Moses On The Mountain With The Lord - Part 12 Series

Moses on the Mountain with the Lord - Part 12

(The Ten Commandments - Part 2)

Exodus 20:1-11

Sermon by Rick Crandall

McClendon Baptist Church - September 8, 2010

BACKGROUND & INTRODUCTION:

*When Moses came down the mountain from his 40-day meeting with the Lord, he carried something back with him: the Ten Commandments.

-And tonight we will go back to Exodus 20 to see what was on those tablets “written with the finger of God.” (Exodus 31:18)

*But who needs the Ten Commandments? -- John Hamby points out that the Ten Commandments keep us from fuzzy thinking about sin. When we determine our sinfulness based on comparing ourselves with the behavior of others we do not look so bad. We rationalize, “Everyone else is doing it. It must be ok!”

*The Ten Commandments clear the fog. They remind us that regardless of what every one else is doing, no matter where our society draws the lines, some things are wrong. The standard of behavior is not determined by what our friends think, but by what God thinks.

-So who needs the Ten Commandments? -- The answer is: we do! (1)

*But please remember that these Ten Commandments and all God’s commandments hang on the Lord’s two great laws of love.

-Jesus taught us this truth when someone asked the Lord, “Which is the greatest commandment in the law?” -- And in Matthew 22:37-40:

37. Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.'

38. This is the first and great commandment.

39. And the second is like it: `You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’

40. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”

*Every commandment of God hangs on God’s kind of love. It is the same kind of gracious, merciful love that moved Christ to die on the cross for our sins.

-Anything that God ever asks us to do or not to do can all be traced back to love.

1. So last week we saw that the First Commandment teaches us to love the Lord with the throne of your heart.

*Listen to the First Commandment again in Exodus 20:1-3:

1. And God spoke all these words, saying:

2. “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.

3. You shall have no other gods before Me.”

*God says, “You shall have no other gods before Me.” God wants to have first place in our hearts tonight. He greatly desires and deserves to be on the throne of our hearts. So love the Lord with the throne of your heart.

2. But also love the Lord with your talents.

*Last week we saw that this is the principle implied for us in the Second Commandment. We see this Commandment in vs. 4-6, where the Lord said:

4. "You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any 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 to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me,

6. but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.

*God said not to make any idols to worship. This seems very strange to us today, but it was a big problem for the children of Israel for about a thousand years.

*Now we will probably never be tempted to bow down before a golden calf.

-But the problem for us is that people can make idols out of just about anything they can have or see or do. So the Second Commandment teaches us not to trust in the works of our hands. Instead, we should trust in the God who gave us our hands and every other good thing we ever have.

*Now, let’s go forward tonight by reading vs. 7-11. Here the Lord said:

7. "You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.

8. "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.

9. Six days you shall labor and do all your work,

10. but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates.

11. For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.