Commandment 9 Series

“Lying” Exodus 20:1-16

I wanted to read this story, which by the way actually happened, just to show you how God works in strange ways.

“Alice Grayson was a single mother in Arizona and she really wanted to fit in with a local church she had begun to attend; but the problem was, the people were kind of the uppity crowd. So, she jumped at a chance to volunteer to bake a cake for the Ladies’ Group bake sale. And then she forgot all about it; but she remembered the morning of the bake sale and after rooting through her cupboard she found an angel food cake mix and she made it while she was rushing around drying her hair, getting dressed and helping her son pack for camp. But when she took the cake out of the oven, the center dropped flat and the cake was horribly disfigured.

And she said, "Oh dear, there’s not enough time to bake another cake." Well, baking this cake was so important to Alice because she wanted so bad to fit in with these people and being inventive, she looked around the house for something to build up the center of the cake and she found it in the bathroom. It was a roll of toilet paper. She plunked it in the center of the cake and covered the whole thing in icing. And not only did it look beautiful but she thought it actually looked perfect!

Then, before she left the house to drop the cake off at the church, which was on her way to work, she woke her daughter Amanda and gave her some money and told her to be at the bake sale the minute it opened at 9:30 and that way she could buy the cake and bring it home. Well, the problem was, Amanda forgot all about it and when she finally got to the sale, she found out the cake had already been sold. So, she grabbed her cell phone, called her mom and told her what had happened.

Alice was horrified and she felt everyone was going to know and what would they think of someone who filled a cake for a church bake sale with toilet paper? She felt she’d be ostracized, talked about and ridiculed. And so, all night Alice lay awake; thinking about everyone pointing their finger at her and talking about what a loser she was.

The next day, she promised herself she’d try not to think about the cake and besides she had been invited to a fancy luncheon type bridal shower at the home of a friend of a friend, so she thought she’d go and try to have a good time. At first, she didn’t want to attend because she knew the hostess who was a snob from the church and more than once she had looked down her nose at Alice because she was not only a single parent but she wasn’t even a member of one of the founding families from the area like she was. But, since Alice had already sent a card saying she’d go; she couldn’t think of a reasonable excuse to stay home.

So, she went and the meal was elegant, the company was definitely upper crust and then to Alice’s horror, the CAKE she made was presented for dessert. Alice felt the blood drain from her body as soon as she saw it and she was about to go tell the hostess all about what had happened but before she could get to her feet, the Mayor’s wife said to the hostess, "What a beautiful cake!" And the hostess said, “Thank you, I baked it myself." Alice smiled and thought to herself, "GOD is good."

“And God spake all these words, saying, I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; and shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments. Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain. Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work: but the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it. Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee. Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.”