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How to Honor God’s Name

Published February 10, 2015 Uncategorized Leave a Comment
Tags: blasphemy, Honoring God's name, Ten Commandments

We have learned that there is one true God. Like it or not, the God of Judaism and Christianity is that God. There is no other. Some people may think differently, but there is only one God and He alone is to be worshipped. All morality and ethics descend from that one true God. It is He who decides what is right and what is wrong. This absolute view of morality is a huge pill for the moral relativist to swallow. In his world, sometimes a thing may be wrong but other times it may be right. Right and wrong change from age to age and from culture to culture. The moral relativist lives in a completely grey world where there is no black or what – no absolute truth. People like this populate college campuses all over the world, indoctrinating young minds with their poisonous views.

In the world of faith, this shouldn’t be the case, although it often is. The Bible, which is the very Word of God, teaches us that there are most definitely “wrong things” which are to be avoided. We call those things “sins,” and the topic of sin takes up more space in the Bible than prayer. In God’s view, all of man’s problems can be distilled into one: Sin.

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:23 NIV)

Everybody sins; some sin more than others, but all people sin. In fact, it’s worse even than that. David saw his problem as a lifelong problem he had no control over:

Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me. (Psalm 51:5 NIV)

The context of this psalm is a well-known one: David’s adultery with Bathsheba. 2 Samuel 12 tells the story of Nathan’s encounter with King David in which he reprimanded the King for his sinful acts. David knew he had not only committed adultery and was instrumental in the murder of Uriah, but he also knew that somehow his sins against people – Bathsheba and Uriah – had harmed God. Psalm 51 is essentially David’s prayer for forgiveness, although what he wrote about himself is applicable to all sinners.

Verse 5 succinctly points to what theologians have come to call the doctrine of “total depravity.” An essential doctrine all orthodox Christians hold to is total depravity, which teaches that all men are born sinners. People do not become sinners as they age although men sin volitionally as well. David, without the benefit of a seminary education, wrote under the inspiration of God a profound theological truth: man is doubly guilty. He was born a sinner (through no fault of his own) and he commits sins (by his own choice).

Is all sin the same?

No human being is guiltless and we all sin. But does that mean all sin is equal in God’s eyes? Or, put another way, is there such a thing as “the worst sin” of all? A great many Christians think not. The prevailing thought in Christianity is that “all sin is sin” and that no sin is any worse than any other. In a sense, it takes a lot of faith to believe “all sin is sin,” because in this view the person who steals a pack of paper clips from his office has committed just as grievous a sin as the person who just committed a murder. As I wrote, it must take a tremendous amount of faith to hold to this view because at the very least it goes against all common sense and reason. Although both are sins, is it reasonable to think that stealing paper clips from work is just as bad as committing a murder? God doesn’t think so. Not all sins are equal; there really is a sin worse than any other. In fact, this “worst of all” sin is so bad, it’s the only one God declared He would not forgive: Committing evil in God’s name. It’s actually the third of the Ten Commandments, and traditionally it goes like this:

Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain. (Exodus 20:7 KJV)

Exodus 20:7

That’s not the best translation of the third Commandment and it has led most people into a complete misunderstanding of what this Commandment is all about. “Taking the name of the Lord in vain” has come to mean using the Lord’s name in a frivolous manner. So, for example, the person we all know who says, “Oh my God” all the time is guilty of committing this sin. Or the co-worker who declares at quitting time, “God, what a horrible day I had,” has broken the third Commandment. However, this is not at all what the third Commandment prohibits. Remember, this is the only commandment of the Ten that God says He will never forgive, therefore it must be far worse than merely using His Name for no good reason.

The Hebrew rendering of Exodus 20:7 looks like this:

You shall not carry the name of the Lord your God in vain…

The NIV comes closest with its translation:

You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name. (Exodus 20:7 NIV)

To “carry” or “misuse” God’s name is to commit acts of evil in the name of God and this is what God will not forgive. This naturally raises a simple question: Why? How can God forgive a person who, say, commits murder yet not forgive the person who commits that same evil in His name? The answer is as simple as the question, and it goes back to why King David wrote Psalm 51. He committed adultery with Bathsheba and he caused a completely innocent good man, Uriah, Bathsheba’s husband, to be killed. Yet, when you read Psalm 51 the victim’s names are nowhere to be found. We do, though, read this:

It is against you and you alone I sinned and did this terrible thing. You saw it all, and your sentence against me is just. (Psalm 51:4 TLB)

David was a man of God and he knew better. By committing those sinful acts when he knew full-well he shouldn’t, he was “carrying God’s name” as he committed adultery and planned Uriah’s murder. When an unbeliever commits evil acts, God’s reputation – His name – isn’t brought into question. But when a believer commits evil acts he harms God’s reputation – he, as David wrote, sins against God.

Modern example

In our day we see a glaring example of this happening routinely: the evil committed by Islamists in the name of Allah, who some have taken to be the God of Judaism and Christianity. Of course, Allah is a made up god, but enough people in the world believe otherwise, therefore when Muslims kill, torture, murder, bomb, and behead “infidels,” the one true God’s reputation is hurt, and by extension that of good people of all religions.

The evil done in the name of Christ by the church in centuries past has caused many to leave that church and to even question the existence of God. And it’s no surprise that the modern “atheist movement” gained momentum shortly after the 9-11 attack. After all, who could possibly worship a God who causes/allows/perpetrates such horrible acts of evil? As Dennis Prager noted:

People who murder in the name of God not only kill their victims, but they kill God, too.

It’s easy to see why the greatest sin of all is religious evil and why it’s the only sin God won’t forgive.

Matthew 12:31, 32

Over in the New Testament, our Lord taught a similar thing, but with a slight twist. It’s important to remember that Jesus was a Jewish rabbi and that His teachings were really just teachings about the Law of God. He said this:

Don’t misunderstand why I have come—it isn’t to cancel the laws of Moses and the warnings of the prophets. No, I came to fulfill them and to make them all come true. (Matthew 5:17 TLB)

The teachings of Christ were revolutionary, but at the same time, they were really teachings about the importance of the laws of Moses and the Word of God, which was the essentially the Old Testament. With that in mind, in Matthew 12, Jesus issues this ominous word that relates back to the third Commandment:

Even blasphemy against me or any other sin can be forgiven—all except one: speaking against the Holy Spirit shall never be forgiven, either in this world or in the world to come. (Matthew 12:31, 32 TLB)

Within the context of Matthew 12, Jesus is clearly linking what He referred to as “blasphemy against the Holy Spirit” to attributing the work of the Holy Spirit – the work of God – to Satan. This is precisely what the Pharisees had done a few verses before. Jesus had just performed some miracles, including casting a demon out of a person.

But when the Pharisees heard about the miracle, they said, “He can cast out demons because he is Satan, king of devils.” (Matthew 12:24 TLB)

The onlookers, the rank and file Jews in the crowd who had witnessed these miracles, rightly concluded that Jesus could very well be the long-awaited Messiah. It took theological egg-heads to get it wrong. Which reminds us of what G.K Chesterton’s crime-solving clergyman once pointed out that it was the professionals who built the Titanic, but it was an amateur who built the Ark. And it was these professional theologians who, in giving credit to Satan for Jesus’ miracles, had planted seeds of doubt in the minds of the Jews.

Recall that the third Commandment prohibits doing evil in the name of God because it harms God’s reputation. Here, that act is referred to as “blasphemy.” To “blaspheme” is to speak an insult against someone, defaming their character and reputation. The “blasphemy of the Holy Spirit,” then, is ultimately defaming the reputation and character of God. There is no forgiveness for that, either in this world or the next.

Only One Way

Published January 27, 2015 Uncategorized Leave a Comment
Tags: Exodus, Freedom, Ten Commandments

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In our politically correct hobbled society, the real challenge for the faithful is explaining the concept upon which both the Old and New Testaments rests: the exclusivity of true faith. In Exodus 20, we read the Ten Commandments. In the original Hebrew, they aren’t “commandments” but “statements,” and the first two statements God made are these:

I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. “You shall have no other gods before me.” (Exodus 20:2, 3 NIV)

That last statement galls many in a society that preaches a kind of moral equivalence of all world religions. One religion is just as valid as the other. One god is just as valid as another. Yet this is not what the one true God says.

And God spoke all these words… (Exodus 20:1 NIV)

It wasn’t Moses who concocted the notion of monotheism, it was God Himself who stated it: He is the ONLY God and man is to worship ONLY Him. There isn’t a lot of inclusivism in God’s first statement.

Over in the New Testament, the Son of God said something similar:

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.” (John 14:6 NIV)

God didn’t get any more inclusive during the centuries between Moses and Jesus, that’s for sure! There is only one way, not many ways to God. However, as exclusive as true faith may be, it is open to anybody who would simply believe.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. (John 3:16 – 18 NIV)

Exodus 20:2

The Ten Commandments is a document that has changed the world for the better. As important and as influential as the Magna Carta and the Declaration of Independence may be, they are eclipsed by the Ten Commandments. According to God Himself, the fact man ought to worship only Him is the first step toward making the world a better place in which to live.

Depending on whether you are a Jew or a Christian, the first commandment will be different. Remember, in the original Hebrew, these are statements not commandments, and the first statement God made is this declaration:

I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. (Exodus 20:2 NIV)

All the other commandments (or statements) rest on this one. It states in unambiguous terms that it is God who is speaking, not Moses or any other man; that what follows are God’s statements and not somebody’s opinions. This was important for the Israelites to know because, as God went on to state, it was He who delivered them from bondage in Egypt, not some human being, and because of that, the Israelites were in His debt. Because He did such a great thing for them, they needed to pay attention to His wishes, and His wishes included living by the following commandments.

This was a revolutionary concept which we call Ethical Monotheism; the notion that there is one God (Monotheism) and He is the Source of ethics and morality – or He dictates what is right and what is wrong. Why was this revolutionary? Just stop and consider the time in which Moses gave Israel God’s Ten Commandments: man was worshipping all kinds of gods, from gods that controlled the weather to gods that looked like animals. Every religion had their own code of right and wrong. What the people of God needed was what God provided: an objective morality that transcended human ideas and opinions.

If you take even the quickest glance at the Commandments, you’ll notice that most of them have to do with how we treat others. That’s included in the definition of Ethical Monotheism. God is concerned with how believers treat their fellow man. Not a single commandment has to do with what a believer should do for God. For three centuries, the Israelites had been exposed to the religion of Egypt which was all about what man should do for his gods. In the centuries to come, they would be surrounded by other pagan religions that also taught that man had to do many things to satisfy his gods – things like feeding them or sacrificing other people to them. But the Ten Commandments declared that what the one true God wants most of all is that His people treat all people well. Yes, even those commandments about not having false gods or not carrying God’s name in vain are about morality because how we treat God cannot be divorced from how we treat other people.

A new world

It’s not that God was building a new religion with His Ten Commandments or statements, it’s that He was building a new society that would mirror His vision of what real freedom was. Just how important is freedom to God? It’s the salient point of the Ten Commandments! He began, not with a declaration that He created the universe – an impressive act to be sure – but with the declaration that He set His people free from slavery. That’s how much God hates slavery and how important He thinks freedom is.

Jesus thought freedom was pretty important, too. But for the Christian, it isn’t freedom from slavery to another man per se, it’s freedom from sin and all kinds of oppression.

To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples.Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:31, 32 NIV)

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. (Galatians 5:1 NIV)

The authors of the Magna Carta and the Founding Fathers of America based their views of freedom on the Biblical fact that God wants all men to be free. That’s why, for example, the Liberty Bell has only one sentence on it, and it’s not a quote from Washington or Madison, but part of a verse from the Bible:

Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof. (Leviticus 25:10 KJV)

God, the author and giver of the Ten Commandments, makes it clear that the way to a free society; the way for any human being to live in freedom, is by simply following His Commandments or statements. In other words, freedom God’s way has nothing to do with being able to do whatever you feel like doing. If the Ten commandments teaches anything, it’s that real freedom comes from exercising self-control.

Exodus 2:3

The second Commandment, by Jewish reckoning is this one:

You shall have no other gods before me.

It goes on to forbid the making and worshipping of idols or images. On the surface, it sounds like God is discouraging the reverence of things like totem poles or icons or statues, or the worship of false gods like the weather or fertility gods, or the Greek and Roman gods and so on. However, that’s a very limited view of this commandment. In our time, most people don’t worship the weather, although we talk about it all the time. Most people don’t worship statues or Zeus or Ra. But this Commandment is not irrelevant, in fact there’s a reason why it’s Commandment number one or two, depending on whether you are a Christian or a Jew. In our sophisticated age, there are just as many false gods as there were during the days of Moses. Things like money, popularity, power, celebrity, politics, education, beauty, love, art, flag, family, talent, health, the environment, all these things are the false gods of today, and the worship of false gods is the greatest hindrance to peace and goodwill on the earth.

In a sense, the rest of the Commandments descend from this one. God makes it plain that He and He alone is the only God and that He is alone is to be worshipped. But this should not be taken as a prideful or demeaning statement. It’s a logical one. If there’s only one God, then He is the one God who deserves to be worshipped. Furthermore, think about these things:

One God means there is one human race. Though we may all look different and speak different languages, we have all come from one Creator, or one Heavenly Father. In that sense, every human being is the brother or sister of every other human being.

Because we have the same Father, all people are equal; no one nationality or society is intrinsically more valuable than the other. That doesn’t mean every society is the same or every society is a good society. It means that in God’s eyes, no matter where you may live, what language you may speak, or what the color of your skin is, you are important to God and you are known personally by God.

And the fact that there is one God means that there is one moral standard for all people. These Ten Commandments, for example, were given by God to the Israelites, but since they came from God, they are good for all people. So if adultery is wrong here, then it is wrong over there. And because there is only one God, you can’t go to another god to get justification for your adultery.

A similar thought is expressed throughout the New Testament.

For God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son so that anyone who believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. God did not send his Son into the world to condemn it, but to save it. (John 3:16, 17 TLB)

By “world” in these verses, “people” is meant, not the planet on which they live. God loves the people of the world so much, He sent His only Son to save them. He wants very much to save them – to spare them the condemnation to come.

Both Testaments also insist that when man worships anything or anybody other than the one true God, bad things will surely result. This isn’t a religious superstition, it’s the ground rule God has established. Some of those bad things are obvious. When man worships power or money or race, his life becomes corrupt and he hurts those around him. Even the worship of very good things, like family or art or even classical music can inspire great evil. The example often cited for this is the movie A Clockwork Orange. In it, men rape and murder while classical music is playing. Education is another god of this age. But some of the most educated men in Germany came up with Hitler’s “final solution,” proving a great education is no guarantee of good character. Love is a gift from God, but it can become a false god that harms people. Think about how love of country, for example, when exalted above love of God, has resulted in horrible evil being committed against others.

This is why keeping God in the very center of our lives is so important. Worship of the one true God brings perspective to our sometimes very confusing lives. It may seem strange to you that this Commandment to worship the one true God results in better human beings and a better community, but it really shouldn’t. Like any parent, our Heavenly Father takes great joy in seeing His children live decent, moral, and ethical lives. And like any parent does, when His children behave, God blesses them.

Yes, Biblical faith is exclusive. There is only one God and only way to reach Him – through a living relationship with His Son, Jesus Christ. The freest people on earth are those who have been set free from the bondage to sin by Christ.

So if the Son sets you free, you will indeed be free. (John 8:36 TLB)

Human Life Is Sacred

Published January 17, 2015 Uncategorized Leave a Comment
Tags: killing, Life, murder, sacred life, Ten Commandments

Suppose you’re walking your dog along the beach when all of a sudden the dog bolts and gets away from you and runs out into the ocean. At that exact moment, you hear a commotion down the beach and you look out and see somebody screaming, struggling to keep afloat. The stranger is drowning, but so is your dog. You love your dog very much, but you don’t know the stranger. Your impulse is to save the dog. But what will you do?

Dennis Prager gives that scenario to illustrate how people view human life.

Since the 1970s, I have asked students if they would first try to save their drowning dog or a drowning stranger. And for 40 years I have received the same results: One third vote for their dog, one third for the stranger, and one third don’t know what they would do.

How did we get to the place where two thirds of human beings wouldn’t save a drowning stranger but one third would save a dog? The fact is, for much of American history – at least up until the 1960’s – Americans were taught that human beings were created in God’s image while animals were not. For the past 50 years that’s not what’s been taught and it shows. No wonder there is some confusion when it comes to who or what to save. Too many of us follow our hearts and feelings rather than acknowledge the sacredness of human life. Too many of us don’t know how to differentiate between our feelings and our values, or as Prager puts it, “between our feelings and revelation (divinely revealed values).”

All of us feel more for a being we love than for a being we don’t know, let alone love. Therefore something must supersede our feelings. That something must be values. But these values must be perceived as emanating from something higher than us; higher than our opinions, higher than our faculty of reason, and even higher than our conscience. And that higher source is God.

Indeed. Dennis Prager is right. The only reason to save a stranger at the expense of your dog is that that stranger is a human being, created in God’s image. Your feelings may tell you otherwise, but God’s revelation must always supersede those feelings.

Let’s see what the Bible, God’s final revelation to man, says about this issue.

Do not murder

This is one of the Ten Commandments and is often misunderstood. The word really is “murder,” not “kill.” A human being is never to murder another human being. This prohibition, however, is much older than the Mosaic Covenant.

The Noahic Covenant, Genesis 9:5, 6

And for your lifeblood I will surely demand an accounting. I will demand an accounting from every animal. And from each human being, too, I will demand an accounting for the life of another human being. “Whoever sheds human blood, by humans shall their blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made mankind.”

There are plenty of covenants in the Bible, which makes sense because our God is a covenant-making God. This one, though, is not widely known. It was made between God and Noah after the flood waters receded. It is unique among all the covenants between God and man because it was made quite literally at the very beginning of a new humanity on earth.

Noah was given three commands upon leaving the ark. The first was similar to the command God gave Adam and Eve: to have children to refill the earth. The second one reaffirmed man’s dominion over all creation except that while there was complete harmony with creation originally, God this time instilled a “dread fear” of man in creation and man was to include meat in his diet. Part of this command included draining all the blood from animals killed for food. This was probably looking forward to the Jewish sacrificial system. But it was God’s third command to Noah that is most significant. The absolute sanctity of man’s blood is stressed because he was created in God’s image. Even though that image in man has been greatly flawed, it is there all the same and therefore killing a human being is a crime against God Himself. The life of the one who takes the life of another person is to be taken as punishment. God could exact this punishment Himself, but He has chosen to act through His representatives on earth: man. This is capital punishment and it is not a suggestion from God, it is a command. That’s pretty simple, and it would remain so until more elaborate rules were given later on in the Mosaic law.

According to Numbers 35, failure to abide by this command would result in dire consequences.

If you did this, you would defile the land where you are living. Murder defiles the land, and except by the death of the murderer there is no way to perform the ritual of purification for the land where someone has been murdered. Do not defile the land where you are living, because I am the Lord and I live among the people of Israel. (Numbers 35:33, 34 GNB)

This command was not given only as part of the law of God to Moses for the Israelites. It was given to all mankind and there is a high price for disobeying it. The decline of society we are witnessing today may, in part, be due to the man’s stubborn refusal to follow the Lord’s command to take a life for a life. It’s not just punishment, it’s an acknowledge of the sanctity of human life.

The Mosaic Covenant, Exodus 20:13

This commandment has been misunderstood for generations because it has been mistranslated. It is not “killing” but murder that is prohibited. This makes this commandment a cousin to the command given to Noah. Very simply put, according to God you may kill but you may not murder. This is an important distinction. The word “kill” in Hebrew refers to the taking of any life, human or animal, either deliberately or by accident, either legally or illegally. But the Hebrew word for “murder,” which is used here, means only the taking of a human life on purpose. That’s why we say things like, “I killed a mosquito,” not “I murdered a mosquito,” or “The worker was accidentally killed,” not “The worker was accidentally murdered.”

That this commandment cannot refer to “killing” is clear because the Torah allows for killing another human in times of war and as capital punishment. The Bible does not allow for two popular positions held by society today: opposition to capital punishment and pacifism. In terms of capital punishment, it is the only law that appears in each book of the Torah. And remember, it predates the law of Moses, making it applicable to all mankind. In a free society, of course, you are free to hold an alternative view, but you are not free to cite the Bible in support of it because, as should abundantly clear, the Bible teaches only one thing: murders are to be put to death. Why? It is because man is created in God’s image and murder is a crime against God. The ultimate crime is not, in one sense, the taking of a human life, but harming the image of God in him. That ultimate crime deserves the ultimate punishment.

The Priestly Covenant, Leviticus 19:16

Do not go about spreading slander among your people. ‘Do not do anything that endangers your neighbor’s life. I am the Lord. (NIV)

The idea behind this verse is better understood in context of how we treat one another. Verse 15 teaches us to honor people and to treat all people fairly, whether rich or poor. Verse 16 prohibits lying about another person and possibly putting their life at risk. And verse 17 deals again with how we treat our neighbor. The standard being put forth here is close to the teaching of the New Testament that forbids taking vengeance and demands love for both neighbor and stranger alike. So sacred is life that we need to be careful in even how we talk to and about people, so as not to provoke violence that could lead to death.

Protecting the innocent

The question Cain asked God was an important one: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” How far are we supposed to go in looking after our neighbor? Where does our responsibility end in terms of his welfare? Sure, we are commanded NOT to murder our neighbor, but what the positive side: love and concern? Deuteronomy helps us out.

Deuteronomy 19:1 – 10

These verses deal with the so-called “Cities of Refuge,” God’s solution to the problem of an accidental killing. Nothing else like these cities of refuge existed in the world. If a man accidentally killed someone, he could flee to one of six designated cities and live without fear of being killed.

Justice is very important to the Lord, even justice for the unintentional killer. The willful murderer would be punished swiftly, but there was a safe haven for the one who killed accidentally.

We don’t have cities of refuge today, but there is a great lesson to be learned from them. Elisabeth Elliot writes:

Where does your security lie? Is God your refuge, your hiding place, your stronghold, your shepherd, your counselor, your friend, your redeemer, your savior, your guide? If He is, you don’t need to search any further for security.

She’s absolutely right about that. God is our “city of refuge.” We sinners are completely safe in Him – safe from all of Satan’s accusations.

Deuteronomy 21:1 – 9

What about a murder where there is only a victim but no apparent perpetrator? It happens; even today many murders go unsolved. God instituted a plan for that, too. The murder of a human being, as we have noted, is a crime against God Himself because that human being was created in God’s very image. Justice must be satisfied, therefore a sacrifice must take place.

Then the elders of the town nearest the body shall take a heifer that has never been worked and has never worn a yoke and lead it down to a valley that has not been plowed or planted and where there is a flowing stream. There in the valley they are to break the heifer’s neck. (Deuteronomy 21:3, 4 NIV)

There seems to be a lot of “pomp and circumstance” attached to this, but there is a reason that has little to do with God. The people of Israel – and we – are to learn something vitally important. First, willful murder is a serious offense. There is no more serious offense against another human being than the willful shedding of blood. But secondly, that murder is an offense against God. In order to satisfy His demand for justice, these steps put forth by Him needed to be observed as a reminder that while the murder itself was a grievous crime indeed, harm to God was also caused and also needed to be atoned for.

Promote righteousness

When we read about the rules the Lord gave the Israelites concerning murder, they may seem to us to be unduly complex. However, God was and is still building a new society and a new people. He began with Israel and continues with the Church of Jesus Christ. We may be living in this fallen world, but we are citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven. Our law is a higher law. Part of that law goes beyond just doing or not doing certain things. Part of that law is living in such a way as to promote righteous living in others. That’s why God was so concerned that His people live such obviously different lifestyles than those of the nations surrounding them. Christians ought to live with the same deliberate concern for how we appear to those around us. It’s not that we should aspire to be social misfits or freaks; it’s that we should simply live lives that line up the Word of God.

Human life is indeed sacred and how we live our lives is part of that sacredness.

Exodus, 7

Published July 16, 2014 Uncategorized Leave a Comment
Tags: Exodus, Ten Commandments

Exodus 20:1-18

We come now to the time God gave several suggestions to Moses to pass along to the Israelites. If the events of Exodus 20 had taken place today, that’s how I’d introduce a study of the Ten Commandments. Modern man doesn’t take well to being told what to do or how to live, but that’s exactly what happened in Exodus 20.

After crossing the Red Sea, the Israelites headed for Mount Sinai. Things were about to change drastically. A weakened Egypt had been left behind and won’t be a concern to Israel for over 300 years. In its place, however, would be new enemies and challenges for God’s people to face. These new enemies included Semitic people who had settled in the areas surrounding Canaan, and who would naturally resist the influx of millions of Israelites.

The first such enemy God’s people encountered were the Amalekites:

The Amalekites came and attacked the Israelites at Rephidim. (Exodus 17:8 NIV84)

The enmity between the Amalekites and the Israelites carried on for so long, it became a tradition. In fact, the animosity Israel held for the Amalekites was stronger than that for any other of their many enemies. This may be because the Amalekites were the first to make war with them, when they were least equipped to fight back. Later, in Deuteronomy, this is how Moses summarized the skirmish:

Remember what the Amalekites did to you along the way when you came out of Egypt. When you were weary and worn out, they met you on your journey and cut off all who were lagging behind; they had no fear of God. (Deuteronomy 25:17-18 NIV84)

The Amalekites seemed strong to the people of Israel, and in a prophecy given by Balaam, an non-Israelite, he described them this way:

Then Balaam saw Amalek and uttered his oracle: “Amalek was first among the nations,but he will come to ruin at last.” (Numbers 24:20 NIV84)

That phrase, “first among the nations,” means that the Amalekites were just as powerful and intimidating as Israel thought they were. They were easily the most formidable nation they would encounter en route to the Promised Land.

And this is a major reason for the events of Exodus 20. Before the giving of the Law, Israel was a very loose knit, rag tag band of fugitives. In very short order, they needed to learn how to be a community. The Law was the bond that would hold them together.

The Ten Commandments were given first, but they are only a small part of the Law. But, in fact, they were the very foundation of the Jewish faith. Later on the Israelites were given the rest of the Law, and in its totality, it revealed that man is a sinner in need of a Savior.

Israel commanded to love God, Exodus 20:1-11

The reason for the Law, vs. 1

And God spoke all these words… (Exodus 20:1 NIV84)

The foundational “rules for living” of the Mosaic Covenant, the Law, were absolutely necessary for a people who had lived as slaves for generations. They were ill prepared to work together or make decisions.

The Ten Commandments went way beyond legalism. God was vitally interested in helping His people grow and mature into a functioning community – a cohesive nation that would be able work together and who would keep Him at the forefront of everything they did, and everywhere they went.

Further, what follows were not Moses’ words, but God’s. Moses wasn’t up on the mountain concocting the Ten Commandments from his imagination; he received them directly from the mind and heart of Yahweh.

God’s relationship with His people, vs. 2

“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.” (Exodus 20:2 NIV84)

Right at the beginning, God made it crystal clear what His relationship was to His people: He was their God. He cared about them, and He cared for them. This would be important for them to remember. They, like Christians today, would be tempted to wander from God during the “good times” and moan and complain during the “difficult times.” God would appear to be unloving and unkind at times. But those are misconceptions on man’s part based on his faulty reasoning. God would repeat what He did for His people over and over again, making sure they wouldn’t forget.

Christians should never forget what God has done for them, either. It’s easy for that to happen when the cares of life get heaped upon us. Regular Bible reading and fellowship with other believers is vitally important to our spiritual well-being. We, like the Israelites before us, are prone to forget about God or blame God for things He has nothing to do with.

The Commandments

No other Gods, vs. 3

This very first commandment is the basis of all the rest, and it should have been obvious to the Israelites. After all, the whole reason for the plagues on Egypt was to refute the nonsensical notion that there were other gods. This was, however, a revelation to the Hebrews. They had no theological textbooks to consult nor holy scrolls to study. This was “big news.” But notice the wording carefully:

You shall have no other gods before me. (Exodus 20:3 NIV84)

The word “before” means “side by side with me” or “in addition to me.” In other words – and this is very important – it wasn’t that God was worried that His people might give Him up and replace Him, but rather that they would add other gods to their faith or take other gods and idols seriously.

Noted Bible scholar George Rawlinson commented:

The first commandment prohibits every species of mental idolatry, and all inordinate attachment to earthly and sensible things.

He’s right about that. There can be no true, lasting happiness or satisfaction apart from God. He alone is the Source of those things. Anybody who seeks those things elsewhere is smashing this first commandment.

No graven images, vs. 4-6

Some Christians think this commandment can’t possibly apply to us today. They need to read what Paul wrote in Colossians 3:5-

Away then with sinful, earthly things; deaden the evil desires lurking within you; have nothing to do with sexual sin, impurity, lust, and shameful desires; don’t worship the good things of life, for that is idolatry. (Colossians 3:5 TLB)

Anything you devote yourself to, especially in abandonment, becomes a “god” to you, whether you realize it or not. The reason for this commandment is given:

I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God…(Exodus 20:5a (NIV84)

He is jealous, in the sense that He will not allow the respect, reverence, and devotion due Him to be given to another.

It’s not insignificant that both punishment and obedience are spelled out in verses 5 and 6. Some wonder about the judgment upon the children of disobedient parents. These judgments, though, are only temporal (Ezekiel 18:14-17) and apply to the consequences of disease or physical ailments and other things that follow evil actions and sinful decisions.

Yes, love for God should be reason enough to follow this commandment, but if it isn’t, fear of harming your child provides an “in-your-face” check on your actions.

God’s name in vain, vs. 7

According to J. Clement Connell, to take God’s name in vain means:

...to call upon unreality, that is, that which is not an expression of divine character, by means of the divine name.

Got that? Me neither. Well, what Connell was trying to say, and what this commandment deals with is something very basic: dishonesty, which is something God hates. It is dishonest for someone to use God’s name to cover up an evil heart, or to make himself appear better than he really is. People who run around talking about their faith in Jesus, or how much God has blessed them, while they have virtually no relationship with Him, the Church, and produce little evidence of salvation apart from their words, are breaking this commandment.

Also included would be false swearing or flippant use of the divine name and even profanity involving God’s name.

The Sabbath is holy, vs. 8-11

The word “remember” suggests that it is easy for God’s people to forget about this one. God’s most holy day was to be remembered continually, even during the other days of the week.

The reason for observing the Sabbath is that God created the material universe in 6 days and He rested on the seventh. The Scriptures don’t say what should be done on the Sabbath, only what shouldn’t. It’s obvious that God had set aside one day for His people to stop their secular pursuits (work, material gain, etc.) so that they could spend more time on spiritual things, like worship and other spiritual activities. Our Lord condemned the legalism that eventually corrupted the Sabbath in His day, but He never suggested it be done away with. It was given for man’s good (Mark 2:23-28), not just for the good of Israel.

As Christians, we don’t observe the Jewish Sabbath. The observance of the Lord’s Day, Sunday (the first day of our week) preserves the moral principle laid down in this fourth commandment. Yes, no matter how much you don’t want to believe it, Christians are supposed to observe the Lord’s Day regularly, not just at Christmas and Easter. We are to take the Lord’s day just as seriously as the Hebrews were to take their Sabbath.

William Wilberforce wrote:

O what a blessing is Sunday, interposed between the waves of worldly business like the divine path of the Israelites through the sea! There is nothing in which I would advise you to be more strictly conscientious than in keeping the Sabbath day holy. I can truly declare that to me the Sabbath has been invaluable.

Can you say that? If you are like most 21st century American Christians, you’d be lying if you did.

Honor your parents, vs. 12

With this commandment, the focus switches from the believer’s relationship with God to our relationship with each other. A good commentary on this commandment is found in Leviticus:

You shall stand up before the gray head and honor the face of an old man, and you shall fear your God: I am the Lord. (Leviticus 19:32, ESV)

As you fear God, so you should honor and respect your parents.

Never at a loss words, Calvin’s comments here are powerful:

“Children obey your parents” (Ephesians 6:1). Why does the apostle use the “obey” instead of “honor,” which has a greater meaning? It is because obedience is the evidence of that honor which children owe their parents, and is therefore more earnestly enforced.

Don’t kill, vs. 13

Liberals like to use this commandment to justify their anti-war and anti-capital punishments stances. In fact, this verse has nothing to do with serving in the military or the execution of a criminal. A nation is given authority to protect human life by taking human life. This sixth commandment has to do with willful murder.

Rick Warren, the preacher a lot of us like to criticize, is 100% right when he said:

The Bible says that all people, not just believers, possess part of the image of God; that is why murder and abortion are wrong.

No adultery, vs. 14

Sexual purity is behind this commandment. Adultery involves married people, obviously. Fornication involves those who are unmarried. But both are sexual relationships outside the bonds of marriage and are absolutely forbidden by God. So serious is adultery, that under the Mosaic Law, a couple caught in the act were to be stoned to death. Yes, the Bible takes sexual sin very, very seriously. Jesus made it clear that adultery begins in the human heart.

John MacArthur wrote:

No sin a person commits has more built in pitfalls, problems, and destructiveness than sexual sin. It has broken marriages, shattered more homes, caused more heartache and disease, and destroyed more lives than alcohol and drugs combined. It causes lying, stealing, cheating, and killing, as well as bitterness, hatred, slander, gossip, and unforgiveness.

Don’t steal, vs. 15

It’s not by accident that the commandment against stealing follows on the heels of not committing adultery. They are related: if you allowed to commit adultery, then you should be allowed to steal another’s personal property. Both are forbidden. Americans like to think they invented personal property rights. They did not. God did.

No dishonesty, vs. 16

In other words, don’t lie. We noted already how much God hates dishonesty. Stealing may rob a man of his property, a lie can rob a man of his reputation. Your word should always be true and dependable.

No coveting, vs. 17

The tenth and final commandment underscores the four preceding ones because it deals with the purposes of the heart. Killing, adultery, stealing, and lying are sins of the inner man – they begin in the heart. It is in the heart where all rebellion begins.

The apostle Paul recognized that this was the real purpose of the Law:

What shall we say, then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! Indeed I would not have known what sin was except through the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, “Do not covet.” (Romans 7:7a NIV84)

A lot of people may never actually be guilty of outward acts of sin or rebellion, but nevertheless feel condemned when they consider their inward thoughts.

The effect of God’s visit, Exodus 20:18-23

God had given the children of Israel the Ten Commandments, which were to be the moral code by which they were to live their lives. There would be more to come. God will eventually give them many other elements of the Law that would govern the religious and social aspects of their lives.

When the Israelites saw and heard the display from Mount Sinai, they were afraid. This fear was probably for many reasons, including the fact that the Law presented a very high standard by which to live. The Law presented a very disciplined lifestyle that was completely different to what they had seen in Egypt and would see as they entered the Promised Land. The Law demanded perfection. Therein is the problem with it and why the people were afraid. If one is depending on the Law to save them, forget it! Nobody is perfect enough to keep the Law. Ultimately, the Law pointed to the need for grace, which would be revealed in Jesus Christ.