The Ten Commandments – Part III
“Six Principles for a Happy and Successful Life”
Exodus 20: 12-17
Last week we examined the first four commandments that defined for us what it means to love the Lord your God will all your heart, mind, soul and strength. Each of those four commands teach us what it means to love God.
The next six commandments tell us how to love people. They define what it means to love your neighbor as yourself. This morning I want to share six things that are important for a successful and joyful life.
1. Recognition of the Importance of Family - Exodus 20:12 “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the LORD your God is giving you.”
The family is God’s idea. It is the foundation block for any civilization. Any civilization that has let this foundation crumble has not been able to stand. Strong families, make strong communities, strong communities and make strong countries. If the family is destroyed the nation will fall.
The command says that we are to “honor” our Father and Mother. The word “honor” comes from a Hebrew verb that means “to be heavy or weighty.” It means we are to give great weight or importance to our parents by respecting them. What this honor looks like changes as time goes on in our lives. In the early years, honoring your parents is expressed mainly through being obedient to their rules. As one becomes a teenager this need for obedience continues but is augmented by learning to show respect to your parent in your attitude. Even as adults we are to continue to show respect by listening to our parents advice and by caring for their welfare.
This morning I want to share with you two fundamental reasons why the family is so important.
First, because it here that we find acceptance and love. The family is the place that God created to shelter us from the stresses and demands of daily life, one place where we it’s safe. It’s a place where we can get close to someone else, be loved and accepted for simply being a part of a family, not because of what we look like, what we do or how smart we are.
Secondly, the family is important because it is here that we learn to relate to Others! Joy Davidman, C.S. Lewis’s wife, recounting one of Grimm’s fairy tales, illustrates this point in her book on the Ten Commandments saying, “Once upon a Time there was a little old man. His eyes blinked and his hand trembled; when he ate he clattered the silverware distressing, missed his mouth with his spoon as often as not, and dribbled a bit of his food on the tablecloth. Now he lived with his married son, having nowhere else to live and his son’s wife was modern young woman who knew that in-laws should not be tolerated in a woman’s home.
“I can’t have this,” she said. “It interferes with a woman’s right to happiness.” So she and her husband took the little one man gently but firmly by the arm and led him the corner of the kitchen. There they set him on a stool and gave him his food, what there was of it, in an earthenware bowl. From then on he always ate in the corner, blinking at the table with wistful eyes. One day his hand trembled rather more than usual, and the earthenware bowl fell and broke.“If you are a pig,” said the daughter in law, “you must eat out of a trough.” So they made him a little wooden trough, and he got his meals in that.
These people had a four-year-old son of whom they were very fond. One suppertime the young man noticed his boy playing intently with some bits of wood and asked what he was doing.“I’m making a trough,” he said, smiling up for approval, “to feed you and Mama out of when I get big.”
The man and wife looked at each other for a while and didn’t say anything. Then they cried a little. Then they went to the corner and took the little old man back to the table. They sat him in a comfortable chair and gave him his food on a plate, and from then one nobody every scolded when he clattered or spilled or broke things.” [Joy Davidman. Smoke on the Mountain: An Interpretation of the Ten Commandments. (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1954.) pp. 60-61]
Children learn how to treat others, how to relate as husbands and wives, even how to honor father and mother at home. “Since the family is the primary source of revelation being passed from one generation to the next, and since parents are the key transmitters, dishonoring parents has a double impact. When children of whatever age dishonor their parents, not only was that act sinful itself, but they cut themselves off from prime source of truth and God’s will.” [Bill and Kathy Peel. Where is Moses When We Need Him? (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1995) p. 130.]
There is an enduring principle that is carried over into the New Testament. In Ephesians Paul writes, “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. (2) “Honor your father and mother,” which is the first commandment with promise: (3) “that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth.”
Volumes could and have been written to explain the dangers of disobedience, disrespect and dishonor directed toward ones parents. But Paul has already told us that we should do it because it is “right” and in his letter to the Colossians (3:20) we are told that we should “Children, obey your parents in all things, for this is well pleasing to the Lord.”
2. Recognition of the Importance of Life - Exodus 20:13 “You shall not murder.”
In the King James translation this reads, “Thou shalt not kill.” But it is better to understand the word “kill” means, “You shall not murder.” It is clear that this did not forbid, capital punishment (Gen 9:6), war (Deut 20) or self-defense (Ex 22:2).
One hardly needs to be reminded of the escalating violence of our society, of Littleton, Colorado and even in our own state in Jonesboro.
Professor Peter Singer wrote in one of his books, “Killing a defective infant is not morally equivalent to killing a person, Sometimes it is not wrong at all.” Singer, 52, a professor at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia began teaching bioethics at Princeton University’s Center for Human Values beginning July of 1999. Singer, who is considered the father of the international animal rights movement, has said that children less than one month old have no human consciousness and do not have the same rights as others. Can you believe it? Here is a man teaching our young people who apparently believes that an animal has more of a right to life than a one- month old baby with a physical handicap. [J. David Hoke. “God Is For Life.” Sermon on Exodus 20:13, Sermon Central]
You may well think that this commandment does not speak to you because you have never physically killed anyone. But Jesus applied evil thoughts, attitudes and intentions. Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount recorded in Matthew (5:21-22)
“You have heard that it was said to those of old, "You shall not murder, and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment.’ (22) But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment. And whoever says to his brother, "Raca!’ shall be in danger of the council. But whoever says, "You fool!’ shall be in danger of hell fire.” Jesus says that murder begins with the arrogant and egotistic attitude that causes someone to call his brother raca for instance. Raca means “empty–head” or “good for nothing.” So when we arrogantly look down at someone and call them an empty-head, blockhead, good for nothing, worthless, idiot and things like that you better check your attitude.
3. Recognition of the Importance of Marriage - Exodus 20:14 “You shall not commit adultery.”
When you got married you made a lifetime commitment before God to remain faithful to that one partner no matter what. Yes, there are some marriages that seem more like jail than joy. Some think they have made a horrible mistake because your marriage characterized by dryness and frustration. But these do not justify you betraying the vows you took.
Adultery is a particularly insidious force in any culture because it destroys the foundation of families. Adultery is a bad thing to be avoided because marriage is a good thing to be protected. Adultery makes something ugly that God created to be beautiful.
Moral failure rarely happens overnight. It almost always begins in our minds. We put into action what we have already contemplated in our minds. Jesus said in Matthew 5:27-28), “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not commit adultery. (28) But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” Moral failure begins in our minds.
Two things you can do!
1. Monitor input. Men because you are visual stimulated, guard what you allow into your eyes. Cancel your subscription to HBO, Showtime and Cinemax and stop watching things you know you should not. Put a filter on your Internet. Be careful of what you watch and what your read. Even on regular television the majority of sexual relationships depicted on television are between unmarried partners.
2. Reprogram the mind. Our society spews out propaganda that the real fun in life is in living in a unrestricted sexual environment, with all sexual restrains out of way. But God says. 1 Thess 4:3-8, “For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality; 4that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, 5not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God; 6that no one should take advantage of and defraud his brother in this matter, because the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also forewarned you and testified. 7For God did not call us to uncleanness, but in holiness. 8Therefore he who rejects this does not reject man, but God, who has also given us His Holy Spirit.”
4. Recognition of the Importance of Honesty - Exodus 20:15 “You shall not steal.”
Paul reiterates this in the New Testament in his letter to the Ephesians (4:28) “Let him who stole steal no longer, but rather let him labor, working with his hands what is good, that he may have something to give him who has need.”
Interestingly, neither the Ten Commandments nor Paul’s directives are written to a pack of thieving outlaws. They were written to those who in reality where probably the most honest people around, especially when compared to their pagan neighbors.
God is saying to his people, “do not steal” – choose a path of honesty . Get off the take. Stop sponging. Do something to contribute to others.
Anytime we take something that we owe to others – time, money, affection, courtesy, appreciation, we steal from them. Anytime we withhold something that God requires us to give we steal from Him.
We steal from an employer not only by take that which does not belong to us, but by half-hearted work. (Do your work as unto the LORD). Employers can steal fro their employees, not only by cheating them out of their wages, but by treating them unfairly.
5. Recognition of the Importance of Your Word – Ex. 20:16 “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.”
Simply stated, the ninth commandment, “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor,” forbids the lie and condemns the liar. When the apostle Paul lists the old ways of life that Christians are to put aside in Ephesians (4:25), lying heads the list. “Therefore, putting away lying, “Let each one of you speak truth with his neighbor,” for we are members of one another.”
The Christian then is not to lie. Let me give you a top-ten list of lies, that you hear most every day!. 10. Don’t worry Dear we will only stay five minutes. 9. This will be a short meeting. 8. I’ll respect you in the morning. 7. The check is in the mail. 6. I’m from the government and I am here to help you. 5. This hurts me more than it hurts you. () 4. Your money will be cheerfully refunded. 3. When the physician says, “This will sting a little bit.” 2. Your car will be ready tomorrow. 1. I’ll start exercising, (dieting, forgiving ) tomorrow!
There are a number of ways that people lie. There is of course the direct lie. Then there is gossip and slander. There is flattery. “The flatterer will not say to your back what he will say to your face. The hypocrite will not say to your face what he will say to your back.” This is not to say that there is not a place for compliments and encouragement. But flattery is an unmerited and insincere compliment meant to influence someone.
We must also understand that sometimes dishonesty does not occur because of what we have said, sometimes it happens as result of what we have left unsaid.
The importance of honesty, other than it is abhorrent to God, is that dishonesty will almost always come back to haunt you. “The story is told of a peevish old fellow who boarded a train, occupied the best seat, and then tried to reserve still another for himself by placing his luggage upon it. Just before the crowded vehicle started, a teenage boy came running up and jumped aboard. ‘This car is full,’ said the man irritably, “that seat next to me is reserved for a friend of mine who has put his bag there.’ The your paid no attention but sat down saying, ‘All right, I’ll stay here until he comes.’ He placed the suitcase upon his lap while the elderly man glared at him in vain. Of course, the ‘friend’ didn’t appear, and soon the train began to move. As it glided past the platform, the young man tossed the bag through the open window remarking, ‘Apparently you friend has missed the train. We can’t let him lose his luggage too.’ With a horrified expression on his face the old gentleman began to fume and sputter. His lie had cost him his possessions….” [Chuck Jones. “Truth or Consequences.” Sermon on Exodus 20:16, Sermon Central]
We must learn to tell the truth graciously but also plainly. There is a great story told about an elderly countess who was very happy with her chauffer. He was courteous, prompt and efficient. The only compliant she had concerned his personal appearance. One day in an attempt to be gracious she said to him, “Godrey, how frequently do you think one should shave in order to look neat and proper?” “Well Madam,” Godrey replied also trying to be gracious, “with a light beard like your, I’d say every three or four days would be enough.” When you speak the truth do it graciously, but plainly so that there is no misunderstanding.
6. Recognition of the Importance of Being Content – 20:17 “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor’s.”
The tenth commandment, in a certain sense sums up all the others. Yet, in fact, it is different from all the others. The other commandments are concerned with visible acts. The tenth commandment is concerned with inward desires. Coveting is the secret sin and often the cause of breaking the other five commandments concerning our relationship with other people.
Coveting is the sin, that you can be sit in church this morning and be guilty of and no one will be the wiser.Coveting will always lead to sin. Contentment will always lead us to obedience. Contentment is the key to fulfillment and security. Paul gives a picture of contentment in his letter to the Philippians, (4:11-12) “Not that I speak in regard to need, for I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content: 12I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need.”
Application
If after hearing the teachings of the Ten Commandments you are convict by how far you are from the standards of a holy God, good! That is exactly what God desires. The Ten Commandments were to show man how far he was from God’s standards and how much he need a Savior.
The Old Testament saint was saved by faith in a future sacrifice for his sin and the New Testament saint is saved by faith in a past sacrifice for sin. Salvation in the Old Testament and in the New Testament is by faith through grace. No one ever was saved because they earned it, because they kept the law.
