The following is Pastor Nate’s teaching transcription from Calvary Monterey’s 3/16/21 Tuesday Night Service. We apologize for any transcription inaccuracies.
Exodus 20 -- The Ten Commandments
Here in Exodus chapter 20, we get to dig into the 10 commandments, the two tablets. God's speaking to the people of Israel. And as you might know, the 10 commandments, two tablets, we generally think that they're divided in two. There are some who believe they're divided into three. But generally, the idea is they're divided into two, the first four commandments being commandments that are directed towards our relationship with God, the second tablet, the final six commandments, our relationship with our society or our family or with others.
Introduction
Now, every commandment in these 10 commandments we're going to look at in this chapter are repeated in the New Testament. The only exception is the Sabbath day regulations. But even the Sabbath was shifted by the church from Saturday to Sunday, the day of the Lord, the day of worship before him.
And so what we're going to look at today here in chapter 20, is the 10 commandments themselves and the first handful of verses. And then when we get to verse 18, we're going to see the response of the people to the transmission of God speaking these commandments, and then we'll see the first part of the ceremonial law and God telling them the kind of altar that they should build before him.
Now, the reality is that the law that God communicated here in Exodus chapter 20 was not invented on this day, but merely codified. In other words, the 10 commandments are something that humanity generally knows. Take for instance the command, "Thou shall not commit adultery." You might find cultures and societies where polygamy is acceptable. But what you won't find are societies where people believe that running rampant and doing whatever you want, and a man taking any woman that he desires whenever he desires that woman, that that is somehow socially acceptable. In general, there's a belief that there should be some kind of commitment structure in marriage.
The idea that thou shall not still steal, you're not going to find very many societies that believe that theft is somehow an honorable thing. Now there might be some kind of tribal kind of society here and there that has some odd, strange, backwards kind of morality. But generally, the truths that you find in the 10 commandments are known throughout the world, known throughout humanity. So when God spoke these to the people of Israel, it was a codification of that which already existed.
I just finished reading The Abolition of Man by CS Lewis. And in that book, he makes the argument that generally, mankind, whether believer or not, or from various religions throughout the world, there's a general code of conduct that humanity knows about, and this moral law of God is communicated here in Exodus chapter 20 to the people of Israel. We need the 10 commandments. We need these guiding principles and laws to govern our lives and hearts. In our modern era, in our modern Western world, the major idea is that human beings were told should follow their heart, kind of the Disney mantra. But many people operate this way, that the chief aim of the human life is to pursue self-gratification. But this is actually terrible for society. Theft is terrible for society. That's following your heart. Adultery, terrible for society. That's following your heart. Not respecting a day of rest or worship before God is terrible. That's following the heart. And each one of these commandments is actually good for the society that is willing to submit to them.
First Tablet - Preamble
Even when the law, the 10 commandments are not perfectly obeyed, they are good for the people who generally are following along with them. So this is a powerful and important passage of scripture.
1 And God spoke all these words, saying, 2 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
Now in Exodus 19, we already saw the establishment of the way that this was all going to be delivered, the people of Israel approached the mountain that was great fear, trembling, lightning and thunder. It was an ominous kind of moment. And so with that, it says in verse one, "And God spoke all these words, saying, 'I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.'"
The important thing I want you to see in these first two verses is this. Number one, it says there in verse one that God spoke all these words. This is an extraordinary event, because God is transmitting this truth directly to the people. In fact later, in the book of Exodus, Moses is going to receive the ceremonial and legal laws or code for the people of Israel. Moses will receive it, write it down, and then communicate it to the people through the judges that Jethro advised him to set up.
But here, the 10 commandments are different, this is different. God Himself is directly speaking to the people. In one sense, you could say that the 10 commandments are actually not a collection of laws, that they're different from the rest of the laws found in Exodus and all the way through Deuteronomy. God speaks it directly. It's inscribed on tablets of stone by the finger of God rather than the writing of Moses. And many of the laws that Moses received later, they included the punishments that would come, the disciplines that would come if those laws were neglected. But the 10 commandments really don't have that kind of concept within them.
They might, some of them, the second and fifth appear to contain some penalties. But really, they're just kind of motivational clauses attached. Most of these are just statements, just detailed precepts, just laid out there for the people of Israel to follow basic instructions for the nation. And no human law court could begin to enforce these kind of laws that are prescribed here, things like thou shall not covet. What court is able to regulate a law like that? They're really not even like laws. They're just these divine dictates that should govern the heart of God's people. It's just really extraordinary that God would speak these words to His people. There's just nothing like this in human history. There's no temple from which these words emanate, no prophet, no myth, but just the direct voice of God.
Now, the other thing I want you to see is at the foundation of these 10 commandments is God Himself. As I've already mentioned, these commandments would be true whether the tablets existed or not. Even if God had never spoke these from Mount Sinai to the people of Israel, these commandments would exist because God exists. Even the fourth commandment to keep the Sabbath, if you really think about it, this is a commandment that's written, not just in the Bible, but it's written in nature itself.
I read of one theologian who said man is a seven day clock. If you just think about it, why is it that universally we seem to structure ourselves for this seven day week? There have even been experiments throughout human history where societies have attempted to take on an eight day week or attempted not to have a weekend or a time or a day of rest. But that's just the way we work. God designed us in this way. We always gravitate back to it because God has made us in this way. Man is a created being. Man is a seven day clock.
So even if God had not spoken these commandments to the people of Israel on this day, these are things that would be true about the way that the universe works and operates. So the foundation of these commandments is God Himself. Now there in verse one, God said to the people of Israel, "I am the Lord your God." He is already in these 10 commandments separating Himself from the pagan gods of that time. God is something.
Now, God of course, has been teaching the people of Israel about himself all throughout the book of Exodus. I mean you remember Abraham, Isaac and Jacob's families had then moved to the land of Egypt through the ministry of Joseph, 70 in number. And centuries had passed by. So the people of Israel, they've heard secondhand over the generations about God, but God now for the last 40 years or so has been teaching them about Himself. And then especially through the previous year, all of the plagues, Moses' presence, He is teaching them directly about who He is. He's teaching them that He's above the natural order, as the plagues affected the natural elements, things like water being turned into blood or frogs, following the dictates of God's commands. He also has demonstrated to them that He's personal in nature. He wants them to come out, be separate so that they could serve Him. He's speaking to them right here in this passage. He's a personal God. He's not distant, like the sun and the people who worship the God of the sun. He is close and intimate, wants to speak to them.
He's good, in that He has set them free from their slavery. He's made a way for them to come out and experience freedom, and He is holy. That's what they're experiencing in this moment with the lightning and the thunder and the trembling and all of that. And so God is teaching them about Himself. So he says, "I am the Lord your God.", who verse one, "Brought you out of Egypt and brought you out of slavery."
This is part of the setting in which the 10 commandments are delivered, the preamble so to speak. The 10 commandments flow from the victory in other words that God won for the people of Israel. You see, God's victory over Egypt was intended to set Israel free, but free for what? Not free to do whatever they pleased, free to serve God.
This should help you kind of have a concept or a or a view of what the 10 commandments really are. They're not slavery, more bondage. No, the 10 commandments are freedom. The kind of life that's described here is the freest kind of life that can be lived. Take that commandment, "Thou shalt not commit adultery." That sounds to a modern ear like slavery, bondage, restriction. But what many have discovered over the years is that refraining from adultery and remaining in the marriage covenant of your youth, it actually leads to a free kind of life, the person who's enslaved by their passions who has to deal with the consequences and ramifications of a sin like adultery.
Many people like that would communicate. I thought it would give me freedom. But it gave me the exact opposite. It actually bound me up and brought me into further slavery. No, the 10 commandments are a life of freedom. Thou shall not covet. Yeah, that's a life of freedom. It's a life that is unentangled by the attachments and the craving for the things that people possess as a free kind of life. So God had set them free and these 10 commandments were designed to help them continue to be free to preserve their freedom.
First Tablet
Commandment 1
3 “You shall have no other gods before me.
And this is exactly the order of the gospel itself, God saving us, setting us free, and then delivering His word to us so that we can continue to operate in the freedom that He has given. Now in verse three, we have the first commandment. It's very simple. “You shall have no other gods before me.” All the commandments stem from this first commandment. You shall have no other gods before me. This might resonate with you as a Christian here, as you think about the day that they asked Jesus what the greatest commandment is. And he said, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength. And the second is you shall love your neighbor as yourself."
What is the most important thing that I can do with my life Jesus? He said, "Love God. Love God with everything that you are." Here, the way it's framed is you shall have no other gods before me. God should be first. Our sole allegiance should be to the Lord. This is at the very heart of the covenant relationship. It's the foundation upon which everything else rests.
The people of Israel were to be monotheistic, worshiping only God. And if they did, that foundational love for Him, that foundational worship of Him would lead to then a beautiful and right relationship with others. In other words, to love God is foundational, and it comes before loving others. I think we'll love others poorly if we do not first love God. Now, this was logical in the sense that God had set them free. God had set them free, so He needed to be first in their lives. And I find a lot of people have this misunderstanding about what it means to surrender their life to Christ. So many people have their goals, their purposes, their desires, their designs, what they want out of life. And then they want to add a little Jesus to their lives.
But that's not the way it works. Here comes God speaking to the people of Israel, "I set you free, and you should have no other gods before me. I must be first, preeminent, the priority of your life, no one else should be worshiped." Now in Israel's history, from this point forward, there were times that they adopted other gods and it got them into great trouble. Often they worshiped a God named Baal. And often they worshiped a god named the Ashtaroth. Now Baal was the god of finance or success in your crops, so the god of money, and Ashtaroth was the god of fertility or the god of sex.
These are things that people often worship today, the god of money, the god of sex, but our God, he must be first. I created societies, He created the ability for us to create money so that we can do good for others, which is great. He created sex so that a married couple could enjoy each other and also procreate. But the reality is that these are gifts that flow from Him. He must be first.
And so the people of Israel, they needed to place God first. So the reason this is the first commandment is because this is the foundational element. And if this is the foundational element for the people of Israel, then I think it probably also encourages us concerning the importance of our personal devotion to God.
Now, if you think about a tree, the way a tree looks and operates and works, there's the part of the tree that you can see, the trunk, the branches, the leaves, and then there's the part of the tree that you cannot see, the root system underneath the ground. And what you can see is most definitely influenced by what you cannot see. And I think this is so often the way it works in the Christian life. What you can see, a person's joy, peace, their love, their gentleness, their kindness, their self control. These are things that you can see, that are influenced directly by the parts of them that you cannot see, their walk with God, their fear of him, placing God first, having no other gods before him. And so the first commandment, you shall have no other gods before me.
Commandment 2
4 “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 5 You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.
Now, here's the second commandment in verse four. He says, "You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness or anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments."
This second commandment is beautiful, "You shall not make for yourself any likeness of anything any carved image, in heaven above or on earth beneath, or that's in the water under the earth." Now what this is is yes, partly idolatry. But if the first commandment was no other gods, this second commandment is don't make an image that is in place of God. In other words, don't ever try to design anything that is a stand in for Yahweh, a stand in for Jehovah, a stand in for the Lord.
So it does speak to the sin of idolatry. But really, in its context, he's saying, "Don't make an idol that's meant to represent me." Now the people of Israel, of course, did almost immediately fall to this sin when Moses one day on the mountaintop, left the people behind, and Aaron, you remember, made a golden calf and said, "This is the Lord who delivered you from your slavery." So in a sense though, what he's saying is, "You can't worship the true God in a false way."
Now, some people have gone overboard with this commandment and taken it to mean that there is never an acceptable artistic carving or rendering that can ever be made in any kind of way. And of course, this is not true, and this even contradicts the Bible itself. Because even in the book of Exodus, God will command Moses to have gifted artisans carve out a lid on the mercy seat that has cherubim and angels engraved in it. So it's not that God is saying, no graven images, but no graven images that are made as an object of worship.
So this is discussing the way, the twisting of God, the mode rather than the object of worship. You see, the thing about God is that God is Spirit. He cannot be depicted with anything in his creation, stars, sun, moon, animals, fish, they do not communicate who he is in totality. As we look at God's creation, we might be blown away by who God is, but he is greater than anything that he has made.
And so the people of Israel had to refrain from this kind of activity. Part of the reason God needed to say this to them is because they've just come out of an Egyptian culture and were going into a Canaanite culture that did this kind of thing constantly and made all kinds of images to worship the deities that they believed in. But the people of Israel needed to refrain from that kind of activity.
Now, in this little second commandment, God says in verse five, "I, the Lord your God am a jealous God." Now for us. We generally attach a negative connotation to the word jealous. We think of a jealous girlfriend or boyfriend or spouse or something like that. But perhaps for us, we might think of it in God's nature, as God's zeal for His people, His love for His people. And of course, the Bible tells us that the Spirit yearns jealously for us, for His people. So what God is saying is don't make another God because I am a jealous God. You're my people. I'm zealous for you.
Now another thing I should mention before we go to the third commandment is that there in verse five, God said, "I visit the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me." Now, this stands out to many of us as an interesting statement from the Lord. We wonder, what is this mean? What is he saying here? Some might even feel that it's unfair for God to do this kind of thing. But of course, one thing we have to confess is that sin affects the next generation. And often, a hatred for God in one generation is passed down to the second, third or fourth generations.
We should also recognize that this is in contrast to what God says he will do for the opposite kind of person. He says in verse six, "But showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments." Perhaps we're to take this as I will show my steadfast love and kindness to thousands of generations of those who love me and keep my commandments. We also have to cross reference this with other passages like Deuteronomy 24, verse 16, which says, "Fathers will not be put to death because of their children, nor shall children be put to death because of their fathers. Each one will be put to death for his own sins."
So each generation has to stand on their own before God, and has an opportunity to walk with God or not based on their own decisions, but with God, it seems to be pointing out here is that look, you've got an opportunity here. You can be in the category of the blessed or the category of the punished. But the choice is yours, don't make an idol or a graven image of worship.
Commandment 3
7 “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.
Now, the third commandment is this, verse seven, "You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain." Now, what does it mean to take the name of God in vain? It's definitely much more than cursing, perhaps you grew up in a home, where that's all the taking of the Lord's name in vain was if you said the name Jesus in a wrong kind of way as a substitute for a curse word, then that was taking the Lord's name in vain. And I think certainly, it would qualify as taking the Lord's name in vain. But I think it's much more than simply cursing. It's got to be a holding or promoting a low view of God. If the second commandment prohibits making physical representations of God because they'll always be inaccurate, then this command prohibits verbal misrepresentations of God, because of course, they're inaccurate. You don't want to inaccurately communicate God.
And I think that's probably partly what's happening here. He's saying, "Look, you can't misrepresent me. You can't take my name and abuse it, take it lightly miscommunicate me to the nations. You must represent me well. You must speak the truth about who I am. What I am saying to you about myself, you must then communicate to others." So I think there's much more there in taking the name of the Lord in vain than just simply cursing or making a vow before God that you break or something like that. But the holding or promoting a low view of God, saying things about God that are untrue of His nature and character.
Commandment 4
8 “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. 11 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
Now the last tablet, the last commandment on the first tablet is this, verse eight. "Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male servant or your female servant or your livestock or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days, the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them and rested on the seventh day. Therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy."
Right here in this fourth commandment, God institutes the day of the Sabbath, the Sabbath system for the people of Israel. And to me, this is an amazing system that God established, a universal day of rest celebrated every week, on the same day of the week, by the entire nation. In fact, God points out that everyone needs to partake of this day. This is a very humane thing that God is doing. Everyone is to partake in it, your son, your daughter, your male servant, your female servant, even livestock and sojourners get this day of rest there in the nation of Israel. This is something beautiful that God established for his people.
This would be amazing and have great impact on the worship in Israel. They'd have time to be devoted to God, to think about God, to worship God, to pray to God. And so it will also be very impactful for the family. They'd have time to refrain from going out to the fields and buying and selling and working and have time to prioritize the most important human relationships in their lives. So they have great impact upon the church, so to speak, the congregation of Israel but also on the family and when both of those things are healthy, a society is healthy. You see, God gave this day as a gift to the people of Israel. Jesus highlighted this in his time because the Sabbath had become a mockery because of the religious leaders' interpretations on what the Sabbath was. They were so highly restrictive. You could only travel so far. You could only prepare food so much and the rules were so restrictive and it was so easy to inadvertently break one of their inane Sabbath requirements, that it became a burden for the people.
So Jesus said in Mark 2 verse 27, "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath." This wasn't some obscure restriction, Jesus said that God was just putting on man to test them to see if they'd be allegiant to Him, but a gift that He gave to humanity. It was a day each week for them to set apart for sacred things, to set apart for God. Now we live here, at least in the West, in the society that really just operates seven days a week. And every once in a while we have those reminders of a past time, where people carved out Sunday and set it aside for a day of rest and family and for the Lord. Every once in a while, maybe you try to go to eat lunch at Chick-fil-A on a Sunday, and you realize, "Oh, there's some people that still think that this is a special day."
There's actually even societies that are far from God, far from Christ, even here on earth today, that still will on Sunday shut down their society, shut down their businesses and just have a bare bones operation one day a week. And those economies get by. Those sports teams for all the kids still happen. They are able to deal with it on the six days of the week. But that seventh day is meant to be a day of rest before God.
And I think in the present church age that we're in, even though this commandment, the fourth commandment is not repeated in the New Testament, we're not to on Friday night all the way through until Saturday night have a day of Sabbath or rest before the Lord, although it couldn't hurt. Our day has been shifted to Sunday. The early church began worshiping Jesus on Sunday, because that's the day that he rose from the grave.
And I would encourage you to practice a day of Sabbath before God. Come to worship at your local congregation, celebrate Him, serve Him a little bit in that context and setting, eat with people after service is over with, rest, take a nap, have a day of rest before the Lord. But it's a beautiful thing to live this Sabbath kind of life. Personally, I think it's good policy to give your first hour of every day to God, your first day of the week, Sunday to God, to give Him the first of your finances, and to even take little times away beyond just the one day a week of rest, because God will use that in your life to speak to you, to recharge you, so the Sabbath commandment, the fourth commandment.
Second Tablet
Commandment 5
12 “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.
Now the second tablet begins with the fifth commandment, verse 12, "Honor your father and your mother that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you." Now all the commandments include a negative or written in the negative, thou shalt not, except for the fourth commandment, which we just read, keep the Sabbath. And the fifth commandment, honor your father and mother. This is put in the positive. It's not just something to refrain from. But this is something that we are to do.
Now this, honoring father and mother, this is one of those building blocks for a society that is so essential. And what God says is, "If you do this, your days will be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving to you." They were about to go to the land of Canaan. And if they establish the kind of society that honored their elders, honored their mother and father, they would have long range, long term success in that land.
Part of what would flow from this is that honor given to parents would then lead to honor being distributed to the right people and places all throughout the society. In other words, if children could learn that their parents were worthy of honor, and if children would give to parents their rightful authority, then children would have an easier time as they aged giving honor and ascribing authority to correct people all throughout life. Their criminal behaviors would decrease. Crime would decrease, as people knew how to honor their father and mother. Education would go well, as people were better students because they knew how to honor their father and their mother. Business transactions would be healthier and more respectful, because these were people who knew how to honor their father and their mother. Their relationship with kings and governing authorities would go better because they knew how to honor their father and their mother. Every authority figure that came into their lives would be treated better, and things would go better and smoother, because these are people who knew how to honor their father and their mother.
This is such a key to the entire community. Now, this of course is a hard thing to do. It's not something that's written just to children, those who are still children, but who are adults, yet they have parents that they need to take care of as they age. It's difficult in those older years, and I don't know many people who have watched their parents age and who have watched their parents die, and they've taken care of them in their older years. I don't know many people who felt that they have cared for their parents perfectly. It's a hard thing to do. And sometimes there's histories and bitter experiences that make caring for an older parent even more difficult. But in general, if this is practiced, society is helped.
And that's why He says there in verse 12, that if you do this, your days will be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving to you. Paul had a little commentary on this in the book of Ephesians, when he said that this is the first commandment that has a promise attached to it. You get to this fifth commandment, this is the first one that's got this little promised bonus. You do this one, and you'll live long in the land. And what does it mean that obedience to parents will lead to a long life? Well, it's not magic. That's not what he's saying. It's just wisdom. It's just wisdom. It's kind of like when we read Proverbs, so many of the Proverbs are just wisdom. They're just understandings from life. Proverbs 16:31 says, "Gray hair is a crown of glory, it is gained in a righteous life." I know many people that have gray hair, who are not very godly at all. Their crown is not a crown of glory. It's not gained in a righteous life. But generally for the people of Israel back in that era, if you lived a long life, that meant that you were doing something right.
If you lived long enough to have gray hair, you must have been obedient to God and not living foolishly. So in general, for them it was godliness leads to length of life. So this promise from God is a way of declaring how a great life is unleashed upon children who learned to obey and honor their parents. And I would just say for a moment to any parent who has younger children, just to remember that a lack of discipline and a lack of teaching or training your children how to honor and respect you and your word and the dictates that you're laying down in your home, you're actually harming your children if you create that kind of environment. If you tell your children not to do something, and they defy you, you need to correct them for what they've done without anger, without emotion, without lashing out at them. But you've got to hold them to the things that you've asked them to do. And once a child figures out that what you tell them to do really doesn't matter and they can just do whatever they want, then they're going to have a difficult time learning discipline and honoring their father and their mother.
Commandment 6
13 “You shall not murder.”
So be a person who is honorable in the first place, and make it as easy on them as possible, but teach them how to honor their parents. Now, the sixth commandment, verse 13 is simple, "You shall not murder.". that's what He said, "You shall not murder." Now some people have taken this to mean that every form of killing is murder. But the rest of the Bible should disabuse us of that notion. Even before this commandment is given, God has given in places like in the Noahic covenant when Noah got off of the ark, the descriptions are prescriptions for capital punishment itself. War is also included in Scripture. And even in the New Testament, we're given an understanding that God has established militaries and police forces and all of that for the keeping of evil at bay.
So the idea that all killing is murder would be incorrect. However, there are forms of killing that are murder as well. Abortion in our modern era, would be one of those kinds of crimes. I think you shall not murder should affect our perspective on what abortion is. We should refrain from it because God said you shall not murder. You see, the thing is, is that man is made in God's image. And so we're to respect the image of God here on earth. We're to watch out and care for others and even things I've mentioned, like capital punishment or war, they should as much as possible be a kind of a last resort, not something that we prefer to do. And by the way, I'm not trying to make a case for or against capital punishment.
I have my own feelings on the matter and how far we've mucked up that whole system in our modern times. But the idea here that I'm trying to communicate is that God is talking about a premeditated where you are taking a human life. There's no justification for it in any kind of way. Now, when Jesus came along, it's interesting. He expanded on this sixth commandment by saying, "You've heard that it was said of those of old, you shall not murder. But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment, whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council and whoever says you fool will be liable to hellfire."
So Jesus helps us understand that there's a deeper principle here for some of these commandments. You shall not murder but we shouldn't just say to ourselves, "I've never killed anybody. I've never taken anybody's life." But have you ever assassinated someone's character? Have you ever said things about a person privately that you would not say to them to their face? Of course, all of us are guilty of this kind of crime. And we should be able to go back to the sixth commandment and say to ourselves, "This should instruct the way that I speak and the way that I feel about the people that are around me."
Commandment 7
14 “You shall not commit adultery.”
The seventh commandment, verse 14, "You shall not commit adultery." You shall not commit adultery. Now, in the rest of the law, there are other commands about fornication. But adultery is distinguished from fornication. If you are committing adultery, you are fornicating. But if you're fornicating, you might not be committing adultery. Adultery is definitely a sexual sin. But it has to do with the breaking of a marital bond and covenant. And this, of course, is a plague in our modern culture. Personally, I think that much of the moral calamity and upheaval that we're seeing in our modern day, where people just have no idea what is right and wrong when it comes to sexual ethics. And even many Christians who are up in arms at the foolishness, the folly, the lack of wisdom that is attached to the LGBTQ movement and all of that, I think much of these things have actually had their roots in adultery.
Back in the day, when no fault divorce was established, and we just as a society and culture said, "You know what? The main purpose must be that I can pursue my passions. And so I'm no longer in love, I'm no longer wanting this relationship and I want to be free to pursue what I want to pursue.", began with men leaving their marriages, women leaving their marriages, and it has cascaded into a kind of a Pandora's box of various sins.
So that becomes the thing. I want to do what I want to do, I want to leave this marriage. Well then, abortion becomes a thing. I want to do what I want to do. I want to end this pregnancy. And then homosexual unions and marriage become a thing. I want to do, because this is how I feel, this is what I want to pursue. It has a cascading effect. So the command you shall not commit adultery actually is a great governor or guide for an entire society because it keeps a restraint upon desire that is actually destructive. No one's denying that the desire might be there. No one's denying that a husband or a wife might have an impulse to leave or act out against the marriage, perhaps even "fall out of love". But the reality is that it is good for the person, it is good for the family, it is good for the society, it is good for the church, for them to remain in that married state.
So I realize that many have failed in this area of their lives. The law as I'm going to talk about in a moment isn't designed to get us to heaven. In one sense, the law is designed to point us to Jesus. We can't keep these things perfectly. We need him to save us from our sins. He's the only one who fulfilled the law. And there's hope in Christ. You can repent of your sin, just name it, what it is, confess it to the Lord, don't deny it, and go to him. He can forgive, he can cleanse you, he can show you how to be restored.
Commandment 8
15 “You shall not steal.”
The eighth commandment is this, verse 15, "You shall not steal." Now, this is important because it was establishing there for the people of Israel a right to own property, a right to own property. Just the idea, you shall not steal communicates oh, people own things. So I can't just take whatever I want because someone is allowed to own something else. They're allowed to have possessions. And a stable society has to do that. They have to respect the property of others. Now, in the New Testament, this goes even further. Paul says, "Let the thief no longer steal.", in Ephesians 4:28. "But rather, let him labor doing honest work with his own hands so that he may have something to share with anyone in need."
Rather than taking, the Christian says, "Look, my goal isn't to just not steal. My goal is to work hard and to actually give, I want to give to others rather than taking what doesn't belong to me, I want to give to others what doesn't belong to them." And of course, we've got to remember that stealing can come in the form of the way we treat others, but we also must not steal from God Himself.
Commandment 9
16 “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.”
Then the ninth commandment, verse 16, "You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor." Now this has to do with words, with what we speak and the telling of the truth. Keeping this law would help maintain stability in a society by protecting individuals' reputations, and it's very easy to tarnish someone's reputations very quickly with your words. It's very difficult to repair someone's reputation with your words. I always remember a story of a man who came to a pastor in a small village many years ago in a different era, and confessed to him that he had been a slander, that he had gossiped about the pastor and asked for his forgiveness. And the pastor said, "Yes, you are forgiven. But what I want you to do is go and take a feather and put it on the doorstep of every person that you lied to about me."
And so the man went out and put a feather on that doorstep of every single person and then came back to the pastor. And the pastor then said, "Now I want you to go and collect all of those feathers." And the man said, "Well, I can't. I mean, obviously, by now they've blown away. Who knows where those feathers have gone?" And the pastor said to him, "Well, I forgive you. I definitely forgive you. But what you have said about me are like those feathers. It's just out there. Who knows where what you have said has gone?"
And so we must be a people who control our tongue, who tame our speech and don't spread lies about others. I fear for many Christians who think that the whole point of being courageous and godly is to speak their minds all the time. Well, a mark of maturity is to learn how to control your tongue.
Commandment 10
17 “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.”
The 10th and final commandment is this, in verse 17, "You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife or his male servant or his female servant or his ox or his donkey or anything that is your neighbor's." This is kind of a general blanket statement here to wrap up the 10 commandments. So safeguard against many other sins. And kind of everything is mentioned. Don't covet a house, a wife, a servant, an ox, a donkey, or anything, or to put in modern terms, don't covet a home or a relationship or someone's staff, their career, their vehicle, or anything that they possess.
Now we live in a society that stokes covetousness, stokes the fire, the flames of covetousness. I think in one sense, economies are built in different ways. But I think in one sense, you could say that the Western economy, or at least the United States economy, is built on covetousness, because we're a consumer economy. Our economy isn't really grounded on the production. It's grounded in large part on consumerism. Christmas time comes around, and this is how many companies get in the black. It's consumed. They need consumers to partake, and this is stoked and fanned into flame by covetousness itself.
Now, this is the first commandment really that is dealing with a heart level sin. Like I said earlier, how could a court of law judge someone on the 10th commandment? I mean, you shall not commit adultery. That could be proved in a court of law, but you shall not covet. How do you handle that? How do you deal with that? He's not saying don't act out on your covetousness. But don't covet in general. It's a feeling. It's an inward desire.
In fact, this is the commandment that seems to have brought Paul the apostle to his knees, and prepared him to receive Christ. He said in Romans chapter seven that if the law had not existed, he would not have known that he was a sinner, because he did not know what it was to covet until he read this commandment, you shall not covet. It's like he realized, there's this thing inside of me, how do I just not covet? It's there, it's present. I have these desires for things that are not mine.
And he realized that there was an issue of the heart and that he needed the gospel of Jesus Christ to cleanse his heart, to renew his heart, and to make him new. But as far as a commandment goes, or a guide goes for society, this lack of covetousness or contentment is such a healthy thing for a human being to engage in.
Paul also said in Philippians chapter four, that he'd learned the secret of contentment, to learn the secret of how to abound in any and every circumstance, to face plenty at times and face hunger or abundance and need at times. He felt he could do all things through Christ who strengthened him, and it was contentment that he knew Christ would help him to perform.
Fear of the Lord
18 Now when all the people saw the thunder and the flashes of lightning and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking, the people were afraid and trembled, and they stood far off 19 and said to Moses, “You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, lest we die.” 20 Moses said to the people, “Do not fear, for God has come to test you, that the fear of him may be before you, that you may not sin.” 21 The people stood far off, while Moses drew near to the thick darkness where God was.
Now, these are the 10 commandments. "And when the people", verse 18, "Saw the thunder and the flashes of lightning, and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking, the people were afraid and trembled, and they stood far off, and said to Moses, 'You speak to us and we will listen. But do not let God speak to us, lest we die.' Moses said to the people, 'Do not fear for God has come to test you, that the fear of him may be before you that you may not sin.' The people stood far off while Moses drew near to the thick darkness where God was."
The people of Israel when they heard this law delivered, they feared, they actually stood far away. They wanted Moses to become their mediator. The Bible, in other places, calls the law of God, speaks of it like a mirror that reveals what's happening inside of us. And for the people of Israel, that seems to be exactly what happened. They heard this law. They said, "Look, we're glad to know God's word, but we want Him to speak to us so that you will then, Moses speak to us." This drives us or points us to two things that are better about our new covenant relationship with Christ. First of all, for them, it was terror that drove them to this initial thrust of obedience. For us though, in the New Covenant, it's love. It's love for what God is, what he's done for us that drives us to want obedience. And for them, this fear and terror drove them to want a mediator, and their mediator would be Moses. But of course, we have a much better mediator in Jesus Christ himself who came as the god man to make a way for us to be near to God.
Appropriate Altar for God
22 And the Lord said to Moses, “Thus you shall say to the people of Israel: ‘You have seen for yourselves that I have talked with you from heaven. 23 You shall not make gods of silver to be with me, nor shall you make for yourselves gods of gold. 24 An altar of earth you shall make for me and sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your peace offerings, your sheep and your oxen. In every place where I cause my name to be remembered I will come to you and bless you. 25 If you make me an altar of stone, you shall not build it of hewn stones, for if you wield your tool on it you profane it. 26 And you shall not go up by steps to my altar, that your nakedness be not exposed on it.’
Now the Lord said to Moses in verse 22, as we close out the chapter, "Thus you shall say to the people of Israel, 'You have seen for yourselves that I've talked with you from heaven. You shall not make gods of silver to be with me, nor shall you make for yourself gods of gold. An altar of earth you shall make for me and sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your peace offerings, your sheep and your oxen. And every place where I cause my name to be remembered, I will come to you and bless you. If you make me an altar of stone, you shall not build it of hewn stones, for if you will, you wield your tool on it, you profane it, and you shall not go up by steps to my altar, that your nakedness may not be that your nakedness be not exposed on it.'"
Now here, the people of Israel, they're immediately given by God. And what we're going to see in the following chapters is the ceremonial and civil law for the people of Israel. But here, they're given kind of the first attached law to the Decalogue or the 10 commandments. And the idea here is that hey, here's the 10 commandments, do these, but you're not going to do these perfectly, you're going to fail.
So we're going to establish an altar, an altar for burnt offerings, an altar for fellowship offerings. There's going to have to be the shedding of blood. And of course, this is foreshadowing of Jesus, the ultimate bloodshed, who would cause the Passover, ultimately for God's people. See, the law condemns, the law convicts. And so right here embedded in the law, God established a way to deal with sin, a way to offer sacrifices.
And we need this of course, we need the altar. An altar literally means a place of death or a killing place. But of course, we have the cross of Jesus Christ. It's his blood that provides a way for us back to God. Now, one thing I should point out is the kind of altar that God wanted them to build. He said, "Build it from the earth, build it out of stone, and don't make any stairs, because if you climb the stairs and your nakedness would be exposed." This is kind of a counter to many of the altars of the pagan religions around the people of Israel at that time. They would make elaborate altars and have major steps and they would kind of expose themselves in their times of worship and God said, "I'm not interested in any of that. I'm not interested in your elaborate efforts to approach me. It's going to be a basic alter made of the substance of the earth that I have made. You're going to sacrifice animals that I have given to you. Blood will be shed, and you're going to approach me as this holy and righteous God."
And so keep it simple. Don't make it ornate. And eventually, you'll find that you're grateful for these times where you can come and worship me because of your failure to keep the law in your need for grace.
But in the weeks to come, we're going to get into the actual ceremonial and civil law for the people of Israel. And as I've shared earlier, there's so much for us in this second half of the book of Exodus. I hope you'll join us as we continue on in God's word, but may the Lord help us obey his commandments even today. God bless you church.