Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Wednesday's Word...TEN: Unto Others (Part 5 of 5)

This is part 5 of 5. Find part 1 here and part 2 here and part 3 here and part 4 here.

What happens next in the Ten Commandments is astounding. Because after God says, “I want to be the one and only God; don’t make any statues to Me or idols to Me; I want to be in the middle of everything; don't misuse My name; take a day off to remember Me,” after He talks about Himself, Himself, Himself, God does a big turn and spends the rest of the commandments telling us how to treat others. He says, “Everybody you come into contact with is valuable, so treat them right. Everybody you have a relationship with is valuable to Me, so treat them right. I want you to honor Me, and then I want you to honor everybody else around you. Even the people you don’t like are valuable.” You can't even imagine how astounding this would have been for the Israelites to hear at this time.


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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