The Ten Commandments – Six

A couple of years ago, there was a facial tissue commercial on television that promoted a new tissue that had a chemical embedded that would kill germs. In the commercial, a religious man refused to use the tissue because he remembered the commandment “thou shalt not kill,” and didn't want to kill the germs. I thought this was a perfect example of how ignorant people are of Scripture and its meaning.

Any modern translation clears this up. In the New International Version, it says, “You shall not murder.” This commandment sets the stage for human rights, human dignity, human protection and the first charge of any government. Life is precious and only God should take it, unless it is taken by a fair and sanctioned body with just cause. In other words, we are not to take innocent human life.

If we are not careful, life can become so cheap. Governments murder their people in our world today for nothing more than having opposing political views, criminals murder people to take their cars or shoes or the change in their pockets, and mothers murder their unborn children because they are inconvenient or unwanted. Life is not cheap, it is precious and it belongs to God.

But what about war? It depends. If we go to war to protect freedom or stop oppression or defend our own people, it is justified, but if we go to war to expand our territory, then not so much. And, if God tells a people to go to war, then he has a reason for it and it's justified. Again, this is why we need to study the Scripture. This commandment is talking about murdering an innocent person. This commandment is not a prohibition against capital punishment, and is not talking about killing in battle or to protect someone.

Jesus moved this commandment to its core, the human heart. He said not to even hate one another, but to love each other and pray for each other instead. Paul added that we should not seek revenge. Life is precious to God and it should be precious to us as well. The first commandment dealing with how we treat one another is to protect and defend the dignity of life itself.

The Ten Commandments – Five

The first four commandments deal with our relationship with God. The last five deal with our relationship with each other. This commandment ties them together. I call the first commandments the vertical commandments because they point toward God, and the last five the horizontal commandments – so it makes the shape of a cross. This commandment binds them together.

Exodus 20: 12 (NIV): Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you.

    You can see how this commandment is both a vertical and horizontal commandment: we honor God by honoring our parents. I can't believe someone truly honors God if he doesn't honor his parents. God didn't say we have to like our parents, just honor them. How do we do this?

     First, show them respect. We may not agree with all of their decisions, but most parents truly love their children and honestly want what's best for them. But even when they make mistakes, their position as parents demands our respect. If they ask us to do something against God, we must refuse – but we do so with respect and we continue to honor them.

     Second, we honor them by our actions. We don't want to embarrass or disappoint them. We want to bring praise to their names by our own behavior.

     Third, Paul said we honor them by being obedient to them. (Ephesians 6: 1 – 3). Paul points out that this is the first commandment with a promise attached – living long in the land God is giving. Paul knew that Israel would not prosper as a nation if the family wasn't strong. History says Rome fell because the family broke down and America is heading in that direction. That's what this commandment is all about – keeping the family strong. God created the family and it must function in order for society to succeed. Everyone in the family must do his part – and the children's part is to honor their parents.

The Ten Commandments – Four

God begins the commandments telling us to love him with all of our hearts, to worship him only, and to remember to respect his holy name. Now he turns his focus toward his tremendous love for us. In this commandment, he says, in essence, “I created you and I love you and I know you need a day of rest.”

Exodus 20: 8 – 11 (NIV): “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping 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, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.”

Sabbath comes from the word cessation which means to cease – to stop. God said he worked for six days, then rested, and he wants us to do the same. He wants us to take a day and set it apart – make it different. Stop our usual work. Rest. Enjoy our families and friends. And we don't make our workers work while we rest either, we allow them to rest as well.

But by the time Jesus came along, men had made so many rules to regulate the Sabbath, it was more of a burden than a blessing. Jesus reminded us that the Sabbath is made for man and not the other way around. Jesus openly broke the rules men had added to this commandment, but he never broke the commandment itself. If our ox is in the ditch on a Sabbath, then we work to get it out, Jesus said. But when we can, we honor one day per week as a day of rest. Jesus showed that it's okay to heal someone or teach or feed ourselves on that day and that we can still set it apart.

The early Christians began to meet for worship on what they called “The Lord's Day” instead of, or in addition to, the Sabbath. The Sabbath was Saturday, but since Jesus rose again on Sunday, they began to worship together on that day and we still do this to this day. By moving our Sabbath to Sunday, we are still setting a day of rest aside, but giving that honor to the day on which Jesus rose again. When we do this, we are showing that Jesus is our rest – that he takes our burdens and offers rest to those who are heavy laden.

The Ten Commandments – Three

The first two commandments tell us that God wants to be our one and only God. He wants first place in our hearts and in our lives. He is jealous when we bow to another god or create a god. God wants a relationship with us and wants us to love him with all of our hearts. The third commandment tells us to remember his holiness.

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

     The King James version says “Thou shall not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain”. How do you take someone's name in vain? Vain means empty or useless or unsuccessful, so to take a name in vain is to misuse it.

We misuse God's name in three basic ways: First, we misuse his name when we make a vow to him that we do not intend to keep. Malachi 1: 11 says, “My name will be great among the nations, from the rising to the setting of the sun. In every place incense and pure offerings will be brought to my name, because my name will be great among the nations.” We must understand the holiness of God and how seriously he takes it when we disrespect his name. It is not an accident that Jesus began the model prayer acknowledging the holiness of God's name.

Second, we misuse God's name by swearing by it, then breaking our word. Leviticus 19:12 says, “Do not swear falsely by my name and so profane the name of your God. I am the Lord.” You will recall that Jesus said not to swear at all. Let your yes be yes and your no, no, he said.

The third way we misuse God's name is to attach it to a curse word to strengthen it or to use it as a curse word. It has become common for people to say “Oh my god.” We text OMG. But we may not realize we are profaning God's title when we do this and thereby making his name more and more common and less and less set apart and holy. Using Jesus' precious name as an expletive does the same thing. As God said, he will not hold us guiltless for this. God is holy and so is his name. We must approach God will all honor and respect. After all, he deserves it.

The Ten Commandments - Two

Exodus 20: 1 – 6 (NIV): And God spoke all these words: “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. You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand [generations] of those who love me and keep my commandments.”

    If the first commandment is about the heart, the second one is about power and control. We are not to worship any other god, and we are not to create our own gods either. If we create an idol – a god – then we are ultimately in control of it since we are its creator. We set the rules for the religion when we create the god. The idea of bowing to a sculpture may seem silly to us today, but we must be careful not to give our worship to anything except God himself. We create an idol when we give something first place in our lives and our hearts.
God said he is a jealous God who will punish those who hate him and reward those who love him. We see in the world today how people are still suffering from the decisions their forefathers made generations ago. I'm so thankful to live in America, a country founded by men and women who feared the one true God. Even though we answer for our own sins – and only our own sins, the world we live in was established by our ancestors.
Does God have the right to be jealous of us? We must realize that he wants our hearts just like I want my wife's heart. We, the church, after all, are the bride of Christ. We must understand that idolatry is spiritual adultery. Worshiping another god is cheating on the true God. We cannot and should not expect to get away with that. God wants more than first place in our lives, he wants our whole lives. He wants to be the one and only God in our hearts. He wants us to love him with all that we are. When we do, he promises to bless us and our children.