The King's Church in Ilford
The following is the text of the talk given on 9th November 2008 by Robin Hawkins
"The Ten Commandments"
EXODUS 20:1-17
I doubt if any document has influenced western culture more than the Ten Commandments. 1000yrs ago, King Alfred based our legal system on them. Now only two or three are considered illegal! Most people have heard the name even if they can't tell you the contents. Shall we have a little quiz on them? Bibles closed!
1. No others gods besides me. 2. No idols
3. Don't abuse God's name 4. Keep Saturday special
5. Honour Mum & Dad 6. Don't murder
7. Don't commit adultery 8. Don't steal
9. Don't lie 10. Don't desire what belongs to another.
Read: Exodus 20:1-17
So how are we to approach the Ten Commandments? Are they still binding on us today? Do we have to live by them? Are we going to be judged by them? Do we get saved by keeping them? Will we lose our salvation if we don't keep them?
Two weeks ago, I said that keeping the Ten Commandments was not the way into the Covenant. The Israelites didn't get saved by keeping them. God had already chosen them. Rather, keeping the Law was their side of the Covenant.
Now God gave them the Law for a number of reasons:
1. The Law was to show the world what God was like.
2. It was also intended to bring some order and structure into their community - some rules for getting along together.
3. It was given so that people could see just how sinful they were. It revealed sinful desires in them that they weren't aware of before. Paul tells us in Romans that he never thought of "coveting" until he was told it was wrong. When I was told I had high cholesterol, my doctor told me not to eat chicken skins among other things. Up til then I didn't even like chicken skins. Suddenly chicken skins became a tasty delicacy for me! This is what the Law does. It makes me aware of wrong desires, but doesn't lift a finger to help me keep its demands. However, it's very good at making me feel bad when I fail. So it piles condemnation on me.
4. Ultimately, the Law is intended to show us how impossible it is to be good enough for God, and to make us desperate enough to look to Jesus. The Jews in Jesus' time had totally misunderstood, and took great pride in their ability to keep the outward expressions of the Law down to the last detail. They thought it was a means of showing how righteous they were!
Certainly we're not going to be saved by keeping Ten Commandments. Nor are they much good for making us holy. But it's also true to say the values haven't changed. We've just got a much better way of keeping them. We've got a much better covenant in Christ. It's as though with the TC's, God was putting the bar ... so high - and people found that height hard enough. But now we've been born again and been filled with the Holy Spirit, we're regularly jumping much higher. So much so that for those in Christ, it's obsolete to keep referring to the need to be keeping the TC's. Imposing those rules from the outside didn't work anyway, so why refer to it? Much better to remind people of who they are in Christ, and get them filled with the Holy Spirit, then we'll start living the values much more naturally.
Now having said all that, we could easily do a ten-week series on the TC's. Anyone who's listened to J. John teaching on them will know there's still a great deal we can learn from them about pursuing God and making sure he's first in our lives. If the Lord leads us thus, we'll no doubt do that. For now, I want us to look at the principles underlying them, for they will certainly help us undertstand God's heart better.
The first is Respect. All the commandments are based on this. Respect for God. Respect for people, respect for family life, respect for life itself. Respect for marriage, respect for other people's property, respect for people's reputations. The message is clear. A healthy society is built on respect. We've been through a period which started in the 60's where society, and especially the media set out to destroy respect. TV comedy often encouraged an irreverent view of life where nothing was sacred. Everything and everyone was a potential figure of fun. What is clear that loss of respect for God leads to idolatry; and the loss of respect for people leads to immorality, unrighteousness and injustice. Forty years on, the pendulum has swung back, and in a now godless society, respect is legislated into everything which has given us political correctness. Meanwhile idolatry is still rampant, family life is in ruins, and people are still feeling unvalued and unrespected.
This is because the heart of the problem is the heart. Most of the TC's are about deeds or words. Only one is about feelings, and that's the one Paul said he couldn't keep. So like I said, the root of the problem's in our hearts. Until our hearts are changed, we won't be able to keep this law; and if we break one of these laws we've broken them all. They belong together like a necklace, and if you break a necklace in just one place, all the beads are lost. In reality, we're not looking at ten separate laws here. They are all one law.
The second principle is responsibility. Increasingly we are being taught that we are not responsible for our actions. The claim is even being made now that wickedness is in our genes. It's that original sin is passed down through from our parents, but to say that one person is more wicked than another because they have a wrong gene removes responsibility for our own wrong-doing. Barak Obama might be the man-of-the-moment right now, he stands for a party which has based its political philosophy on the belief that people are basically ok. It's their environment that has made them go wrong.
A young boy nervously watched his father read his appalling end-of-term report and asked, "What do you think the trouble is, Dad? Heredity or environment?
Have you ever tried to get someone to take responsibility for something that's gone wrong. "It wasn't my fault!" must be the watchword of our generation! Exodus stands firmly against this view. The Lord God says we are responsible before him for how we live in regard to his law.
The third principle is retribution - punishment. There are three reasons for punishment under the law. The first is reformation. Punisment is intended to make the wrong-doer a better person. The second is deterrence. This is the idea that observing the punishment of one person, discourages others from doing wrong. The third is retribution: the punishment occurs simply because the person deserves it, with no concern as to whether others heed the warning, or whether the wrong-doer learns from his mis-doings. This is not a very popular idea today - was it ever?! Either way, the idea of retribution is firmly enshrined in the Law.
When Jesus came, it was not to abolish the Law, but to fulfil it. In its entirety, the law broke down into two parts, the moral law, and the sacrificial law. The TC's are a summary of the moral law, but there were 635 laws in all that the Israelites were to obey - and they found it impossible, as God knew they would. But they all had to be given, to show people how sinful they were, and how much they needed a Saviour. Our Saviour, Jesus, is the one person in all of history who managed to keep and fulfil the requirements of the Law - every part of it. In his life, Jesus kept that part of the moral law. In his death, he fulfilled the sacrificial law. That cry on the cross, "It is finished!" - was a cry of triumph, not despair. "I've done it!" Jesus took on himself the retribution - the punishment - for all our law-breaking. He's accepted the responsibility of presenting us spotless before his Father. What he doesn't want to do is reform us. He wants us dead! Then we can be born again! Hallelujah! Rebirth is a much better way to make us better people.
Now, the one person who kept the law comes and lives inside of each one of us by his Spirit, so not only are we new people, re-born in righteousness, we have the Holy Spirit who empowers us to live holy lives. Now, our hearts are so captured by God that we don't want any other god in our lives. And rather than steal, we find ourselves wanting to give generously... It's a joy to honour people above ourselves.
The way in to this New Covenant is to accept responsibility for your own wrong-doing, admit it, stop doing it, and ask the Lord Jesus to forgive you. Then you too will be reborn, you'll receive the Holy Spirit, you can know God for yourself, and live the kind of life that pleases him - in covenant relationship with God and his people.
And their expanse is declaring the work of His hands. Psalm 19:1