Deut No.5 The Ten Commandments

Well now, we come to our fifth study in this particular book, and we look at the Ten Commandments. And once again, we're trying to pack quite a lot into a very short space of time, for these commandments would well deserve one study per commandment, even just to look at what they are saying to us. And even then, there would be a lot more that remained for our consideration.

Just starting with an introductory preamble, if you open up your notes, you will see that I've tried to neatly set out the Ten Commandments in two separate sections, and I've summarized each commandment, going away from biblical language to do so, so that it's easy for you to remember just what each particular decree has to say. And about ten to seven this evening, I was a little bit aghast to discover that I might have made an error. Not that that's infrequent for me to make an error, but I've generally spotted it before ten to seven.

My problem was I was reading a very great book on this subject by Thomas Manton, who wrote on the Ten Commandments, and he infers that of the two tablets of stone on which the commandments were recorded, on the first stone were four of the commandments, the first four. On the second stone were the last six. And I've split them as being equally divided, five on the first and five on the second.

And I've frantically been plummeting through the Pentateuch to discover whether this is indeed the case, or whether there is a mistake on the outline. So far I haven't found biblical reference to the fact that there is an error, but maybe there is, and if so, then you can point it out to me. But just at least for the sake of convenience this evening, we're taking the commandments in two groups, the first five and the second five.

Well, that just by way of explanation, in case I've dropped a typical Sergeant Howler. One of the things that becomes very obvious when you're looking through the book of Deuteronomy and indeed studying these first five books of the Bible, which we call the Pentateuch, is the fact that the Ten Commandments are the essence, they are the kernel of the law. Everything that Moses has to say, and has been saying in books prior to Deuteronomy, in the area of legislation and governing the lifestyle of the Israelites, devolve from these ten laws which God gave him on the top of Mount Sinai, otherwise referred to as Mount Horeb.

And as I was trying to show you last week when we spanned the whole teaching of the law, not just the Ten Commandments, but the subsidiary laws, as I was trying to show you last week, these laws are in no way annulled by the Gospel. Now, this is something that has to be repeatedly emphasized as are a certain of our hymns that we sing today in evangelical churches, which seem to suggest that no longer is the law, and the Ten Commandments in particular, something that Christians need to be over-concerned about. You will find in some churches, as I make reference in the notes, particularly those of a Reformed persuasion, that in the sanctuary or outside the church the Ten Commandments actually are written out.

And the practice is a good one, because it indicates that those churches realize, as we in the tabernacle also recognize, that the Ten Commandments are still vital for the Gospel. And that suggestion that the Gospel has pushed out these ten laws is quite ridiculous. It's got no justification at all from the New Testament.

Several examples could be cited from the ministry of our Lord, but we'll settle for two, one of which also I've included in the handout. Here's the rich young man who's got a theological problem. You remember he turns up one day into the scene where our Lord is ministering, and he approaches him and he said, Lord, how will I get eternal life? And Jesus said, you know the commandments, and he cites several of them.

And the young man agreed that he did know the commandments. And the implication of what Jesus was saying is simply this, that if you keep the Ten Commandments, then you will enter into life eternal. But that young man went away sorrowing.

Why? Well, I suggest the reason was this. When Jesus said to him, sell all that you have and give the money that that results in to the poor and follow me, the Lord was putting his finger on one area where there was contradiction in the spiritual makeup of that young fellow. He said he kept all the Ten Commandments, but one of those commandments is thou shalt have no other gods beside me.

And as we shall show, if we need to be reminded at all later on this evening, there is more than just an idol in the literal sense that can be bowed down to and therefore the law of God is breached. And it is in this area that this young man was defective. Now, if Jesus had been playing with him, well, it would have been so outside the disposition of our Lord even to entertain that notion that we can exclude it completely.

Jesus in no way was merely engaging in the subtleties, the niceties of a theological discussion when he makes reference to the law. He's being deadly serious. You know the law.

Keep the law. And that will bring you into life eternal. And indeed it will.

For Jesus in no way came to push the law out, but rather in his own life to fulfil the law. He said that not one part of the Ten Commandments, not one part of the law would ever be rescinded at all. And in no way is Jesus' passing comment on the law as to suggest that it was a secondary thing, an inferior thing.

But having said that, although we allow the conclusion that one could be saved through keeping the law, we've got this great problem. Nobody has ever kept the law. Not in perfection.

Not even that young man. I say nobody. There was one exception, and that is our Saviour himself.

And though righteousness would be the result of keeping the law intact, clearly, as Paul demonstrates in Romans 3, all have sinned, all have come short of the glory of God. We've all fallen down at the hurdle of the Ten Commandments. And therefore, if righteousness is to come merely by law keeping, if you're going to be saved by keeping some commandments, then you and I, of all people, are most miserable, because we would be the first to confess that there are areas where we have broken these laws, and broken them very terribly.

So, if salvation comes as a result of keeping the Ten Commandments, then we're in trouble. And the whole argument of the Apostle Paul, and there's not time to go into it this evening, the whole argument in Romans, particularly the third, fourth, and fifth chapters, is this. That through the Lord Jesus Christ, another way has been made possible whereby men and women can be saved outside of the law.

That is by the gospel. Jesus has kept the law Himself, and He has made it possible for His righteousness to be credited to your account and to my account. And when that happens, does it mean to say that the Ten Commandments have no longer any effect, or we have no responsibility towards them? It means completely the opposite.

The Christian is the man who comes to the Ten Commandments and being renewed by the Spirit of the Lord Jesus, lives his life by those commandments. Not that they can save him. He's been saved by this righteousness which is outside the law, but they will direct his lifestyle, and he will thrill to keep these Ten Decrees which God has laid down.

So though there is no salvation within the commandments, there is here the outline of the sort of life that you and I should be living because we belong to the Lord Jesus Christ. I hope that's quite clear. The law and the gospel are in no way contrary one to another.

The Ten Commandments and the gospel have much in common. Well, having said that, let's have a look at each individual commandment just for a few moments at any rate, and let's see how we get along with our study. Here's Moses speaking to the Israelites, encouraging them as they go through to the land that God has promised them, and he wants their lives to be blessed by the Lord, and they will be blessed if they bring into their day-by-day living into their lifestyle as a nation these laws which God has decreed.

And the first law on the first tablet of stone which Moses has safely, incidentally, put in the Ark of the Covenant, the first law, Moses reminds them, is that there is only one God. There is no other God besides me, and therefore the Israelites are only to recognize the lordship of their God. Hold that for a moment, and let me introduce two words which may be new to some people.

I wonder if you've come across the term polytheism. Poly is not only the name of certain ladies, it's also a technical term from the Greek which means many or several. Theism is a word which denotes God, so polytheism is the belief in more than one God.

Here were the Hebrews on the other side of the Jordan waiting to go back into Canaan. Canaan is inhabited by primitive tribes, very barbaric people. And these primitive tribespeople, they have a variety of gods.

They have many things in their religious practices which were obnoxious to the Lord God. Prostitution, certain fertility rites, terrible superstitions, even the sacrificing of children, all to placate the gods. They got a very low estimate of the gods indeed, a very crude, a very primitive one.

And Moses is laying down in the name of God, repeating in the name of God, that all this really is a figment of the imagination. There is only one God. The Hebrews are not polytheists, they are monotheists.

They believe only that one Lord God exists. And His name, as I have repeated on several occasions thus far, verse 6, is the Lord Jehovah in the Hebrew, or perhaps better transliterated into English, Yahweh, the one who ever exists. You remember when Moses at the beginning of his ministry was confronted by God, it was the Lord appearing to him in the center of a burning bush.

And Moses stopped to see this incredible sight of a bush that was burning but was not consumed. And he realizes that he is standing in the presence of the Lord, so he takes the shoes off his feet and the Lord speaks to him. And Moses says, But what is your name? And God says, I am who I am.

And that's the best translation that there is in English for the word Jehovah or the word Yahweh. I am the ever-existing one. You see, God has no beginning.

He has no end. If you were to express God in geometrical terms, you couldn't use a straight line, you'd have to use a circle. There's no point at which you can say that God does not exist.

He is the eternally existing one. Therefore, any idea of another God is absurd because those other gods, they would be created. There would be a time when they did not exist and divinity requires eternity as one of its attributes.

But coupled with the exclusive claim that he, the Lord God, is the only deity, is also the idea of salvation. And I think this is rather wonderful. In the first commandment, God says, I am the Lord thy God, ye are to have no other gods beside me, and I am the Lord your God who delivered you from the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage.

Isn't it rather lovely for us as Christian people looking back in the Old Testament volumes to see that when God reveals himself to the Israelites, he reveals himself not only as their God, but as their Savior. And we too remember this Lord God who delivers all who call upon him from the slavery of sin. Now, the second law, as you will see, is a logical one.

That is, it logically is deduced from the first. If there is only one God, then there can be no idols which are to be worshipped as gods. Verse 8, Thou shalt not make thee any graven image or likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the waters beneath the earth.

Thou shalt not bow down thyself unto them, nor serve them. For I, the Lord thy God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children. And so on.

One of the reasons why you can search the rafters down to the cellar in the tabernacle and fail to discover any image, any crucifix, is because we are aware of the danger that any representation of God could in the minds of a person or in the minds of people be invested with the idea of deity. Let me express that in intelligible terms in case that lasts you. You go to the streets of Calcutta tonight, or Bombay, or Kathmandu, and you will find there many hundreds, thousands of people who will have their little gods.

They'll perhaps attach them to a lamp post or a telegraph post or some railings. They'll light a little candle and they'll burn it to this god and they will believe that there's something of God in that idol. To put it in philosophical terms, it has manna.

It has the divine power innate within it. And they will worship this god and they will believe that it will protect them during the night. Now, there are Christian practices which have devolved from this rather heathenish idea.

Some people, for instance, will wear a little medal around their neck with St. Christopher on or something like that. The idea being that this particular saint, the patron saint of travellers, will keep them and will protect them. As though the image, the idol itself, has got some power.

And we here, though we wouldn't want to be overcritical on anyone else's practices if they feel that it is helpful to them, we would demur from that sort of thing and say, no, it comes so very, very close to breaking the second commandment that the best thing is to have no representation of deity at all. But to realise that God is a spirit and those that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. And that if you have a dynamic experience of the fullness of the Spirit of God, you don't need any representation, not even of the Christ on the cross, to help to bring you into the presence of the Lord.

No idols. Now, the culture, as I tried to spell it out for you a moment or so ago, into which the Hebrews were going, the culture of the Canaanite tribespeople was one in which there were a plethora, there were many, many deities. And Moses tries to safeguard the people from this as he reiterates his second commandment.

But alas, it was to no avail. By the time that there was the split in Israel between King Solomon, or rather, between Solomon's son Rehoboam and Jeroboam, idols had already taken some hold in Hebrew religious practices. And you remember Jeroboam, who led the rebellion against Solomon's son, he erected two idols, two false gods, and caused all the Israelites in the northern kingdom to sin as a result.

And throughout the history of the Old Testament prophets, the major prophets and the minor prophets, it's this business of heathen practices that are so often criticized. And the prophets try to root them out, these practices of idolatry, which were so bad for the Israelite. So, the second commandment is, no idols.

And the third too, follows logically from the preceding. And that is, no blasphemy. Verse 11, Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.

We have a long way to go to understand the feeling of the sensitive Jew as to the holiness of Almighty God. So often we take God's name, perhaps not in vain, but we take it lightly. I'm the last person in the world to argue against choruses, scripture choruses in particular, or hymn singing.

I love to engage individually and corporately within a congregation in praising the Lord. But you know, it's so easy to take God's name lightly. But the sensitive Jew would never do that.

In fact, sometimes he would be so concerned about the name of God being pure that he'd take some water and he'd wash his mouth out before he would use any of the several terms in the Old Testament that convey the person of God. Not to take his name in vain. You see, if you take God's name in vain, then it's indicating that you're not respecting him as the Lord, he's not the only God who demands your obedience and your total adoration.

He's the God who you laugh at. He's the God who you scorn and you take him in your oath and in your blasphemy and you heap up your ridicule on this God. And the Bible says the Lord will not hold him guiltless that takes his name in vain.

I'm glad that Mary Whitehouse providentially was able to win the case quite recently against the gay liberation movement and their paper which indulged in some terrible blasphemy some months ago. I must admit, I personally was surprised at the judgment. I thought it would go against Mrs. Whitehouse.

But at least we have still a little vestige in the English statute book of this law still coming through. It is wrong to take God's name in vain to blaspheme. Although it must be added that in less serious circumstances blasphemy is often used by the ordinary man in the street.

So, the three laws that are the starters in the Ten Commandments no other God, no idols, no blasphemy they all flow the one from the other. And so, incidentally, does the fourth law. The seventh day.

Keep the Sabbath day, verse 12, to sanctify it as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee. Six days shalt thou labour and do all thy work, but the seventh day it is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God. Well, that's another law that's really got little resemblance in our modern practices, in our lifestyle in the United Kingdom.

But, you know, there are many people besides evangelical Christians who lament the fact that the seventh day or the Sabbath day, the Lord's day as it is in the Christian calendar the first day of the week is now increasingly used as are the rest of the days. There's little differentiation made. On purely humanitarian grounds, on purely psychological grounds, one could argue for a break one day in six or rather one day in seven.

And I've heard of trade unionists who are very concerned as to the possibility of people being enticed to work seven days in the week. But, and perhaps this is more important for our Bible study this evening, have you ever thought through the scriptural reasoning behind the keeping of one day in the Hebrew economy to remember the Lord God? Well, I point this out to you because in the 15th verse of this chapter you find that this is attached to the idea of the Israelites when they were in Egypt as slaves. Now, during that long, long period of slavery, they never had the luxury of a day off.

They were in constant, in perpetual servitude. But the moment came in their calendar when God released them from Egypt through the leadership of Moses and took them into the wilderness of Sinai and eventually brought them through into the promised land. And they were reborn as a nation.

And the seventh day was the day when they were to remember their rebirth, their national salvation. Remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt and that the Lord thy God brought thee out thence through a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm. Therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the Sabbath day.

And in the New Testament dispensation the same principle applies. The Sabbath day is referred to in revelation as the Lord's day. What do you do on the Lord's day? You worship God.

But what provokes your worship to the Lord? Well, the fact of your deliverance. Here I was as a sinner. I knew nothing of this God.

I knew nothing of why Jesus came into the world. But blessed be the Lord. The day occurred in my life when I was brought face to face with the Gospel.

The day came when I acknowledged what Jesus had done on the cross of Calvary for me. And at that moment as I entered into salvation I realized the tremendous opportunity that is given on the Lord's day to gather together with the rest of my brothers and sisters to praise God for my deliverance. And so on a Sunday in particular the resurrection day when I remember that as Jesus was raised from the dead so I was raised from the dead spiritually speaking on a Sunday I join with the rest of those who are redeemed to honor the Lord, my God.

Well then, this Sabbath observance stems from the other three commandments too in bringing glory to the Lord. And then the fifth, if you take my division at this stage of our study the fifth, which speaks about parental honor verse 16 Honor thy father and thy mother as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee that thy days may be prolonged. You remember Jesus, He endorsed this commandment and not only did He endorse it by lip, He endorsed it by life.

Isn't it singularly important that one of the last things Jesus does during His earthly ministry even when He's suspended from the cross is to say to John, look after Mary. Woman, behold your son. Son, behold your mother.

He remembers His parental, His responsibility to His parent, to His mother, Mary. Now why is God glorified if we honor our father and our mother? Well how do you refer to God? How did I refer to God? This evening. What's my natural expression in the pulpit when I lead you in prayer? We come before our great God and Father and as we trace our indebtedness back to our earthly fathers for so many things that He did for us.

So we're honoring the God who is the Father of all of us in remembering our own parents. Well then, there are the commandments on the first tablet. Each one interlocking.

Each one really being summarized in that verse that I gave you from Matthew's Gospel that the greatest commandment of all is that thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul. That's a summary of those commandments. But you remember Jesus said that the second greatest commandment was that you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

And now we can hastily go through the next five because all those have got to do with loving our neighbor. If I love my neighbor, then presumably I don't kill him. If I love my neighbor as myself, I don't steal his wife.

If I love my neighbor as myself, I don't steal from him. If I love my neighbor as myself, I don't slander him. If I love my neighbor as myself, I don't covet his possessions.

We have some very wonderful laws in our country, notwithstanding some that have been passed recently that we wish had never gone into the statute book. But most of those humanitarian laws that are not only in the legislature of Great Britain but in all European countries could be reduced in essence to the last five or the last six, depending how you do your arithmetic, commandments that Moses was instructed by God to give to the Hebrews. There is perhaps no better indeed, there is no better lifestyle described than that which these six or five laws impinge on.

We're not to kill because we're made in the image of God and life is sacred. We're not to commit adultery because God has decreed that it is for a man to live with one woman and to engage in anything less than the biblical standard is to go against the instructions of God to one's own spiritual detriment. Although there are some exceptional clauses which Scripture also makes reference to, but generally speaking, marriage is something that the Bible looks upon as being once and for all.

The sanctity of life, the sanctity of marital relationships, the sanctity of possessions. You don't steal, verse 19, what belongs to your neighbor. Why? Because if you look back in Deuteronomy 8, you find that what belongs to your neighbor was given to him by God.

And if you check through Romans, you will discover that everything that we have as Christians belongs to the Lord and nobody wants to steal who is in his right mind from God. You don't bear false witness against your neighbor because that is a form of human blasphemy and blasphemy against the Lord has been prohibited in the previous commandment. And you don't covet because though covetousness is not something that is obvious to anyone looking on the outside of your personality, it's registered by God who discerns the thoughts and the intents of the heart.

So, when all is done and said and all these commandments are examined, instead of being old-hat, old-fashioned, rigidly puritanical, designed to rob men and women from enjoying life, they become what I argued they would last week. The manufacturer's instructions so that ordinary people like you and me and any nation like our own country could live lives that bring them the greatest sense of well-being and the greatest satisfaction. But, and this is the rub, though they are the essence of divine wisdom to govern the way that we live, so few of us, indeed, not one of us, has ever lived up to the requirements of this divine law.

So, what happens then? The law is removed? No. As I told you right at the beginning, Jesus came along and fulfilled these requirements and the law remains as a rule for Christians. It's not their savior, but it is their guide.

And when we have come to the Lord Jesus Christ and had our sins forgiven, then our desire is to love God with all our hearts, with all our soul, with all our mind. It's not just to keep regulations. We're not being reduced to that mechanical form of being so wooden in our discipleship.

We don't keep the law simply because we've got this mechanical approach to it. We keep the law because we love our God. It's not because of our basic fear of God.

It's because of our love for the Lord that we want to keep His law and illustrate a righteous life. And it's not just the mere living up to the standards of the Ten Commandments in our actions, but it's our inward disposition that the Spirit of God changes. You see, according to Jesus, though I never in the flesh commit adultery or murder, I could commit adultery a thousand times and murder ten thousand times in my heart.

But the gospel goes to the heart. It changes the heart. And by the power of the Holy Spirit, the Christian realizes that not only the Ten Commandments are to be kept in letter, but they're to be kept in spirit too.

And it's not just the act of sin, but the thought of sin, which is removed by the fullness of the Spirit of God, enabling the Christian not just to live up to the letter of the law, but the spirit of the law. And when the Christian, poor fellow that often he is, falls short, well, he realizes that salvation was never of the law, it's in Jesus, and he can go back to the One who fulfilled the law, confess his sins, have them blotted out, and get a new start, and ask for a greater dynamic of God's Spirit to enable him to live the life that Jesus wants him to live. Well, there, though the heart's not been told, is the essence of the Bible's teaching on the Ten Commandments.

May it have been for our benefit that we study them this evening. Father, we thank you that though the law was something that terrified us, because though it exposed sin, it could not save the one who had broken it. Now the law of God has no fear for us.

We recognize that One has come who has kept the law, and who has revealed a way of righteousness outside the law, and through the salvation that he brings, and the fullness of the Spirit which he imparts, he grants to sensitive inquirers the power to live by the manufacturer's instructions, and to know life at its richest and in its fullest. Father, we bless you again for the everlasting gospel of the blessed God. Amen.