WE ARE STARTING A NEW SERMON SERIES - 10 Commandments

INTRODUCTION

INTRO to the Ten Commandments

Exodus 20: 1-17

And God spoke all these words, saying, “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

“You shall have no other gods before me. “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. You shall not bow down to them or 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 the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.

“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. “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you. “You shall not murder. “You shall not commit adultery. “You shall not steal. “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.”

We live in strange times, don’t we? A recent Gallup Poll revealed that 84% of Americans believe that the Ten Commandments are a valid guide to life. That’s encouraging until you realize that another survey revealed that only 30% of those polled could name 3 of them.

Before we go any further, how many can you name? Fill in the blanks below with a word or phrase that summarizes each Commandment:

1st Commandment                      (Thou no gods shalt have but Me)
2nd Commandment                     (Before no idol bend the knee)
3rd Commandment                      (Take not the name of God in vain)
4th Commandment                      (Dare not the Sabbath to profane)
5th Commandment                      (Give both thy parents honor due)
6th Commandment                      (Take heed that thou no murder do)
7th Commandment                      (Abstain from all that is unclean)
8th Commandment                      (Steal not though thou be poor or mean)
9th Commandment                      (Make not a willful lie nor love it)
10th Commandment                    (What is thy neighbor’s do not covet)

For thousands of years and many generations the Ten Commandments were considered a standard part of a good American education. Children learned to recite all ten—usually long before they started school. If for some reason they didn’t, poems such as the following were used to help them remember:

The sad reality is that most American children grow up and know next to nothing about the Ten Commandments but everything about gay and transgender rights. Sadly the Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional many states laws  requiring that the Ten Commandments be posted in public school classrooms. Such a law was a violation of the First Amendment because it unnecessarily entangled church and state. The fairest comment upon that decision is that the men who wrote the constitution would be utterly amazed by that conclusion.

Our founding Fathers assumed that all children in every classroom would learn the Ten Commandments because they regarded their work as resting on that legal and historical foundation that went all the way back to Mt. Sinai. To use the constitution against the Ten Commandments would have seemed ludicrous to them. Unfortunately, we live in a day when the ludicrous has become the law of the land.

Why DO WE Bother With the Ten Commandments? It is against that general background that we begin our study of the Ten Commandments—by recognizing that Jews and Christians alike hold them as the greatest moral code ever given to mankind.

Yet even Christians ask “We’re not under the law, are we?” “Don’t give me that Old Testament legalism.” “Ugh! I remember having to memorize the Ten Commandments when I was a child.”

For those who don’t know about the Ten Commandments, or for those who know and don’t think they matter much, let me offer four answers to the question, “Why bother?” 

1) They Provide an Objective Standard of Right and Wrong. We live in a day when the very concept of objective morality is being questioned. “It may be right for you, but how do I know if it’s right for me?”

Once the concept of an absolute standard is thrown away, then we are left with nothing more than dreamy idealism ("We are the world") or hard-fisted pragmatism ("Might makes right") or democratic populism ("The majority rules") or technocratic elitism ("I went to college. Let me make the rules.").

Archimedes said, “Give me a lever long enough, and a place to stand, and I will move the world.” The lever long enough is not the problem; we need a “place to stand.” If you want to move the world, you have to stand outside the world. That’s the problem with using human feelings and majority rule as a basis for determining right and wrong. They will never provide a secure “place to stand.”

You need something—or someone—who himself stands outside the world. That Someone can only be God himself. 

2) God Spoke All These Words. And that brings us to Exodus 20:1, the often-overlooked preamble to the Ten Commandments, “And God spoke all these words.” In our attempt to get down to the “good stuff” we rush right over these words as if they were a kind of ancient copyright notice. We flip past the title page to get to the first chapter. But that’s a crucial mistake because these words tell who is speaking.

“God spoke all these words.” Who is speaking here? God! What did he say? “All these words.” So where do the Ten Commandments come from? God!

These are not “Ten Suggestions for a Better Life” or “Ten Ways You Should Consider” or “Ten Habits of Highly Successful People” or “Ten Ways to Climb the Ladder” or “Ten Ideas That Might Work For You.” No!

God spoke all these words—therefore they have lasting moral authority.
God spoke all these words—therefore we don’t have to wonder about his intentions.
God spoke all these words—therefore we must take all of them with utter seriousness.
God spoke all these words—therefore we must give these words our primary attention.

What, then, do we find when we come to the Ten Commandments? Here at last is an objective standard for right and wrong. Here at last is our “place to stand” upon which we can make proper moral judgments. Here at last is a universal set of moral principles.

—They have never been repealed.
—They have never been surpassed.
—They are as valid today as they were 3,000 years ago.

(There is a another reason why we ought to pay attention to the Ten Commandments.)

3) They Regulate Christian Behavior. At this point we enter a theological minefield. In what sense do the Ten Commandments regulate Christian behavior? “Pastor, I thought we weren’t under the law nowadays.” You are right. We’re not “under” the law but “under” grace.

But note the next sentence carefully: Being “under” grace does not cancel the Ten Commandments. They are always a code to live by for every human being in God’s creation.

Let me state the matter as clearly as I can. We are not saved by keeping the Ten Commandments. I think Paul settles that matter conclusively in the book of Romans. No one will get to heaven by keeping the Ten Commandments because no one can keep them perfectly!

But that’s only half the story. Although we are not saved by the Ten Commandments, we are kept safe by them.

Let me illustrate. Suppose that up in the mountains of Colorado a terrible storm sweeps away a narrow bridge over a steep gorge. A traveler happening along in the middle of the night sees what has happened and constructs a makeshift sign: “Bridge out! Danger!” An hour later a man comes along who has had too much to drink. Thinking the handmade sign is a joke he drives on around the curve only to discover too late that the bridge really is out, plunging to his death on the rocks below. Why did he die? He died because he ignored the warning sign.

The Ten Commandments are like that warning sign. They are God’s way of saying, “Warning! Danger Ahead! Bridge Out!” We ignore them at our own peril.

One little boy came home from Sunday School bubbling over with excitement. “What did you learn today?” his mother asked. “ Wow, Mom, We learned all about the 10 Commandos!” He’s right! The Ten Commandments are really God’s Ten Commandos who keep us safe and point the way to happiness.

And that brings me to the fourth reason we ought to study the Ten Commandments.

4) They Point Out God’s Road Map to Happiness. It may seem odd to connect the Ten Commandments with happiness since 8 of the 10 commandments are stated in a negative fashion. “Thou shalt not … Thou shalt not … Thou shalt not … Thou shalt not …” Some people read that and think that maybe God doesn’t have a sense of humor, that he’s a crotchety old man sitting in a rocking chair in heaven just looking for a chance to throw a lightning bolt down and fry a sinner.

Somewhere I read the story of a newspaper editor who told one of his reporters to rewrite the Ten Commandments. After a few minutes the reporter came back with one word scratched in huge letters on a piece of paper: DON’T! And that’s their image of God—"No, no, no, don’t do this, don’t do that, don’t have any fun, don’t enjoy life, if you enjoy it, it’s probably wrong.” People think that a God of love would never say no!

Love Means Saying No!

Nothing could be farther from the truth. If you love someone, you’ll love them enough to say no! A few years ago a young man came in to see me. He told me that one of the reasons he didn’t want to become a Christian is that Christianity is such a negative religion. He also said that he found it incredible to ask teenagers to abstain from sex until they were married. How could God ask anybody to do a thing like that?

I asked him if he saw one of his daughters playing in the middle of Route 40, he wouldn’t stand back and say, “Well, kids will be kids. If they want to play in the street, there’s nothing I can do about it.” What kind of parent would do that? No, he would shout to his girls, “Don’t play in the street.” If they complained, he would pick them up and carry them out of the street. Is that unloving? Is that unkind? As the man said, “If I love my daughters, I’ll say no!”

Sometimes you have to love people enough to say no!

That’s what God is doing in the Ten Commandments. He’s loving us enough to say no. We may not understand it, we may not see it right now, we may think that our way is better, but God who sees all things and knows how life is supposed to work, gives us these commandments as a way of being happy both now and forever.

There’s another way of looking at this. Suppose we turned the commandments into beatitudes. They would look something like this:

Blessed are they who put God first.
Blessed are they who need no substitutes.
Blessed are they who honor God’s name.
Blessed are they who honor God’s day.
Blessed are they who honor their parents.
Blessed are they who value life.
Blessed are they who keep their marriage vows.
Blessed are they who respect the property of others.
Blessed are they who love the truth.
Blessed are they who learn the art of contentment.

Who said the Ten Commandments are too negative? They aren’t negative at all. Turn them over and you find the ten most positive statements about life ever written.

Some people call the Ten Commandments narrow because there’s no wriggle room.

Well, in one sense they are narrow in that they forever rule out such things as murder, adultery, hatred, stealing and lying. If that’s being narrow, then we need all the narrowness we can get.

Are the Ten Commandments narrow? Yes, but so is every runway in the world. No passenger wants the pilot to miss the runway and land in a field. How would you feel if the captain announced over the intercom that he was bored with landing at the Regional Airport so he had decided to land on the Route 81 Interstate Freeway?

Listen, when you are up in the air you want a narrow-minded pilot. You don’t want some creative fly-jock who’s going to land on the freeway. You want a narrow-minded guy who’s going to land on that same strip of concrete every single time. Boring? Maybe, but that narrow ribbon of pavement is really the broad road that leads to a safe landing.

Same thing about human relationships – they need standards that apply to everyone. That’s why the 10 commandments are not outdated and never will be.

Amen.