inhabited), "I am the Lord, and there is none else. "I have not spoken in secret, In some dark land; I did not say to the offspring of Jacob, 'Seek Me in a waste place'; I, the Lord, speak righteousness Declaring things that are upright. "Gather yourselves and come; Draw near together, you fugitives of the nations; They have no knowledge, Who carry about their wooden idol, And pray to a god who cannot save. "Declare and set forth your case; Indeed, let them consult together. Who has announced this from of old? Who has long since declared it? Is it not I, the Lord? And there is no other God besides Me, A righteous God and a Savior; There is none except Me. "Turn to Me, and be saved, all the ends of the earth; For I am God, and there is no other. "I have sworn by Myself, The word has gone forth from My mouth in righteousness And will not turn back, That to Me every knee will bow, every tongue will swear allegiance. "They will say of Me, 'Only in the Lord are righteousness and strength.' Men will come to Him, And all who were angry at Him shall be put to shame. 
    	Christ Jesus, the Living Word of God, in Mark 12:28-30, brings to the forefront the truth of how we are to honor and consider and love the Lord God with the every essence of our being. This was when He was questioned concerning what Moses had declared in the Torah. 
Mark 12:28-30, And one of the scribes came and heard them arguing, and recognizing that He had answered them well, asked Him, "What commandment is the foremost of all?" Jesus answered, "The foremost is, 'Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is one Lord; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.' 
	We end with the Apostle John in 1 John 5:20+21, as he summed up the truth that we are to serve no other than the Living God Who has sent His Only Begotten Son as the manifest truth of our lives. He is our eternal life. 1 John 5:20+21, And we know that the Son of God has come, and has given us understanding, in order that we might know Him who is true, and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life. Little children, guard yourselves from idols. So be it!
"To you it was shown that you might know that the Lord, He is God; there is no other besides Him. Amen. 

	This morning’s benediction is Deut 4:39. Know therefore today, and take it to your heart, that the Lord, He is God in heaven above and on the earth below; there is no other. Amen.