The Ten Commandments
Exodus 20
You can tell how popular a passage of Scripture is by whether it has been set to music. Ask yourself: has anybody written a song based on that scripture?
We sing the 23rd Psalm. We sing the Lord’s Prayer. We sing parts of the book of Revelation. We even have the Crucifixion set to music. But I don’t know of anyone who sings the Ten Commandments: Thou Shalt not steal. Thou Shall kill, Thou shall not lie, Thou shalt not commit adultery. It is not going to become a hit. It’s too negative.
Of course, the 10 Commandments are not totally negative. Two of the ten are positive – the fourth and fifth commandments are positive: Remember the Sabbath Day and Honour your father and mother. But the rest of negative.
We all know that these came from the hand of God. Moses didn’t make these up. God wrote these 10 commandments on a stone tablet. The first four have to do with our relationship with God; the last six have to do with our relationship with other people.
Before we look at the details I must ask a very basic question: Why did God give us the Ten Commandments?
First of all, let me address the elephant in the room: God did not give the Ten Commandments because He expected we would keep them. He knew who He was dealing with! Occasionally, I run into a person who thinks they keep the Ten Commandments. I was talking to this guy on the street who knew I was a minister. Right away he proceeded to defend why he never went to Church.
I don’t know why people feel they must do that around me. I don’t feel compelled to talk about why I don’t go to a hospital every time I’m around a doctor. His main defense was that he kept the Ten Commandments. I keep the Ten Commandments as best as I as I can, and I figure that’s good enough. I don’t need Church because I keep the Ten Commandments.
It was one of those times when I heard a little voice inside me saying… ‘Alvan, Shut-up’. Don’t even get started on this one. What I felt like saying was, ‘Well, you’re doing a lot better than I am. I’ve broken most of them. If keeping the Ten Commandments is the way to get to heaven I’m doomed.’
All our attempts to keep the Ten Commandments only engenders pride. We are not saved by trying to keep the Law. The Law cannot save.
· Galatians 3:11 Clearly no one is justified before God by the law, because “The righteous will live by faith.”
· Romans 3:20 Therefore no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin.
God gave the Ten Commandments to show us His love. To protect us and warn us. To give us the best life possible. To do us good.
Josh McDowell tells of a young man named Greg. Greg lived down the block from a family who had swimming pool in their back yard. A high wooden fence enclosed the pool. One dark evening when Greg knew his neighbors were away, he and his girlfriend snuck behind the house, scaled the fence, and entered the pool area to go for a swim. Greg threw off his shoes, climbed the ladder and, while his girlfriend was still taking her shoes and socks off, Greg leaped off the end of the diving board. He heard his girlfriend scream just before he lost consciousness.
You see, the pool held only a few feet of water. In the dark Greg apparently didn't notice this. His dive ended with a shallow splat of water and a sickening crunch of bones. Greg's late-night dive paralyzed him from the neck down for the rest of his life. Greg ignored the fence that his neighbors had erected around the pool. He probably assumed it was there only to keep him and his girlfriend from having fun. It was meant for his protection. His disregard of that boundary cost him dearly. Similarly, God's laws are given to protect us. When we ignore His moral boundaries, the cost can be just as devastating.
God gave us the Ten Commandments because He loves us.
He also gave us the Ten Commandments, to show us His Glory, His Holiness. See Deuteronomy 5. This is the only other place in the Bible that the Ten Commandments are listed in full. What does it say: ‘Behold, the LORD our God has shown us his glory and greatness, and we have heard his voice out of the midst of the fire.
Why did God give the Ten Commandments?
1. Not because He thought we would keep them.
2. Because He loves us
3. Because He wanted us to get a glimpse of His glory and holiness.
4. Because He wanted us to grasp how badly we need a Saviour. Saint Paul says in Romans 7 I would not have known what sin was except through the law. The Ten Commandments underscore how badly we need help. We need a Saviour.
According to the Bible the Ten Commandments were on two stones; one side had to do with our relationship with God; the second part had to do with our relationship with our fellow humans. The transitional commandment has to do with the way we treat our parents.
According to the first three commandments we have certain obligations to God.
1. We are not to have any other gods.
2. We are not to make an object of worship out of anything in the universe. We are to worship God alone.
3. We are to treat the name and character of God with great reverence.
I think most of us understand this right away if we were talking about the husband/wife relationship. Especially the ladies understand this.
Most wives do not want a polygamous relationship. Most wives do not want pictures of old girl friends around the house. Most wives do not take kindly to having their character mean mouthed by their husband in public. We understand that. How come we don’t get it when it comes to our relationship with God?
The next Commandment has to do with our time. Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy. We are creatures of time. Time means money. It represents our life. And God asks us to give Him one in seven days.
Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy. One day in seven was meant for re-creation. One day in seven was to be set aside for worship and family. Again, this was God being kind to us, giving us a break.
Paul makes it clear in Romans 14 that the day of the week is no longer the important issue for the Christian but still we are to keep one day in seven as a day of rest – holy to the Lord.
The next commandment has to do with the relationship we have with our parents. Honor your father and your mother, as the LORD your God has commanded you, so that you may live long and that it may go well with you in the land the LORD your God is giving you.
In Jewish tradition the word ‘honor’ means we should not sit in our parents’ reserved chair. Dad has his chair at the head of the table. No one else should sit in it.
In our day we have moved from Honor thy father and thy mother to Humor thy father and thy mother, as they haven’t written their wills yet.
Commands 6, 7, and 8 simply put say: There are boundaries. You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal.
You can’t have anything, everything your heart craves. If everyone took what he or she wanted when they wanted it humanity would be wiped out within a generation. The only way to live in civility is to keep these three commandments.
· Don’t knock off every person who gets in your way.
· Don’t go to bed with every person who turns you on.
· Don’t take everything you see that you would like.
It doesn’t take too many brains to figure out what would happen within 25 years if we all ignored these three rules and there was no government willing to enforce these rules. We would have anarchy, death, and destruction. Why is the British Parliament spending over $60 million dollars this year to protect their MP’s? Because we are moving further and further away from the Ten Commandments.
If we ignore Commandments 6, 7, and 8 production of goods and services would come to a standstill. Sexually transmitted diseases would be pandemic. Family life would disappear. And most of us would be dead.
The ninth commandment says: You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor. Tell the truth. One of the most important questions we must face in our dealings with other people is: Can I trust them? Is this a person someone I can trust? Do they speak the truth?
When people lie to one another the whole fabric of society changes. Relationships break down. As one writer puts it, lying is more serious than stealing because the thief takes material things, while the liar creates injustice and misery.
When I was a kid one of my favorite stories was about Pinocchio. Wouldn't it be wonderful if God had made us all like Pinocchio? If every time we lied our nose grew longer? You could tell right away who could be trusted and who couldn't be trusted.
I fear that some of us would have much longer noses than we already have!
We find it very difficult to tell the truth all the time. Even in marriage. One of the secrets to real intimacy in a marriage is to speak the truth to each other especially regarding our feelings.
The tenth and final Commandment is the one that finally convinced Saint Paul that he was a sinner.
You shall not covet your neighbor's wife. You shall not set your desire on your neighbor's house or land, his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, his Tesla, or anything that belongs to your neighbor, even his bank account.
The word covet means intense desire. It is sometimes translated lust, but it has a much wider meaning than sexual desire. Here in Exodus 20, it specifies several objects that a man must not covet - his neighbor’s house, wife, servants, animals, or property in general. Paul was not necessarily stimulated to covet any of these; the trouble went deeper. Covetousness itself is a sin; it is indeed a basic element in most forms of sin. At the very core of covetousness is a desire so intense that it chokes off a desire after God.
As Paul puts it elsewhere, covetousness is idolatry. We pride in North America that we don't bow down to idols like the pagans of long ago. Don't be deceived. We still have idols. What is it that captives your thinking? What is it that you want more than anything else? Whatever it is that is your god.
It may be an illicit desire; it may be a lawful desire – whatever – if it is of such intensity that it usurps the place which God alone ought to have in our soul than it is covetousness.
At the very core of covetousness is a desire so intense that it chocks off a desire after God.
We know we were made for God; we know that our first desires ought to be for God. We know that all other appetites, yearnings, feelings, cravings we have ought to be put in subjection to our desires after God. But that is not the way it has worked out most of the time.
And that is the very heart and core of the human dilemma. And so, we come tonight with our dysfunctional lives and cry out to God for mercy.
O God of all power and love, thank for revealing to us your power in the heavens and your holiness in the Ten Commandments. When we consider the heavens the work of your fingers what is man that you are mindful of him. When we consider the Ten Commandments Who is God that you are kind to us.
Indeed, you have not dealt with us after our sins or rewarded us according to our iniquities. You have removed our sins from us as far as the east is from the west. You have welcomed us with open arms and adopted us into your family.
Grant to us O Lord, the grace we need to walk according to your Law for your glory and our good. For Jesus’ sake, we pray, Amen
