Why Study The Ten Commandments?

Series: Preacher: Date: August 29, 1999 Scripture Reference: Exodus 20:1-17;

1 – And God spoke all these words:

2 – I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.

3 – You shall have no other gods before Me.

4 – You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.

5 – 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,

6 – but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love Me and keep My commandments.

7 – You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses His name.

8 – Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.

9 – Six days you shall labor and do all your work,

10 – 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.

11 – 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.

12 – Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you.

13 – You shall not murder.

14 – You shall not commit adultery.

15 – You shall not steal.

16 – You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.

17 – You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.

You know….one of the most popular TV show formats has always been “the game show.”From the early days of television people have enjoyed these programs where, by answering the right questions, individuals can win vast sums of money or valuable prizes.You may have heard that our former pastor’s daughter, Carey Connor, recently was selected to appear on Bob Barker’s The Price is Right. And by knowing the right answers when asked the cost of certain merchandise…Carey walked away with over seven thousand dollars worth of prizes. I’ve been hearing a lot in the past few weeks about today’s newest game show hosted by Regis Filman. I think it’s called, Who Wants to be a Millionaire? In fact, last night a youth minister from Florida was on the show…you ought to call in Steve! Well, if you’ve seen the show then you know that it follows the standard format of most game shows.

Individuals are asked questions and if they answer enough of them correctly they can walk away with one million dollars….before taxes of course! Now I don’t know which game show you prefer but at the Adams household one of our favorites is Jeopardy. We usually gather around the tube a couple times a week to watch. And the interesting thing about Jeopardy is that it takes the traditional game show format and switches it. Instead of asking questions that contestants have to answer — it give answers that contestants have to question. You’ve no doubt watched the show. Alex Trebec flashes answer after answer on his blue-screened board…and if contestants ask the right question quick enough, they receive hundreds of dollars.

So, the way Jeopardy is structured…the way the game is set up…motivates people to ask questions.

And you know in a sense, preparing a sermon is like Jeopardy. Pastors have the answers that they want their congregations to understand and embrace…that’s often the easy part of sermon preparation. The real trick is getting a congregation to ask the question in the first place….motivating them to want to hear the information you have to share.

And I especially feel sort of in “jeopardy” today. I know the information that I want to share with you.I’ve been thinking about it for weeks…organizing it in my mind…but I haven’t quite figured out how to motivate you to ask the question…to get you to realize that you need the information in this morning’s message.

Now, if Alex Trabeck were here there would be no problem. He would simply say… “The category is OLD TESTAMENT…and the answer is:” * Because we need to be reminded of God’s standards of right and wrong….and… Because we misunderstand the nature and purpose of the ten commandments…

Then by looking at your bulletins…you would say, “Uh….Alex I believe the question is…(Why study the ten commandments?)” And he would say, “You are correct for $500!”

And you know…this question is a good one for any group of Christians to ask. If you could look at my sermon planning schedule for the next six months you would see that I have felt led to devote no less than 12 sermons to these familiar verses. Why do so? Why take so much precious sermon time to deal with this one text? Why indeed study the ten commandments? Well since you have asked this question, why don’t I go ahead and use this first sermon to deal with the answers to your insightful inquiry?! So, the first reason I think we should study Exodus 20:1-17 is because…

1. In today’s society we need to be reminded of God’s standards of right and wrong.

Our world has forgotten these basic standards that God has so lovingly provided. Current polls show that 80 percent of Americans claim to believe in the 10 Commandments but on the other hand, very few can name as many as four of them. Recently Jay Leno asked the audience of his talk show to name one of the ten commandments.

No one responded until one member of the studio audience finally raised his hand and said, “God helps those who help themselves?” And this individual’s ignorance is representative of our entire culture. You see, our society no longer reveres the Word of God as it once did. You and I live in a post-biblical era where even general knowledge of the Bible is no longer a given.

The August 9th issue of Christianity Today reports that, “…as a book, the Bible has been removed from the reading lists of students so that they can barely recognize metaphors from great novels written before 1950.” The article told of a professor from the University of Wisconsin who reported that her students were not at all familiar with literary references to the stories of “Jonah” or “the prodigal son.” Because of this she was forced to change her lesson plan and go back to square one and tell them these stories so that they could then understand the underlying themes of the books they analyzed.

Well, Due in part to this biblical illiteracy our children are growing up in a society that rejects the notions of absolute truth and morality. They live in a world that has forgotten God’s basic standards and as a result they have lost the ability to even decide what is true and right. Truth has become a matter of taste…morality has replaced by individual preference.

In II Timothy 3:1-8 the Apostle Paul prophesied about these days in which we live when he wrote, “…mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God-always learning but never able to acknowledge the truth. Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so also these men of depraved minds will oppose the truth.”

A survey conducted recently by James Patterson and Peter Kim showed that: * 74% of Americans admit that they will steal from those who won’t miss it, and 64% will lie for convenience as long as no one is hurt. 93% of those surveyed said that they alone decide moral issues, basing their decisions on their own experience or whims. 84% say they would break the rules of their own religion. And 81% have a violated a law they felt to be inappropriate.

I read an article in last week’s issue of TIME magazine that illustrates just how twisted our morals have become. The article is titled, “The Unforseen Effect of Abortion.” It told of a recent study done by Steven Levitt and John Donohue III in which they say that they believe the reason that crime rates have dropped across our nation is because of the increase in abortions after 1973…..that there are fewer murders and assaults today because so many criminals were never born. In other words….they believe that ending the lives of millions of babies is justified because it has the effect of dealing a blow to crime.

You see, tragically, ours is a culture that has forgotten — or at least chosen to ignore — God’s rules of right and wrong. We have not heeded the warning in Proverbs 3:7 where it says, “Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord and shun evil.” Instead society makes up its own rules…we are “wise in our own eyes.” I read a story recently about Chi Chi Rodriguez — the famous golfer. He was driving down the street with a friend, going a lot faster than he should have been. A light changed from yellow to red up ahead of him and he zoomed right through it….didn’t even slow down. His friend almost had a coronary. He looked over at Chi Chi and sputtered, “Chi Chi, what in the world are you doing? You went right through a red light! Don’t you stop for red lights?” “My brother taught me to drive,” Chi Chi replied, “and he doesn’t stop for red lights.

So I don’t stop at red lights.” And sure enough, a little farther down the road the pro golfer approached another intersection and blasted right through the red light.

His friend was a nervous wreck by then and said, “C’mon, man! You’re gonna get us killed. What in the world are you thinking of?” Chi Chi repeated, “My brother taught me to drive, and he doesn’t stop for red lights.

So I don’t stop at red lights.” Driving a little farther, they came to an intersection with a green light. This time Chi Chi put on his brakes and stopped, nervously looking both ways. “Why are you stopping now?” his friend asked. “This is a GREEN light.” “I know,” Chi Chi said, “But, my brother might be coming!”

As Chi Chi inferred….today’s society can be a very dangerous one in which to live…for it is one in which people make up their own rules. There is little or no belief in an absolute truth that applies to everyone. We live in a world today where many people follow Hugh Hefners’ philosophy…the creed that says, “If it feels good do it.” In his book, Right From Wrong, Josh McDowell writes, “Our children seldom hear the words ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ from Hollywood, Nashville, and Madison Avenue; instead they are bombarded with thousands of hours of sounds and images that glamorize immorality and mock biblical values.” Much of this philosophy of moral relativism is rooted in the teachings of the 19th century philosopher Friedrich Nietzche who argued that, “…languages of good and evil are rooted in neither truth nor reason but in the will to power.”

Nietzche taught that rules about what is right and what is wrong are simply cultural inventions that serve as smokescreens for power struggles. According to Nietzche and his followers, subverting authority is a good thing…an act of liberation. He taught that might makes right. Whoever is strongest….whoever can win at “king of the mountain”….defines what is moral.

Nietzche’s philosophy is partially to blame for the establishment of the Nazi party and the subsequent annihilation of six million Jews.

Charles Colson reports that seventy-five years ago two college students, Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, murdered a 14-year-old boy. Their defense lawyer was the infamous Clarence Darrow and his most dramatic appeal was to argue that Leopold had absorbed the ideas of Nietzsche at school. He said, “Your honor, it is hardly fair to hang a 19-year-old boy for the philosophy that was taught him at the university.” Well, this same philosophy is alive and well in our world today and is part of the reason that two teens in Littleton, Colorado could come to believe that killing 15 of their classmates was a good thing.

So,in partial answer to your question….we need to study the 10 Commandments because we live in a society that desperately needs to be reminded of God’s standards of right and wrong. And as Christians we need to be sure that we are influenced by God’s standards and not the world’s. You know there has been a great deal of political discussion over whether or not to permit the 10 Commandments to be posted in courtrooms and schools across our nation. But as Christians we need to realize that posting the ten commandments is not the main issue…..we who follow God must not just KNOW the ten commandments. We must “post” them in our hearts….we must live them. We must show that God’s laws work by the way we live them out in our day to day lives.

And then…to further answer your question…I think we need to study the ten commandments because…

2. many of us misunderstand the nature and purpose of the 10 Commandments…

The very word “commandment” has a negative connotation to us; when independent-minded humans like you and me think of rules and regulations….we tend to think of burdens. People think that by their very nature God’s laws are restrictive limits to our freedom. Ron Mehl writes, “When many of us hear, ‘THE TEN COMMANDMENTS’ we hear the clank of chains and the rattle of padlocks. We hear God saying, ‘You mess with Me, you step out of bounds, and I’ll fry you like a bug landing on a transformer.'” And this view…this opinion…of the ten commandments plays right into Satan’s master plan-the one he’s had from the beginning. You see Satan has always wanted mankind to believe that God is a prude…that He is THE cosmic killjoy….a harsh old grandfather with a long, gray beard and bushy eyebrows….Who doesn’t want anyone to have any fun….EVER!

Mehl points out that Satan first employed this strategy in the Garden of Eden when he spoke to Eve and said in essence, “Has God REALLY forbidden you this lovely fruit? Oh my. What a pity. What a shame. You realize of course, Eve, that He knows if you ever tasted from this tree, you’d be like a god. Nothing could hold you back. God wants to keep you from the truly best part of life! Eve, true freedom means freedom FROM confining restrictions such as these.” Well was Satan right? Are these 17 verses from Exodus 20 harsh and negative…narrow and legalistic…cold and confining? No! — In fact they are just the opposite….God’s laws bring freedom…not confinement. They are not cold and harsh…to the contrary, they are warm and loving. God gave us commands like “Flee sexual immorality,” and “Husbands love your wives,” and “You shall not commit adultery,” because He wanted to protect us. He didn’t throw His precepts into the Bible just because He liked the way they sounded; He didn’t concoct those rules to throw His weight around; No…He gave those commands because He loves us and He knows some things that we don’t. He knows that sexual immorality is a path, not to pleasure and fulfillment but to emptiness and frustration.

Moses reminded the people of the true nature of God’s law in Deuteronomy 10:13 when he told them that God gave His commandments, “for their own good.” Bill Hybels writes: “The Lord tells us specifically that His commands are never burdensome. By this, He doesn’t necessarily mean they’re easy to keep. Rather, He’s telling us that they’re never foolish. They are never unnecessary or purely arbitrary. He doesn’t force us to observe meaningless formalities, nor does He impose rules that have no value. On the contrary, every guideline, every law, every imperative in the Bible was crafted in infinite wisdom. They were given not only to honor God, but to benefit us as well.” In Jeremiah 29:11 God says to you and me, “I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

And later in chapter 32 God says that His desire is, “….that people will always fear Him-but for their own good and for the good of their children after them.”

So God’s law is not negative in nature….it’s purpose is not to burden us but to protect us. The Ten Commandments are given for our own good. Josh McDowell tells of a young man named Greg. Greg lived down the block from a family who had an in-ground swimming pool in their back yard. He had never gone swimming in their pool however; he barely knew the people, and a high wooden fence enclosed the pool. One dark evening when Greg knew his neighbors were away, he and his girlfriend snuck behind the house, scaled the fence, and entered the pool area to go for a swim. Greg threw off his shoes, climbed the ladder and, while his girlfriend was still taking her shoes and socks off, leaped off the end of the diving board. He heard his girlfriend scream just before he lost consciousness.

You see, the pool held only a few feet of water. In the dark Greg apparently didn’t notice this. His dive ended with a shallow splat of water and a sickening crunch of bones. Greg’s late-night dive paralyzed him from the neck down for the rest of his life. Greg ignored the fence that his neighbors had erected around the pool. He probably assumed it was there only to keep him and his girlfriend from having fun. In reality it was meant for his own protection, and his disregard of that boundary cost him dearly. Similarly, God’s laws are given to protect us….and when we ignore His moral boundaries the cost can be just as devastating.

In my library I have a book by Dr. S. I. McMillen entitled, NONE OF THESE DISEASES. And in this classic book, McMillen shows how over two dozen divine commands or standards recorded in scripture served to prevent such disorders as: heart disease, cervical cancer, and arthritis….long before the advent of modern medicine. McMillen wrote in the preface: “After God led the Israelites out of Egypt, He promised His people that if they would obey His statutes, He would put ‘none of these diseases’ upon them. God guaranteed a freedom from disease that modern medicine cannot duplicate.” You see, God’s commands are like an umbrella. When you put up an umbrella it shields you from the rain. But if you choose to move out of the umbrella during a storm you are bound to get wet.

So the nature of the ten commandments is not harsh or unloving. I think that the ten commandments would be best compared to a love letter…..a tender, heartfelt message written in stone by the finger of God. To coin Ron Mehl’s phrase…they are ten(DER) commandments! In fact, this set of laws is one of the most powerful expressions of God’s love in all of Scripture.

Even the context of the decalogue shows this truth. Listen to the things God said immediately prior to the giving of His law. Exodus 19:3-6 says, “And Moses went up to God, and the LORD called to him from the mountain, saying, Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel: You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to Myself.

Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people; for all the earth is Mine. And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” In essence God told Moses, “Before you give the people these commands…before anything else, ….will you please remind them that I bore them on eagles’ wings? Remind them that I cared for them in their Egyptian bondage — as a mother eagle cares for her offspring. Remind them that I heard their cries and freed them from slavery…make sure they remember that when the Egyptian army attacked, I parted the Red Sea….I made a way when there was no way. Make sure you remind them of my loving care Moses.”

So these ten laws sprang from the tender love of God for His people. Centuries later God reminded the prophet Hosea of His true feelings for them. He said, “When I found Israel, it was like finding grapes in the desert; when I saw your fathers, it was like seeing the early fruit on the fig tree.” (Hosea 9:10 ) In other words the mere sight of the Hebrew people brought pleasure to God’s heart. And His love for them — and for you and me…for we TOO are His people-His love was what prompted God to give us these laws. And as we study each of these commandments in weeks to come I think we will come closer to understanding the heart of God.

You know, this past week several Redland families loaded their cars and took their children off to begin their college careers. And imagine that as they carried all those boxes into the dorm and helped them get settled, they reminded their kids certain rules to obey, like: * Don’t go to parties where there will be drinking or drugs…. Be careful who you date…. Get plenty of sleep and eat the right foods… Don’t lend your car to anyone. Be sure to study hard….do your best! Find local church to attend and a group of growing Christians to call friends.

Now did these parents hand down these rules because they wanted to limit their children’s freedom and prevent them from having any fun? No….of course not. They gave their children their own ten or twenty or thirty “COMMANDMENTS” because they love them and want them to be happy and healthy and safe. They laid down the law because they wanted to protect them from the ravaging effects of sin.

Well this parental love was also the motivation for God’s giving of His laws. And His love for us is infinitely greater than our love for our own children. Do you remember Jesus’ words in Matthew 7 ? He said, “Which of you fathers, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for fish will give him a snake? If you then, though you are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask Him!” God loves us and doesn’t want us to learn by bitter experience so He has given us His word to guide us and protect us…..to help us avoid the destructive paths in life.

So,why study the ten commandments? * Because in today’s culture we need to be reminded of this timeless truth from the heart of God….and also… Because we tend to misunderstand the nature and purpose of these commands. We need to know they are given both to protect us and to provide God’s best for us.

Now,in closing let’s do one more round of Jeopardy. The answer is: * We find purpose and meaning in life…we experience true happiness!

Can any of you guess the correct question? Here it is….The Question is: “What happens to us when we follow God’s leading? What happens when we obey God?” You see people who decide to make God Lord of their lives and let Him guide their every decision do experience fulfillment and joy. God knows what we can become in Him as we are obedient. And…We conclude our time together this morning by giving you an opportunity to experience the answer to this question first hand as you respond publically or privately to God’s leading in your life today.

It could be that God is leading you to join this church…to serve Him here with us at Redland. If so we urge you to obey God’s promptings and come forward today as we sing and move your membership here. Or perhaps you are here and are not a Christian and as we have worshiped God has reached out to you lovingly reminding you of your need for His forgiveness and cleansing. And if that is true then I urge you to yield to God’s leading. Ask Him to forgive you of your sin through Jesus’s death on the cross on your behalf. Commit to follow Him as Lord today. Remember Jesus said, “I have come that they may have life….life in all its fullness.” Won’t you respond to the ways God leads as we stand now and sing?

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