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Check out these verses.
In the beginning, Deity created the heavens and the earth. (Genesis 1:1)
These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created, on the day that YHWH Deity made earth and heaven. (Genesis 2:4)
You yourselves were made to see so that you might know that that YHWH, He is the Deity. There is none else except him... And you shall know this day, and you shall rehearse to your heart, that YHWH He is the Deity in the heavens above and upon the earth beneath. There is none else. (Deut 4:35,39)
I am YHWH, and there is none else. Except me, there is no deity.... that they may know from the rising of the sun and from the west that there is nothing besides me, I am YHWH and there is none else. (Isaiah 45:5-6)
There is a truth in these verses that affects the whole world regardless of whether you are an Israelite or not. This truth was in existence before creation, at creation, and forever after. It is firstly that there is a Deity, an uncaused First Cause (meaning the starter of everything), the Creator of the whole universe. And secondly, it is that YHWH, the Deity of Israel, is that Deity, the Maker and Master of the whole universe. This fact is absolute, over everything.
When this fact is accepted, it causes other conclusions to follow on from that. Both logical reasonings and scriptural evidence tells us there can only be one Deity, one Creator of everything. To go through such logic is beyond the scope of this essay (but for a snippet, see my article, The Absurdity of the Trinity), but a great rabbinic Torah scholar called RaMBaM, or Moses Maimonides, goes through the logic in a chapter of his epic work, the Mishneh Torah. The chapter is called Hilchot Yesodei HaTorah (Fundamentals of Torah). An online copy of this can be found at http://www.panix.com/~jjbaker/MadaYHT.html. But a selection of the scriptural evidences I have given above. What they show is that Yahweh is the exclusive Deity, and there is none else. This is shown by the fact that he says that he is Deity in the heavens and on the earth, showing the range of his authority, his domain of kingship, i.e., that it is everywhere. So that leaves no room for any other deity/god, objectively speaking.
We can also link together some facts. If YHWH is the only Deity, and he is the Deity that created the whole universe, that means that he is also the only creator (cf Isaiah 44:24). In other words, there is only one Creator, only one First Cause.
These facts lead us to a stance we can take on worshipping anything else as deity or as a god. If Yahweh is the one Deity, it follows that to worship anything else as deity is falsehood and wrong. A natural consequence of the worship of another deity is the state of being cut off from the truth, the source of life, and being at odds with the true deity who is rightly possessive over the glory that is due to him. This is reflected in the following scriptures.
(3) You shall have no other deities before Me. (4) You shall not make for yourselves a sculpted image, nor any [manner of] likeness [of anything] that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; (5) you shall not bow down unto them, nor serve them; for I, YHWH your Deity, am a jealous Deity, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation of them that hate Me; (6) and showing mercy unto the thousandth generation of them that love Me and keep My commandments. (Exodus 20:3-5)
I am YHWH; that is My name; and I will not give my glory to another, neither My praise to graven images. (Isaiah 42:8)
For you shall bow down to no other deity; for YHWH, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous Deity; (Exodus 34:14)
(1) The burden of Nineveh. The book of the vision of Nahum the Elkoshite. (2) A jealous and avenging Deity [is] YHWH, an avenger is YHWH and is a master of wrath; YHWH takes vengeance on His adversaries, and He holds a grudge against His enemies. (3) YHWH [is] slow to anger, and great in power, and will not acquit; YHWH, in the whirlwind and in the storm is His way, and the clouds are the dust of His feet. (Nahum 1:1-3)
What we can extract from these verses is that YHWH is "jealous" for his own glory, the honour that is due to him. He is jealous in the way that he will zealously protect his honour and punish those that give that honour to others. Isaiah 42:8 and Nahum 1:1-3 help us to see that this is an objective truth that is not simply just for Israel, but for the whole world, since Isaiah 42 is set in a context of YHWH repeatedly emphasizing his exclusive status as Supreme Being and Deity in the face of the nations and their gods; and Nahum is talking about or to a city of Assyria, a non-Israelite place.
All the previous facts I have gone through before in the section leads to another important conclusion. First we see that there is a Deity, the First Cause of the entire universe and Master of the earth, and that this Deity is the Deity revealed to Israel. As the First Cause, there is no deity except him, so nothing else deserves that honour or worship. Then we see that the reason he will not tolerate the worship of anything else is because he is jealous, rightly possessive of the honour, praise and worship due to him. The conclusion that must follow from this is that there actually is an honour due to him because of who he is. This means that it is not enough to simply have an intellectual knowledge that he exists. To do that is like having a fact in your head that doesn't impact anything you do. To know that the Creator of this world has honour that is due to him means that a person, his creation, must give him that honour, that worship, that praise.
In other words, to acknowledge someone over you, a Master, but not serve and honour him, is rebellion and disobedience. And that Master is well within his rights to punish those that forsake his rulership.
By studying the body of Instruction (Torah) that Deity gave to the Jews, we can even see his own disgust for the worship given to other deities.
(25) The sculpted images of their gods you shall burn with fire; you shall not desire the silver or the gold that is upon them, nor take it for yourself, so that you don't become ensnared by it; for it is an abomination to YHWH your Deity. (26) And you shall not bring an abomination into your house, and be tabooed like it; you shall utterly detest it, and you shall utterly abhor it; for it is a tabooed thing. (Deuteronomy 7:25-26)
(29) When YHWH your Deity shall cut off the nations from before you, to which you are entering to dispossess them, and you dispossess them, and dwell in their land; (30) beware of yourself that you be not lured into following them, after that they are destroyed from before thee; and that you don't enquire after their gods, saying: 'How did these nations used to serve their gods? And I will do the same, me as well.' You shall not do so to YHWH your Deity; for every abomination to YHWH, which He hates, have they done to their gods; for even their sons and their daughters do they burn in the fire to their gods. (Deuteronomy 12:29-31)
...that they teach you not to do after all their abominations, which they have done unto their gods, and so you sin against YHWH your Deity. (Deuteronomy 20:18)
Two things are striking in these verses. One of those things is that both the gods of other nations and the worship given to them is what is called "an abomination to Yahweh". An abomination is something abhorrent or disgusting. One verse even plainly states that Deity hates the sort of worship or service given to the gods of the nations. It should be noted that this hatred is not limited to the nations that existed in Canaan before Israel conquered it. That was only an example, something directly in front of them and in their experience at that time. But the principle is the same for the worship of any foreign god and the ways they are worshipped (e.g. see Leviticus 18:1-5 and note the emphasis on "my statutes" as opposed to those of other nations).
The other thing that is striking are the phrases "an abomination to Yahweh" and "which he hates". These phrases give this principle its universal force. If it had said "an abomination to you, Israel" then it would be limited to just the nation of Israel alone. But since it is what the Creator and Ruler of all mankind hates, then it therefore means that whether an Israelite or one not of Israel does it, then it is still disgusting to that Creator. Those acts are unrighteous and thus forbidden to any human being, since, by being abhorrent to the Creator, it is against his will. And his is the standard to which we are all accountable.
So from all this it can be seen that the foundational truth for gentiles is that there is one true Deity, Yahweh, he alone must be honoured and worshipped as such, and to make any other thing, constructed from the mind or existing in the universe, into a god is wrong, as is worshipping it.
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