Here's what the Ten Commandments do that no other law
in culture or in early civilization did—the Ten Commandments elevate
everybody's status in that community. The Ten Commandments say there's not
going to be a king that has special rights, there's not going to be a prophet
that has special privileges, there's not going to be a ruling class that gets
to make the rules. There's not going to be a person who is above the law and
who makes the law. Everybody in this community, everybody in this nation is
going to be accountable to God only and has to obey the Law He's given.
Basically, everybody in this community has value—men, women and even slaves.
And while this may sound normal in our world, I'm telling you, there was not a
spot of real estate in the world where this kind of law was conducted back
then. It was so new and so different to them that they had a very difficult
time adjusting.
In their culture, kings typically thought of
themselves as god. So the king could do whatever he wanted—he was above the
law. The king made the law, the king changed the law, the king ignored the law
and those who were close to the king could do the same. The more money you had,
the more power you had. The more power you had, the more leverage you had with
the law and against the law. But all of a sudden, God comes along and says to
Moses, “Not in My land. Not in My nation. Not in My economy. Everybody is on
equal footing.”
And that's why the Ten Commandments were such a brilliant,
God-given idea. God said, “No one is above My Law. Moses, as leader of the
Israelites, you are not above the Law either. I am the Lawgiver and you are the
Law keepers; everybody is ultimately accountable to Me.” It was brilliant, it
was unheard of, it was uncomfortable—especially when compared to other
countries with other rules.
God shifts gears. He says, “Look, I have said that I
want you to honor Me, and now I want to talk to you about honoring other
people.” So what kind of people do you think He mentions first? The king? No.
How about Moses? No. The leaders? No. So who would be next? Listen to what God
says in Exodus 20:12: “Honor your father
and your mother” (NIV). Is it really that
important? Yes, it is. In fact, it's so important that it's the only
commandment with a promise attached to it. Listen to the rest of it: “Honor your father and your mother, so that
you may live long in the land the Lord
your God is giving you” (Exodus 20:12 NIV).
B. It is an interesting promise because this was a
nation of people who had no land yet. They had all the people, wealth and
leadership, and now they have the Law—but they still had no land. But God tells
them He’s going to bring them to their land. And once He gets them there,
they’re going to have an economy, they’re going to build buildings, they’re
going to have an army, they’re going to have currency, they're going to be like
a nation, but God doesn't want them to ever forget that they were once a people
without a land. So if they honor their parents, they live long in the land. And
if they don’t? Well, the God who put them in the land could take them right
back out. It is kind of like when you've heard your parents joke, “I brought
you into this world, and I will take you out.” Kind of sounds similar, doesn’t
it? But listen to this. God doesn't say, “If you don't honor me, or if you don't murder
or steal . . . ” He says, “If you
don't as a culture continue to honor your father and your mother, I will take
you out of your land.” That’s a pretty serious consequence for a commandment
that doesn’t seem like that big of a deal.
See,
God knew that once they were successful, once they were wealthy, once they were
powerful, they would have a tendency to import other ideas and other religions
and other values from the nations surrounding them. God knew there would be a
tendency to say, “Mom and Dad, I know that whole God thing was great for you,
and I know the whole Ten Commandments thing was great for you, and I know I've
got a picture of Moses on the mantel, but we’re sophisticated people now. We’re
modern ancient people, and you are just ancient people. We are different—we are
past this.” And the tendency would not just be to show disrespect to their
parents, but to abandon the values that God had handed down to their parents.
And God says, “I want you to be a light and a reflection of My glory to the
surrounding nations. And if you allow the family to unwind and dissolve, I'm
going to have to do something about it. When you abandon those values, when you
dishonor your father and your mother, I’m going to rip you out of the land
because you are not there for your sake alone.”
It's
amazing. If Moses had made these commandments up, he would've gotten his name
in there somewhere. He would have added an 11th commandment: “Do what Moses
says.” But he didn’t. These laws came from God. So following the commandment to
honor your parents, God says: “You shall
not murder” (v. 15 NIV). The rest of the commandments basically tell us to
honor other people around us. “You shall not murder” means honor other people’s
bodies. The next one says: “You shall not
commit adultery” (v. 14 NIV). That means honor marriage. The next one says:
“You shall not steal,” meaning honor
people’s possessions (v. 15 NIV). The
next one says: “You shall not give false
testimony against your neighbor” (v. 16 NIV). Honor others' reputations.
In other words, the whole Law is about honoring God
and honoring other people. You can't steal from people, you can't lie about
people, you can't steal the wife of a person who doesn't have anything else but
a wife to steal. You can't take advantage of your position or your power.
Everybody is on equal footing, and these laws apply to everyone. Do
you know what God is communicating through these commandments? That He is
concerned not only about how you treat other people, but that He is also
concerned about how people treat you. He’s communicating that you are
invaluable to Him, that these were men and women made in His image. Regardless
of what they have or don't have, or who they are connected to or where they
live, their status is elevated because of God's commitment to them—as reflected
in this amazing Law.
And
then God gets to the last commandment. This is the unenforceable commandment.
This is the commandment that has to do with what is going on inside of you.
This is the commandment that really stands apart from all the rest of the
commandments because it is not something you know somebody else has actually
done. Listen to this: “You shall not
covet your neighbor's house” (v. 17 NIV).
“Covet”
means to strongly desire; it really means to lust after, not just physically,
but to want something so bad that you can’t stop thinking about it. Lust is not
just a sexual thing. It can also mean to want something that somebody else has
so much that it hurts your relationship with that person.
Listen
to the rest. He says: “You shall not
covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his
manservant or his maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to
your neighbor” (Exodus 20:17 NIV). Coveting an ox would be like coveting
your neighbor's SUV; coveting a donkey would be like coveting your neighbor's
car. And then just in case someone tries to think of something not covered by
this commandment, God says not to covet anything that belongs to your neighbor.
God is saying to the nation, “Look, you are not just accountable to God for how
you behave,
you are accountable to God for what you think. You're not just accountable
to God for what you do, you're accountable to God for what you're thinking
about doing. You are not just accountable to God for adultery, you're
accountable to God for thinking about adultery.”
God chose to put this in
the commandments not to make His people good, but to make them free.
He says, “I know that coveting leads to stealing and
coveting leads to adultery and coveting leads to lying about your neighbor and
coveting leads to dishonoring your parents. Coveting is what leads to all of
this stuff. So I want you to cut it off at the root. I want you to guard your
heart and your mind. So that these other commandments don't become an issue for
you.” He wants us to honor Him and to honor people. And when we cut the problem
off at the root, we live free of the enslavement our sin gets us in.
When
you stand back and look at the whole thing, it is very clear that the Ten
Commandments aren't a behavioral code to somehow win our acceptance with God.
They are given to a people who are already accepted by God. He wanted this to
be His nation that reflected His glory. He wanted them to understand that to
depart from the Law was to move in the direction of something bad and harmful.
And ultimately they would pay. In fact, at the end of the Ten Commandments
something happens.
Here
is what God was pleading with them to do; He was saying, “Would you please,
please, please allow My greatness to be all the motivation you ever need to
obey Me? Would you just trust Me? Would you be so overwhelmed that when you're
tempted to steal or covet, or you're tempted to say bad things about your
neighbor, will you remember who you are dealing with? Will you not learn the
hard way? Will you just trust Me?”
He
is not trying to make you good; He's just trying to keep you free. And the
question for me and the question for you is will we trust Him?
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