THE
TEN COMMANDMENTS
By Harold M. Lind
The Ten Commandments; we have all heard about them, especially lately, with the ACLU having them systematically removed from public places in the name of “separation of church and state”. They come from the Bible, the inspired Word of God, in the book of Exodus, chapter 20. This forms the basis of morality in our world; an “absolute truth” that does not change as society becomes more open, sophisticated and “less inhibited”.
To say that times have changed, and some of these laws do not apply to society today, is to say that God changes his moral standards, which is contrary to what the Bible teaches. God does not change his standards of righteousness; they are just as unobtainable now as they were 4000 years ago.
Just when you thought these 10 laws were impossible to keep (let alone the 100’s of rules in the Penetuch (the first 5 books of the Bible), Jesus makes them even harder to keep in the “sermon on the mount.” Like “Thou shalt not kill.” But if you hate someone in your heart, it is as if you have killed that person, and you are guilt of breaking that commandment (Matthew 5:22). So the intents of the heart are looked at, and can break God’s commandments.
Many people think that God is the great “fun spoiler” in the sky. He gives us these rules to stop us from having fun. Christians that keep (or at least try to keep) the 10 commandments are boring prudes that don’t have any fun. This is far from the truth; it is actually a lie of Satan. His lies go back to the Garden of Eden when he first contradicted God’s word, telling Eve that she would not “surely die”, if she disobeyed God and ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. He further told here that God didn’t want her to eat from the tree, because when she did, she would be “like God”. So God doesn’t want us to be “gods,” which spoils our fun.
The Bible also says that the Law was created so that “sin may abound:”
“Moreover the law entered, that the offence
might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.” Romans 5:20
This seems to indicate that God may have created the law so that there will be more sin. It actually better describes our sinful heart. Even before the law was given, man sinned. It is in our nature to want to sin. And having the law to tell us what is forbidden makes us want to do it even more. It also makes us completely accountable for the sin. Before we knew exactly what right and wrong was, we could claim some amount of ignorance of the law. Knowing what the law is doesn’t make us sin less; it makes us sin more. Who hasn’t had the devious thought to walk on the grass if told not to, or to touch the paint to see if it is really wet? Who has had to teach their children to behave badly, or to develop bad manners?
God has placed in our hearts the knowledge that He exists,
this is evident in Romans 1:19: “Because that which may be known of God is
manifest in them; for God hath showed it unto them.“ Since God has placed this knowledge in our hearts, we are
accountable for it. The Bible also says
that we are each endowed with the knowledge of good and evil. It is our choice as to how we act. We can’t claim that we didn’t know; even the
“heathen out in darkest Africa” does not have an excuse because of Romans
1:18-32.
Yet God knew that the Law would condemn us. That is its purpose. It humbles us. It shows us that we are not “gods” as Satan has tried to deceive us into believing. We can try to discount it, by saying that there is no God, but this does not work. We can say we do not believe in gravity, and jump off a 10 story building. As we hit the pavement, it will become “painfully” clear (at least for a split second) that gravity “is” whether we want to believe it or not. This is also true with God and his Word. He does not exist because you believe in Him. You believe in Him because He exists. Those that choose to ignore God’s Word will someday be kneeling before Him, having died with their sins, and awaiting His righteous judgment. And they will be without excuse.
Since we are all sinners and will one day die, we are all destined for judgment. Why did God create us, only to have us sin against Him and be judged? What is the point? Is God some mean guy that sets us up to fail, then punishes us when we do? How can God be considered righteous if this is true?
If there were no way to become blameless in God’s eyes, we might be able to say that God is not just. But there is a way, though not from anything that we can do. The Bible says that only through the shedding of innocent blood can there be remission of sins. This means that someone must give their life for another to have his sins forgiven. But if “all” have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God, who is “innocent?” The truth is that no mere mortal is innocent; we are all guilty of death. In the old testament of the Bible, the Israelites were instructed to sacrifice a lamb without blemish for the forgiveness of sins. Although this was a means to forgive sins, it was not for all time, past, present and future. They had to do it on a regular basis.
How then can we have our sins forgiven? We need an innocent sacrifice. Blood is required. The wages of sin is death, and death is the required payment for sin. Who can take our place, and pay the price of our sins. God provides the answer to the wages of sin through the second part of it. Here is the entire verse: “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Romans 6:23 Jesus Christ, the God of the universe, creator of all things, became our sacrificial lamb, innocent and perfect, and shed His blood for our sins.
Through Jesus Christ (in the Greek, Christos which means Messiah or Anointed), our sins were paid for. He died for us as a free gift, there is nothing we can do to repay Him, and we can only accept the gift. It is as if we are on death row, and the governor has a pardon for us. We are guilty, we do not deserve a pardon, but one has been issued, we only need to accept it. If this were the case, what sane person would refuse a pardon? Especially if refusing the pardon would cause the death sentence to be carried out?
There are many “sane” people in the world on death row, dead in their sins, who refuse the pardon from Jesus and die in their sins. Will you accept the pardon? Will you admit to God that you are a sinner, that you are guilty of breaking His commandments? Will you ask God to forgive you of your sins? Ask Him to show you the way to a new life, free from the condemnation of sin? Just ask, and He will become the Lord of your life. The commandments would then become your protector instead of your prosecutor.
Now is the time to accept Him. There is no better time. We don’t know how long we have. John Ritter, who suddenly died of an unknown heart problem probably didn’t think he was going to die when he got up that morning. At the age of 55, he probably thought he had at least 20 more years, plenty of time. But he didn’t. None of us knows how long we have. The Bible says that it is appointed once for a man to die, and after this, the judgment.
Don’t wait another minute, take the pardon and start your new life in Jesus. A free person, who has passed from death to life. Never to worry again about what might happen, because our joy rests in God’s promise of eternal life for those who follow Jesus. There will be troubles in this life, but nothing to compare to the joys that are waiting for us in Heaven.
Although the law condemns us, in Christ, grace overcomes it, in that Christ paid the price for our sins. We are not accountable to the law in Christ. This doesn’t mean that we can’t benefit from the law. It can be used to “protect” us, to keep us from getting into trouble. You might ask why we should follow the law. Breaking some of the laws might seem like fun, but the Bible says that sin is only good “for a season.” What does it mean by this? We will see, as we analyze each of the commandments; that not following them has grave consequences. We can clearly see that in the end, sin is not fun, when the season ends; if we are not dead we may wish we were.
Look at the result of Adam and Eve’s choice to eat of the fruit. The moment they did, they lost their innocence and purity. Sin had been introduced into the world. The Bible says that before Adam and Eve sinned, there was no death. To take this literally (which is how it should be taken), would mean that nothing died before they disobeyed God. The world was a perfect place, good in God’s eyes, just as He created it. God told them that the day that they ate it, “they would surely die.”
After sin was introduced into the creation, it became cursed, imperfect and ruined. Death gained a foothold on the earth, and Adam and Eve started dying. They lived for a season, but eventually died. Because of the environment that God created originally, they would have lived forever. Since they sinned, they only lived into the 900’s.
As a result of man’s continual sin and its progression, God sent a worldwide flood, which destroyed all life on land and in the air, except for Noah, and his family and the animals brought on the ark.
As we can see, the “wages” of sin is eventual death, spiritual and physical. What some of us think of, as rules to spoil our fun, actually will preserve our lives. Another proof that these laws are for our protection can be found in Exodus and Leviticus. There were rules for not eating meat that had been killed in the fields by animals (which could make you sick), quarantining those who were sick, and washing hands with running water (to prevent bacterial contamination). Those who felt that they did not need to bother with these rules probably got very sick, and maybe even died. There was a purpose for the rules; they were to protect and preserve life.
As we go through each of the Ten Commandments, you will see why God’s laws are good for you. That they can protect us and keep us from destroying ourselves. Unfortunately, we are a fallen race, and we cannot help but sin. The Bible says that there is none righteous, not even one. And that all have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God. The law that is supposed to protect us therefore condemns us instead.
The law that is supposed to protect us is our enemy, because we cannot follow it. Even breaking one of the laws makes us guilty of the entire law. And with laws like thou shalt not steal, and not bear false witness against our neighbors (lying, no matter what the color), we have all broken at least those two commandments.
Now that we have been rescued from the condemnation that is in the law, we can look at the commandments, and see how they can preserve our lives, and keep us from getting into a lot of trouble:
1. I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Exodus 20:2-3
Notice that the word “LORD” is in all capitals. When the Bible uses the word lord in all caps, it means that in the Hebrew (the original language that the old testament of the Bible was written in) the word was YHWH. The Hebrew language leaves out vowels so only consonants are used. The vowels can be inferred; such as the word “nd” could be inferred as “and” for us if we had been brought up knowing that. Most of the English language could be represented in this way.
We attempt to pronounce this word as YahWay phonetically. The truth is that the Jewish people held this word as the supreme Name of God. They were actually afraid to even think of it, let alone actually say it. As a result, they are not even sure about how to actually say it now.
In Genesis, it says:
Is there anything that was created that God didn’t create? The first chapter of John also talks about what God created. In John 1:3, it says:
“All
things were made by Him; and without Him was not any thing made that was
made.” John 1:3
So God has indeed
made everything in the universe, and if He made it, He owns it, and can decide
how it should be used. And those who do
not do things the way He wants, will be accountable to Him.
This commandment
says that God brought someone out of bondage in the land of Egypt. The book of Exodus, where the Ten
Commandments are first mentioned, is about the Nation of Israel, who had been
slaves to Egypt for about 400 years. It
tells of how God worked through a man named Moses, to free Israel, and take
them to the Promised Land, where God had intended them to go in the first
place.
God is not an evil dictator, who gets His kicks from punishing us, or from the misery this world provides. He wants the best for us; it is our free will that gets us into trouble. God wants us to Love Him, because that is our choice. He doesn’t want a bunch of robots bowing before Him. The Law shows us how to get through life without receiving the payment for our sins.
Because these laws were not followed by Israel (remember, God put in our hearts the knowledge of right from wrong), they eventually ended up as slaves to Egypt. Egypt is also a type of the “world” that we live in. We are all, in a sense, slaves to Egypt or the world. Satan is called the “prince of this world.” He received control of the world from Adam, who was given dominion of the world from God (Genesis 1:26).
Without accepting Jesus as our Savior, we are slaves to this world and Satan. The Bible even says that we cannot help but sin. This is the true definition of a slave; he has to do what he is told, whether he likes it or not. Yet there is a God who can set the captives free, who is waiting to free us from our taskmasters. There is hope through Jesus. It is amazing that so many people choose to continue to be enslaved, when they can accept the pardon that sets them free. Just as Israel was in bondage thousands of years ago, so are we in bondage. And just as God freed Israel, he can free us.
The last part of the commandment talks about not having other “gods” before God (starting with a capital). Are there other gods? Does God have competition? Is it some kind of popularity contest, the god with the most devotees’ wins? Who are these other gods?
There is only One True God. We already know that God created everything. This would presumably mean that if there were other “gods”, than He must have created them as well. The book of Isaiah tells us who one of these “gods” were:
“How art
thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer (Satan), son of the morning! How art thou cut down to the ground, which
didst weaken the nations! For thou hast
said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above
the stars of God: I will sit also upon
the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the
clouds; I will be like the most High. “
Isaiah 14:12-14
The Bible portrays
Satan as one of the most powerful Angels that God created. He was in charge of the Worship of God, and
provided a covering of God’s Glory. It
was from this high position that Satan wanted to be God. The above verse tells of the five “I wills”
that Satan wanted, which boil down to wanting to replace God. In revelation, it tells of a war in Heaven,
between God and Satan:
“And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels
fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed
not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And
the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan,
which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels
were cast out with him.” Revelation
12:7-9
In other passages, we are told that when Satan rebelled against God, he was able to deceive 1/3 of the angels to go with him. They were all cast out of heaven and became “demons.” So these are the “gods” that are mentioned. They have continued their war with God, and whatever God wants us to do, they want us to do the opposite. If God wants us to worship only Him, than Satan wants us to worship other “gods” which is basically him (Satan).
Now that we know the background of this commandment, and why it should be followed, where are the consequences of not following it; why is it here to protect us? What would happen if we follow other “gods”?
In Genesis 3:1-7, we see the first choice to follow another god. Adam and Eve choose to eat of the fruit from the Tree of Good and Evil, against God’s orders. Satan deceives Eve into eating the fruit, but the Bible says that Adam was not deceived; he willingly chose to eat and follow Satan. The results were the greatest devastation the world has ever known:
“Wherefore,
as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed
upon all men, for that all have sinned…”
Romans 5:12
“For since by man came
death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made
alive.” 1 Corinthians 15:21-22
“Unto the
woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow
thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he
shall rule over thee. And unto Adam he
said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of
the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed
is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy
life; thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat
the herb of the field; in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou
return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and
unto dust shalt thou return.” Genesis
3:16-19
“And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become
as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and
take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever: therefore the LORD
God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he
was taken. He drove out the man; and He
placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which
turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.” Genesis 3:22-24
Before Adam and Eve sinned, there was no death. We have already touched on that. But this sin had far reaching consequences; it began death for everything. Plants, animals, birds and fish; as 1 Corinthians says, “In Adam, all die”. So a universal death was introduced into our world. For the woman’s part in this, she was cursed with pain in childbirth. She will also envy man’s position as a ruler over her. This will lead to all kinds of problems that will affect man and woman alike. Man will be looking forward to hard work, and disappointment when all he is done is eaten by insects, or choked out by weeds. The final result was expulsion from the Garden of Eden, a special place created by God for Adam and Eve. A place most favored by God, where Adam was able to “walk with God in the cool of the afternoon.” All of this because they went after other “gods.”
The Egyptians had many gods. When God sent Moses to free Israel from Pharaoh, he felt that his gods were stronger than the One True God. God sent ten plagues against Egypt; plagues that were also against the main gods that the Egyptians believed in. God showed that these gods were nothing. As each plague passed, the Pharaoh continued to harden his heart until the last plague:
“For I will pass
through the land of Egypt this night, and will smite all the firstborn in the land
of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute
judgment: I am the LORD.” Exodus 12:12
If we depend on other gods for our protection, God will show us (eventually) that these gods are nothing to Him. He will judge the “gods” and us as well. Egypt had to learn this the hard way, with the deaths of their firstborn sons. How tragic if we were to learn the consequences of this commandment in a similar way.
In Numbers 25:2-9, Israel was in the land of Moab, and went after the false gods of the Moabites. Twenty four thousand people died as a result. There would have been more, had not a priest appeased God’s anger.
“And it shall be, if thou do at all forget the
LORD thy God, and walk after other gods, and serve them, and worship them, I
testify against you this day that ye shall surely perish.” Deuteronomy 8:19
Chasing after false gods will lead to your
eventual death. That is one of the
goals of Satan and his demons; to kill all humans. We are the prizes; God seeks our devotion, not because He needs
us, but because He loves us. Satan
knows this, and because he can’t hurt God, he will instead hurt His
creation. We need to “resist the devil
and he will flee from us.”
“Take heed to yourselves, that your heart be
not deceived, and ye turn aside, and serve other gods, and worship them; and
the LORD'S wrath be kindled against you, and he shut up the heaven, that there
be no rain, and that the land yield not her fruit; and lest ye perish quickly
from off the good land which the LORD giveth you.” Deuteronomy 11:16-17
How many countries
over the past four thousand years have been devastated by starvation because
they would not worship the One True God?
Many today have poor soil, no rain; the ground not yielding enough to
feed the multitudes of poor people, as their numbers continue to grow, again,
as a result of disobeying the Ten Commandments. Even countries that have been blessed by God because they were
founded on these commandments have seen society erode away as they get away
from the Law of God.
In this next
passage, Israel is about to enter the land given to them by God. They will have to do battle with nations
that have been placed there by Satan in an attempt to thwart God’s plan
(remember that there is a war going on between God and Satan). These peoples are idolaters, and have many
gods they have gone after. God will
deliver them into Israel’s hands for judgment, and God is warning them to not
fall into the snare of following these gods:
“Observe and hear all these words which I
command thee, that it may go well with thee, and with thy children after thee
for ever, when thou doest that which is good and right in the sight of the LORD
thy God. When the LORD thy God shall
cut off the nations from before thee, whither thou goest to possess them, and
thou succeedest them, and dwellest in their land; take heed to thyself that
thou be not snared by following them, after that they be destroyed from before
thee; and that thou enquire not after their gods, saying, How did these nations
serve their gods? even so will I do likewise.
Thou shalt not do so unto the LORD thy God: for every abomination to the
LORD, which he hateth, have they done unto their gods; for even their sons and
their daughters they have burnt in the fire to their gods.” Deuteronomy 12:28:31
There is an indication here that there is a temptation to follow after other gods. After Israel has conquered the land, and the people who had previously inhabited it are gone, they are warned to “enquire not after their gods.” Wondering how the nations served their gods. There are “entry points” to getting ensnared in other gods. Some common ones are Ouiji boards, Tarot cards, Horoscopes and Psychic Hotlines. There are many others, to numerous to mention. There are also a lot that aren’t as specific to the occult. There are so many gods, that we may not even realize that we are going after them. They are very dangerous.
When you come to someone’s house, you knock on the door. You do this deliberately because you want to let the inhabitants of the house know you are there, that you want to come in. If you do not knock, changes are that they will never know that you are there. They will not open the door. You make a conscious decision to knock. This is how it is with the “entry points.” You knock on the door to Ouiji, Tarot or Physics. They open the door and show you in. They lead you to the main part of the house. This is how you become ensnared. You are actually giving them permission to infect you with their evil, even if you don’t realize it.
Once ensnared in them, they will bring you down a path of destruction. God says that everything conceivable thing that He hates; the demons will get people to do. Again, those that were created in God’s image (us) are manipulated by evil in an attempt to hurt God. These “abominations” of the Lord include the sacrifice of children. It appears that these “gods” required this sacrifice, and Mothers and Fathers willingly sacrificed them.
There was a god named Molech who required such a sacrifice. He was made out of metal and was holding a huge plate. A fire was built to make the place red-hot. Babies were then placed on this plate and burned to death. Drums were beaten to drown out the screams of the babies. Who knows how many children were killed in the manner.
You might say, “Something like this could never happen today, we’re to civilized to do this.” Let’s look at just two of the many gods of today. How about the god of Evolution? This god requires the worshipper to have more faith than a Bible believing Christian. There is no evidence that evolution even exists, but they flock to this god in droves. They also evangelize, getting any and all others to believe. Since they can’t find any real proof that their god really exists, they make it up, or just say that their theory is fact. The followers of evolution don’t even realize that it is a religion.
All they have to do to worship evolution is believe that there is no God. That the universe just came into being from nothing that exploded; and all this was made possible by the magic of time, over billions of years. We came from a long succession of lower life forms that originally crawled out of a “soup”, and got more and more complex. Even though this breaks several laws of the universe, followers of this religion know that it happened, or at least think it did. They follow faithfully because of the alternative: That there is actually a God who created the universe. And that idea is unthinkable.
So with the religion of evolution, there is nobody to hold us accountable for what we do, because no one created us. We are all just another life form on Mother Earth, and if we die, it’s no big deal at all. It’s even better, since we would not be consuming resources that are becoming scarce. We can go about doing whatever we feel is right in our own eyes.
The next religion we will look at is Feminism. This is a god that goes way back: back to the Garden of Eden. This god was a result of the consequences of “original sin.” One of the curses of the women was that the man was in charge. This hasn’t set well with some women ever since. Although historically, women have gotten the short end of the stick, this was a result of them being deceived by Satan in the first place.
I’m not going to go in depth into feminism, but basically, it is an attempt at usurping the dominion of man. This god believes that there was a god that created everything, but it was a woman. Following after this god requires you to hate men and family. You must pursue a career and compete with men in the workplace. They desire to become equal with men, and then to supersede them. The ultimate goal is to have dominion over men; to change places with them. Anything that gets in the way of this goal must be eliminated.
There are plenty of women that do not believe in the god of feminism. Although they are not too thrilled with this “obey” thing with their husbands, they are mostly happy with the arrangement. Feminists hate these women, and will try to evangelize them into following their god. They will tell them that they are really not happy, or “unfulfilled.” They will be told that men want them uneducated, unsophisticated, “barefoot and pregnant.” We are now setup to appease a very old god…
One of the things that get in the way of worshipping the god of feminism is a result of the breaking of other commandments: offspring. When a woman gets pregnant, this can become a major obstacle in the furtherance of her career. She may be married or not. In today’s society, it is no big deal, but most of the time it is not a planned event. Something needs to be done about this, but what? How can we make this problem go away?
Here is a simple formula: Take the god of evolution, which says that we came from animals, and are in fact still animals. And whatever we do is ok. There are no “moral absolutes” to worry about. Take the god of feminism, which does not want her worship and agenda to be hampered by an “unwanted pregnancy.” Add them together and what do you get? Molech, the god of child sacrifices. How many children have been sacrificed to him? There have been more than 40 million abortions in the United States since abortion has been legalized. Who knows how many have been sacrificed worldwide. Woman and men, husbands and wives have laid these children on the altar of Molech. And you thought that this kind of thing could not happen in the 21st century.
It is done because we have been deceived into thinking that we are not made in the image of God; we were made in the image of rocks, plants and animals.
With so many gods in this world, how are we to survive. How can we resist them? The Bible tells of Israel being afraid of other gods, and that God will protect them:
“…Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, I brought
you up from Egypt, and brought you forth out of the house of bondage; And I
delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians, and out of the hand of all that
oppressed you, and drove them out from before you, and gave you their land; And
I said unto you, I am the LORD your God; fear not the gods of the Amorites, in
whose land ye dwell: but ye have not obeyed my voice.” Judges 6:8-10
God says that he will protect Israel, who was living in the land of the Amorites, from their gods. This depended on them obeying Him. God will help us resist evil, but we must be willing to listen to Him. To “resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” We can see in this passage that God had lead Israel out of the hands of many people, and gave them their land. Yet they still disobeyed Him.
Notice the land that was given to the people. It was God’s land from the beginning. But Satan and his demons are “squatters” on it. After Adam forfeited the world to Satan by disobeying God, Jesus purchased it back. Although Satan does not own the world, he still has control of it (according to God’s will of course). The eviction notice has been served. There will come a time soon when Jesus will come back to kick him out.
Following after other gods in a sense gives some “land” in our hearts over to them, and they take residence there. But by obeying God, we can take this land back, since the demons are squatters on land that doesn’t belong to them.
2.
Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any
thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in
the water under the earth: Thou shalt
not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a
jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the
third and fourth generation of them that hate me; and shewing mercy unto
thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.
This is talking about creating an idol to
worship. In ancient times, after the
flood of Noah, on the plain of Shinar, also known as Babylon, Nimrod became the
first dictator of the earth. He did not
like God, and created false religions that worshiped gods of metal, wood and
stone. Man became very superstitious,
and created many gods to represent events that happened on the earth like rain,
crop growth, natural disasters, and fertility.
These gods needed to be appeased by various means to prevent starvation
or not being able to bear children, which was considered a curse in those days
(some people think that having kids is a curse).
Idolatry, as the worship of idols is called,
is not appreciated by God. In Israel, the
tribe of Benjamin became idolatrous after the twelve tribes split into two
kingdoms, Israel (ten tribes) and Judah (two tribes). Israel went into idolatry in a big way, and those of the tribes
that didn’t agree, probably migrated down to Judah, and those in Judah that
wanted to worship the creation instead of the creator (Romans
Chapter 1) probably traveled north to Israel. God finally judged Israel and allowed them to be taken into
captivity by the Assyrians. Judah was
able to put off Babylonian captivity by another 100 years by resisting this
kind of evil activity, but finally succumbed to it as well.
What about now a days, do people still go
around worshiping idols made out of wood, metal, etc? The answer is yes, in more ways than one. You have some religions that have their
statues of their gods or saints. If you
believe in reincarnation, then you probably worship animals because they may be
your dear departed relatives, and you don’t want to generate “bad karma,”
because you might come back as a fly or something equally gross. Of course, if you came back as a rat in
India, you would be doing well.
There is also the worship of Mary, the mother
of Jesus. This is very widespread
idolatry that used to be reserved for the Catholic Church and it’s offshoot
religions, but recently it has become popular outside of Catholic circles. There is a movement afoot that is sponsored
by the Catholic Church to try to get all religions that believe in God to
unite. They believe that Mary, the
“Mother of God” may be able to accomplish this. They are trying to establish the Marian shrine of Fatima as the
focal point of the ecumenical movement.
Other religions have been invited to participate in ceremonies aimed at
combining religions, and some of the other faiths do not have a problem with
this, and are even getting positive spiritual vibes from the experience.
This has an ominous side since we already
know from Revelation that in the last days and especially during the
tribulation period that there would be a one world religion that will be called
the Whore of Babylon, and is described as a women riding a beast with a cup in
her hand. This cup holds the blood of
the saints that have been persecuted for their faith in Jesus Christ, and the
woman is drunk on the blood of these saints.
We know that this will happen, and we may be seeing the start of
it. Clearly we are in the last days,
and are seeing the birth pangs that the end is near and that will increase with
time.
There are also other forms of idolatry that
does not use statues or other objects in the images of the creation. These are just as bad and some are so subtle
that the worshiper may not even know he is worshiping. There are too many to list, but here are
some:
Cars, money, clothes, rock stars, movie
stars, big houses, power, work, eating, etc.
You name it, and someone is probably
worshiping it. I recently went to a
Home Depot to get some stuff to build a cage for our bird. On the way over there I noticed that the commercial
parks had all their parking spaces filled with cars. I also saw many people walking down the sidewalk in the direction
I was going. I then saw that people
were parking in any available space and walking the way we were going. When I finally got to Home Depot I found
that every parking space was taken, then I saw the reason why. KROQ was having a rock concert in the
parking lot of Best Buy. Every parking
space for about a mile was taken. I
didn’t even attempt to go to Home Depot; instead I started to leave. My son was with me and unfortunately liked
some of the bands that were playing there.
As I turned the corner I saw someone that had
just pulled out of a parking space in front of Carl’s Junior, so I parked
there. I decided that it might be a
good time to show my son the kind of people that “worship” the bands that he
likes. I had been telling him that you
become what you worship, which is taught in the Bible. We walked over to where the band was playing
and boy did we have culture shock. He
was scared to go in their with all the strange people, but there was a lot to
see. Many people with tattoos, body
piercing, and weird hairdos. There were
even little kids there that were swinging to the songs from bands I knew had
extremely bad and profane lyrics (I won’t mention any names).
The reason I am relaying this story is
because of one woman that I saw. She
was pretty normal compared to most. She
was wearing blue jeans and a white long sleeved blouse. What made me notice her was what she was
doing; she was swaying back and forth with her eyes closed to the music. Her right hand was straight up in the air,
and she was doing the sign where the index finger and pinky are extended. Some people call it the sign of the devil;
there were a lot of people doing it, even the little kids that were swinging to
the music. But this lady was singing
along quietly, eyes closed, with her hand in the air. This reminded me of some of the people in church who are
worshiping God by putting their hands in the air toward heaven. Clearly, this woman was worshiping her god,
this band, and the quality of her worship would rival the best worship at our
church.
Calendars were being given out at this
concert, and the band members were sitting at a long table under a tent signing
autographs. I assume that when they
were not performing they were there signing.
The line for this was very long, and people were probably waiting for
hours to get these signatures, and worship their gods. If only us Christians were as devoted as
most of the people I saw that day.
There are a multitude of things in this world to distract us from making
the most important decision of or lives, to accept Jesus Christ as our savior
and forgiver of our sins.
3. 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.
Why is it that when we get mad and have to
say something it is taking the Lord’s name in vain? We say God #### or Jesus ###### or some abbreviated form of these
two words like gosh darn it, or other forms.
It still amounts to the same thing, the breaking of the 3rd
commandment. Why don’t we say Oh
Buddha, or Hare Krishna, or some other “god”; why is it only the name of the
One True God of the Universe that we blaspheme?
Where did this come from? Is it just a coincidence that we blaspheme
the one true God, and not any of the false gods? I would suggest that this is not just a coincidence, but a
concerted effort to curse everything that is God. Look at the following verse:
“And I stood upon the
sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and
ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of
blasphemy. And the beast which I saw was
like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as
the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great
authority. And I saw one of his heads
as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world
wondered after the beast. And they
worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the
beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him? And there was given unto him a mouth speaking
great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty
and two months. And he opened his mouth
in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, and them
that dwell in heaven.” Revelation
13:1-6
This passage is during the 7-year tribulation
period, when the beast comes out of the sea.
We can see that upon his heads is written the name of blasphemy. A little further, it says that he was given
a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies.
He opens his mouth in blasphemy against God, His name, tabernacle, and
all that dwell in heaven. The beast
receives power from Satan, who is called the dragon in these verses. He also gets his mouth with which to
blaspheme from the devil.
In case anyone is still wondering where the
temptation to break this commandment comes from, it is directly from
Satan. He wants us to take the name of
the Lord in vain, because he does it.
The reason he does it, is that he is mad at God. He is mad at God because he wants to be
God. This was the very first sin, which
caused him to become Satan, the accuser and deceiver. Satan wants worship, and even though he can’t be God, he still
seeks worship from those humans foolish enough to give it to him. Satan and his demons had created literally
thousands of gods where they can obtain worship. It is because the devil wants us to blaspheme the one true God
that we don’t swear by the other gods he created. This would make no sense.
This is why it is no coincidence, and we need to remember that every
time we do it, we are allowing the devil to persuade us to break the third
commandment. We need to resist the
devil, and not allow him to get us to swear.
Now that we know why we break this
commandment, we should also understand how we could be coerced into doing
it. If you think back to the times you
have taken the Lord’s name in vain, it has probably been because of a situation
where you lost your temper. Although it
is true that some people use four letter words in every sentence, those who
occasionally swear, and don’t want to do it, will know what I am talking
about. Usually, something will happen
that starts to get you riled. This
usually starts a succession of mishaps that get you madder and madder,
culminating with you starting to swear.
I say that this progression is no accident. I believe that you are actually under attack by the enemy who is
purposely trying to get you angry enough to lose your temper and swear. I have seen this in my own life, with
several things going wrong in succession.
I have learned to recognize when this is happening, and not letting
myself get to the point of being in danger of breaking this commandment. In time, you can learn to do this, so that
you will not get to the point of swearing.
Once you learn to recognize this, the enemy
will not be able to get your goat as easily, and will probably not use this
particular attack on you as often. As
you learn to see the pattern, you may also see other patterns, like the trouble
getting ready for church on Sunday. Why
is it that there is so much mayhem on Sunday’s getting ready for church? And why does it involve shoes? It seems like the kids can never find their
shoes. It takes forever to get out, and
you are always late. This can also lead
to taking the name of the Lord in vain, but if not, you are probably so upset,
you are not able to worship the Lord in spirit and truth. Of course, since the devil wants your
worship, he also doesn’t want you to worship God. If he can get you to break the third commandment in the deal, all
the better. You should try to do things
to prevent problems getting ready on Sunday like finding all the shoes the
night before, or whatever else you seem to have trouble with.
4. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it
holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and
do all thy work: But the seventh day is
the Sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor
thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle,
nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:
For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in
them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath
day, and hallowed it.
This is the one commandment that isn’t in the
New Testament. There are lots if
differences of opinion as to whether Christians need to observe this law. The early church seemed to honor the first
day of the week, which was Sunday. This
was the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit descended on the Apostles as
tongues of fire, and 3000 people believed in Jesus Christ. Sunday has become the traditional day to
dedicate to the Lord and attend worship services, where the Sabbath day, for
the Jews, was on Saturday.
Every day should be kept holy. As Christians, we are to be a light to the
world, and the salt of the earth. We
can’t be Godly only on Saturday or Sunday, and have one foot in hell the rest
of the week. We are under a magnifying
glass, with others watching us, waiting for us to fall. They will rejoice when we do, and call us
hypocrites. They do this as an excuse
to not accept God’s Son, and what that means, to presumably spoil their fun;
wallowing in their sin. We need to show
the unsaved that we have something wonderful, that they do not have. It needs to be something that they
want. They need to be drawn to it, to
have their heart softened, and their eyes uncovered to the truth.
5. Honor thy father and thy mother: that thy
days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.
This is an interesting commandment because it
carries a direct consequence with it.
Honor your father and mother that your days might be long. If you want to live a long life, then honor
your mother and father. Nowadays, our
children, who are bombarded constantly with ideas like parents are clueless and
want to spoil their fun, ignore this commandment on a massive scale. The media, especially TV, drive this point
home continually. Clothing design is
targeted towards the teens and twenty something, and their catalogs give advice
on choices that are contrary to the teachings of the Ten Commandments.
It is sad that the very people who love and
care deeply about the children are the ones that are deemed “clueless.” Of all the people in the world, a child’s
parents are the ones most likely to want to help the child learn the proper
ways to conduct itself in life. Parents
usually have experience with the types of situations a child is going through
because they went through it when they were young. The child will usually not listen to them thinking that they just
don’t know what it is like. The parents
just want to help the child through these times, and so they won’t make the
same mistakes the parents did.
In the Old Testament, children that
continually didn’t obey their parents were finally taken out of the city and
stoned. Their days would definitely be
shortened as a result of their breaking this commandment. There are laws these days that prevent this
kind of deterrent, so kids can get very out of control. Sometimes the only thing that you can do is
pray, which should probably be the first thing we should do, not the last.
To the child that realizes that his parents
can really help them in figuring out what life is all about, they will be
blessed. To avoid the mistakes their
parents might have made, is to prevent the consequences those bad choices might
have brought. To obey these Ten
Commandments is the start of understanding, to realize why, and the price that
was paid to overcome them is true wisdom.
Sometimes you can’t really believe something unless you have experienced
it yourself, this is where you have to just “train up a child in the ways of
the Lord and when he is older, he will not depart from it”. Add to that a generous amount of prayer.
6. Thou shalt not kill.
From the first murder when Cain killed Abel,
millions of people have been killed.
Whether from war, or famine, or from covetous people, it is all murder
and forbidden by God. Jesus took it a
step further with the Sermon on the Mount.
He said if you hate another, you are guilty of murder, as if you had
physically killed him. Jesus defined
the breaking of the commandments in the heart, which makes them even more
impossible to obey. How many people
have we killed with a thought? The
saying “if looks could kill you would be dead” are true, looks can kill, and
can also break the 6th commandment of God.
What about abortion, is that killing? Depending upon whom you ask, the answer will
either be yes or no. If the person
believes that life begins at conception, then they will agree that the 6th
commandment is broken by abortion. If
the person believes that life begins when the baby is born, that somehow, it is
a fetus inside a woman’s body, and a minute later, outside, it is a baby, then
abortion is not murder. What does the
Bible say about this?
“I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and
wonderfully made: marvelous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right
well. My substance was not hid from thee,
when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the
earth. Thine eyes did see my substance,
yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in
continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.” Psalm 139:14-16
In addition to this verse,
there are others that show that God is not only taking part in the development
of the unborn child, but describes them as if they were already born. It is clear that God considers them as
children, not just a “fetus.” Jacob and
Esau were described as “two nations fighting with each other” while still in
the womb. So clearly, abortion is
murder. But besides the obvious
consequences this has for the child, what about the mother (and father), are
there consequences for them?
For both, there are
psychological damages; even of one does not want to admit it. There is guilt, as well as a vivid memory of
the event for the rest of their lives.
But are there other consequences that are only just beginning to become
clear? What about the link between
abortion and breast cancer? Something
that abortion providers may not want you to know about:
As early as 1957, studies
showed that there might be a tie between abortions and breast cancer. Cells in the breast change as a result of
hormones in the mother’s system. The
cells are gaining the ability to produce milk.
This change will become permanent between the 2nd and 3rd
trimester. The sudden aborting of the
baby can cause these changing cells to stay in an “in-between” state, which
appear to be more susceptible to becoming cancerous. Many studies have shown that women who have terminated their
first pregnancy are 50% more likely to get breast cancer than women who take
the child to term. Those that have
abortions after having a full term baby are 40% more likely to get breast
cancer.
Two recent studies have been
mostly ignored by the news media. The
first one appeared in the 2001 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer
Institute. It found that there was a
rise in breast cancer that started in 1973.
This was the same year that the Supreme Court declared that abortion was
a protected constitutional right. The
study showed that the incidence of breast cancer increased between 1973 and
1998 by 40%. The second study, which
appeared in the January 2003 issue of Obstetrics and Gynecology Survey, found
that existing research clearly shows a link between abortion and breast
cancer. The doctors performing the
research feel that those performing abortions are obliged to inform those
seeking them about the abortion/breast cancer link.
It is interesting that the
commandment “thou shalt not kill,” would reduce/prevent breast cancer. There are probably a lot of other things
that medical science does not know about the human body that might have similar
circumstances. Only the designer can
fully understand the ramifications sin has on our bodies. It would be interesting to know if the wages
of sin were actually designed into the creation, lying dormant in those who
adopt the moral law of God, but becoming malignant in those that choose that
path of evil. There are probably many
other examples we could come up with along the same lines, like STD’s,
including AID’s, etc.
There are other ramifications
to killing. Besides that fact that it
is against God’s commandments to kill, the person that is killed is dead. What this means, is that this person does
not have any more chances to accept Jesus Christ’s pardon for his sins. A person who dies in his sins is lost. He will face God’s judgment and be consigned
to hell to be separated from God for all eternity. The person who has killed him probably does not realize this, but
this is what has occurred. Like the
suicide bombers in the Middle East who blow themselves up and kill a lot of
innocent people, how many of these “innocents” are now in hell? This is another good reason to accept Jesus
Christ as your savior since you don’t know how long you have on this
earth. And when your time comes, you
may not have time to repent and call out the name of Jesus to be saved.
For those who think they can
cheat hell by accepting Christ at the end of their lives, I would say that
using that strategy is very dangerous.
I had a friend tell me if the rapture ever happens, and I disappear, he
will immediately accept Christ and become a Christian. What he doesn’t realize is if this scenario
actually happens, then he will have to go through the tribulation. This will be the worse time in history to be
living in. There will be untold
suffering and loss of life. The
restraint of evil by the Holy Spirit will be released, and all hell will break
loose. Whatever sanity is left in the
world will disappear, and there will be extreme persecution for Christians,
leading ultimately in the choice of either taking the mark of the beast, or
death. My friend would have to be
martyred for his faith to make it through.
There is also an interesting
passage in Revelation that seems to show where those who are saved during the
tribulation will end up:
After this I beheld, and, lo, a
great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and
people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with
white robes, and palms in their hands; And cried with a loud voice, saying,
Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb. And all the angels stood round about the
throne, and about the elders and the four beasts, and fell before the throne on
their faces, and worshipped God, Saying, Amen: Blessing, and glory, and wisdom,
and thanksgiving, and honour, and power, and might, be unto our God for ever
and ever. Amen. And one of the elders
answered, saying unto me, What are these which are arrayed in white robes? and whence came they? And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And
he said to me, these are they which came out of great tribulation, and have
washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore are they before the throne of God,
and serve him day and night in his temple: and he that sitteth on the throne
shall dwell among them. They shall
hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them,
nor any heat. For the Lamb which is in
the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living
fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.” Revelation 7:9-17
What these verses suggest is that those
Christians who are killed during the tribulation will have a different place in
heaven than those who are taken out during the rapture (or die saved before the
rapture). Whereas those Christians that
die before the rapture, or are taken out of this world by the rapture are designated
as Kings and Priests, to rule with Christ; those that are martyred during the
tribulation period, will become servants in the temple of God. While any “job” in heaven would be better
than to burn eternally in hell, it would be better to be a King and Priest,
ruling along with Christ, than to be a servant in the temple. We are also assuming that this scenario
would even actually happen. I believe
that those that are unwilling to accept Christ before the tribulation, and purposely
reject Jesus because they don’t want to give up their sinful life, will
probably not have a change of heart during the tribulation. I pray that I am wrong, but it just seems
like God wouldn’t allow that kind of scheme to work. Another thing that will go against this person would be the great
deception that the anti-Christ will give to the world. Only the Christians will be able to see
through this lie.
Perhaps the horrors of the tribulation would
be enough to allow those who wait past the rapture to receive Christ, and then
persevere unto death, to be saved. We
can only hope and pray for those loved ones that may be placed in this
situation. But I wouldn’t bet my
eternity on it, which is exactly what my friend is doing…
7. Thou shalt not commit adultery.
When God created Adam and Eve, he also
created the institution of marriage.
Marriage was between one man and one woman, period! And it was also for life. God did not create the institution of
divorce that was created by man. God
did allow divorce to those who have been unfaithful (and broken this
commandment), and for those who have been abandoned, as in a marriage where one
is a Christian and the other isn’t. But
even in this circumstance, God will bless a marriage that can survive these
obstacles. Marriage was so important,
that the man and woman are joined and become as one. So close is this bond that to separate them would be to literally
tear them apart.
Of course, something that God creates and is
good, Satan will want to pervert and make bad.
The most wonderful gift that God gives us becomes something evil and
destructive. Satan knows that sex
sells; it is one of the most pervasive industries in the world. According to the Sermon on the Mount
(Matthew chapters 5-7), this commandment covers more than just having sex
outside of marriage:
“Ye have heard that it was said by them of
old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery:
But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her
hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.” Matthew 5:27-28
And:
“It hath been said, Whosoever shall put away
his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement: But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife,
saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and
whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery.” Matthew 5:31-32
So this commandment covers all types of
sexual immorality outside of marriage of a man and a woman. Only in marriage is the bed undefiled, or is
sex a pure gift of God. We are
bombarded with things of a sexual nature in all aspects of society. It is on TV, in the movies, magazines,
billboards, clothing, etc. It is
everywhere, we are subjected to it whether we like it or not. The Internet, which is probably the main
cesspool these days for pornography, doesn’t wait for you to go to it, it comes
to you. I have been using a search
engine to try to find something computer related, and the hits have come up
with pornographic sites. In viewing the
source to these pages, I have found that the keyword field in the metadata has
about 5000 words in it.
This field is supposed to have a few “key”
words in it describing the document.
Instead, they have used most of the words you might type into a search
engine to describe their smut. They are
trying to get you to their pages under false pretenses, probably for
advertising purposes, since how many “hits” a website gets determines how much
money they can charge advertisers on their web pages for the exposure. You really have to be careful out there, the
forces of evil are looking for you.
Pornography is probably one of the worst scourges of our times, and many
people are addicted to it just as much as cigarettes or drugs. It is also a door to other unspeakable
perversions created in the pit of hell.
Because sex is one of the most pleasurable
experiences that God has blessed the marriage with, it is also one of the
hardest things to stay away from before marriage. Once again, Satan and his minions are at work trying to persuade
everyone that sex is fun and is ok before marriage. Their advertisements tell you to “just do it,” or “everybody is
doing it.” They make it seem like you
are not “cool” if you have not had sex by the time you are 15 or so, or that
there is actually something wrong with you if you are a “virgin.” The Bible said in the last days that bad
would become good and good would become bad.
Proverbs has something to say about adultery
and/or fornication as well:
“For the lips of a strange woman drip honey,
and her palate is smoother than oil; but afterward she is as bitter as
wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword.
Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold on hell, lest you should
meditate on the path of life, her tracks are movable; you cannot know
them.” Proverbs 5:3-5
This verse explains that committing adultery
seems so pleasant, the woman’s lips dripping with honey, but afterward, she is
suddenly bitter. The chapter goes on to
tell you that you will lose all and give your wealth and resources to
others. Sex outside of marriage is
devastating. There are other verses
that talk about joining yourself to whomever you have sex with, just as if you
were married. We probably don’t fully
understand what this really means.
There are the other consequences of adultery and fornication as well;
sexually transmitted diseases, unwanted pregnancy, and broken and divorced
homes that will affect all those involved for the rest of their lives.
Usually after a person has had sex outside of
marriage for the first time, there is a sense of guilt, or dirtiness. It is because everyone knows God’s moral
law, and knowing that it is wrong, we have a sense of loss. This is the “wormwood” of adultery (or
fornication), and yet it seems so good at the beginning (dripping with
honey). Pray to God that He will
deliver you from those situations like Joseph had with Potiphar’s wife that you
will not succumb to the temptation, but instead flee. If you can resist the temptations of the enemy until you are
married, you will receive a special blessing from God. Staying sexually pure is a special gift that
two people (one man and one women) can give each other on their wedding night.
Another temptation that we are subjected to
is the entertainment industry’s interpretation of sex. We are pummeled with sexual situations
everywhere, and they are always portrayed as so great (unless it is a soap
opera). We are fooled by a contrived
situation that sex between two (or more) people (man or woman, make your own
combinations) and it doesn’t matter whether you are married or not, as long as
you are in “love.” Or we could take a
“test drive”; live with the person first.
If things don’t work out, it is no big deal, just split up. It makes it less complicated this way. Of course they don’t tell you of the
statistics, that only 40% of those that live together before marriage actually
get married. And out of those 40%, only
15% actually stay married. These are
not very good odds.
Given all that is at stake, it looks like it
is better in the long run to just stay with God’s program and stay pure until
marriage. You will be better off, and
God will bless you as a result.
8. Thou shalt not steal.
From the very beginning of life this law has
been broken. Satan stole control of
this world from Adam by deceiving Eve into disobeying God and eating of the
tree of knowledge of good and evil.
This stolen property needed to be bought back by the blood of Jesus, who
took on the sin of this world to buy it and us back from Satan. We received a pardon, which we have to
accept, by putting our faith in Jesus.
Those that don’t, will have to pay the price of sin themselves when they
die, which will mean separation from God from all eternity in hell. This is a very high price to pay, and a
tragedy when you consider that the price had already been paid. This makes Satan a usurper, and squatter on
the earth, trying to deceive as many people into hell as he can, with the time
he has left.
Stealing goes hand in hand with coveting,
which is the 10th commandment.
We probably covet something first, and if we really want it, and can’t
afford it, we steal it. Stealing is not
limited to taking something that isn’t yours; it comes in other forms as
well. If you overcharge someone for
something, that is steeling, also not returning extra change, or something
someone has lost. If you keep it
instead of returning it, that’s stealing.
The old testament of the Bible says that if
someone steals something, he needs to pay restitution. That is to repay the debt owed from stealing
something. The restitution price is 4
times the value of what was stolen. In
biblical days, if a goat was stolen, than 4 goats needed to be paid in
restitution. This brings about an
interesting possibility: what if God ultimately gets restitution from those
that steal? It just may turn out that
if we steal something, that later we might have something stolen from us that
may be worth more. Maybe whatever the
value of the things we steal, we will lose at least 4 times that amount. The Bible does say things like you will reap
what you sow, and to not be deceived, that your sins will be found out.
If we sow by stealing, we may reap by being
stolen from. Think carefully about
it. You may find if you have stolen in
the past that you have been stolen from as well. And if you added up what you stole, versus what was stolen from
you, you may find that it totaled more… probably 4 times more. So although not stealing things may not
protect you from being stolen from, it may reduce your risk considerably. Not to mention that God’s law forbids it as
well.
9. Thou shalt not bear false witness against
thy neighbour.
This is basically lying, in any form or
color, and is probably one of the most broken commandments there is. We have all lied, and we may not even
realize when we do it. We call some
lies “white,” because they aren’t very big ones. As if there are varying degrees of sin. Just as any sin, which is perceived as big or small is still sin,
a lie is a lie no matter how big. What
does God think of lying?
“But a certain man named Ananias, with
Sapphira his wife, sold a possession, and kept back part of the price, his wife
also being privy to it, and brought a certain part, and laid it at the apostles'
feet. But Peter said, Ananias, why hath
Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part
of the price of the land? Whiles it
remained, was it not thine own? And after it was sold, was it not in thine own
power? Why hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart? Thou hast not lied
unto men, but unto God. And Ananias
hearing these words fell down, and gave up the ghost: and great fear came on
all them that heard these things. And
the young men arose, wound him up, and carried him out, and buried him.” Acts 5:1-6
When this man and his wife lied to God about
how much they had given in the offering, they actually died. This may seem harsh, but it shows that God
is serious about sin, and as a Righteous and Holy God, He must eventually judge
it, even though He usually gives ample time for us to repent. This also illustrates that you don’t really
know how much time you really have. The
longer you live in sin, the harder your heart becomes, and the harder it is for
you to repent. When your time comes, if
you have not accepted Jesus, you will be lost forever. You will have had your chance.
Lies also have a way of snowballing. If you tell them often, it gets easier and
easier to spin a tale. But the more you
tell, the more details you have to keep track of. The longer you do it, the more risk you have of contradicting
yourself, which could be very embarrassing, not to mention exposing yourself as
a liar. Your word should be your
bond. A person who is branded a liar
becomes untrustworthy in all matters.
As I tell my children, if you lie, and there is ever a time when I need
to believe you, I won’t be 100% sure you are telling the truth if you have lied
to me in the past. Perhaps all parents
go through this with their kids. It is
very important to always tell the truth.
It will keep you out of trouble.
This is especially true for family members. No matter how careful you are, if you lie to your family, you
will be found out. I have seen this
time and time again. I have suggested
to people that it would be better to just come clean and tell the truth. Sometimes they haven’t, and more often than
not, the family member found out.
It’s like the verse in the Bible that tells
you that your sin will find you out. No
matter how careful you think you have been in your sin, you will be found
out. There is no such thing as the
“perfect crime.” Since God sees all,
there will always be at least one witness.
You will not get away with it, so better to not do it in the first
place. Remember, you don’t want people
to think of you as untrustworthy, so make sure you always tell the truth. In the end, it will always be the best way.
10.
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house, thou shalt not covet thy
neighbor’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his
ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbor’s.
The Hebrew verb covet (khaw-mad) also means precious, beauty, greatly beloved, delight in, and lust. To covet something is different than to steal it, although the thief may covet the thing he is about to steal. Coveting is about “keeping up with the Jones’s;” about looking at our neighbor’s BMW and buying a Mercedes. It is about not being content with what we have; with what God has given us. This is a message that the world promotes on a daily bases. You are told that you cannot truly be happy unless you get that new car, that dream home, or that big promotion. If this was the case, then why do so many rich and famous people kill themselves; either quickly in an act of suicide, or slowly by drinking, drugs, and dangerous living.
While these people are on this road to destruction, we are told how great there lives are. In “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” we get to see how the “other half” lives. We get to see all their stuff and all there accomplishments. But what has this really gotten them? If we look back at the life of King Solomon, we can see someone who had done it all. He had embarked on a lifestyle of covetousness; seeking every pleasure that the human mind could imagine. He wrote his experiences down in one of the books of the Bible called Ecclesiastes. The entire book can be summed up in the first few verses: “Vanity of vanities says the Preacher, all is vanity.” It says that generations come and go, but the earth continues. Basically, you can’t take it with you, and contentment is like chasing the wind.
The gist of the book is that the pursuit of earthly pleasures will not make you content. Solomon was probably the most intelligent, wealthiest king there ever was. His wisdom was given to him from God. God had told him that he could ask for anything he wanted. He told God that he wanted wisdom to govern God’s people. God said that because he did not ask for wealth, fame, or long life (making an unselfish request), he would give him wisdom, and everything he did not ask for. Solomon was greatly blessed by God. He started out on the right track, and everything he did turned to gold. But as the years went by, he started taking wives form neighboring countries, and with the wives came the pagan beliefs. Little by little Solomon got caught up into not trusting in God for everything.
On Solomon’s quest for contentment he tried everything you could imagine; amassing great wealth, gaining knowledge, women (had 700 wives and 300 mistresses), wine (and probably other recreational substances), and building projects. They kept him busy for a while, but sooner or later he found them empty. He summed up his experiences in Ecclesiastes and finally found out that nothing in this world will satisfy you. The problem is that we have a spot in our heart that only God can fill. Man, being sinful and fallen, rejects God, and tries to fill this spot with other things. We even instinctively create “gods” ourselves because we know that this spot needs a “god” to fill it. The problem is that nothing will actually fill and satisfy this spot except the one true God. Only those who realize this and accept Jesus as their Savior can truly be content. We need to trust in God for our contentment.
When we do not trust in God for what we have, and be content, we run the risk of becoming covetous. Not trusting in God also makes us ungrateful for what He has given is. He gave us life and created everything. Although the world is not perfect, it was not created that way. God originally made everything “good,” and man was supposed to live in an eternal paradise. Because God didn’t want “robots,” He gave us a choice; to choose to obey Him or reject Him. We chose to reject God, and as a result, the world became cursed. The very act of rejecting God was covetousness. Satan deceived Eve by telling her that God doesn’t want her to eat the fruit of the tree because then she would be “like God.” Because Eve coveted God’s position, she decided to disobey God and eat the fruit. She got Adam to eat it as well. After their sin, they realized that they were actually better off before they sinned, but it was too late. Sin had been introduced into the world.
We can see that as we chase the dream of happiness, we soon find out that we may have been better off before. How many people have won millions of dollars in the lottery and ruined their lives? They have lost all their friends, loved ones, their possessions, their life. In our search for happiness, we don’t realize that we are actually complicating our lives. The complications probably begin when we need to hire a gardener to do our lawn, to give us more free time. We soon find out, after a few house upgrades that we can’t do without them anymore. The bills quickly pile up with higher utilities, etc. We need to make more money to make ends meet. We start to worry about loosing our job. We work hard to get where we are and when we make it we worry about keeping it.
The Bible says of what profit is it to gain the entire world, but lose your own soul. The things in this life serve to distract us from what is really important. The most important thing a person can do is to realize that there is a God that created this world. He is the God of the Bible, of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. His Son, Jesus, came to the earth as a man to die for our sins. If we admit that we are sinners and accept Jesus into our heart, He will forgive us. We will pass from death to life, and become a child of God. Knowing this truth, that whatever happens, God will take care of us, and that in the end, we will be looking at an eternity in His presence, should be cause enough to be content. Once we have accepted Jesus, we need to tell the other people of the world what He did for us.
Trusting in God for all our needs is the best way to prevent coveting.
After looking into the Ten Commandments in detail, we can see how important it is to obey them. This will keep us out of unspeakable trouble. If the nation would worry more about teaching people to obey them when they are young, instead of removing all signs of them from schools and public buildings, we would be in better shape. We have also learned that sinful man cannot obey these commandments; no matter how hard we try, we will still fall into sin. It is only through Jesus paying the price for our sins that we are blameless in God’s eyes. It doesn’t mean that we will never sin again, just that the sins have been paid for.
One thing we might want to think about if we are about to sin, is the sight of Jesus hanging on the cross. Or maybe we should hear the sound of the spike being driven into His hand or foot when we sin. We should at least contemplate this. Jesus took all of our sins on His shoulders when He was hanging there, and they must have been very heavy. There are many sins He already died for that we haven’t committed yet. God’s word also says that He will not let us be in any situation where we won’t have an escape to not sin. We need to be aware of these things, and to resist the devil and he will flee from us. We have the promise that one day we will be in heaven, and there will be no more sin, for all eternity.