10/2/22 Exodus 20:1-20 “The Ten Commandments and Life!”

30 Sep 10/2/22 Exodus 20:1-20 “The Ten Commandments and Life!”

10/2/22    Exodus 20:1-20       “The Ten Commandments and Life!”

I was doing a dangerous activity this week.  I was thinking.  Look out!  Anyway, I was thinking about all the things that we do that are dangerous and life threatening.  I was thinking about how we have to be very careful when it is really hot so we don’t dehydrate.  We have rules so we stay hydrated.  We don’t have to follow them but they may save your life.  The same thing is true when it gets very cold.  Following certain rules could save your life.  Electricity is another one.  There are certain things that you don’t do or you may be electrocuted.  You don’t use an appliance while standing in water.  You don’t put a ladder up near or on wires.  I’m sure you can think of other instances where if you just follow a few simple rules, you will stay alive.  Today, we are going to take a quick look at the Ten Commandments.    Let’s see if we can see that these are more than just a set of rules.  These are 10 ways to save our lives and at the same time, make our lives much better.

Roger Wilson reminds us of what it was like to fly out of Great Britain during WWII.  American pilots flew many missions from British air bases to their targets in Germany.  Finding their way home was often difficult due to horrible weather conditions.  So here is what they did.  They plotted out the churches in England with tall spires.  Quite often the weather was so overcast and rainy that the American pilots and I suppose British pilots also, would fly below the gray sky and clouds and look for church spires to guide them home.  Churches told the pilots if they were on the right course.

Today, you folks and folks like you all over this country are the pilots and it is up to pastors like me to help you on the right course.  I try to use the Bible as our map but there are many pastors that use social issues or the flow of the country to guide them.  I think that this country really needs revival to get back on track.  Politics are worthless.  Money is worthless.  Only God has meaning.  Centuries and centuries ago, God gave us a simple set of rules to follow to have a better life.

I ran across a little history that I hadn’t thought about before as I was researching for today.  Have you ever wondered why God did so many great miracles during this time of the Exodus?  The reason is that the Israelites were basically a pagan people when they came out of Egypt.  They had spent over 400 years living as Egyptians.  They really had no identity as a nation or as a religion.  It was when they banded together and came out of Egypt that the nation was formed or solidified.  God is trying to show the people who He is so He does a whole series of great miracles.  Now He is giving them the law to live by.  Before this they were nothing more than a bunch of people who banded together as relatives of Jacob’s family.  There had been no religion and now God was showing them.

And what a job He did!!  He writes on stone tablets 10 Commandments for the people to follow.  Not just once, but twice!  He did this because of His love for His people.  He did this because of His love for us.  Now you may say or think that this comes from the Old Testament and we really don’t follow the Old Testament any more.  After all, when Jesus came He abolished the Law and this is part of the Law.  But Jesus didn’t abolish the Law, He fulfilled it!

You might have a good point here but I would like you to remember a couple of things.  All of the New Testament comes from the Old Testament.  There is nothing talked about in the New Testament that wasn’t talked about in the Old.  The New Testament basically restates what was in the Old Testament and adds a new person in Jesus Christ.  But even Jesus is mentioned in the Old Testament.  Also remember what Jesus says is the greatest Commandment.  From Matthew 22 we read that we are to love God with all our heart and all our soul and all our mind.  And the second is like it and says “Love your neighbor as yourself.”  Now I want you to take what Jesus says in Matthew and look at the Ten Commandments.  In the first four we are to love God with all our heart, soul and mind.  In the last six we are to love our neighbor as ourselves.

In the New Testament we read and one of the main themes is that we are to have a relationship with Jesus.  You know that I will ask you just about every week if you have this relationship and if you don’t, then you should ask Jesus into your heart today.  All of what Jesus did was so that you could have this special personal relationship with Him.  Now I want you to look at the Ten Commandments again.  All of them are about relationships.  The first four are about our relationship with God and the last six are about our relationship with each other.  Please don’t think or try to tell anyone that the Old Testament isn’t relevant because it is!

So now the obvious question becomes ‘how is your relationship with God?’  Do you do things that are more important than God or is He number 1 in your life?  Do you just shut God out of everything except for a few moments on Sunday morning?  Have you ever taken the Lord’s name in vain?  I hear this one all the time.  I have even heard this in church!  We are absolutely terrible about taking the Lord’s name in vain.  Another thing we are very bad at as a country and community is keeping the Sabbath holy or just keeping the Sabbath!  I can’t say that we do a bad job of this but can you say that you do a good job?  It is not up to me to tell you if you are doing any of these things.  You know.

All of this is between you and the Holy Spirit.  God gave us these Commandments so that you can see how you are doing in your relationship with Him.  I would guess and I’m not sure about this but I would guess that we could all use a little work.  We could all pray a little more, read more of the Scriptures and come to church more often.  People often think that these are a set of rules that everyone must follow.  They are not.  These are things that we try to follow to have a better life.  These are a set of commandments whereby you can measure just how you are doing.  So my question again is “How are you doing?”

How are you doing treating each other?  One of the worst things that we do is that we do not honor our fathers and mothers.  Our young people have been raised on TV shows where the kids rule the roost.  It is no wonder that we have so much trouble as the kids are always sassing to their parents.  You can turn on just about any TV show that has children in it and you will find all kinds of disrespectful behavior.  It is so bad that I don’t believe I have watched a sitcom with children in it, with only a couple of exceptions, for 30 years or so.  I just don’t like what I see.

How about has anybody ever killed someone?  Before you laugh please remember that God says if you have ever hated someone then you are guilty of murder.  Have you ever looked at someone with lust?  Have you ever stolen something?  This can take in a wide range of things.  Have you ever lied?  Have you ever wanted something that someone else had?  If you think about it, this is really quite a list.  I would guess that there is no one listening today who has kept all of these Commandments.  I would go even further and say that there isn’t a person today in the whole world who has kept these.  If these are so impossible to keep, then why did God make them for us?

I would like to talk about two very important reasons for this and there are others.  First, I think that God loves us and He wants us to have a better life.  As a matter of fact, I know this.  If you try to keep these commandments, I will guarantee you a better life.  That is all God has ever wanted.  If you keep a good relationship with Him and others, then you will be doing what He wants which will lead to a better life.

The other reason and by far the most important reason is that these Commandments show us that we cannot do it by ourselves.  There is no way that anyone can keep these.  The only way that we can keep these is if Jesus goes ahead of us and forgives our sin.  Therefore there is not a person in the world who doesn’t need Jesus.  Everyone needs Jesus!

One of the great things that these Commandments do is that they help us to move our faith in the direction of action.  Far too often people come to Christ and then they don’t know what to do.  It is pretty hard to believe that a person is in Jesus if they are a career criminal and they keep on in their criminal ways.  The talk and the walk have to be the same.

This becomes part of our job.  One of the ways to follow God is for us to be open to others and their walk with Jesus.  Another is to be inviting to all people we know.  In the next few weeks, we are going to take a look at some things that Christians do to make themselves fruitful.  These will be a mixture of loving God and loving others.  We will see if there are ways that you can be more inviting and loving.

So part of the reason that Ten Commandments were given is to help us have a better life and for us to know that we cannot do it alone.  So now the question becomes, where are the Ten Commandments in your life?  There is a courthouse in the south someplace several years ago that had a huge controversy over whether or not the Ten Commandments could be displayed in the courthouse.  Satan won this battle and they had to be taken down.  But they left the empty frame in place.  I’m sure a lot of Satan’s helpers were upset because you can still go into this courthouse and you know that this was where the Ten Commandments once hung.  I think that it is a rather ingenious way for us to still think about God.  Are the Commandments hanging proudly in your life or do you have to hide them or have you just forgotten about them?

Most of you know that I worked for years in a place where you really couldn’t talk about God very much.  I found many ways around this as I would try to live my faith and I would even talk about it sometimes.  Teachers are faced with the same dilemma.  But once again a good Christian teacher will get around these terrible rules by living like Christ.  They will spread this tremendous love that Jesus has for us by setting the example in the classroom.  I suppose that we can keep on setting examples until they finally make a law against this too.  There are many other areas of life where we can do the same thing.  Please remember that no matter what obstacles that Satan puts up in front of us, there is a way to overcome.  Jesus has beaten Satan and He will help you to do this today.

We do this by following the first 4 Commandments the best we can.  We do this by coming to church, by praying and by reading the Bible.  This is the way to strengthen your faith.  I have had this happen quite a few times where I have met a person who is the pillar of a church and they don’t even believe in the Bible.  Once I was talking to one such fellow and he told me that he couldn’t believe in many of the miracles of Genesis.  Scientifically, they couldn’t happen.  I calmly asked if there were any other parts of the Bible that we should rip out and throw away.  No matter how hard we try to change it or deny it or make it fit our culture, you cannot change the truth.  And the truth comes from the Bible and the Ten Commandments.  Do I hear an ‘Amen!”

James Hewett demonstrates this rather easily as he tells how President Abraham Lincoln was trying to make a point one day and the fellow he was talking to was unconvinced and stubborn.  So Lincoln changed tactics a little.  He said, “Well, let’s see now.  How many legs does a cow have?”  The disgusted reply came back “Four, of course.” Lincoln agreed, “That’s right. Now, suppose you call the cow’s tail a leg; how many legs would the cow have?” The opponent replied confidently, “Why, five, of course.” Lincoln came back, “Now that’s where you’re wrong. Calling a cow’s tail a leg doesn’t make it a leg!”  No matter which of the 56 genders you call yourself, you are still a male or a female.  No matter what we do, a lie will not change the truth.  Even if you believe the lie, it does not change the truth!

This Bible of ours is the truth.  If you want to pick and choose what you believe in the Bible that is your business and you will be wrong.  Maybe you have chosen to ignore the Sabbath law or the coveting law.  You will be wrong.  Or maybe you ignore other parts of the Bible.  You will be wrong again.

God gave us this book and the Ten Commandments so that we can live better.  With Jesus you will have more freedom.  You will have more choices.  You will have more of the good things in life.  This is the love that God has for you.  He wants you to be just like Him.  Go to Him through the Ten Commandments or other parts of Scripture.  Go to Him and believe 100%.  He loves you so much that He wants to give you everything.  And thank you, Jesus, for first loving us.  Let’s pray.