Deuteronomy 5
THE DECALOGUE THE
BASIS OF THE COVENANT, THE ESSENCE OF
THE WHOLE LAW,
AND THE CONDITION OF LIFE AND FELICITY.
In the first five verses Moses reminds them of the making
of the covenant at Horeb,
and of the revelation of the fundamental law of the
covenant there. As he
was about to recapitulate the laws which God their King had
enacted, it
was fitting that he should refer at the outset to that
covenant relation
between Jehovah and
1 “And Moses called all
statutes and
judgments which I speak in your ears this day, that ye
may learn them,
and keep, and do them.” The calling refers not to the
publicity of the address, but to the clear voice which, breaking forth from the
inmost heart of Moses, aimed at penetrating, as far as possible, to all (Genesis
49:1; compare also Proverbs
8:4.)
2 “The LORD our God made a covenant with us in Horeb. 3 The LORD
made not this
covenant with our fathers,” - the patriarchs (ch.4:37.) The
covenant to which Moses refers is not that made with
Abraham, but that made at
Sinai, with
all perished with the exception of Moses, Joshua, and
Caleb, the nation survived,
and as it was with the nation as an organic whole that the
covenant had been made.
it might be with propriety said that it was made with those
whom Moses addressed
at this time, inasmuch as they constituted the nation -“but with us, even us, who
are all of us
here alive this day.”
The
Covenant at Horeb (vs. 2-3)
Here spoken of as distinct from the older covenant made
with the
patriarchs (Genesis 15., 17.).
·
ITS RELATIONS TO THE COVENANT MADE WITH THE
FATHERS, It was not a
new thing absolutely. It rested on that older
covenant, and on the series of
revelations which sprang out of it. It could
not disannul that older covenant
(Galatians 3:17). It could not run
counter to it (ibid. v. 21). It must, though
“superadded,” be in
subserviency to it (ibid. vs.15-26).
But that covenant made with the
fathers was:
Ø
Of promise (ibid. v.18).
Ø
Couched in absolute
terms. God pledged His perfections that the promise
conveyed in it would be
ultimately realized (Romans 3:3).
Ø
In which an interest was obtained by faith (Genesis
15:6; Romans
4:3-23).
Ø
While yet it bound the person received into
covenant to a holy life
(Genesis 17:1). The new covenant
could “make void” the older one in
none of these particulars.
·
ITS DISTINCTION FROM THE COVENANT MADE WITH THE
FATHERS.
Ø
It was a national covenant, having
reference primarily to national
existence and prosperity.
o
It was a covenant of Law. It was:
§
connected
with a promulgation of Law, and
§
required
obedience to the prescribed Law as the condition of
acceptance.
Does this look
like a retrograde step in the Divine procedure, a
contradiction
of the covenant with Abraham? Seemingly it was so, but the backward step was
really a forward one, bringing to light demands of the Divine holiness which it was absolutely
essential man should become acquainted with. Two points have to be noticed:
ü that obedience was not made the ground of
admission to the covenant, or aught else than the condition of continuance in
privileges freely conferred; and
ü that the requirement of obedience did not
stand alone, but was connected with provisions for the removal of the guilt
contracted by transgression and shortcoming. This brings into view the peculiar
feature in the covenant of Horeb — the hidden grace of it. In form and letter it was a
strictly legal
covenant. Obedience to the Law in all its parts, and without failure, was the
technical condition of the fulfillment of promise, and of continuance in
covenant privilege (compare Matthew 19:17; Romans 10:5; Galatians 3:10). The
fact that atonements were provided to remove the guilt which otherwise would
have broken up the covenant, is
proof that such
was its constitution. The same fact shows that in the structure of the covenant
it was recognized that sin and shortcoming would mark the history of
Jew
ever rendered. His
standing in no case was in virtue of a perfectly fulfilled Law, but was due to forgiving mercy, which
daily pardoned his shortcomings,
and gave him an acceptance which these shortcomings
were as constantly forfeiting. It was faith, not works, which justified him; while yet, in harmony with the unalterable law of moral life, IT WAS HIS DUTY TO AIM AT the
realization of the ideal of righteousness which the Law presented. Just as with Abraham, the faith which justified him,
and did so
before a single
work had issued from it (Genesis 15:6; James
2:23), was a faith which “wrought with works,” and “by
works was faith made perfect” (ibid.
ch. 2:22). It follows from these peculiarities,
and from the statements of Scripture, that it was:
Ø
A preparatory and temporary covenant. Its leading design was:
o
to develop the
consciousness of sin,
o
to awaken a feeling of
the need of redemption,
o
to evince the
powerlessness of mere Law as a source of moral
strength,
o
to drive men back from
legal efforts to faith, and so, finally,
o
to prepare the way for
Christ (Romans 3:20; Galatians 3:23-24, etc.).
In this we discern the reason of
the severe and threatening form in which it
was couched, and of the terrors
which attended its promulgation. It was a
covenant which could not of itself
save or do aught but kill (II Corinthians 3:6-12).
4 “The LORD talked
with you face to face” - God spoke to them
immediately,
in their presence and to their face, from the mount, as one
person might to another.
There is a slight difference in form between the phrase
here and that in Exodus 33:11
and ch.34:10, where it is used in reference to Moses, but
it is so slight (בְּפָּנִים
instead of אֶל־פָּנִי) that no difference of meaning can be elicited. God spake
directly to the people, as He did to Moses, only Moses was admitted to
closer communion with him than the people were. This difference is sufficiently
indicated in v. 5, where the mediatory function of Moses,
in the promulgation of
the Law and the making of the covenant, is described as
necessitated by the fear
of the people, and their not going up into the mount
(compare Exodus 19:19).
This is referred to more fully afterwards (v. 23). - “in the mount out of the
midst of the fire, 5 (I stood between the
LORD and you at that time,”
i.e. acted as mediator; Septuagint - εἱστήκειν ἀνὰ
μέσον – eistaekein
ana meson – I
stood between as a mediator - (<480319>Galatians 3:19) –
“to shew you the word of the LORD: for ye were afraid by
reason of the
fire, and went not up into
the mount;) saying,”
The Abrahamic
Covenant Renewed (vs. 1-5)
So solicitous was God for the well-being of
their history, He reminds them of their privileged
condition. Three main
thoughts arrest our attention:
·
COVENANTED BLESSING SECURED. God has not stood out for
the maintenance of His rights;
He has stooped to fetter His liberty — to bind
Himself to generous deeds.
Ø
He allows us to hold proprietorship in Him. We can claim Him
to be
“our God.” The Proprietor
of ALL
WORLDS permits fallen men to assert
proprietorship in him! Herein is love! We
can call upon Him, in justice, to fulfill His self-imposed
obligations.
Ø
A covenant implies reciprocal engagements. It is a deed of grace. God
binds Himself as a Friend and
Defender to us, on condition that we bind
ourselves in obedient loyalty to
Him. Failure on one side releases the
other party from his pledge.
Ø
A covenant includes mutual consent. No covenant is really valid, is not
complete, until both parties
have sworn to observe it. There may be
command, law, decree, proceeding
from God to man; but no covenant is
really in force until we personally have accepted its terms, and bound
ourselves by
willing act to observe it. Then, our whole being — property,
talent, blood, life, are
pledged.
·
MEDIATION PROVIDED.
This is a further mark of condescending
grace. When two parties are
alienated, it is always deemed an advantage to
one party to have a mediator
chosen from its ranks. God allows a man to
mediate between
Ø
Such mediation was needful, because of mutual disparity\:”
o
Man is finite;GOD IS INFINITE!
o
Man is for self; GOD IS SELF-OBLIVIOUS!
o
Man is earthly minded; GOD IS PURELY SPIRITUAL!
That the two may coalesce in
sentiment, purpose, life, mediation of
some sort is required.
Ø
Mediation is needful, because
of man’s selfish fear. The
people were
“afraid, by reason
of the fire” — afraid for their own
interests and
pleasures. Were men impelled by wisdom, they would count it THE
HIGHEST PRIVILEGE POSSIBLE TO APPROACH GOD! What,
though we have sinned; — inasmuch as God has revealed
Himself as
the Source of mercy, and
has deigned to visit us, should we not gladly respond to His
proposal, and draw nigh? What, though
He is dressed in garments of flame; — if we are penitent, the consuming flame
will consume only our sin; it will benefit and burnish us. This is our honor and our joy — to come very near TO GOD
and to gain larger acquaintance WITH HIM! If renewed, our former aversion is
turned into longing desire.
Ø
This mediation was very imperfect. It served a present
purpose, viz. a
mediation for communicating
truth, a mediation for obtaining favor. It
speaks a volume for the
character and faith of Moses, that he was not
afraid to draw near. Imperfect
though he was, he displayed a rare spirit of
self-sacrifice.
“Pardon, I pray thee, this people! or else, blot out my name from thy book!”
(Exodus 32:32) Here was a vivid type of Jesus.
·
HUMAN OBLIGATION INCREASED. In the very nature of things,
kindness on the one side begets
obligation on the other.
Ø
This obligation is personal. “The Lord hath not made this covenant with
our fathers, but
with us.” God’s covenant
with men is renewed AGE
AFTER AGE! It is a
covenant with us, if we will accept the terms. Are we willing to be HIS....WHOLLY
HIS? Then the covenant is settled, “ordered in all things and
sure.” (II Samuel 232:5 – the sure mercies
of David –
CY – 2020)
Ø
This obligation is all-embracing and complete. It includes every
part of
our nature, every moment in our
history, every interest we have in life.
Attention is demanded. The ear
must be reserved for God. Intellect is
pledged. We must “learn
the statutes and judgments.” Active and dutiful
service is due. Like the true
Son, our intention must be, “I do always the
things that
please” the Father! (John 8:29)
Mediation
(v. 5)
·
MEDIATION IN GENERAL.
Mediation has a God-ward side and a
man-ward side.
a. The requirements
of God’s holiness and
b. the needs of man’s heart.
Ø
On God’s side, communion with sinners can only be maintained on
terms which uphold righteousness
and law, and do not detract from the
sanctity of the Divine
character.
Ø
On man’s side, there is:
o
the feeling of weakness and finitude, awakening terror in
the THE PRESENCE OF THE INFINITE!. (vs. 25-27).
o
The feeling of sin, giving rise to the craving
for a
holier one to stand
between him and God.
o
The feeling of need — the soul’s longing
for fellowship with God;
giving rise to the desire for
one to mediate in the sense of making peace, of bringing about reconciliation (Job
16:2l).
·
THE MEDIATION OF MOSES A
TYPE OF THAT OF CHRIST. We
trace the resemblance:
Ø
In his
willingness to mediate. So did Jesus most willingly undertake to
stand between God and sinners (Hebrews
10:5-10).
Ø
In his acceptance as mediator (v. 28). So was
Christ called to this
office by the Father, invested
with all the powers necessary for the right
discharge of its duties, and
accepted in the discharge of them (Isaiah
49:8; Matthew 3:17; 17:5; Hebrews
5:4-11).
Ø
In the work he did.
o Conveying God’s words to the people (compare John 17:6-9).
o
Conveying the people’s
words to God (v. 27). Jesus is in like manner
the medium through whom prayer,
worship, etc., ascend to the Father
(Ephesians 3:18; Hebrews
4:14-16).
o
Frequently
interceding for them, and obtaining pardon for their sins
(Exodus 32:11-15; Numbers
14:13-21, etc.). So does Jesus ever
live to intercede for us, and
advocate our cause (Romans 8:34;
I John 2:1).
o
Even, on one notable
occasion, offering Himself as a sacrifice for their
sin (Exodus 32:32). What Moses would have done, had it been possible so
to save the people from destruction, CHRIST
DID! (Galatians 3:13)
6 “I am the LORD thy God,” (“I am Jehovah thy God) - The Law, the
establishing rule for men, can
proceed only from Him who alone and over
all stands fast; i.e. from GOD
ESPECIALLY AS JEHOVAH! The eternal,
unchangeable One,
since He demands the obedience of faith (is not merely the
moral imperative), must
not only reveal Himself, but in revealing Himself must claim
Repetition of the Ten Commandments
(vs. 7-21)
On these, as the basis of the covenant, the whole
legislation rests, and therefore a
rehearsal of them is a fitting introduction to a repetition
and enforcement of the laws
of the theocracy. Some differences appear between the
statement of the “ten words,”
as given here and as given in Exodus 20. It is chiefly in
the fourth commandment
that these are to be found. It begins here with “remember”
for “keep;”
reference is
made to the command of God as sanctioning the Sabbath (v.
12), which is omitted in
Exodus; a fuller description of the animals to be exempted
from work on that day is
given (v. 14); the words, “that thy manservant and thy maidservant may rest as
well as thou” are
added (v. 14); and in place of a reference
to the resting of God
after the Creation as the ground of the Sabbath institute,
as in Exodus, there is here
a reference to the deliverance of the Israelites out of
bondage in
why the Lord commanded them to keep the Sabbath day (v.
15). In the fifth
commandment there are two additions here-the one of the
words, “as
Jehovah
thy God hath commanded thee,” and the other of the words, “that it may
go well with thee” (v. 16). In the tenth commandment, the first two clauses
are
transposed, “desire”
appears in place of “covet” in
relation to “wife,” and “field”
is added to the specification of objects (v. 21). These
differences are of little moment.
The only one demanding notice is that in the fourth
commandment, where different
reasons are assigned for the ordinance of the Sabbath. The
two reasons assigned,
however, are perfectly compatible; the one is fundamental
and universally applicable,
the other is subsidiary and special in its application; the
one is a reason why the
Sabbath was originally instituted and is for all men, the
other is a reason why it was
specially and formally instituted in
In a popular address to them it seems fitting that the
latter rather than the
former should be the one adduced. As a memorial of their
deliverance from
constantly reminded
that “they were thereby freed from the
dominion of
the world to be a
peculiar possession of Jehovah, and so amid the toil and
trouble of the world
had part in the holy rest of their God.” It was also fitting
in a recapitulatory address that
special emphasis should be laid on the fact that what
the Law enunciated was what “the
Lord had commanded.” The addition of
“field” in the tenth commandment is probably due to the fact that now, the
occupation and division of the land having begun,
the people were about to have,
what they had not before — each his own property in land. In the tenth commandment,
also, there is a difference in the two accounts worthy of notice. In
Deuteronomy,
“field” is added to the enumeration of objects not to be coveted, and
the “wife” is
put first and apart, while in Exodus the “house” precedes the “wife” and the
latter
ranks with the rest. In Deuteronomy also this separation of
the wife is emphasized by
a change of the verb: “Neither shalt thou desire (תַּחְמֹד) thy neighbor’s wife,
neither shalt thou covet (תִּתְאַוָּה) thy neighbor’s house,” etc.
The Divine Law Based on a Divinely
Revealed Relationship (v. 6)
“I am the Lord thy
God.” This little word thy,
in this connection, gives
us the basis on which the Law was set. Of the event called
“the giving of
the Law,” we feel the thrill even now. That Law has in it four
features,
corresponding to one or other of the aspects in which the
people to whom
it was first given may be regarded. They were:
amenable to the government of
God. They were:
the worship appropriate to the
religion enjoined upon them. They were:
their own, for which sundry
civil and political regulations had to be
provided. They were:
the long run to find a home in
Ø
Adapted to them in
this last named aspect, they had
sanitary laws;
Ø
for them in the third
aspect there were civil and political laws;
Ø
for them in the second
aspect there were religious
institutions; and
Ø
for them in the first
aspect there was the great moral
law.
The set of rules having reference to health would be
binding only
so far as the laws
of climate and modes of life necessitated their continued
observance. The civil law
would be but temporary so far as it received its complexion
from the
idolatrous
surroundings of the people. The ceremonial law would pass away
in form, but THE UNDERLYING PRINCIPLES OF IT ARE PERMANENT
(Matthew
5:17; 24:35). The moral law is unchanging as man’s nature, and
enduring as his relation to God. It is given in the ten
commandments, of which:
Ø
the first enjoins supreme love to the
Divine Being:
Ø
the second, recognition of the
spirituality of the Divine nature:
Ø
the third, reverence for the Divine Name:
Ø
the fourth, care for Divine worship:
Ø
the
fifth inculcates religion in the home:
Ø
the sixth, the
religion of the temper:
Ø
the seventh, the
religion of the body:
Ø
the eighth, the religion of the hand:
Ø
the ninth, the religion of the tongue:
Ø
the tenth, the religion of the heart.
But antecedently to the Law in any of its aspects, there is
a question of deep
interest and importance, viz. From whom came it? The reasons
for obedience to it
come very largely out of the answer to be given to that
question. Now, the
words in ch.5:6, which precede the Law itself, are not
merely a preface to it, they
are at once the basis of it and the reason for obedience
to it. And these words
should be opened up clearly in every case where the
Decalogue is about to be
expounded. The Law is not set on law, but on grace! For observe:
PEOPLE TO DRAW FORTH THEIR ATTENTION AND WIN
THEIR ALLEGIANCE. “Thy God.”
The Hebrews were never
expected to believe in, obey, or love an absolutely
unrelated Being.
THERE IS NO SUCH BEING! God
is related to all the creatures He has
made. Hence our knowledge of Him is not unreal,
because it is relative;
but real, because in knowing God’s relations to us, we, so
far, KNOW
HIM AS HE
IS! God was
that they might be His. He would have the
entire life of His redeemed
ones spent in covenant relationship with Him. Hence He sets His own Law
on the basis of those relations. And so it is now. We are not expected to
love a Being whose relations to us are doubtful or obscure, or whose
mind and will towards us are unknown. We love because he first loved us.
(I John 4:19)
UPON A LIKE BASIS, AND HAVE IN IT THEIR REASON AND
POWER. The following
suggestions may be developed largely with great
advantage.
Ø
The conception of law
is materially changed when we know that it
comes from One
who loves us infinitely, and cares for us with a
tender care. This gives sweetness to the command. We are “under
law to Christ.” (I
Corinthians 9:21)
Ø “The Lord thy God;” that gives the worship of God its charm.
Ø
This is the truth
which is objectively disclosed by the Incarnation.
Ø
It is the truth which the Holy Ghost graves on the hearts of
the saints (Romans 8:15).
Ø
This truth shows us
that real religion is love responding to love
(I John 4:19).
Ø
It gives a manifest ground
for trust. We know
whom we have
believed. (II Timothy 1:12)
Ø
It gives a purpose and charm to every precept.
Ø
It gives meaning to every trial (ch. 8:5).
Ø
It is in the light of
this truth that prayer becomes possible, and is seen to
be reasonable.
Ø
This gives a solemn
aspect to our responsibility (Psalm 81:10;
Amos 4:12; Hebrews 4:13).
Ø
The fuller
understanding of the words, “My God,”
will be the result of
ripeness in grace (Zechariah
13:9; Isaiah 41:10-20).
Ø
This is pre-eminently
the truth which gives its certainty and its glow to
the hope of future glory (Mark
12:26; Hebrews 11:16; Revelation
21:3, 7).
·
SEEING THE WIDE BEARING AND VAST IMPORTANCE OF
THE TRUTH IN THE TEXT, WHAT SHOULD BE WITH US ITS
PRACTICAL OUTCOME?
Ø
Seeing the fearful
havoc agnosticism would make, if it should ever come
to
govern human thinking, let us show men:
o
That a God out of
relation to us does not exist.
o
That the one God is
related to us as Creator, etc.
o
That His varied
relations are explicitly revealed, specially through
the Son and through the Holy Ghost.
o
That these relations
are to be apprehended by our moral and spiritual nature, and not by the
intellect alone. It should never make us stagger that, after getting to the
very outer rim of natural knowledge, men should look out on an awful blank, and
call it “the great unknown.” It shows us only that they cannot find God in
that way — not that there is no way of finding God, still less that God
cannot find us or make His communications intelligible to us. Do not let us
suffer men to think that God cannot be found because no one can find him out to
perfection! He is our God.
Ø
Since God is our God, let us cultivate fellowship
with Him. It is for this
purpose He hath revealed
Himself, that we may come to Him (I John
1:1-3;Hebrews 10:19-22).
Ø
Let us seek to realize
the blessedness of a known and happy relationship
to God, enjoyed through Christ,
by the Spirit, in a life of penitence, faith,
devotion, and love (Isaiah
61:10; I Chronicles 12:18; Psalm 68:28; 46:1; 18:29; 146:5).
Ø
Let faith in the love
of our God fill up our duties with glorious meaning,
and make the discharge of them a
delight (ch. 6:5; 28:58; Leviticus 25:38; 11:45;
Isaiah 41:10; Jeremiah 3:13; Micah 6:8; Romans 12:1).
Ø
Let the fact that God
is our God create, confirm, and perpetuate our
assurance of immortal
blessedness. See the wonderful words in
Matthew 22:31-32; Hebrews 11:16.
As if God would be ashamed
to be called our God, if He did
not mean to do something worthy of the
name! Wondrous grace! How
perfect the reconciliation effected by
Christ,to bring together the holy God and sinful men in blest accord and union forever!
Seeing that the wide bearing and vast importance of these
truths which are explicitly
revealed, especially through the Son
and through the Holy Ghost, let us
seek to
realize the blessedness of a known and happy relationship with God, enjoyed through
Christ, by the Spirit,
in a life of penitence, faith, devotion, and love.
FIRST TABLE OF THE LAW
(vs. 7-16)
The First
Commandment (v. 7)
7 “Thou shalt have none other gods before me.” In this, the first commandment,
the great principle and basis of all true religion is
asserted – monotheism, as opposed
to polytheism or pantheism THERE IS BUT ONE GOD, AND THAT GOD IS
JEHOVAH, THE
SELF-EXISTENT AND ETERNAL, who yet has
personal
(one
on one) relations
with men!
The
First Commandment (v. 7)
“Thou shalt have none other gods
before me.” GOD IS THE SOLE
OBJECT
OF WORSHIP! So runs the first
of the Ten Commandments. (For the specific
direction of each, see enumeration in Homily above on v. 6; for the completeness
of the whole, see Homily on vs. 22-33.)
It has been well observed, in reference to the delivery of the Ten Commandments, that “this is
the only authentic case in the history
of the world of a newly
formed nation receiving at once, and from one legislator,
a complete code of
laws for the direction of their whole future life.” They
are, in outline, the OLD
TESTAMENT REVELATION OF GOD’S WILL!
If any one would wish a clear statement of Old Testament
morality, he should be
referred to these sayings, or to our Savior’s brief epitome
of them. (Sermon on
the Mount – Matthew 5-7).
We should do very wrongly if we expounded the
Decalogue merely as the Hebrews might have done at
the time it first was given.
Comparison of corresponding or parallel passages in the New
Testament will
help us in the exposition and enforcement of these ten
words. A reference to
Matthew 5:17-20; 15:1-9; 19:16-19; 22:36-40; Luke 10:25-28;
16:31; John 5:46-47,
will help to show what
regard our Lord paid to the Mosaic Law.
Bearing this in
mind, we will endeavor now to sketch in outline an
exposition of the first commandment,
using the clearer teaching of the gospel to give us any additional light and force in
so
doing. Thus saith the Lord, “Thou shalt have
none other gods before me.”
OTHER SUPPOSED GODS.
(Compare ch. 4:19; Exodus 23:24-25.)
“None other gods
before me,” i.e. “over against
me. I will suffer no
rival deity; you must worship no other god,” etc. Does, then, the
command permit
could possibly worship? Not by
any means. It recognizes the fact of the
existence of idolatry round
about them. According to the heathen
conception, there were gods many
and lords many (I Corinthians 8:5).
very gracious way in which our
Father in heaven would help His children in
those young days to higher
thoughts about Himself. Is it not always the
case
with young children now? They
have to be told what they may or may not do,
and as they get older they will discover the reason. Indoctrinate into dogma
by means of precept. This was the way God taught
child,” by putting THIS PRECEPT UP
FRONT - “Thou shalt have
none other gods
before me.” Had Moses discoursed to
the people on
the philosophic excellence of monotheism,
and so on, he would have been
virtually speaking in an unknown
tongue. They would not have caught a
glimpse of his meaning; but they
could understand this. And the faithful
obedience to this precept would
be for them the very surest way of learning
the doctrine which lay beneath
it. By serving only one God, they
would
best come to learn that there
was NO GOD BUT ONE! But further. This
commandment is much more than a
mere prohibition of what we usually
call idolatry. It is a
declaration of the Divine intolerance of any rival in the
heart. Though we acknowledge
that there is but one God, yet that is
practically the idol of our hearts which engrosses our dearest
affections,
and with a view to which we
shape our lives. God wants THE INNERMOST
SANCTUARY OF OUR
HEARTS to be SACREDLY RESERVED
FOR HIM.
OTHER GODS, THAT ALL THE
POWERS OF THEIR SOULS MIGHT
BE CONCENTRATED ON GOD
(See ch. 6:5; Mark 12:29-30). In our
text, the form is negative; the intent is positive. They are to KNOW
NONE
BUT GOD that they may concentrate all their strength on God. In fact, the
command is equivalent to this: “Let all your:
Ø
PERSONAL,
Ø
FAMILY,
Ø
SOCIAL and
Ø
NATIONAL LIFE be REGULATED COMPLETELY by THE
COMMANDMENTS OF YOUR GOD!
And let this be done from love.
Is it asked, “Is this practicable? Can a man
put forth all his strength for
God when his energy is absorbed in trade?”
We answer, “Yes; by regulating his business rightly, as God wills.”
“Can a mother put forth all her
strength on loving God, when the care of her
family is taxing and even
straining all her powers?” We answer, “Yes; by
training her
children for God.” And so on in each
one of life’s tasks.
“When you love me supremely
I will redeem you from
redeemed you,
therefore yield me your all.” The
religions of man go out to
an unrevealed Being, if
perchance he
may be propitiated (Acts 17:23).
Scriptural
religion is the response of the heart of man to the revealed love
of THE INFINITE ONE! Hence the gospel
claim is, in substance,
like the
Mosaic Law, although its
form is new, and the view we get of Divine love is larger
(see Romans 12:1). In both, duty is the same - THE WHOLE HEART
OF MAN IS DEMANDED BY GOD (“My son, give me thine
heart” –
Proverbs 23:26). But note the
advance in light, tenderness, and
strength in
Ø
the mercies of God;
Ø
the “beseeching” tone;
Ø
the “consecration of a living sacrifice” asked;
Ø
the reason given, “Your reasonable service.”
Here is the difference in the
method of the gospel.
NATIONAL LAW? It was THE LAW FOR EACH ONE’S LIFE!
IT WAS THE RULE FOR “ALL”. In their legislation, the supreme feature
was to be the NATIONAL RECOGNITION
OF GOD.
And even now,
yea, ever, so far as the legislation of any people is based on
righteousness, so
far as that legislation
recognizes the rights of the Great Supreme, so far as a
people are loyal to God, to
that extent will there be THE SUREST
GUARANTEE FOR:
Ø
Individual,
Ø
Family,
Ø
Social and
Ø
NATIONAL
PROSPERITY.
If ever a nation as such should “break His bands asunder” (Psalm 2:3),
and inaugurate an
age of reason versus faith, instead of a reasonable faith,
THE REIGN OF
TERROR WILL NOT BE FAR OFF! (Dear Reader,
can you not see that this is
getting set up in
world, that the disposed Christ
shall usher in an attempt by “THE
ANTI-CHRIST” to control the world? Such I see gravitating into our
laps as thus I write! I wonder if it is a coincidence that secular
In 2012? Compare the French Revolution, a blood bath, brought
about by the philosophy
of “the Enlightenment.” -
CY – 2012)
And it is owing to the supreme importance of thus launching into
the world a nation with God for its Lord, and
righteousness for its
law, that the open
transgression of this first commandment was so
severely punished, (You can rest assured that there will be just as
severe, if not a more severe punishment in store for the
and
suppressing the light, have tumbled into a state of ignorance – CY – 2012)
as being a crime
against the State as well as
a sin against God
(ch. 13:6-11, 13-18; 17:2-7). (The frequent phrase
“cut
off” does not
refer to punishment in another life, but to a man’s being “cut off” from
the congregation.) And EVEN NOW, FIDELITY TO GOD
IS THE
SUPREME CONDITION
OF A “NATION’S WELL-BEING!
THAT MAN,
MOVEMENT OR ORGANIZATION, WHO IS
SEEKING TO
UNDERMINE ITS ALLEGIANCE TO HEAVEN
IS PLAYING
FOULLY (or with folly – CY - 2012) WITH
THE
HIGHEST
INTERESTS OF A PEOPLE
Ø
As a MIRROR! IT REVEALS GUILT! The need of any such
command is a very
humiliating fact. “The law is not made for a
righteous man.” (I Timothy 1:9);“By
law is the knowledge of sin”
(Romans 3:20). This precept:
o
discloses THE WORLD’S
SIN!
o
It shows the deep root
that sin had in the natures even of the freed
people, that they should
need such legislation to grave this precept
on their hearts.
o
It shows our sin,
that we should need the written Law. If we were
What we ought to
be, we should do God’s will spontaneously
without needing
a written law at all!
Ø
As a JUDGE! This
being the Law, we see how it is that as by law we
stand convicted, so by it we stand
condemned, “not subject to the
sentence of God” (Romans 8:7), for
failures innumerable; and our guilt
is the greater, since He who asks our heart reveals His own heart’s love
that He may call forth
ours. This Law is a perpetual, silent
accuser
(John 5:45).
Ø
As a child-guide (παιδαγωγὸς–
paidagogos
–boy leader; escort;
schoolmaster)
to Christ (see
Galatians 3:24, Greek). God only is
greater than law. And He alone can
restore those who, having broken law,
must needs, in the ordinary
course of things, be regarded and dealt with as
law breakers. For
restoration, three things are required:
o
Forgiveness;
o
Justification;
o
Re-creation.
Bare Law does not provide for any of these, but God in His
Law has witnessed
concerning this great restorative scheme. . (Which
was planned before the creation
of the world! (Revelation 13:8) Jesus said “To
this end was I born, and for
this cause came I into the world” (John
18:37; see 17:24). Paul says in Romans 3:21,
“But now there has been manifested a righteousness of God
apart from law,
being witnessed by
the Law and the prophets,” - So in Romans 1:16-17, “I am
not ashamed of the gospel of Christ…..for therein there is
revealed a righteousness
of God by faith, with a view to [the production of] faith.” By
believing in Christ,
FORGIVENESS IS SURE TO THE PENITENT and GRACE RECREATES
THE MAN writing
the Law on the heart, so that we obey and love God, not
because
God says we must, but because we are remade so that we can do nothing else.
And WHAT WE NEED IS TO
HAVE OUR WHOLE NATURE SO RESET
BY DIVINE GRACE, that we shall instinctively see
God’s will and do it, without
needing any precept at all. As by the regenerative efficacy of
the Holy Ghost we
attain to this, shall we understand what it is to
do the will of God on earth,
“even as it is done in heaven.” (Matthew 6:10)
The Second Commandment (vs. 8-10)
8 “Thou shalt not make 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 waters
beneath the earth:” Here THE SPIRITUALITY OF
GOD IS ASSERTED and, in the prohibition of the use of images in the
worship
of the Deity, all idolatry is denounced, and all deification
of nature in any
sense is PROHIBITED. By the Jews, this commandment was not always regarded,
for they were not infrequently seduced into following the
idolatrous usages of
the nations around them. It does not appear, however, that,
though they set
up images of the idol-gods whom they were thus led to
worship, they ever
attempted to represent by image or picture the great God
whom their
fathers worshipped — Jehovah — by whom this command was
given; and
at a later period, when they had long renounced all
idolatry, they became
noted as the one nation that adored the Deity as a spirit,
without any
sensible representation of Him. It appears that, by many of them at least,
the
commandment was regarded as prohibiting absolutely the
graphic and
plastic arts and this may account for the low state of
these arts among the Jews,
and for the fact that they alone of the civilized nations
of antiquity have left no
monuments of art for the instruction or admiration of
posterity.
9 “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
unto the third and fourth generation of
them that hate
me,” – Septuagint - προσκυνήσιες αὐτοῖς οὐδὲ
μή λατρεύσης
αὐτοῖς – proskunaesies autois oude mae
latreusaes autois – you
shall not
bow down yourselves to them, nor serve them. Every kind of worship of
images is forbidden, alike that of proskunesis
(prostrate yourself; fawn;
crouch to, adore, worship) and that of latria (worship; serve).
10 And shewing mercy unto thousands” – i.e. to the
thousandth generation
(compare ch.7:9) -
“of them that love me and keep my
commandments.”
Jesus said, “If a man love me
and keep my words: and my Father will
love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode
with him.”
(John 14:23)
The Spirituality of Divine Worship (vs.
8-10)
It is sometimes said that there is a reason attached to
this second commandment. It is scarcely accurate to affirm that. There is a
double sanction attached to it to enforce it,
but there is no mention made here of a reason, strictly so
called. We will, however, incorporate in this homily the true reason which
underlies this precept. But we shall have to go to the New Testament for the
clearest statement of that. “God is a Spirit: and they that
worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.” (John 4:24). We
will as briefly as we can consistently
with clearness, open up the contents of this
command, and will then endeavor to unfold the
double sanction by which it is guarded.
love and worship of the people. The second warns
off from any mode of
worship which would
bear a resemblance to or which would be a
compromise with
idolatry. While
general worship on the part of the
Egyptians, of bird, beast, and reptile, not
for their own sake, but as
representing some attribute of the invisible God.
The forms of Egyptian worship,
the names of Pasht, Osiris, etc., must be
done away with. No representation of the
object of worship was to be
allowed. However much men might
have pleaded that sense was an aid to
faith, the stern “Thou shalt not” peremptorily barred the way. We know the
reason why, as they in
their childhood did not. GOD IS A SPIRIT! Being spirit,
it is only by spirit that He can
be approached. No merely bodily act can
possibly be worship. Further,
neither God nor any one of His attributes can
be represented by
any physical form. Whatever idea of Jehovah may be
gained or retained through
impressions derived from beholding a sensible
object with the bodily eye, will
be an idea representing it, not him. It will
be a thought of God formed by the
image and limited by it — not the true
thought given by
revelation. (This has great import in
modern
Contemporary Christianity because of its obsession with sight. The
Bible plainly teaches that “we
are to walk by faith, not by sight” –
II Corinthians 5:7 – CY – 2012) Obviously, however, this command did not
forbid decorative designs in the
tabernacle or the temple (compare Exodus
25:18, 20, 34; 26:32; Numbers
21:8-9; I Kings 7:25; 10:20). But
never were any creature-forms
allowed, either as objects of worship or as
aids to it. Nor can we read
through Hebrew history without seeing how
much need there was of such a
command. Ere
long, the people were
dancing round the golden calf! And in the days of
Jeroboam two calves
were set up — one in
Christendom is even a sadder one
than that of the Hebrews. Ere four
centuries of the Christian era
had passed away, how did the Christian
Church lapse into repeated
breaches of this law? “An enormous train of
different superstitions was
gradually substituted in the place of true religion
and genuine piety.... Images were
not as yet very common. But it is certain
that the worship of the martyrs
was modeled by degrees according to the
religious services that were
paid to the gods before the coming of Christ.”f2
It is true, indeed, that in 726
A.D. Leo III. issued an ordinance forbidding
the use of images in churches,
as heathenish and heretical, and a Council of
Council, which met at Nice in
789 A.D., declared the previous Council
heretical, and ordained the
worship of pictures in churches. The decisions
of this Council were rejected at
a Council in
another in
images was forbidden. In 869
A.D. the iconoclasts were condemned.
Thomas Aquinas, in the
thirteenth century, affirmed a threefold use of
images, and declared that like
homage is due to the image or Christ as to
Christ Himself! And we know but
too well what the later history of
has been, how pagan rites have become more and more mingled with
Christian
service. The Savior is approached
through the crucifix, and fed
upon through the bread; and, as
if blind to the warnings of history,
ritualism openly proclaims that
the best exposition of doctrine is that which
meets the eye rather
than the ear. Perhaps it is not to be
wondered at, that
in Roman Catholic catechisms the
second commandment is left out; and
not even Luther was sufficient
of a reformer to restore the missing law in
his catechism — an easy way,
indeed, of blinding the people to the evil of a
mistaken ritual, to leave out
the authoritative command, obedience to
which would render such evil
impossible! (To this I refer the reader
to Numbers 32:23 and Spurgeon’s
sermon on the sin of omission – CY –
2012)
is drawn from the Divine nature,
the second from the Divine administration.
Ø
From the Divine nature. “I the Lord thy
God am a jealous God.”
“They that
worship Him must worship Him in
spirit and in truth.”
God is jealous:
o
For truth in His worship. He would have us think of Him as glorious
in power, wisdom, righteousness, holiness, and
love. Our thoughts of
God can be but
limited at the best. They need not be
untrue. But
untrue and dishonoring to Him they certainly
will be if we come at
them through the means of any graven image. We do not
even
except the crucifix. It represents the
bodily form of Christ. It may
represent the nails, the wounds, the spear,
the crown of thorns, the
pain-crushed brow; and we confess it may be
possible, by looking
at these physical marks, to
receive so
vivid an impression of the
physical suffering that we
may be wrought up to agony in thinking of it!
But even then this is only knowing Christ after the flesh; it is
making an idol of His
humanity; and in sympathy with the
anguish of His bodily woes,
we may altogether miss the acting of faith
in THE ATONING SACRIFICE which lay among the things
unseen and eternal!
o
For spirit in His worship. The worship paid to a
spiritual Being is
nothing if it be not
spiritual worship. But in the endless bowings
and prostrations, genuflexions, cross-markings, and waving of the
body at the word “Jesus,” there
is, at least in appearance, a taking
for granted that
bodily postures are spiritual attitudes.
o
God would have man
lifted up to a higher level by the worship of Him.
But the sorry record in
history of the breaches of the second law shows
us four transitions:
v
An object which at
first represents the Being who is
worshipped, comes at length to be worshipped.
v
Worship paid through
the body will sink to
merely bodily
worship.
v
When the lofty
platform of spiritual worship is quitted,
religious service will
inevitably lose its meaning. SENSE
FIRST COMES AS “an aid to faith,” AND THEN
IS PUT IN THE PLACE
OF IT!
v
When this is the case, the
vitalizing force of religion
is gone, and man, sinking in religious vitality,
sinks also
in morality (see Jeremiah 7 for
an illustration of this in the
Hebrew people; see Romans 1
for illustrations of it in the
Gentile world; open your
eyes in the 21st century to see
in our contemporary world –
CY - 2011).
Ø
From the Divine administration. “Visiting the iniquities,” etc.
It would not have seemed
wonderful to have found this second sanction
appended to such sins as
murder, adultery, etc.; but how is it that it follows
on so apparently slight an
offense as the use of graven images? Because of the
sure and inevitable quadruple transition already referred to. He who
comes to lose
the life of religion will, so far, be UNDERMINING
THE
FOUNDATIONS OF
MORALITYY, not only for himself, BUT FOR
THOSE WHO COME AFTER
HIM.
o
What a man is and what
his family are or may be, are regarded as
bound up together by an
unalterable law of God.
o
Evil follows on
from generation to generation. A ghastly
inheritance to hand down —
formalism and idolatry!
o
But if a man
maintains the true spiritual worship of God in his
family, that too will be handed down to those who
follow him as
a priceless heritage; not only to those who come in the
physical line:
our Lord’s words in John
8:37-47 should teach us to look beyond that.
o
In the mercy of God
the influence of a man’s good is more lasting than
the influence of his evil.
Evil — to third or fourth generation. Good — to
thousands [of generations].
The influence of Paul, e.g. at this
moment, is
prodigious; that of Nero is nil. Learn, in
conclusion:
v
We receive an
influence from the generations which preceded us;
we shall transmit one to the generations
that will follow.
(We do not think this
latter consideration is sufficiently pressed
on the people, either on
its physiological or on its spiritual side.)
v
Whoever wishes to
ensure a prolonged influence that shall
Blessedly affect
generations to come, let him bend all his force
to the upholding of the worship of God in purity, in spirit,
in truth. So much depends on this.
The weal of the land in
which we dwell is dependent
thereon. (I should think that
the Preamble to the
Constitution says it adequately “TO
PROMOTE THE GENERAL WELFARE” – CY – 2012)
Oh! for our own
sakes, for our country’s sake, for our
children’s
sakes, let us contend earnestly for the
maintenance of the worship of God in
simplicity and
in truth!
The Iniquity of the Fathers
Visited on the Children
(v.
8-10)
·
A FACT AMPLY ATTESTED. Borne
out:
Ø
By Scripture instances (Joshua 7:24; II
Samuel 12:14; I Kings 21:21,29)
Ø
By observation and
experience. The case of children suffering
in mind,
body, character, and fortune, as
the result of the sins of parents, is one of
the commonest and saddest things
in life.
Ø
Science.
The law of heredity. (For illustrations, see Rev. Joseph Cook’s
‘Lectures.’)
Ø
Literature.
Especially do the Greek tragedies give expression to, and
strikingly work out, this
thought.
·
A FACT MYSTERIOUS, YET TO BE VIEWED IN THE LIGHT OF
VARIOUS RELIEVING CONSIDERATIONS. The difficulty is one of
natural, quite as much as of
revealed, religion. The following
considerations relieve it only
in part:
Ø
Every original
disadvantage will be taken into account by the Searcher
of hearts in estimating personal
responsibility (Luke 12:48).
Ø
The final judgment on
a man’s character will turn, not on inherited
tendencies, but on what he has
made himself by his own moral
determinations (Ezekiel ch.18).
Ø
The less favorable
conditions in which the sins of parents have placed
the individual cannot turn to
his ultimate disadvantage if he struggle well
and persevere to the end (see
‘Speaker’s Commentary’ on Exodus 20:5).
Ø
It is open to the
evil-doer to cut off the entail of punishment by choosing
for himself the way of righteousness
(Ezekiel 18:15-18). God is
reluctant to contemplate the
heritage of evil descending further than the
third or fourth generation,
while thousands of generations are spoken of in
connection with the blessing. (Exodus 34:7)
Ø
Experience of the
effects of a parent’s evil-doing is designed to act as a
deterrent from like sins. The
child is less likely to imitate the parents’ vices,
suffering these results, than if
entirely exempt.
Ø
The Law is the consequence of a constitution of society
originally
intended for the conveyance, not of evils, but of
blessings. This is a
consideration of importance as
throwing light on the equity, as well as on
the goodness, of Divine providence. The design of the organic constitution
of society is obviously to hand down to succeeding
generations the moral
gains of those which precede. It is sin which has wrought the mischief,
reversing the
operation of a constitution in itself beneficent, and making
that which is good
work death to so many.
·
Lesson — The tremendous responsibility of parents, and of all who
have it
in their power to influence the
destinies of posterity.
The
Third Commandment (v. 11)
11 “Thou shalt not take the name of
the LORD thy God in vain:” - literally,
Thou shalt not take [or lift] up the Name of Jehovah thy God to vanity.
This
commandment forbids not only all false
swearing by the Name of God,
but all
profanation of that Name by an irreverent or light use of it (Leviticus 19:12) -
“for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that
taketh His name in vain.”
Reverent Regard for the Divine Name (v.11)
The “Name” of God is the form of speech for God Himself. “To take” the
Name of God means “to
take it up” — to use it in any way, which may be
done either by speaking to Him, of Him, for Him, or against Him. “To take
up this Name in
vain” means to take it up falsely or
vainly. And inasmuch
as it has been so grievously common to use the Name of God
profanely in
oaths, this third commandment has come to be regarded
chiefly as a
prohibition against swearing. It is that,
but it is a great deal more. This
commandment is “exceeding broad” (Psalm
119:96). It may be wronged, not
only by an undue limitation of it, but also by a too
slavish adherence to the letter
of it; e.g. according to the teaching of the
rabbis, certain oaths were harmless if
the Name of God was not specifically mentioned in them
(Matthew 23:16-22).
Further, the expression “in vain” was interpreted as meaning “if
you take an oath
you must fulfill it;” take as many oaths
as you please, so
long as you do not break them, and thus turn them into
falsehood. The
effect of this cold and superficial teaching of the rabbis
was twofold. It
created artificial distinctions which our Savior did not
recognize, and it
obliterated such as were of great importance in His eye. It is needful
for us,
then, to be
guided by the spirit of our Lord’s teaching, if we would rightly
develop this
third law. Since our Savior in His Sermon
on the Mount
removed the glosses with which the rabbis had overlain the
Law and
restored it to its pristine clearness and purity.
We are all aware that some
have regarded our Savior’s words, “Swear
not at all,” as
prohibitive of solemn oath-taking in a court of justice.
We cherish all respect for those who so regard
them, but we cannot view
them in this light, for the following reasons:
Ø
The occasion on which
our Lord uses the words seems to refer rather
to habits in
private life.
Ø
Christ and His apostles
solemnly appealed to Heaven.
Ø
In Hebrews 6:17-20,
the oath of God is spoken of by the sacred writer, and
we cannot suppose this
would have been if all oath-taking were wrong.
We cannot think that, even
by way of accommodation, the Most High
would represent Himself as
doing that which it would be always wrong for
His creatures to do.
Ø
In prophetic language
there is predicted a swearing by the Name of
God, which is regarded as
obviously right (ch. 6:13; Isaiah 45:23).
These reasons seem to us to
set the matter entirely at rest. And the view
that Christ was referring
to men’s ordinary conversation when he said,
“Swear not at all,” is
confirmed by Matthew 5:37; the meaning of
which evidently is: “If it is needful for you to interlard your conversation
with sundry adjurations,
you are the victims of a spirit of falsehood which
has ‘ the evil one’ for
its father!” Further, this precept covers a far wider
range than that of
swearing. It forbids
any “taking up” of the Divine Name
which is not true as to
loyalty of
purpose, actual fact, and after-fulfillment.
This precept manifestly
prohibits:
o
All scoffing at
sacred things; not merely at the word
“God,” or at
the doctrine of the Divine
existence, but ridiculing the Bible as the
Book of God, the Sabbath as
the day of God, Christians as the people
of God, and religion as
obedience to God. The mild and supercilious
scorn of modern
skepticism is equally a violation of this precept —
it tramples under foot the
Son of God (Hebrews 10:26-29).
o
Perjury is
another form of violation of this command.
The idea of
swearing is that of calling God to witness; and to invoke that great
and awful Name to witness a lie is one of
the most grievous breaches
of this law.
o
Profanity also
is here forbidden, i.e. taking the Name of God on
the lips on every
trifling occasion. This is now
thought, as indeed
it is, ungentlemanly, to a
far greater extent than was the case fifty years
ago. (Written 200 years ago
– television and the cinema plays their
role – about 25 years ago I
was mailing a letter at the post office
in
the street using terrible
language. I asked them where they learned
it and that is what they
hear for entertainment – now think of Hip-
Hop and Gangsta
Rap – this passage says “GOD WILL HOLD
US RESPONSIBLE” and will hold court some day! Jesus said,
“Every idle word that men shall speak, they
shall give account
thereof in the day of judgment!” -
Matthew 12:36 – C - 2012). So
far well. Only let us take
care that for a custom to be out of fashion,
does not act with us more
powerfully than its offensiveness to God, in
inducing us to give it up! Some are more concerned at a hole in their
manners than at a breach of morals. These
things ought not so to be.
o Frivolity in
reference to Divine things is a
transgression of this
command. This is by no means to be confounded either with scoffing
or
with profanity. It may be found
where there is great reverence for
God, great kindness of heart, combined with an excessive
fondness
for raising a laugh.
(While I enjoy a good laugh and appreciate
that God created us with humor, I personally, have never read
A FUNNY STORY IN THE BIBLE! I think that is because
SIN IS A SERIOUS
THING!
- CY – 2012). And where this is
the case, even sacred
things are but too seldom exempt from frivolous
treatment. We recall some
acquaintance whose chief, yea, whose only
apparent fault, was the
extreme tendency to turn everything into a joke,
even things most sacred.
Many were ready to excuse the frivolity
for
the sake of the talent it
revealed. But they are “nowhere” now. Their
levity was their ruin. Wit and humor have indeed a place of
no mean
value in social life.
Social evils are often exposed more effectively in
scorn and satire than in
graver speeches. But there is no tendency of
any man which needs to be
more wisely cultured, more carefully and
prayerfully guarded, and
more conscientiously directed, than
that to which we are now
referring. Apart from this, there is exceedingly
great danger of its leading to the “TAKING THE NAME OF GOD
IN VAIN!”
o
There may be a breach
of this commandment without frivolity (as
usually understood), even
where there is no sense of humor and no talent
for witticisms, in the
indulgence of a vicious habit, much more easily
formed than broken off, of
embellishing the conversation with certain
wellknown epithets. We know
what these were in Christ’s time (see
Matthew 23:16-22; 5:33-36).
This is conceited talk, and it is sinful talk.
o
False teaching for God breaks
this law (see Jeremiah 23. 21-24, 31).
There are several ways by
which, in teaching others, the Name of God
may be taken falsely.
Either:
v
by declaring as God’s what He has not said; or by
v
DENYING WHAT HE
HAS SAID, or
v
by calling in question
the truth of what He has spoken.
The first was common in the
days of Jeremiah; the second and third are
at once more ancient and
more modern. Whenever any ambassador
for God gives his own thoughts
as if they were God’s message,
he is taking the Name of God
in vain. Or if a man, while professing to
speak for God, is speaking
with the desire to exalt himself, he is guilty
of the same sin.
o Hollowness and formality in the professed worship of God
are
Breaches of the third
commandment. We take God’s Name in
vain if we sing “the songs of
outwardly join in the
prayers of the sanctuary without devotion in
the soul
(Ezekiel 33:30-31; Isaiah 29:13). Oh, the number of
times
we have been on
our knees and have used the
Name of God in
“indolent vacuity
of thought!” “Who is able to stand before this
holy Lord God?”
o We may break
this commandment by vowing unto God, and
then
not fulfilling the vow. When at the Lord’s table, we take the sacramental
oath of obedience to
our Great Commander, and if we are not true to that,
we add sin to sin by “taking the Name of God in vain.”
guiltless,” etc. God may or may not mark this sin by visitations of
temporal
judgment; there are many cases
in which levity has been the ruin of a man,
even temporally. But the
probability is that the more occult and deceptive
forms of this sin will leave no
appreciable mark on a man’s earthly career.
THE MARKING OF THE
GUILT WILL BE BETWEEN GOD
AND A MAN’S OWN
SOUL! Hollow prayers bring no blessing; empty
worship no growth in grace. Violated vows will
bring down the displeasure
of God. If God were to visit upon us all the sins
of unreality and formalism,
of mechanical routine, and of heartless work
in His service, we should be
lost men! “God often sees more in our prayers
to disgust him than to please
Him,” says Charnock.
The Lord pardon the iniquity of our holy
things!
Ø
As a probe. Possibly, when a preacher takes this text, some may say,
“We don’t need that. We
never break God’s law so!” Possibly not, in
The conventional sense in
which the text is often used now. But what
about that conversation
laden with frivolity? What about that
lesson
which had more of
self than of God in it? (“To whom much
is
given, much is required.” – Luke 12:48 – CY –
2011) What
about
the songs of the sanctuary,
enjoyed for the sake of the music, without
a thought of the words?
What about the forgotten vows? Surely we
can all recall so many
breaches of this third commandment that,
IF WE HAD NOT A
PARDONING GOD, WE WOULD BE
SHUT UP IN
DESPAIR!
Ø
To quicken to penitence.
By so much as our conviction is deep that
we have broken this
commandment a thousand times, by so much
should
our penitence be deep and
definite before God.
Ø
To lead us to earnest entreaties
for forgiveness. If we were not
permitted to ask this, it
would be all over with us, even if the third
commandment were the whole
of the Law.
Ø
To lead to fervent prayer
for daily heart-renewal. “Out of the
abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh” (Matthew 12:34).
If the heart is
right the tongue will be right. “If a man offend
not in word, the
same is a perfect man” (James 3:2).
Well
may we pray that every word
we speak may be conformed to truth
- for in each of the eight ways named above there is a
violation
of truth. “For we can do nothing against the truth,
but for
the truth.”
(II Corinthians 13:8) God revealed Himself unto
Moses as “abundant … in truth” (Exodus
34:6) In the New
Testament, Jesus Christ is
revealed as “TRUTH” - (John 8:32;14:6)
When our heart, thoughts, words, and
deeds are in harmony
with God’s nature and will, then shall we be true to the duty
implied, and free from
the sin forbidden, in the third commandment.
The Fourth
Commandment (vs. 12-15)
12 “Keep the sabbath day to sanctify
it, as the LORD thy God hath
commanded
thee.” This phraseology implies that the Sabbath institute was
already
well known to the people of
enact a new observance, but to enforce the continuance of
an observance which
had come down to them from earlier times. The Sabbath was to be kept by BEING
SANCTIFIED. This means
that it was to be consecrated to God TO BE USED
AS HE APPOINTED. The sanctification of any object “always goes
back to an
act of the Divine will, to Divine election and institution.
In other words, it is always a
state in which the creature [or institute] is bound to God
by the appointment of
God Himself, which is expressed by קֹדֶשׁ הִקְדִישׁ
קִדֵּשׁ קָדושׁ (Septuagint). The
sanctification of the Sabbath, accordingly, was the consecration
of that day
to the Lord, to be observed as He had enjoined, that is, as a day of rest
from all servile work and ordinary occupations. Among the Jews, those
who were careful to keep this law “rested the Sabbath day
according to the
commandment’’ (Luke 23:56). Not, however, in mere indolence
and idle
vacancy, unworthy of a man. Not thus could the day be
sanctified to the
Lord. Man had to “release his soul and body from
all their burdens, with all
the professions and pursuits of ordinary life, only in order
to gather himself
together again in God with greater purity and fewer
disturbing elements,
and renew in him the might of his own better powers” (Ewald,
‘Antiquities
of
worship and pious service in
work: 14 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, nor thy
manservant, nor thy
maidservant, nor thine ox, nor thine
ass, nor
any of thy
cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates; that thy
manservant and
thy maidservant may rest as well as thou.
15 And remember that thou wast a
servant in the
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.”
The Sabbath, or a Rest-Day for Man (vs.
12-15)
(For a notice of the variations between the wording of this
command in
Exodus 20. and in this chapter, see Exposition.) No
Christian preacher
could wisely deal homiletically with the question of the
Divine intent in the
appointment of a seventh-day rest, without noting, in
connection with our
text, the teaching of our Lord and His apostles thereon. In
developing the
true doctrine and use of our rest day, let us:
HEBREW SABBATH MUST START. The Hebrew
Sabbath has a
far-back look. “The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God.”
What spaces of time the “six days” represent we may perhaps never
know
in this life. One thing is
clear — a “day” of Divine action must be indefinitely
longer than one of man’s
days. This far-back look, moreover, reveals to us a
method of Divine
work, after which ours is to be modeled.
As man’s
nature is made
in GOD’S IMAGE SO OUR TIME IS TO BE
PORTIONED OUT
AFTER GOD’S ORDER! Further, the basis
of the
right observance of the day is that of “rest.” The word “Sabbath”
means that;
whatever else may have been
connected with the day, THE NOTION OF
REST LAY BENEATH
IT ALL! While the Hebrews were to regard the
observance of the day as a part
of their covenanted duty as a nation, yet the
rest was not for them as Hebrews
only, but as men. The Sabbath was made
for man, not man for the
Sabbath (Mark 2:27). Work was to
be laid aside, that man might
give himself up to a holy and happy
day of rest and worship. With a view, moreover,
to securing all this, the
work of the six other days was to be arranged. (Giving true meaning
to the
modern idea of “DAY PLANNER” – CY – 2012)
DIRECTION. Never is
there anything out of harmony with this benign
command to rest (see Exodus
16:29; 23:9-12; [even here, the idea of a
day of rest was incorporated by
God to include a Sabbath of years
culminating in every seventh
cycle, a sabbatical year followed on the
fiftieth by the YEAR OF JUBILEE – CY – 2012) 31:13; 34:21; 35:1-3;
Leviticus 19:3, 30; [see Hebrews
10:25]; 23:3; 26:2; Numbers 15:32-36).
Of such
importance to the good of the people was their rest day,
that if a man attempted to turn it
into a day of common work,
HE WAS STONED! Severity to the one WAS A
GUARD OF MERCY
TO ALL! If the people could
not or would not guard their rest
day for
themselves, THE GREAT LORD WHO GAVE IT WOULD
SHIELD IT FOR
THEM ALL! In course of time these precepts
were grievously disobeyed,
either by an entire neglect of the day, or
by a merely formal observance of it
(II Chronicles 36:21; Nehemiah 9:14;
10:31; [this verse is the remedy for such neglect –
would not the
secular media today
have a field day criticizing those who will
Not sell, buy or
trade on the Sabbath? - CY - 2012]; 13:15-16;
Isaiah 1:13; 56:2;
58:13-14; [note the promise of God in this last
verse – the reason we don’t experience this is we do not
believe
Him! – CY – 2012); Jeremiah
17:19-27; [these verses explain what
is going on in
Note the promise of God in vs. 24-25 – compare the warning in
v. 27 – CY – 2012); Ezekiel 20:12-13; 22:8,
26). Later on, when
Jesus Christ came, many had lost the spirit of the day in the letter; so that
the day which
was given to man as a boon of mercy had come to
be a chafing yoke and a
grievous burden. Consequently,
not even Jesus Christ was a
sufficiently strict Sabbath keeper
in the judgment of the
-Pharisees (Matthew 12:1-8; Mark 2:23-28;
3:1-5;
Luke 13:10-17; John 5:1-16;
7:23-24). Hence, Jesus in his
teaching
respecting the Sabbath, did not divert
it from, but restored the Sabbath
to, its original intent. The Sabbath as God made it, was restful,
beautiful, and free. (No doubt a true picture of what heaven will be
and to get us thinking that way
– CY – 2012) As rabbinical teaching had
perverted it, it was rigid and burdensome. Men came to be on the
Sabbath
under a hard yoke; but it was man’s yoke, not God’s.
AGREE IN SPIRIT. We
find in the New Testament some passages
which indicate some observance
of the first day of the week (John
20:19-26; Acts 20:7; I
Corinthians 16:2; Revelation 1:10). It is
remarkable how few there are of
such. We have no specific precept to
direct us with regard to a
Christian Sabbath. There is nothing very clear on
the matter, either in the
Gospels or the Epistles. Judaism is waning; what is
peculiar to it dies away; what is worldwide and for humanity, lives. We
seem to see the seventh day
receding from our gaze, its luster fades and is
lost in the brightness of the first day. There is a dissolving view. Winter is
succeeded by spring. Here is
something which has Christ’s sanction and
apostolic warrant, viz. meeting
on the first day. It is the day of religious
assembling, the day of “breaking bread.” The GOD OF SINAI has
invested the SON OF MAN with all
power in heaven and in earth.
He is the Lord of
the Sabbath. Memories of the great deliverance
wrought by Him eclipse
those of the deliverance from
Wherefore, ever after, rest-day
becomes “the Lord’s day.” Ignatius
says, “Let every friend of
Christ celebrate the Lord’s day.” Justin Martyr,
On the Lord’s day, all
Christians in the city and in the country assemble
together, because that is the day of the Lord’s resurrection.” Tertullian,
“The Lord’s day is the holy day
of the Christian Church. So gradually,
however, did the seventh-day
Sabbath change into the first-day rest,
that we find for a while both
days observed. Accordingly
we find, in ‘The Apostolic
Constitution,’ both days named as days for the
assembling of the Church; that
on the Sabbath and on the Sunday the
slaves should rest from their
labors, and attend church with the rest to hear
the sermon. But as the new skin
is forming under the surface, the old is
getting looser and looser. Yet
for a time, there are two coverings. Soon,
however, the old is shuffled
off, and only the new is seen. The Sabbath is
lost, but rest-day reappears as the Lord’s day!
had a natural basis and a
religious one. It gave a day of rest for man as
man, and, as such, has never been
repealed. God has never taken away the
world’s rest-day. It is ours
still — A PRICELESS HERITAGE. The
religious side of the Hebrew Sabbath, though abolished so far as
the
observance of Jewish rites is concerned, was at once taken up by the
Christian Church, and
Christians have, as we well know, by meeting for
worship on the first day,
recognized the principle of a world’s rest-day,
and have used it for the higher purposes of the kingdom of
heaven.
And now to us the
Lord’s day is:
Ø
our day of rest from
earthly toil;
Ø
the day of hallowed
calm;
Ø
of richest memory;
Ø
of united worship;
Ø
of mutual recognition
of our common relationship to one God
and Savior; Jesus Christ!
Ø
of spiritual training;
Ø
of holiest service for
the Master;
Ø
As men, let us regard
it as an inestimable boon for the right use of which
we are responsible to God. We are so made, as to our physical
constitution,
that we require one day’s rest
in seven. (This
is the
Great Architect’s design – if we kick against it, it is to our own hurt –
CY – 2012) LET US TAKE THE REST GRATEFULLY!
Ø
As citizens, we have a
trust to guard for our fellow-countrymen.
Legislation can never
direct a man how to spend his rest-day, but it may
do something to guard it
for him. (When I first came to
1966 Kress was the first
business to open on Sunday. I never went
in the store again. That store is now nowhere in existence in
nearly a half century
later. Within the last few years, O’Charley’s pushed
for Sunday alcohol sales
which is their prerogative to disobey the
commandment of the Lord,
however I do not have to be a part of it.
I have never entered O’Charley’s since which is my privilege. That
business may be around
today and for some time longer but eventually,
by casting itself on the
side of the world, it do will go into demise.
this reminds me of current
events. The NFL football playoffs –
much in the news has been
Tim Tebow, quarterback of the
Broncos. Tim has been heavily scrutinized by
sportswriters and
mocked very sacrilegiously
by a vulgar and secular, so called
comedian, primarily for his religious beliefs. On the internet
yesterday, staring me in the face was a photo of Tim with John
3:16 painted below his eyes, probably taken while at the University
of
Football League – NO DOUBT IN THE SAME SPIRIT OF
THE ABOVE MENTIONED COMEDIAN, minus the vulgarity!]
The message on the internet was that in the Broncos 29-23 victory
over
passed for 316 yards and to top it off, the last fifteen minutes of the
game, the television company got a rating of 31.6% of the audience.
Kress, O’Charley’s and Tim Tebow have something in common,
with a God who is not as a Deist might imagine, but apparently
is involved in
things of the world, taking man in
his own craftiness
{I Corinthians 3:10, 1:18-21, 25-28 – Take this how you wish but
I expect on the day of Judgment that there will be many such
revelations. Until
then, remember that the word of God says “Some
men’s sins are
open beforehand, going before to judgment; and
some men they
follow after. Likewise also the good
works of
some are
manifest beforehand; and they that are otherwise
cannot be hid.” I Timothy 5:24-25} – Now the above is not the
general rule but at times God seems to take things in His own hands
which should give “modern man” which should give him some form
of SPIRITUAL CAVEAT EMPTOR! - CY – 2012)
While we use the rest
wisely, so that it makes us not only brisker
animals,
but holier men, let us also give others the rest.
Ø
As Christians, we have
a sacred day for sanctuary worship, and for home
and school instruction. We should do everything to show the young that
the Sunday is a
bright, light, cheery day, remembering that whatever
helps best to health, rest, worship, and holiness is, and always
has
been, lawful on the
Sabbath day.
Ø
As workers for God,
the rest day is our glorious day of special service
for Christ and for souls, in the very fatigue of which the spirit finds
refreshment. Then surely we enter into the Master’s spirit. Our meat is
to do the will
of Him who hath sent us, and to finish His work.
(John 4:34)
The
Sabbath (vs. 12-15)
·
WHAT? The essential
point in the institution is the
sanctification to God
of a seventh part of our time, of one day in seven. Which day of
the seven
is observed is indifferent, not
in the sense of being left to individual choice,
but in respect of any inherent
sanctity in one day above another
(Romans 14:5). The day is made
holy by the Divine appointment, and
by the uses we put it to. We
sanctify the Sabbath:
Ø
By observing it as a day of rest from secular toil. The need of a rest
day
in the week is universally
acknowledged. Every effort should be made to
extend the boon as widely as
possible, and to avoid infraction of the rights
of others in connection with it.
Our aim should be to lessen Sunday work,
not to increase it. Apply to
railways, steamboats, post-office work,
museums, etc. (In this day air
travel. CY – 2020)
Ø
By devoting it principally to religious uses. It is only by
conserving the
Sabbath as a day sacred to
religion that we can hope to preserve it as a day
free from toil. We
need, for spiritual purposes, all
the opportunities it gives
us.
·
FOR WHOM? The answer
is — for man. This is shown:
Ø
From its primeval origin. That the Sabbath dates from creation is
implied in the narrative in Genesis
2:3, in the terms of the command
(Exodus 20:8-11), in Christ’s
words (Mark 2:27), in the argument
in Hebrews 4:3-4, and in the
recently deciphered Chaldean traditions.
While it may be argued, that if designed to
commemorate creation, this is
a matter which concerns all men
equally with the Jews.
Ø
From its place in the moral law. It is certainly remarkable, if the Sabbath
is a purely Jewish institution,
that it should be found embodied in the first
of those two tables which by
their contents, as well as by the manner of
their promulgation, are shown to
be of a distinctly moral nature.
Ø
From the respect paid to it by the prophets (see Isaiah 58:13-14).
The language here employed is
very different from that which prophets
were accustomed to use of purely
ceremonial institutions.
Ø
From Christ’s defense of it. It is noticeable, and supports our view, that
while frequently charged with
breaking the Sabbath law, the Savior never
once admits the charge. He
carefully defends himself against it. He
unceremoniously clears away the
rubbish which the Pharisees had heaped
upon the institution; but the
Sabbath itself He never speaks of as a thing to
be abolished. He sets it in its
true light, and shows high respect for it.
Ø From its
reappearance in the new dispensation in a form adapted to the
genius and wants of Christianity. The name Sabbath is not found in the
New Testament, applied to the first day of the week, but the thing appears
in that weekly festival of the
Ø From the
proved adaptation of the Sabbath to the constitution of man’s
nature. The seventh-day rest is
found by experience to be essential to
man’s welfare. It
ministers to:
o
physical health,
o
mental vigor,
o
moral purity, and
o
religious earnestness.
The Sabbath-keeping nations are by far the:
o
happiest,
o
most moral, and
o
most prosperous.
These reasons combine to show
that this
institution is one intended and adapted for THE
WHOLE HUMAN FAMILY!
·
WHY? The institution,
as seen above, is grounded in deep necessities
of man’s nature. It is,
moreover, a suitable recognition of the Creator’s
right to our
worship and service. But further, it
is:
Ø Commemorative
o
of creation,
o
of redemption
in the case of
the Christian, of REDEMPTION
THROUGH CHRIST!
Ø
Prefigurative — of the rest of heaven (Hebrews
4:9).
The Fifth
Commandment (v. 16)
16 “Honor thy father and thy mother, as the LORD thy God hath
commanded thee;
that thy days may be prolonged, and that it may
go well with
thee, in the land which the LORD thy God giveth
thee.”
The germ of society is the family, and the family is
sustained only as the
authority and rule of the heads of the house are upheld
and respected.
The command, then, to honor parents may be justly regarded
as asserting
THE FOUNDATION
OF ALL SOCIAL ORDINANCES AND
ARRANGEMENTS. Where parents are not honored,
A FLAW LIES
AT THE BASE and THE STABILITY OF THE ENTIRE SOCIAL
FABRIC IS ENDANGERED!
Honor Due to
Parents and the Religion of the Home Life
(v. 16)
Many are the passages in the Word of God which speak of or
refer to the duty of
children to their parents; e.g. Here: ch. 21:18-21; (concerning this reference:
critics today
would say that this is barbarious. Consider that Leviticus
20:9, cited
below tells us it is the child’s
fault! If this was accepteded
in
out of business! With what is going on in the schools of
her city streets
is like the proverbial “calling the
kettle black.”
This reminds me of the problem of divorce in
allowed divorce “because of the hardness of the people’s hearts” Mark 10:4-9)
– In fact, if
the truth is known, these two issues are greatly entwined! - CY –
2012); Exodus
21:15, 17; Leviticus 19:3; 20:9; Deuteronomy 27:16; Psalm 78:5-8;
(This last
reference, the prayer of Daniel in Daniel 9:3-19 would be most
appropriate in
addressing this great personal and national sin! – CY – 2012);
Proverbs 10:1; 13:1; 20:20; 23:22; 30:17; Jeremiah
35:18-19; (Consider this
last reference
with its promise – think of all the people who desire sons!!! –
- compare Psalm
127:3-5 -CY – 2012); Ezekiel 22:7; Matthew
15:4-9;
Colossians 3:20. It is worthy of careful
noting, that when God would launch
forth into the world a new national
life, he lays great stress on the recognition of and
regard to family sacredness. (So I guess the present
status of the American family is
another nail in our “Coffin of Demise” – CY – 2012) At the
outset of the
redemption from
13:8-9). The covenant of circumcision handed down from Abraham was
to be
observed. Children were to
be sealed as the Lord’s, and brought up in His fear.
That is here assumed.
It was the understood law. And
now, when a moral code
for the nation and for the
world for all time is to be laid down, the very next
precept to those relating immediately to the honor due to
God Himself, is
this — “Honor thy
father and thy mother.” Not, indeed,
that they were to
render them a blind obedience, for see Ezekiel 20:18-19. If the parents
were bad, the best honor
the children can render them is to become better
than they were.
So that we may note, once for all, in passing, that the
commandment recognizes it as INCUMBENT
ON PARENTS TO SEE
THAT THEIR LIVES AND RULES ARE SUCH THAT THEIR
CHILDREN CAN HONOR AND THAT THEIR PRECEPTS
ACCORD WITH THOSE OF THE FATHER IN HEAVEN! Throughout
our homiletic application of this fifth commandment, we
shall assume this to be the
case. It is, indeed,
understood by many, that this command is to be regarded not
only as requiring obedience in the family, but “as requiring the preserving
the honor and performing the duties belonging to every
one, in their several
places and relations, as superiors, inferiors, or equals;” and as forbidding
“the neglecting of or doing anything against the honor and
duty which
belongeth to every one, in their several places and relations.”
Doubtless
this is so. But there is quite as much as we can compass in
the brief space
afforded us, in the specific duty named in the text. Let
us:
Ø
During the earlier
stages of life, while needing the fostering care and
sheltering love of the
home, implicit
obedience is a child’s first duty. We
not only say that it is
next to his duty to God, but that it is a part of it.
The parent’s precepts may
be distasteful, even rigid, but if they are right,
it is the child’s part implicitly to obey.
Ø
Honoring parents is the form which obedience will take when the
child
is growing up towards
manhood. No wise parent would think of directing a
lad of sixteen as closely
as he would a child of six years; at the same time,
though the father may give
him more liberty, it may not be either wise or
right on the son’s
part to take all the liberty
which is given. At that
age his own sense of honor and right ought to be
sufficiently strong
to guide him; and respect and
reverence for his parents will create a loyal
regard to their wishes when once they are known, and
will lead him to
deny himself a great deal that might be gratifying to
him, rather than cause
pain to or cross
the wishes of those to whom he owes his life. Rude
words to a parent, “answering again” (today known as sass) disputing
his rule in the house, will be utterly out of the question where a youth
wishes to live in the fear of God.
Ø
Supporting them may
become a duty. There will come a time, if the
parents are spared to see
their children grow up in life, when they
will lean
on the children,
rather than the children on them. If the children are
worthy, they will let their
parents lean on them, and will show them that
they can be as faithful
to their parents in their weakness, as the parents
when in their strength
were to them.
Ø
Becoming an honor to
them is another way of honoring them, i.e. by
living so that they can
feel proud of what their children are, quite apart
from what they do. If a
father can say, “My son never gave me an uneasy
thought about him,” that is
such a testimony as a son might well wish him
to be able to bear.
Ø
By guarding very
jealously the sacredness and purity of
life, the commandment may
be obeyed. We may honor our parents by
honoring that holy
marriage tie which made them what they were
to us.
Ø
By guarding and
handing down to others the holy faith in which they
have trained us (Psalm
78:1-8; I Chronicles 28:9). We may well
desire to honor them by
taking on our lips that dear Name which
gladdened them in life and
sustained them in death.
Ø
There is another way
of honoring parents which we would there were no
occasion to name. But there
is a drift clearly to be discerned in some
directions of American
life, which makes a warning imperative (see
Matthew 15:1-9). The Jewish
rabbis put their Church and their
rabbinical rules between a
child and his parents. Modern lawyers
are doing the same now.
Hence this rule: Honor your parents by refusing
to let anyone edge his way
in between you and them.
TEACHER ENFORCE THIS DUTY?
Ø
Here let us set in the
front a reason given by Paul in Ephesians 6:1,
“It is right (δίκαιον – dikaion – right; just).”
There is another word
which is usually translated “right,” viz. εὐθύς – euthus - straightforward.
But the word here used is “just.” Obedience
to parents is simply a piece of
bare justice. For, CONSIDER HOW MUCH WE
OWE THEM! When
we first came into being their
care and watchfulness guarded and supplied us
long ere we knew aught. They
thought us, perhaps, something wonderful,
when no one else thought
anything of the kind, save in the reverse sense.
Ought not all this to be repaid?
Ø
It is well-pleasing to
the Lord. He has in this “set us an
example, that we
should follow his steps.” (I Peter 2:21) Christ, referring to the Father,
said, “I do always those things that please Him.” (John 8:29)
Ø
There is a specific
promise made to the obedient and loyal, as such,
“That it may go
well with thee, ” (here) and “mayest live long on
The earth.” (Ephesians 6:3); “which
the Lord thy God giveth
thee!” (here) - In the culture of home obedience will be found a
strong safeguard of
character. Vicious
excesses will not
exhaust. Insubordination and recklessness will not blight life’s
prospects. Hence such a life, being the PUREST and
HAPPIEST will also be THE LONGEST!
Ø
Such home virtue is
a contribution of no mean value to the stability
of a state. (I mentioned earlier Tim Tebow. Well,
a while ago,
Congressman Allen West of
leadership in the White House and halls of Congress as a
character
model – I say this in reference to stability in a state –
CY – 2012)
The reference of Moses is
to the weal of the nation as well as to that
of the home. The downfall of
o
neglect of
Sabbaths, (II Chronicles 36:14-21) and
o
making light of
father and mother. NO NATION CAN
PROSPER WITHOUT
PURITY IN THE HOME. “The
wicked shall be turned
into hell and all the nations that
forget God.” (Psalm 9:17)
Ø
Such virtue brings
great joy. “A wise son maketh
a glad father.”
(Proverbs 15:20).
THERE IS JOYOUSNESS ON BOTH SIDES!
This is the beauty with
which God’s blessing makes the plants of
virtue to bloom. It is like
the fragrance exhaling from a bed of violets
quietly blossoming in a
shady lane.
Ø
The neglect
of this will ensure many
unavailing regrets on both
sides in later
life. “A
foolish son is the heaviness of his mother”
(Proverbs 10:1).
Many an undutiful son, when laying his
parents’
remains in the grave, would
give all he has if he could but call them
back, if he could atone for
his sin, or could cancel the past.
(The Fields Have Turned Brown is a very instructive song – CY –
2012). DISOBEDIENCE
TREASURES UP SORROW! God may
and
will forgive the sin, when repented of,
but the penitent will never
forgive himself; he
will often moan out, “Thou makest me to possess
the iniquities of my youth!” (Job 13:26)
Ø
The curse of God will
rest on those who are loose and disloyal at home.
Richard Knill
so regarded this fifth commandment, that he would not
even go out as a missionary
without his mother’s consent. He said,
“I know that God never
smiles on a boy that breaks his mother’s heart.”
(See Proverbs 30:17.) And
who does not know how often it is proved
true,“With what measure ye mete it shall be measured to you again”?
(Matthew 7:2) Jacob deceived his father, and his sons
deceived him.
Can any observant man reach
middle life without having had oft to
make such notes as
these: Sam honored his parents, and
honor has
attended him. Bill dishonored
his parents, and his lamp has gone
out in darkness? (Proverbs
20:20) Though
the judgment has
not
yet come, yet there is a judging process of God’s providence
continually
at work.
Ø
The observance of this
rule is the best possible preparation for serving
our generation according to
the will of God. (Notice: “David,
after
he had served his
own generation by the will of God, fell on sleep”
- Acts 13:26 – May you and I do likewise! - CY - 2012)
He who is
a blessing in the home will
never be a curse out of it! The habits of
self-restraint, of courtesy, of respect to
superiors, well learnt and
practiced at home, will not
be thrown off when outside its walls.
Men learn to command well by first obeying well. Even Christ’s
own preparation for active
service was found in filial obedience at
home; and He is not only our
perfect example, who shows us what
to do, He is
also our
omnipotent Savior, who will give
us strength to do it. Be it
ours to repent not only of sin in general,
but of the sin of
disobedience to parents. Let us ask His forgiveness
as well as theirs, if the latter
is yet possible. Let us implore His
renewing grace that we may
henceforth keep this and every
command, not only because it is written in the Book, but because
the love of it
is graven on our hearts. It will be no
small addition
to the joy of retrospect,
if, as we afterwards look back on our home
life, we can think of it as
one of FILIAL LOYALTY ON THE
ONE SIDE and of PARENTAL DELIGHT
ON THE OTHER!
Honor to Parents
(v. 16)
We prefer the arrangement which regards the fifth
commandment as the
last of the first table — honor to parents being viewed as
honor to God in
his human representatives.
·
PARENTS STAND TO THEIR CHILDREN IN THE RELATION OF
REPRESENTATIVES OF THE DIVINE. They represent God as the
source of their offspring’s
life; they have a share of God’s authority, and
ought to
exercise it; but much more ought they to represent God to their
children in his
unwearied beneficence, his tender care, his exalted rectitude,
his forgiving
love. With what intelligence or
comfort can a child be taught
to think of a Father in heaven,
if its earthly parent is wanting in dignity,
kindness, truthfulness, or
integrity? How many fathers are thus spoiling for
their children their
whole conceptions of God! And with what anxiety and
care should
earthly parents study to leave such an impression on their
children’s minds
as will make the idea of God delightful and consolatory to
them, while
inspiring them towards Him with proper feelings of reverence!
·
PARENTS ON THIS ACCOUNT ARE TO BE HONORED BY
THEIR CHILDREN. They
are to be regarded with affection, treated with
respect and deference, promptly
and cheerfully obeyed, and, where needful,
liberally supported (Matthew
15:4-7; I Timothy 5:8). Even the
failure of parents to do all
their duty to their children does not exonerate
the children from the obligation
of treating them with respect. Young
people need to be reminded that failure in this
duty is peculiarly offensive
to God. We are told that
when Tiyo Soga visited this country, a particular
thing which astonished him was
the deficiency in respect for parents
compared with the obedience
which prevailed in the wilds of Kaffraria.
·
THE HONORING OF PARENTS HAS ATTACHED TO IT A
PECULIAR PROMISE. Length of days
and prosperity. The promise is
primarily national, but it has
fulfillments in individuals.
Ø
A special blessing rests
on the man who shows his parents due respect.
That has often been remarked.
Ø
There is also a natural
connection between the virtue and the promise.
Respect for
parents is the root at once of reverence for God and of respect
for the rights
of others. Hence the place of the
commandment in the
Decalogue. It engenders self-respect, and forms the will to habits of
obedience. It is favorable to the stability, good order, and general
morals of
society. It therefore
conduces to health, longevity, and a diffusion of the
comforts of life, furnishing
alike the outward and the inward conditions
necessary for success.
SECOND TABLE OF THE LAW (vs. 17-21)
In the enactments of the second table there is a progression
from THE
OUTWARD to THE INWARD!
testimony; and
such as covetousness and
evil desire. (It is wonderful that God knows
us so well that He “understandeth my thought afar off.” (Psalm 139:2).
The “commandment” is thus seen to be “exceeding
broad” (Psalm 119:96).
So that only the man “who
hath clean hands and a pure heart, and who
hath not lifted up
his soul to vanity, nor sworn deceitfully,”
shall “ascend
into the hill of
the Lord, or stand in his holy place”
(Ibid. 24:3-4).
The Sixth Commandment (v. 17)
17 “Thou shalt not kill.”
The Religion of the Temper (v. 17)
If a preacher were to announce this as a text in one of our
Christian congregations,
some of his hearers might be disposed to say, “Such a text might be appropriate
enough if the preacher were expounding the Word of God to
Zulus, but for us
civilized, not to say Christianized, people, it is out of
place!” (Today that
would be a fallacy because of the multitudinous babies that
are being and
have been killed by abortion over the last half century [47
years] – CY –
2020) Obviously such
a remark would be based on an acknowledged
fact, that murder is one of those sins against God
which are also a crime
against human law, and that no one in a congregation of
ordinary character
would be likely to dream of committing it. That is so. But
we are apt to
forget that even among Christian congregations it was not
always so.
When Peter is writing to believers, he deems it needful to
say, “Let none of
you suffer as a murderer,” etc. (I Peter 4:15).
And even now, in heathen lands,
in many an audience of men just reclaimed from barbarism,
it might be
necessary for a missionary to preach from this text,
adhering to it simply in the
negative form, “Thou shalt not kill.” In endeavoring now to “open it up” for
pulpit use, we would recall to the reader some elementary
principles concerning
the law already named.
o
That the Law was first
given in infantine form. God laid down precepts
rather than assigned reasons.
o
That the form in which
the Divine Being could put the most effective
guard around human life was by a
stern and strong prohibition like this,
proclaimed amid thunder and
lightning, terror and flame. (Exodus
19:16-18)
o
That though the form of
the precept is negative, yet it has a positive
significance, of such depth and
breadth that, even though we may shrink
with horror from transgressing
the former, it is by no means an elementary
stage of Christian character
which any one has reached if he attains to the
latter. So far were the Jewish
rabbis from catching the spirit of this
command, that they dealt with it
as if the negative prohibitions of the act
of murder were the whole of its
meaning. Our Lord, in His Sermon on the
Mount, shows us how much deeper
than this the precept goes (see
Matthew 5:21-26). And the
Apostle Paul, in Romans 13:9-10,
indicates what positive virtue
must be cultivated, the maintenance of which
will make it impossible to
transgress the sixth commandment. If we include
in our Homily a notice of these
later teachings, it may appear that, even
with all our advances, there is
something here for us to study, some holy
practice for us yet to strive
after, urged upon us by weighty reasons, which,
though not presented in the
world’s childhood, are set in full force in
THESE LAST DAYS! Let us, then:
Ø
It forbids the taking
of human life from passionate vindictiveness. The
Hebrews had, as we have,
two verbs with the distinctive meanings of “to
kill” and “to murder.” We see in the quotation in
Matthew 19:18, and
from the reference in Ibid.
5:21, that the Savior regards the
command as a prohibition of
passionate lawlessness. But even had we
not that light from Christ’s
teaching, the legislation of Moses himself
would shut us up to the
same conclusion. For in the administration of
justice and in necessary
war, the taking of life was commanded (see
Numbers 15:35; 35:31;
Exodus 21:12-14). So that, unless we regard the
lawgiver as setting
enactment against enactment, there is in this
commandment a prohibition
of passionate outbreaks, but neither of
capital
punishment nor necessary war.
Ø
It forbids any
carelessness by which the life or zeal of our neighbor
would be risked (Exodus
21:28-29). Wherever human life is risked by
insufficient precaution,
there is a breach of the sixth commandment.
Ø
It forbids that anger
which takes the form of a revengeful spirit. So
Christ teaches. This
precept strikes at the thoughts and intents of the
heart. Every time a schoolboy angrily lifts a hand
to hurt his classmate,
he is breaking in spirit
this commandment.
Ø
It forbids that
indifference in our life to the power of example which
would put a stumbling-block
or an occasion to fall in a brother’s way
(Romans 14:15). If by
careless living we “destroy” him for whom
Christ died,” we are breakers of this law.
Ø
It forbids dislike and
hatred to
our brother, and also a selfish
isolation
and neglect of him (I John 2:9-11;
3:14-15). If we are merely pursuing
our own ends in life, and are not caring whether our
brother is saved or
lost, this
law condemns us. If we even refrain
from helping our brother in
difficulty or trial, we are
guilty (Proverbs 24:11-12; Isaiah 58:6-7).
We may “kill” by withholding the
help which might save!
Ø
It requires,
therefore, the cultivation of that kindly spirit of
genial
benevolence, which would seek in every way to PROMOTE THE
GLADNESS AND
SAFETY OF THE SOCIETY in which we move,
and of men at large. (I repeat, a conscientious effort to negate the
influence of the Ten
Commandments in society, a la, American
Civil Liberties Union’s
goals, is unconstitutional because their
action DOES NOT PROMOTE THE GENERAL WELFARE
- CY – 2012) Negative in form, the sixth
commandment is positive
in intent. “Thou shalt not kill” is but the elementary form in which
God asserts the great law
of mutual dependence and interdependence.
“Love worketh no ill to his neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfilling
of the Law.” (Romans 13:10)
Would we keep the commandment,
“Thou shalt not kill”? Let us read it in the New Testament
light, “Thou shalt help thy neighbor.” “He that loveth another hath
fulfilled the Law.” (Ibid.)
ON WHICH THIS PRECEPT IS OR MAY BE ENFORCED.
Ø
The preciousness of man in God’s sight. He who killed a beast had to
make it good; but no
satisfaction might be taken for the life of a
murderer (see Genesis 9:6).
Ø
The spiritual nature
of man.
Ø
The high and holy destiny designed for man forbids any
tampering on
our part with him or with it.
SPRING OF ACTION DISCLOSED. This should actuate us in
refraining from violating, and
in seeking to fulfill, the law of love.
Ø
The INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD is so touching
a revelation of
the greatness of man, and does of
itself so
elevate him, that no one
realizing it can trifle with man.
Ø
The ATONING SACRIFICE
gives new views of man. After
the Apostle Paul has been
referring to the death of Christ, he says,
“Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh.” CHRIST’S
DEATH FOR EVERY
MAN has shown us a halo of glory around
every man. We look at him no more according to the accidents of
birth, position, color,
clime; we judge all men thus: CHRIST DIED
FOR THEM! Oh! it is this
cross which teaches us that reverence
for human nature, which
else we had lost altogether.
Ø
The incarnation and
the atoning sacrifice of the Son of God not only
give us the moving spring
whereby to rise to a proper view of the
greatness of man (see Psalm
8:1-9), but also the supreme reason for
devoted love to him, for
Christ’s sake (I John 4:11, 20; see
Ephesians 4:31; 5:1-2).
With what immeasurable strength does the
gospel bind us to fulfill “the royal law,” “Thou shalt
love thy
neighbor as thyself!” (James 2:8)
THE FULFILLMENT OF THE SIXTH COMMANDMENT, AND
WILL EVEN MAKE A BREACH OF IT IMPOSSIBLE. God would
have us lifted up by His love to so high a level, that we shall learn to love
like Him, even with a love”
§
of good will,
§
of compassion,
§
of forgiveness,
§
of actual service,
§
of self denying
sympathy and devotion.
§
This is the love which “is born of God”
(I John 4:7). This is the Divine
philosophy of obedience to law.
Learn, in conclusion:
Ø
It is to revelation alone that we owe the clearest view of
human
dignity. It is not from philosophy, nor from natural science that
we learn to appreciate man. Whatever
science may have to say as
to his physical organism (and
what it can say must depend on its
own appropriate evidence), it is THE IMAGE OF GOD which
he bears, that
is HIS TRUE DIGNITY and around it is THE
DIVINE GUARD SO
STRINGENTLY PLACED!
Ø
From God’s revelation to man we learn respect for man as man.
Human life is
held very cheaply in lands where the gospel is
unknown, and even in lands where it is known by men who reject it.
There are some, indeed, who
reject gospel light, yet borrow gospel
morality, and call it
theirs, while others who treat it as “a strange thing”
are already darkly
suggesting a “morality” gross as that of pagan days.
Ø From GOD’S
REVELATION we gather the only guarantee for
Human security and peace. IT IS BY THE CROSS AND THE
CROSS ALONE that the unity of
man in a world wide brotherhood
of love will ever be
secured.
Ø It is only by
the new life bestowed by the Spirit of God that we
come to possess and practice this love to which the cross constrains.
We may all of us have
refrained from an open breach of the letter of the
Sixth commandment.
Not one of us can stand its searching test in the light
of God’s pure Word! “O
wretched man that I am! Who shall
deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God
through
Jesus Christ our
Lord!” (Romans
7:24-25a) Ah!
“this commandment
fit for Zulus?” There is not a man amongst us who in the presence of its
all-searching light, is not
utterly condemned!
(James 2:10.) “Lord, have
mercy upon us, and
incline our hearts to keep this law!”
In the next six verses we have an expanded citation of
Exodus 20:14-18, addressed by
Moses to prepare the way for the solemn admonition to
observe and do all that the Lord
had commanded them, with which he passes on to the
enunciation of the various statutes
and ordinances he had
been enjoined by God to lay upon them.
The
Seventh Commandment
18 “Neither shalt thou commit
adultery.”
The
Religion of the Body (v. 18)
In the second part of the Decalogue there are stern
prohibitions against sin, without any positive indication of the opposite
virtue. Nor is
there a hint of how to attain such a
life as shall make
an offense against the commandments impossible, so that unless we recognize the
educatory purpose of the Law, (a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ – Galatians
3:24 – CY – 2012) we shall at once underrate it and yet overrate it. We shall
underrate it if we forget that it was just what was wanted, and all that could
be serviceable at the time of its promulgation; we shall overrate it if we
think that the mere prohibitory letter of this precept expresses the whole will
of God in the matter to which it refers. We will, therefore, set side by side
therewith, New Testament teachings. First, let us look at Matthew 5:27-29. Just
as in referring to rabbinical teaching on the sixth commandment, Jesus Christ
tells us that it is not only the open act of murder which is forbidden, but
even the spirit of anger and revenge which might lead to it; so here, it is not merely the open act of physical
degradation which is forbidden, but even the
spirit of unhallowed passion which, if unbridled, might
lead to it. Nor must we
stop here. The New Testament opens up to us the Divine will in the positive
direction (I Thessalonians 4:3-5). We are told also what is the true secret of
attaining a life which conforms to that will (Galatians
5:16). If we cultivate the
life of God in the spirit, the lower life will be in due
subjection. (God meant
for the spirit to rule the flesh. Paul says, “To be
carnally minded is death, but
to be spiritually minded is life and peace.” (Romans 8:6) Reasons,
moreover, which
were not given in
issues of a life in which these are lost sight of,
are put before us in dread array
(I Corinthians 9:27). Hence a homiletic treatment of this
seventh commandment can
only be effective as it deals with it as but one branch of
a subject, wide, deep, and
high, viz.” THE RELIGION OF THE BODY!
Observe:
We regard man’s nature as triple
— body,
soul, and spirit. As an acute and
learned divine remarks, “The body is the link between the soul and
the
world, the soul is the link between the body and the spirit; the spirit is
the link between
the soul and God.” It is in reference to our spirit-nature
that we are made in the image of God. He is “the Father of spirits”
(Hebrews 12:9). The same Book
which reveals God to us, reveals us to
ourselves. Any one who understands
the structure of his own nature, will
perceive which part thereof was meant to
rule the rest. THE BODY
IS TO BE AT THE
SERVICE OF THE SOUL; THE SOUL IS TO
BE REGULATED BY
THE SPIRIT; AND GOD IS TO GOVERN
ALL! . But it is by THE GREAT WORK OF REDEMPTION that
the stamp of
true dignity has been most CLEARLY IMPRESSED
UPON MAN! . The Apostle Paul tells us that it was through the
cross that
he learned truly to estimate human
nature (II Corinthians 5:16). And elsewhere
he argues, “Ye are bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your
body”
(I Corinthians 6:19). Christ is “the Savior of the body”
(Ephesians 5:23). If we are the Lord’s, our body is the temple of the
Holy Ghost. No part of the body is base UNLESS
BASELY USED!
All
its functions are to be discharged “in
sanctification and honor.”
(I Thessalonians 4:4)
BY CHRIST, SHOULD LEAD TO A “RELIGION OF THE BODY”
ON THE PART OF THOSE WHO HAVE NOT ENTERED ON THE
mere letter would indicate. It condemns all impurity of every kind, IT
FORBIDS US TO LET
THE LOWER SELF RUN OFF WITH THE
HIGHER, and, like the
preceding commands, though negative in form,
it is positive in
substance. It bids us:
Ø
Let our own nature be
duly honored, and self-respect be diligently
cultivated.
Ø
Observe towards others
that self-same respect which we owe to
ourselves, on the same
ground, and for the Lord Jesus Christ’s sake.
The art of “bridling the
whole body” (James 3:2) is one of the
most important in a life of godliness.
NATURE WILL IMPART SANCTITY TO THE MARRIAGE TIE.
Marriage is God’s holy
ordinance. It is not a sacrament, in the same sense
in which Baptism and the Lord’s
Supper are. Neither is it merely a civil
contract, (this written two
hundred years before the modern
desecration
by same sex
marriages – since God judges “whoremongers
and
adulterers” [Hebrews 13:4] – homosexuals
need not think they are exempt –
CY – 2012) as is sometimes
shockingly said. It is a union of two in the closest
ties of nature, based on an
affinity of spirit which leads each to see in the other
what each most admires. It is a
union of spirit in the Lord (if it be all that it should
be); each one of the two ceases
to live in and for himself or herself, (“the
one
of the twain” – wouldn’t it be something of each of our
marriages “if two
were ever one,
then we!” – CY – 2012)” and begins practically to unlearn
selfishness by living for the
other, and thus the reciprocal outgoing of affection
is a formative action of
spirit, AND
TENDS TO BE THE NOBLEST
CULTURE OF
LIFE! And where the Divine idea of marriage is carried
out, the purely natural side of
it will be by no means the only one or even the
highest. God chose to remove a bone from Adam’s side versus from his head
or his feet to create the woman. Matthew Henry states, “That the woman was
made of a rib out of
the side of Adam; not made out of his head to rule
over him, nor out of
his feet to be trampled upon by him, but out of his
side to be equal with
him, under his arm to be protected, and near his
heart to be beloved.” There are spheres
of duty which are most
appropriately filled by men, e.g.
those in professional and commercial life;
there are other spheres which
are most appropriately filled by women, e.g.
those in the quiet of the home.
And the work of one is the supplement
and complement
of the work of the other. Hence each
one looks to the
other for the discharge of
special service. Thus there is a mutual leaning on
one another. And
if the crowning joy of married life be present in both
being one in the
Lord, in
their spiritual fellowship they fan each other’s love
to Him who died
for them. Each will supply what the other lacks. Perhaps
the strength of the man may lie
chiefly in intellectual power. (I wonder what
the National Organization of
Women would think of this? They can’t
say
they haven’t been warned since
Paul made it plain in I Corinthians 11:10
where he seems to compare a
woman’s usurpation of the place of man
equated with the fallen angels
trying to overthrow God! – CY – 2012)
That
of the woman will lie in
tenderness, (nowadays many of us are confused
by the modern women’s expression
of anger, kinda like she is not happy
of who she is. When I used to teach school, it was amazing
how many
students were satisfied with
race, sex and who they were – much honor
belongs to God
for His creativity and success in this matter –
CY – 2012) and also in far
keener and surer perceptions and more swiftly
acting intuitions. Thus, through
one being the fitting complement of the
other, they become mutual helpers in all that is right and wise and
true;
and as even before
they were made one, each one knew how
to possess his
vessel in sanctification and
honor (I Thessalonians 4:4), so, when they are one,
each honors the other, by making the sacred union subservient to virtue
and to HONOR OF GOD! Thus rolling years do but deepen the fondness
and sweetness of their love,
and if it becomes calmer and less demonstrative,
it is because it has
become fuller, richer, and stronger. When
youthful
ardor dies down, the holy tie is
holier than ever; their very souls become knit
together in one. The care of one is the care of both; the joy of one is the
joy
of both; (to miss this is to miss one of the SUPREME BLESSINGS IN
LIFE
– CY – 2012) and any unkindness that stings one wounds both, As
two trees side by side in a
grove, their arms interlace and interlock, yet each
has its separate root, So
husband and wife, as trees of the Lord’s own right
hand planting, do through the
whole of this earthly life become interlocked
with growing
firmness, while their one Savior, Jesus Christ, in
whom they
live is
the common joy of their spirits, THEIR ONE HOPE FOR
ETERNITY! That there are innumerable
cases in which a noble type
of Christian excellence is
reached by the unmarried, we all know. While
marriage opens up those claims
in the discharge of which the most
symmetrical character is usually
formed, yet Divine grace can so sway the
spirit as to culture it nobly
for eternity, irrespectively of these sacred ties. There
are fathers and mothers in
when our nature is duly honored
in ourselves and others, by its uppermost
part
being kept
uppermost, out of loyalty to Christ, it is possible for both the
married and
unmarried to glorify God in their body as well as in their
spirit.
OF GOD WE HAVE OUR WHOLE BEING THUS LIFTED UP INTO A
HIGHER REGION, THE STERN “THOU SHALT NOT” OF SINAI
WILL BE NEEDED NO MORE. We shall have risen to a sphere in which
the transgression of the seventh
commandment will be impossible (see I John 3:9;
Galatians 5:16, 24). The sure
guarantee of our keeping this law, in the spirit as
well as in the letter, is for us
to be so re-created by God’s Spirit, that it shall be
impossible for us to break it.
THE LAW. If there are
those who are not in the region of a higher life, as
indicated above, they should be
reminded that this law, in its wide sweep
and searching depth, condemns
all impurity of every kind; it discerns “the
thoughts and intents
of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12). Hence the words
in Matthew 5:28; hence the
warnings in Mark 9:43, 45, 47. One indulged
sin will drag the
whole man after it. It is evident that the Lord avenges
the sins of the flesh. It tells
us that
men must possess in manhood the sins
of their youth;
that if they sow to the flesh, they will of the flesh reap
corruption; that the punishment of sensuality,
working not by special
interventions, but by general laws, bears a fearful resemblance to the
sin itself;
that the Nemesis of a desecrated body is an enfeebled
understanding, a tormented and darkened soul;” (compare Romans
1:26-27; Proverbs 5:1-11) and it may be added, a face from which
the
luster of the Divine has departed, and in
which the lines of a true
manhood are
manifestly vitiated and defaced, and even
exchanged for
lines of sin and of shameless vice. Let all take heed and remember:
Ø
That where each one’s
weak point is, a sentinel should be kept
on watch.
Ø
We are not safe till
the very thoughts are under control.
Ø
Only the Spirit
of God can give us power equal to this.
Ø
Unless we keep
ourselves in subjection we shall be cast away.
The Eighth Commandment
19 “Neither shalt thou steal.”
The
Religion of the Hand (v. 19)
There is much to be said in favor of the proposition that utility is the foundation of virtue; and provided that the sentence be well
cleared up and guarded from abuse,
and provided also that the word “utility” be lifted up to its highest,
and spread over its broadest significance, the maxim is less objectionable than
it would otherwise appear. While it, however, has been and will be discussed in
the philosopher’s classroom, for ages, we may safely go so far as to say, “That
is right which renders the highest
service to mankind, and by its having this tendency, we
know it to be right.” Now,
among serviceable institutions is that of property, which,
as men are
constituted, is a necessity of social weal. If rightness consists
in
recognizing the rights of each, the necessity of
property comes out of the
equality of natural rights. If a man is alone in the world,
he may call it all
his own. If there is a brother man with him, they must
divide it between
them. Apart from the institution of property, one incentive
to labor would
be gone. Who would be likely
to toil day by day for that from which he
would obtain naught when the work was over? (Does this statement
not describe the effects of socialistic trends today in
Now, it is the social law of the institution of property,
Divine yet natural, yea,
natural because Divine, the existence of which is
here assumed, and the recognition
of which is here enjoined: in the barest and most
elementary form, it is true, yet in the
very form best according with the circumstances under which
it was given; in a negative
form, too, like the other commands, but yet with a positive
intent. Perhaps there is no
one of the commandments which is more extensively commented
on, and repeated in
so many forms in the Old Testament, nor one the violation
of which is so variously
prohibited. Our simplest mode of treating it homiletically
seems to be to point out in
turn the negative prohibition, and the positive duty which
is to be set over against it.
PRECEPT IS THROWN IN SCRIPTURE. If we regard the spirit of it,
and read it by the light of Old
Testament teaching, we shall find it set in
great variety of ways.
Ø
It forbids our
depriving any man of any right whatever
(Lamentations 3:35-36).
Ø
It is forbidden to
gain an undue advantage at another’s expense
(Exodus 23:3, 6, 8-9;
Leviticus 19:15; Deuteronomy 16:19-20).
Ø
It is forbidden
to accumulate wealth by unlawful practices
(Proverbs 10:2; 15:6).
Ø
It is forbidden to
take long credit (Proverbs 3:28;
Leviticus
19:13).
Ø
It is forbidden to
oppress a poor man in his cause
(Exodus 22:26-
27; Deuteronomy 15:7,
10-15; Proverbs 22:22-23; Micah
2:1-3; 3:1-4).
Ø
It is forbidden
to pay insufficient wages (Deuteronomy 24:14-15;
25:4).
Ø
To lend money in any
oppressive or exacting form (Exodus
22:25;
Leviticus 25:35-38;
Deuteronomy 23:19). “The name ‘usurer’
—
neshec — which is derived from biting, sounded badly, since no
one chose to be
likened to a hungry dog, who fed himself by
biting others”
(Calvin).
Ø
To take advantage
of the stranger, the widow, and the fatherless
(Exodus 22:21-24;
Deuteronomy 10:17-19; Leviticus 19:33-34).
Ø
Unfair trading (Leviticus 19:35-36; Deuteronomy 25:13-16;
Proverbs 11:1; 16:11;
20:10, 23; Micah 6:10-12).
Ø
Imperiling another’s
property (Exodus 21:33-36).
Ø
Life-long slavery (Exodus 21:2; Deuteronomy 15:12-18).
Ø
Connivance at
wrong (Proverbs 29:24).
Ø
Respect of persons (Exodus 23:1-3).
Ø
Revengeful
mischief even in war-time (Deuteronomy 20:19-20).
Ø
Removing a neighbor’s landmark (Ibid.
ch.19:14).
Ø
Withholding from the
service of God (Malachi 3:8-9).
Whenever
we withhold what is due to
God, or keep back what we owe to man,
if the master is unjust to
his servant, or the servant wastes the time or the
goods of his master; if a
man is guilty of trickery in trade, by adulteration
of goods, or scant weight,
or short measure; if a man is in any way
deprived of his own right
or freedom; if we take undue advantage of
any one for our own
benefit, we are guilty of breaking the command
“THOU SHALT NOT
STEAL!”
SET OVER AGAINST THESE PROHIBITIVE ONES. In the fuller
teaching of Moses there was not
wanting an indication of an opposite duty,
the cultivation of which would make
a breach of the eighth commandment
altogether out of the question. The people were to aim at cherishing a
kindly feeling
for each other, and instead of wishing to enrich
themselves at another’s expense, they were
to seek to enrich others,
and to find their
joy in helping the needy (Exodus 23:4; Leviticus 25:35;
Deuteronomy 15:7-10; 22:1-3; 23:19; 24:19). While in Proverbs, the
contrast between sloth
and industry
is said to be one mark of difference
between the righteous
and the wicked.
EXPLICIT. (See Acts
20:35; I Corinthians 10:24; Philippians 2:4-5; and
specially Ephesians 4:28.) The words of our blessed Lord
lingered in the
apostles’ ears as the strains of
a lovely song. His life too seemed to say,
“Be ever ready to give up what
is your own, if thereby you can help another.”
So that not only is there to
be such respect for the rights of others, that
we
do not infringe
on them by abstracting from his property;
but over and above the
institution of property, which is recognized and
guarded, there is THE
INSTITUTION OF LABOR, WHICH IS TO
BE LOOKED AT,
UTILIZED, AND SANCTIFIED, SO AS TO
SUBSERVE THE
ENRICHMENT OF OTHERS. (Remember,
that it was God who ordained man
to work - Genesis 3:19 – CY – 2012)
So that we come at this specific rule: Labor, and sanctify your labor for
others; then you will be in no danger of depriving them of the fruits
of their labor!
The political economist says, “Regulate labor so as best to
subserve the production of wealth.” So far, good. But Christian maxims go
higher, and say, “Pursue and regulate
labor with a view of promoting each
other’s well-being.” Now, in this
sanctification of labor there are four rules
to be observed:
Ø
Labor as servants of Christ. This is a specific direction both for
employer and employed. Both
are amenable to Him who is the
Head and Lord of
the human race. In His eye the
interests of
the human family are the
supreme concern on this globe. Material
wealth is to Him as
nothing. Men are His purchased possession;
and if by labor we
increased the material wealth of this country a
thousand-fold, if thereby one soul were destroyed, his curse
would rest upon such
labor.
Ø
Labor with an eye to the glory of God: not only as His
servants, but
so that all our labor may
promote THAT GREAT END for
which
HE LIVED AND
DIED; and just in proportion as this is the case,
will Christ approve our
toil.
Ø
Labor in accordance with and for the promotion of another’s good.
We are to let all our
labors be in harmony with another’s well-being. We
may not make ourselves rich
at the expense of others; but only as our
weal accords with theirs. This applies NATIONALLY as well as
INDIVIDUALLY. It is as clearly wrong
for a nation to steal a continent
as for a man to steal a
dollar! And if we so labor as to ignore the good of
another, we shall find that
“there is a God that judgeth
in the earth!”
(Psalm 58:11)
Ø
But it is not enough that
there should be an absence of spoliation or
greed, nor that labor
should merely accord with human good; it
is
required of us that one direct object and aim of our labor
should
be the increase of our wealth that we may have the wherewith
to give to others! As between
man and man, the great God upholds
our right to the produce of
our labor. As between ourselves and Him,
He says, “Use for
your brother’s good, the wealth you get.
You
are but a steward. Nothing
is yours absolutely. “What hast thou that
thou hast not received?” (I
Corinthians 4:7) - Work, that you may get.
Get, that you may have to
give. “The poor shall never cease out of
the land” (ch. 15:11). If, by any
sudden spurt, wealth could be
equalized today, IT
WOULD BE UNEQUAL IN 24 HOURS and
in twelve months
scarcely a trace would be left of the readjustment.
(Apparently, this is something that the President of
the
and many in Congress cannot fathom. For all the reputation that
many leaders have, they can’t be too smart or else are deliberately
leading us down the wrong road. This is a distinct possibility since
one of the major penalties for “forsaking
God in
the dumbing down of the
quality of leadership. CY – 2012) Some
would be workers and some
idlers; some spendthrifts and some misers;
and any rectification of property, apart from the right-setting of men,
would be of no avail. (“The right
setting of men” is GOD’S
BUSINESS! - CY - 2012). And, at any rate, so long as
There are claims upon our sympathy,
so long our labor is to have this
Stamp upon it: Labor, to gain the power of giving; THIS IS THE
ANTIDOTE FOR ANY
DANGER OF BREAKING THE
EIGHTH
COMMANDMENT. Whoever fulfils his labor in a spirit
of loyalty to Christ and of
kindliness to his brother, will find in labor so
discharged, a holy and
blessed discipline of character. Shall we
live under the low, selfish
calculations of earth, or under the higher
regulations of heaven?
There is a wealth — a wealth most to be
coveted — which’ comes not
as a heritage of birth, but as the reward
of giving to others
according as they have need. Acting on worldly
maxims, a man might live
for a thousand years and he will never have it.
Acting on Christ’s rule, he
will reap it as sheaves of golden grain. It is
this: “The blessing of
him that was ready to perish came upon me:
and I caused the widow’s heart to sing for joy!” (Job 29:13)
The Ninth
Commandment
20 “Neither shalt thou bear false witness against thy neighbor.”
The Religion of the Tongue (v. 20)
This command gives us a precept touching our words.
Inasmuch, however, as it is here given to us in barest, briefest, most
elementary form, it would not be well if in the homiletic treatment of it we did not
place side by side therewith the varied Scriptures which set before us THE DUTY OF REGULATING OUR SPEECH! We will ask,
and endeavor to answer, five questions concerning this
commandment.
throws a guard around human life,
the seventh around purity, the eighth
around the rights of property
and labor, so this ninth
throws a shield over
EVERY MAN’S
REPUTATION. (I once
heard that “it takes a life-
time to gain a reputation BUT ONLY A MOMENT TO LOSE IT! –
CY – 2012) A stern “Thou shalt not injure thy neighbor’s fair
name” is one of the
mandates of Sinai, issued amidst thunder and fire!
(Exodus 19:16-18) The immediate reference would seem to
be to bearing
testimony in a court of justice.
A part of the judicial code of Moses had
reference to this (Deuteronomy
19:16-19). But the precept goes further
than this in its spirit. We read
in Exodus 23:1, “Thou shalt not raise (or
receive)
a false report;” literally, “Thou shalt not bear it;” i.e. you are to have nothing
to do, either in making or
taking it. Further (Leviticus 19:16), we are
not to give way to gossip and
scandal (see Psalm 15:3). Nor are we to
make any statement that is
prejudicial to the interests of another, unless we
are sure of its accuracy, and
unless also the good of society requires us to
make it. Further (Psalm 34:13),
our lips are to speak no deceit nor guile
of any kind, either in what is
said or in the manner of saying it. (Of Jesus,
our example, it is said “who did no sin, neither was guile found in
His mouth” – I
Peter 2:22 – CY – 2012) If we needlessly tell of
another’s wrong act, instead of
seeking to cover it, under the appearance
of virtue in denouncing it, God
may see a spirit of malice or revenge in
naming it; and any act of another’s
mentioned in such a spirit is
sure not to be construed by us
in perfect fairness, and therefore it will
certainly become, so far as it
is unfair, a false report, whatever foundation
of fact there may be in it. The
precept, moreover, forbids sitting in
judgment on individuals, so as
to denounce them when we are contending
against what we consider to be
unsound in their faith, or wrong in their
practice. But further still does
the precept reach. It forbids any thoughtless
word which might unwillingly
injure another (see Matthew 12:33-37).
How true is Hebrews 4:12! Every uncharitable thought of another,
which might prompt an
uncharitable word respecting him, is condemned by
the holy Law of
God!
only to look at gospel law, as
brought out by the Apostle Paul in
Ephesians 4:25-32, to see this.
Ø
Truth is ever to
mark our speech. The true in thought is to
be aimed at, in order that
there may be truth, absolute truth, on
the tongue. No “pious
frauds” are allowable. God is
“abundant in truth”. (Exodus 34:6)
Ø
Love is to rule.
While a supreme regard to truth will guard us from
violating it consciously, a due
cultivation of the spirit of love will
guard us from forming those harsh judgments of others which
might lead us to violate truth unconsciously
by misjudging
their actions. (Having such a strong belief in the truth of God’s
words, I have had to tip-toe through this mine-field in my life.
Unfortunately, there have been a few explosions along the path
but God has helped minimize the damage. CY – 2012)
Ø
Where truth and love
reign, there will be self-restraint. A check
will be put on unkind
feeling of every sort. “Love beareth all things,
believeth all
things, hopeth all things, endureth
all things.”
(I Corinthians 13:7) Note further. In this ninth command the relations
between men are supposed to be reciprocal. “Thy neighbor.”
If any ask, Who is my
neighbor? let Christ give the answer,”
You may make yourself
neighbor to any man by cherishing a
readiness of disposition to do him a kindness” (see Luke 10:29-37).
No distinction of race, color, or clime is to be allowed to stand
in the way of our being true
neighbors to men, the wide world over.
GUIDED?
Ø
“Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” That, applied to this
command, would mean, “Be as
careful of another’s reputation as
you are of your own.” There
is another rule.
Ø
Be imitators of God. “Let all evil-speaking... be put away from
you...and be
kind to one another... even as God in Christ hath
forgiven you”
(Ephesians 4:32). The world’s rule is: exalt yourself
at the expense of others.
Christ’s rule is: exalt others at the sacrifice
of yourself.
RESTRAIN THE TONGUE IN THE INTERESTS OF OTHERS?
Ø
The fact urged by
Paul, that “we are members one of another.”
(Romans 12:5) - In social life we are dependent on each other for
the enjoyments
which sweeten it, the luxuries which
enrich it,
the comforts which gladden
it, and for the necessaries which make it
possible; and, excepting so
far as truth governs words and acts,
the very props
of social life are wanting, and its cohesive
force is gone. If the eye refused to be true to the brain, or if the ear,
the hand, or the foot
resolved to be at variance with the decisions of
the will, life would soon
be intolerable, and must ere long come to an
end. Even so, we cannot tamper with the law of truth in speech
without doing our
part towards poisoning the currents of
thought, feeling, and action which flow
through society,
and so far as we bear false
witness of any kind with the view of
gaining advantage at another’s
cost, we are aiding the infernal
work of setting
men at variance with each other, by loosening
the bonds of mutual
confidence which should unite them all!
Ø
If the tongue is duly bridled, the whole body will be under
command. (James 3:2). Our WHOLE BEING
is to IN
SUBJECTION TO GOD, BODY, SOUL and SPIRIT!
And that means that we are
to guard
our lips. If we are successful
here, that indicates so far
a mastery over
ourselves. We can bridle
the whole body
if we can but curb the tongue. “Let
every man
be swift to hear,
slow to speak” (James 1:19). A man may do
very much to make or mar
himself according as he has learned the
right government of the
tongue.
Ø
If the tongue is not bridled, we have no religion at all! (James 1:26).
Let us lay that word to
heart. Whatever may be the outside profession,
if we do not govern our
tongue for God, if we use it for gossip, trifling,
scandal, slander, our very
profession of Christ’s name is a cheat and a lie.
Ø
The thought of THE COMING JUDGMENT should lead us to
govern our tongue (Matthew 12:37). One would think that such
words as these would make men more careful
how they use the
tongue! Are we so governing our words that we
should confront
without shame all those
that we have ever
spoken, when set in
array before us? (Remember
that Jesus said, “therefore whatsoever
ye have spoken in
darkness shall be heard in the light, and
that which ye have
spoken in the ear in closets shall be
proclaimed upon
the housetops.” - (Luke 12:3) -
apparently,
God had the world bugged before man came on the scene –
This gives more meaning to the children’s song with the line,
‘be careful little
tongue what you say - CY – 2012)
“We must
ALL stand before the judgment seat of Christ.” (Romans 14:10)
How will backbiters,
slanderers, and retailers
of gossip meet the eye
of the Great Judge of all?
THE TEXT?
Ø
Let us awake to the importance, as before God, of remembering His
perfect knowledge of our
words (“For there is not a word in my
tongue, but lo, O
Lord, thou knowest it altogether.” Psalm 139:4).
Let us cultivate the impression such a thought is calculated
to produce.
Ø
Let us resolve
and act (“I said, I will take heed to my
ways,
That I sin not with my tongue: I will keep my mouth with
a bridle, while the wicked is before me.” - Psalm 39:1). So said
David. Let such a resolution be formed and carried out.
(It is still early in the year, this being Jan. 12, 2012 – CY – 2012)
Ø
Much may be done by
auxiliary means, in the way of lessening the
temptation to offend with
the tongue. Very much of the habit of idle
gossip results from
unintelligence. (same for cursing – it shows
greatly A LACK OF VOCABULARY to express oneself – CY -
2012). Some have nothing to talk about, and for want of a well-
stored mind, they fall
a-slandering their neighbors. Over and
above other means which are
more directly religious of reducing the
evil of an unbridled
tongue, there is this serviceable one: furnish
the
mind with so much
valuable knowledge, that you will be so
occupied with
useful talk that you have no time for idle words.
Ø
Let there also be devout attention to the more spiritual aspects
of life. Let
the earnest prayer go up (“Set a watch, O Lord,
before my mouth; keep the door of my lips.”
- Psalm 141:3), and,
remembering the Savior’s
words, “Out of the abundance of the
heart the mouth speaketh”
(Matthew 12:34), let us earnestly
plead with God
for daily renewal in the spirit of our mind,
since, when the heart is right, the words cannot be wrong.
Maybe some of us used to think
concerning the Ten Commandments,
like the young ruler
mentioned in Luke 18:18-25 who said “All
these have I kept from my youth up.” But, alas, so far from that,
UNLESS WE ARE
CONVERTED AND RENEWED, WE
SHALL NEVER KEEP
EVEN THIS ONE, “Thou shalt
not bear false witness against thy
neighbor!” Under its severe
tests we have broken down
thousands of times, and have abundant
reason to cry, “God be merciful to me the sinner!” (Luke 18:13).
MAY GOD THUS
SANCTIFY US! “Lord, have
mercy upon
us, and incline our hearts to keep this law.” (Psalm 119:36)
The Tenth
Commandment
21 “Neither shalt thou desire thy
neighbor’s wife, neither shalt thou
covet thy
neighbor’s house, his field, or his manservant, or his
maidservant, his
ox, or his ass, or any thing that is thy neighbor’s.”
The Religion of the Heart (v. 21)
This commandment is in some respects the most manifestly sweeping and
searching of all. It
even more fully than the others illustrates Hebrews
4:12. If any reader has thought that in making such
heart-work of the
preceding, we have gone beyond the scope of the Decalogue, this verse
should correct such an impression, for IT DEALS VERBALLY with the
UNEXPRESSED WISHES OF THE SOUL and AND LAYS A
RESTRAINT ON THEM. We will first of all:
Recognizing the neighborly
relation between man and man, and people and
people, and implying the duty of
each individual and of each nation
cherishing a kindly feeling for
another, it not only forbids the violation
of
neighborliness by any outward
act of unkindness and wrong, but even the
desire out of which such unneighborly
acts might arise. “Thou shalt not
covet.” “As it was given,” said an earnest preacher, in the winter
of 1870,
“in the first instance to a
nation, it is natural to consider some of the ways
in which a nation may violate
it, The history of the world is stained and
darkened by the
crimes to which nations have been driven by the
spirit of covetousness. A great and prosperous people cannot endure
that the cornfields and vineyards
and the noble river which can be seen
from its frontiers should belong to
a neighboring power. Sooner or later it is
almost certain that
THIS
NATIONAL COVETOUSNES will end in
a
war of aggression or conquest, Some pretext will be found
for a quarrel,
by some means or other there will be a
justification discovered, or
created, or alleged,
for seizing by force of arms what the heart of the
nation longed for” (R. W. Dale). (This is the way greedy and insatiate
bullies operate – CY –
2012) But since the command forbids even
the
covetous desire, the
justification alleged may be as wicked as the war itself;
it may be but a cloak to hide
from the undiscerning that covetousness which
not the thickest veil of night
can hide from him whose eyes are as a flame of fire.
(This is true of the law of the
streets as well as of nations – CY – 2012)
It is, however, chiefly with the
application of this command to the
individual that
we have now to do. It forbids:
Ø
Desire after lower
good to the neglect of the higher.
Ø
Desire after improper
objects.
Ø
Desire after lawful
objects carried to an improper degree.
Ø
Desire to gain any
object in an improper manner.
Ø
Any desire after what
belongs to another, which is inconsistent
with the rule, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor
as thyself,”
It forbids too:
Ø
Discontent with the
allotments of Divine providence.
(Whether gender, race, body
shapes, etc. – CY – 2012) A
Discontented spirit is but one form of
covetousness,
albeit it is a very unamiable one. We are not to be envious of
another’s possessions, nor
for a moment to allow the wish, if our
neighbor is rich and we are
poor, that his wealth and our
poverty should
change hands. On the other hand, there is to
be a thankful
content with the mercies we possess, and
a joy in our
neighbor’s joy if he has more than we have.
So far from wishing to gain
advantage at another’s cost, we are
to rejoice in another’s
good as really as if it were our own. So
runs the precept “Rejoice
with them that rejoice and weep
(Romans 12:15). It is much
easier to “weep with them
that weep,” than it is
to “rejoice with them that do rejoice.”
(This is sad and is
probably the result of envy, jealousy, malice,
Etc. I have heard that “Envy
shoots at others but wounds
Herself!” – CY
– 2012) When
we do the former, we may have
the secret thankfulness
that we are spared the sorrow of others;
but when the latter, our joy is apt to be checked by the
secret wish that we were possessors
of their cause of joy.
Our obedience to this
precept is not complete till we can
“weep” or “rejoice” with others with equal readiness. In a
word, the tenth commandment requires ENTIRE UNSELFISHNESS.
“LOVE IS THE FULFILLING OF THE LAW!” (Romans 13:10;
Galatians 5:14)
Sin is defined by the
Apostle John as “the transgression of Law” (I John 3:4).
Consequently, wheresoever the Law reaches, there would the transgression
of it
come under THAT TERM “SIN.” Hence, by the
Law is the knowledge of
sin. (Romans 3:20) We find accordingly that Paul, one of the most noted
characters in New Testament history
gained, not only from the Decalogue,
but from this particular
precept, his first deep convictions of sin (see
Romans 7.). Making a like use of
it, we see:
Ø
That this law reveals
that to be sin which else would not have been
suspected as such. If we
were asked by some to point out the marks
of sin in the world, they
would refer us to war, oppression, tyranny,
etc, But God’s Word strikes at the lusts out of which these evils
come (James 4:1).
Ø
This law reveals to us
how deeply sin has struck its roots in our nature,
that it has permeated and saturated
our very thoughts,
(even
early in man’s history – “And
God saw that the wickedness of
man was great in the earth, and that every
imagination of
the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” - Genesis
6:5)
and made them selfish. We see too by the same light that many an
apparently good act before
men has been rotten by reason of the
“lust” in which it had
its root.
Ø
So that we also learn
that a man may be altogether blameless in the
Sight of his fellows, and yet be condemned in the sight of God.
God judges acts by motives.
Have all our motives been pure?
Ø
Thus we see that there
is quite enough in heart sins to shut us out from
the kingdom of heaven. (This is why you and I need Jesus and why
that he came into the world
TO SAVE SUCH AS YOU AND I –
CY – 2012)
Ø
Thus, by this
commandment, and a fortiori (for a stronger reason;
all the more) BY ALL THE COMMANDMENTS TOGETHER,
THERE IS REVEALED TO
US THE IMPOSSIBILITY
OF ANY ONE WHO
STARTS WITH A BURDEN OF
ACCUMULATED GUILT,
ATTAINING TO THE
RIGHTEOUSNESS WHICH
IS OF THE LAW! (Romans 7:9-10).
Thus the Law
reveals a mischief which it is not its province to
cure.
REMEDY FOR IT.
Ø
It shows us HOW
GRACE CAN CUT UP COVETOUSNESS
BY THE ROOT.
v
Our Lord shows us by
his teaching that our true wealth
consists in what we are rather
than in what we have
(Luke 12:13-20). “Take heed and beware of
covetousness: for a man’s life consisteth
not in the
abundance of the
things which he possesseth.”
v
When men are
penitent, God
forgives the past.
v
He recreates the
soul, and lifts us up by promises
to a higher
level (II Peter 1:3-4; Matthew 6:33; Luke 12:29;
Hebrews 13:5).
v
Nor is the element
of holy warning wanting
(I Corinthians 10:1-6,12).
Ø
It shows us a sphere
in which the natural ambition may have legitimate
play without degenerating
into lust. For, it may be urged, “If we had no
desire after the improvement
of our condition, we should do away with
enterprise? Ought not a
young man to be anxious to rise in the world?”
Certainly. But not at the
expense of others. In a right
direction a
man not only may, but
should, make the very utmost of himself for which
his power capacitates him
(I Timothy 4:8; Proverbs 30:5-9). Another
may say, “I have the organ
of acquisitiveness very strongly developed.
I am so made that I must
get, so that if I am anxious to have more,
I am only acting out that which
is imbedded in the structure of my
physical frame.” Acquisitiveness! an excellent organ to
have, and
one which makes it
specially desirable to decide of what its
possessor shall be
acquisitive, If it is a necessity of any one’s
nature to be
ever getting, THE GREATER NEED THAT
HE SHOULD BE
RIGHTLY GETTING THE RIGHT!
Now, while God’s Law condemns acquisitiveness in the wrong
direction, yet GOD’S GRACE AND
GOSPEL OPEN UP
THE GRANDEST
POSSIBLE FIELD FOR ITS RIGHTFUL
EXERCISE! By all means let any one develop that noble capacity
(Proverbs 3:16; 4:5-7; I
Corinthians 12:31). The surest way
of
guarding against
covetousness of ill will be so TO DEVELOP
EAGERNESS AFTER
GOOD that the other cannot coexist
(I John 2:15). There is no faculty of our nature which can be
developed to
finer issues than this desire of having,
IF IT BE
RESET BY DIVINE
GRACE AND GUIDED BY THE
SPIRIT OF GOD! No function of the
soul is common
or unclean, unless we make it so. At creation, everything
which God made “was good!” (Genesis 1:4,10,12,18,21 and
to the point of “it was very
good” in v. 25) Here is the right sort
of covetousness
(Philippians 3:8), “That I may win Christ.”
Let all our power of
coveting go out after HIM! He will bring
with Him durable riches and righteousness. The wealth we have in
Him will be vastly more than aught we
can have from Him, and by
“the expulsive
power of a new affection” HE WILL WEAN
US FROM THE FALSE CRAVING FOR THE EARTH,
AND EVER SATISFY
US WITH HIMSELF!
The
Decalogue (vs. 1-21)
Moses here recalls the Sinaitic
covenant, and wishes the Israelites to
remember that, though given to their fathers primarily, it
was also
applicable to them. They were in many cases present as
children then, and
they were represented by their parents. Moses speaks with
authority as
having been mediator (v. 5) on the occasion. There are the
following lessons
to be learned from the Decalogue as here given:
·
THE COVENANT IS BASED UPON A MERCIFUL DELIVERANCE.
God
gives His Law to His people after their deliverance rom Egyptian
bondage.
It is intended to be a rule of
life for those already redeemed. The
gospel
precedes the Law — Moses the
deliverer precedes Moses the lawgiver;
the Lord was first known as the
fountain of freedom, and then as the
fountain
of that Law within whose bounds
freedom is to be realized.
·
THIS LAW COVERS OUR RELATIONS BOTH TO GOD AND MAN.
Ø
The Laws relating to God. These embrace the four which come first, i.e.
o
the law against polytheism
or atheism. This law is broken
when we live “without God in the world” (Ephesians 2:12), ascribing to luck, chance, or fortune what is due to God’s providence. It is broken when we worship self,
or fame, or ambition.
o
The law against sensuous
worship. For the second commandment is broken in so far as our
worship is not “in spirit and in truth.”
(John 4:24)
o
The law of reverence. Any spirit of
undue familiarity which leads to the least trifling before God is a breach of
this third commandment.
o
The law of consecrated time. This fourth
commandment is an
acknowledgment that all time is God’s by right,
and the seventh portion should be by special obligation. In Deuteronomy the Sabbath is based, not on creation, as in
Exodus, but on the deliverance from
ACKNOWLEDGE
GOD! Hence the Lord’s day is made
commemorative of our Lord’s resurrection.
Ø
The laws relating to man. These embrace the succeeding six, thus:
o
The law
of the family. This is the first commandment with promise
(Ephesians 6:2).
o
The law
of social love. For we are to avoid not only murder, but the
unholy anger of which it is the
manifestation (Matthew 5:22).
o
The law of social purity. We must be pure in
thought, as well as in act, as our Lord has shown us (Matthew 5:28; also Mark
7:21-23).
o
The law of honesty. This must be in God’s sight and in man’s
(II Corinthians 8:21).
o
The law of veracity. Restraining the
turbulent tongue
(James 3:6, 9).
o
The law of contentment. The curbing of
covetousness, which is idolatry (Colossians 3:5).
The Divine Plan for the Conduct of
Our Life on Earth (vs. 6-21)
Had we been left in ignorance what the Divine intention in
human life was,
it had been a calamity indeed. Waste and failure must have
been the
disastrous result. For every honest-minded man, ample direction
from the
Supreme Source
of authority is supplied. The most cogent
argument is not
always the most convincing. God might here have
prefaced His ten words
with a proper assertion of His indisputable sovereignty.
But He prefers to
appeal to His recent interposition — His emancipation of
the people from
Egyptian bondage. As if He had said, “I, who released you
from grinding
misery — I, who created your liberty, and founded your
nation, now
command your loyalty. Let the lives which I have ransomed
be spent as I
now direct.”
·
HOW HUMAN LIFE IS TO BE DIRECTED GOD-WARD.
Ø
That God must be supreme in our
regard and affection. “Thou shalt
have none other
gods before me.” This claim is founded
in absolute right.
The Proprietor has complete dominion
over the work of his hands. If his
workmanship does not please him,
he is at liberty to destroy it. His claim is
further pressed on the ground of
His transcendent excellence. Essential and
unapproachable goodness is He;
hence His claims on worship rest upon His
intrinsic worth. And His claim
to reverent regard proceeds likewise on
human benefit. God’s glory and
man’s advantage are only different aspects
of the same eternal truth. To
give Him all is to enrich ourselves.
Ø
That God must be supreme in our acts of worship. To picture Him forth
by material images is an
impossibility. The plausible plea of
human nature
has always been that material
forms serve as aids to worship the Unseen.
But the facts of human
experience have uniformly disproved this
hypothesis. It may cost us severe exertion of mind to lift our souls
up to
the worship of the true God;
yet this very exertion is an unspeakable
advantage. God has
no pleasure in imposing on us hard tasks for their own
sake; yet, for the high gain to His servants, He does impose
them.
Throughout the Scriptures,
idolatry is represented as spiritual adultery;
hence, condescending to human
modes of speech, the displeasure of God is
described as jealousy.
Jealousy is quick-sighted, deep-seated, swift-footed.
All revelation of
God is an accommodation to human ignorance and
feebleness. The
visitation of punishment upon the children, and upon the
children’s children, is not to
be construed as excessively severe, much less
as unrighteous. The thrice-holy
God can never be unjust. The idolatrous
spirit would be entailed to
children by natural law; hence punishment
would culminate in final
disaster. The menace was gracious, because, if
parents will not abstain from
sin for their own sakes, they sometimes will
for the sake of their children.
The mercy shall be far more ample than the
wrath. The anger may be entailed
on a few, and that in proportion always
to the sin; the mercy shall flow, like a mighty river, to “thousands.”
(Exodus 3:7) True worship fosters love, and stimulates
practical obedience.
Ø
God’s authority
is supreme over our speech. The
faculty of speech is a
noble endowment, and
differentiates man from the inferior races. The
tongue is a mighty instrument,
either for evil or for good.
o
We
take God’s Name in vain when we make an insincere or superficial
profession of
attachment. We wear His Name lightly and frivolously if our
service is
formal and nominal.
o
We
take his Name in vain when we are unfaithful in the performance of
our vows. Men
pledge themselves to be His in moments of peril, and forget
their pledges
when safety comes.
o
We
take God’s Name in vain when we use it to give force and emphasis
to a falsehood.
Whether in private converse, or in a court of justice, we use
God’s Name to
produce a stronger persuasion in others’ minds, we
contract
fearful guilt if we use that sacred Name to bolster up a lie.
o
We take God’s Name in vain whenever we use
it needlessly, flippantly,
or in jest. The
moral effect upon men is pernicious, corrupting, deadly. The penalty is set
forth in negative language, but it is intended to convey
deep
impression. Others may hold it as a venial sin; not so God.
Ø God’s authority over the employment of
our time. All
time belongs to
God. He hath created it. Every successive breath
we inspire is by his
sustaining power. Since we are completely His, His
claim must be
recognized
through every passing minute. But just as He allows to men the
productions of
the soil, but requires the first-fruits to be presented to Him —
the earnest of
the whole; so also the first-fruits of our time He claims for
special acts of
worship. One day in seven He requires to be thus
consecrated;
but whether the first or the seventh depends wholly on the
mode of human
calculation. The grounds on which the institution rests are
many. Even God
felt it to be good to “rest” from His acts of creation.
(Genesis
2:2) In some sense, he ceased for a time
to work. Review and contemplation formed his Sabbath. His claims to have His day
observed are myriad-fold. If Sabbath observance was beneficial for Jews, is it
not for Gentiles?
If it was a
blessing to man in the early ages, has it now become a curse? Even the
inferior
creation was to share in the boon. Strangers and foreigners would
learn to admire
the gracious arrangement, and learn the
considerate
kindness
of Jehovah God.
·
WE LEARN HOW OUR LIFE IS TO BE CONDUCTED MANWARD.
Ø
In accordance with the degree of kinship. A parent has claims
beyond all
other men upon our love, obedience,
and service. Parents are deserving our
heartfelt honor. They claim this
on the ground of position and relationship,
irrespective of personal merit. Parents stand towards their children,
through all the years of
infancy, in the stead of God. For years the human
babe is wholly dependent upon
its parent; and this serves as schooling and
discipline, whereby it learns
soon in life its dependence upon a
higher
Parent yet. The disposition and conduct required in us towards our
parents is the same in kind as that required towards God. Filial reverence is
the first germ of true religion. Hence the promises of reward are akin. The family
institution is the foundation of the political
fabric. The health and well-being of home is the
fount of national prosperity. If parents
are honored, “it shall be well with thee.” This, a law for individuals, a
law for society,
and a law for nations.
Ø
Our duty towards all men. We are to respect their persons. Their life
and health are to be as dear to
us as our own. We are to respect their
virtue. The lower passions are
to be held in restraint. Occasions for lust
must be avoided. A bridle must be put upon the glances of the eye. We are
to respect their property. This duty has extensive scope. It means that we
should deal with others as if
they were ourselves. All dishonest dealing,
false representations in
commerce, overreaching in bargains, fraudulent
marks, are condemned. We are to have
respect to their reputation. It
ought
to please us as much to see a
conspicuous virtue, a generous quality, in
another, as if it shone in
ourselves. Idle tale-bearing is forbidden, as also
detraction,
slander, unfavorable interpretation of others’ deeds, and
suspicion of their
motives. (Peace is promoted when we
give others the
benefit of the doubt. CY – 2020)
We
are charged, as the servants of God, to “love
our neighbors even as ourselves.”
Ø
This Divine Law carries its sanctions into OUR INTERIOR LIFE!