Why We Study the Ten Commandments - Part Three

We've been stressing that we really need to know what God expects and what God demands of us. We as a nation need to know this if we are ever going to turn the faucet off again on the broken sewer line that is modern America. Think of what this country could be again if we only began to live by the Ten Commandments - if every day we would say,

"I will honor God and obey Him. I will be in church on Sunday to worship. I will honor god given authority. I will not murder or hate. I will not commit adultery or lust. I will not steal, lie, or cheat. I will not envy and covet."

Can you imagine what kind of a nation this would be if we all did that?

Do you see why we need the Ten Commandments? Can you see why we need to obey them? Can you see how that would transform our nation? We wouldn't need locks on our doors any more. We wouldn't need to worry about getting lost in our cities at night out of fear for our lives. Taxes would drop because we wouldn't have to keep our prisons open. Could you imagine if people really got serious and obeyed the Ten Commandments? But we need to know them in order to obey them.

But, why don't we? Is it because we look at them as this big, old list of horrendously restrictive rules written by some distant God out in heaven somewhere in space who is miserable and unhappy within Himself who wants to take it out on us and make sure we never have any fun either? Unfortunately, people look at God as just that. They think of Him as this cosmic killjoy who wants to keep us in a straight jacket and never wants to let us do any of the things that are fun and exciting. And if we step out of line, they think He's promised to zap us like a bug flying into one of those bug zappers.

How totally, totally wrong they are, and you are if you think that way. God is not a harsh old grandfather with a long white beard who doesn't want us to have any fun. That's not our God at all. On the contrary, the law was given to us by a God who loves us immensely. The commandments were given to us because keeping them is good for us. You really need to understand this. The commandments are almost a love letter from God to His people. They are a tender, heartfelt expression of God's love for us.

You can see this if you look at the chapter in Exodus before God gives the commandments. In Exodus 19:3-6, we can see exactly what God told Moses to say to the Israelites before He gave them the law. We read:

"And Moses went up to God, and the Lord called to him from the mountain saying, 'Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel: You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles wings and brought you to Myself. Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people; for all the earth is mine. And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words you shall speak."

How's that for a statement? This was their first stop on their wilderness wanderings. The memory of recent events were vivid in their minds. Oh, they remembered being trapped in Egypt and worked to the bone. They remembered the crack of the whip and the sting on their backs. they remembered their baby boys being fed to the crocodiles. And they remembered God bringing them out of that. It was God who heard their cries of distress. It was God who came and rescued them in might and power - sending the ten plagues, parting the red sea, feeding them and watering them daily, leading them with a pillar of fire. "I swooped down like an eagle and rescued you," says God. "I did that for you."

So would the God who was moved to compassion after watching their misery for four hundred years now subject them to more misery by bullying and browbeating them with Draconian rules and regulations? NO! God continues to love them by giving them these rules. We'll talk more about that next time.