The Ten Words
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A few years ago, comedian and television host, Stephen Colbert, interviewed a congressman about various issues. This particular congressman had co-sponsored a bill to place the Ten Commandments in the House of Representatives and the Senate. He also sponsored a bill to place the Ten Commandments in courthouses around the country.
Colbert, in his usual wit, and armed with Biblical knowledge (himself, a very devout Catholic), asked the congressman: “What are the commandments?”
The congressman said, “What are all of them? You want me to name them all?”
“Sure,” said Colbert.
The congressman said, “Don’t murder. Don’t lie. Don’t steal...”
[Colbert counts with his fingers]
Congressman: “I can’t name them all.”
Colbert ended the exchange with some humorous facial expressions and a parting shot about keeping the sabbath day holy.
>It’s interesting, isn’t it? This congressman sponsoring a bill to have the Ten Commandments displayed in public and judicial buildings because he felt so strongly about their importance, couldn’t name the Ten Commandments. He actually named the 6th, 9th, and 8th commandments, before admitting he couldn’t name all of them.
I’d be surprised to meet anyone who could rattle them off, all ten of them, and then in order.
Can you name the Ten Commandments? Before the last month or so, and without study, I might have been able to come up with all 10 of them, but certainly not in order.
The congressman is not alone. Several reports have shown that most Americans do not know the Ten Commandments. Many Christians cannot name them either.
The Ten Commandments are important to know. It might be good to have them committed to memory, if for nothing else than you might be put on the spot and asked to rattle them off sometime.
I’ve been well-served by some drawings Kathleen Clymer gave to me; they’ve really helped me in memorizing the order of the Ten Words, so I share them with you here; maybe they’ll be of help to you.
Picture Slideshow (one at a time).
It’s important to know what the Ten Commandments are, but far more important to know them, to understand why they are given, the gospel pattern in them, the arrangement of them, and the attributes of God displayed in each.
>If you have your Bible (and I hope you do) please turn with me to Exodus 20. If you are willing and able, would you stand with me for the reading of God’s Holy Word:
1 And God spoke all these words:
2 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.
3 “You shall have no other gods before me.
4 “You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. 5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.
7 “You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.
8 “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping 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, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. 11 For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
12 “Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you.
13 “You shall not murder.
14 “You shall not commit adultery.
15 “You shall not steal.
16 “You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.
17 “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”
May the Lord add His blessing to the reading of His Holy Word!
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Before we jump into the Ten Commandments, we have to give careful attention to verses 1 and 2. These verses are not there merely to introduce the Ten Commandments, but have deep significant meaning themselves.
1 And God spoke all these words:
We spent a good amount of time last week considering this great truth: God speaks. God spoke these words in the hearing of His people. That’s why these are sometimes called “the Ten Words”—they are words from God to the people directly.
God speaks to His people, letting them know how it is they are to follow Him, obey Him, glorify Him.
Remember: this is God speaking. Any time you read this book, God speaks.
2 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.
Many people leap right over verse 2 when reading the Ten Words, and they miss the important ordering here.
Before the Ten Commandments, a statement about God’s salvation is made: “I am the Lord, your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.”
“Yeah, yeah…we know. Come on! How many times have we heard this? How many times do we have to hear you say that?”
This is the gospel. This is the good news of their deliverance, their salvation from the hand of their enemy; this is rescue from slavery and certain death. This is a reminder of God’s grace to them.
In essence, God is saying, “Remember, before I give you any instructions, before I put any tasks on your to-do list, remember that I freed you by my grace, all on my own. Remember, you did absolutely nothing to earn this. Remember, I gave you new life. Remember that you are mine because I chose you, not because you were deserving. Remember all that before you hear me call you to obedience.”
We need to rest in verse 2 for a bit.
2 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.
We are performance-based people living in a performance-driven society. Get good grades, get a scholarship. Achieve measurable work goals, get a raise. Practice hard, get better.
We are almost hardwired to think: “I have to do in order to get.”
And we let this spill-over into our thinking about God.
“If God is going to love me, I’ve got to do a bunch of good stuff.”
“If God is going to save me, I have to clean myself up and make myself presentable to Him.”
“If I’m going to be a Christian, I have to do this and this and this and this.”
Before the Israelites do anything religious, before they obey the Lord, before they have done anything to earn anything, the Lord God brings them out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.
That’s salvation—full and free. That’s salvation—entirely of the Lord. That’s salvation—by grace alone.
Verse 2 is crucial to our understanding of the Ten Words, the Ten Commandments.
God’s people desire to do God’s will because they have been saved already, not to earn salvation.
God’s people desire to do God’s will because they have been saved already, not to earn salvation.
Verse 2 grounds us and gives us an important foundation as we begin to look at the Ten Words, the Ten Commandments.
The Ten Words are spoken to the people by the God who saved them. God wants His people to live and behave in a certain way—a peculiar way—so that all the world would know they belong to Him; so that all the world would know they are His treasured possession, a holy nation, a kingdom of priests (Exodus 19:5-6; 1 Peter 2:9-10).
God wants His people to live and behave in a certain way, and so He gives them their marching orders.
I think it’s helpful to think of the Ten Words, the Ten Commandments in two categories.
Love God. Love people.
Love God. Love people.
The first four commandments hang on the command to love God, since they describe ways to show covenant loyalty directly to Him.
3 “You shall have no other gods before me.
4 “You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.
7 “You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.
8 “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.
The last six commands hang on the command to love neighbor as self.
12 “Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you.
13 “You shall not murder.
14 “You shall not commit adultery.
15 “You shall not steal.
16 “You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.
17 “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”
In this way, the Ten Words express how we fulfill the greatest commands.
Do you remember when Jesus was asked which was the greatest commandment in the Law?
An expert in the law (that is, an expert in the OT law, a student of the Ten Words) asked Jesus this, testing Jesus with this question:
36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
There was no way Jesus could answer this that wouldn’t land Him in hot water, so thought the expert in the law. Either Jesus is going to leave something out or he’s going to pit one command against another. The expert in the law thought for sure he had asked Jesus an impossible question.
This was a good test; a well-thought-out trap. There was only one problem with this law expert’s question: he was asking Jesus, the Son of God, the One who spoke the very Law he’s asking about.
37 Jesus replied: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
Jesus took the commandments—the Ten Words, and the other 603 commands in the OT—and distilled them down into these two categories.
Love God. Love people.
Love God. Love people.
God tells us how to love Him appropriately. If all we were told was “Love God”, and weren’t given any direction, we’d likely fail to love Him properly.
I just read a survey of adults in the United States. 80% believe in God, but only 56 percent of those believe in God as described in the Bible. Without the Bible to instruct us, even our view of God is improper.
If all we were told as “Love God”, we’d likely fail to love Him properly.
Knowing us, we’d love Him a little and give a good portion of our love to other gods, to created things—breaking the first and second commandments.
Knowing us, we’d speak without thought and spend our time however we’d like, breaking the third and fourth commandments.
Instead, God gives us the first four commandments so that we will love Him properly, expressing our love for Him in singular devotion, in worship of Him alone, in praise of His name, honoring Him with our time.
Our love for God is reflected by our obedience to His words.
15 “If you love me, keep my commands.
Love God. Love people.
Love God. Love people.
The first four commandments focus on how we love God. The last six involve treating others properly.
It’s been said that these six commandments “entail basic and inalienable rights of every human and have been recognized by the customs and laws of every society…no society can endure that does not respect the basic inalienable right of every human person.”
The last six commandments are similar to other legal codes in that day—other civilizations have similar rules guiding them.
But the first four commandments are unparalleled. Israel’s exclusive devotion to the Lord Yahweh sets them apart and gives the last 6 commandments their power.
Our exclusive worship of God continues to mark us as Christians.
And our devotion to God will keep us from breaking the last six commandments.
We will not scorn our parents, or murder, or commit adultery, or steal, or bear false witness, or covet if God is our ultimate treasure.
If we honor the Lord with our lives and our lips, we will love our neighbor well.
We have to check ourselves, here. Failure to keep these last 6 will likely show that we have neglected the first four.
What’s more, we have to understand that these last six are deeper than they seem.
Maybe you’ve done well honoring your parents. But if you’ve ever spoken harshly toward them or about them, if you’ve ever blamed them for your lot in life, you’ve not honored them fully.
Maybe you have never murdered anyone. But if you’ve ever hated anyone, if you’ve ever hated a group of people, if you’ve ever been angry with a brother or sister, Jesus says you’re guilty and deserving of judgment same as if you’d murdered them.
Maybe you’ve never committed adultery. But if you’ve looked at him or her with lust, if you’ve ever objectified another person, if you’ve ever gone to that movie just to see him or her in various stage of undress, Jesus says you’ve committed adultery in your heart.
Maybe you’ve never shoplifted anything, but I’m guessing you’ve kept back a portion of what rightly belongs to God, saying “I don’t have the money to tithe right now...”
Maybe you’ve never given false testimony against your neighbor as such, but my assumption is that you’ve gossiped about that person, or lied about that person, or shared inaccurate information about him or her.
I think we’re probably all guilty of coveting what another person has. Ever wished you had their life, their stuff, their money? Sinner.
These six commandments dig down deep. They expose our heart. They are more than just surface level commands; they cut deep and reveal my sinfulness.
It’s hard to love people; some people are especially hard to love. It’s impossible to fully love people without loving God first.
This is what we need to see: the vertical affects the horizontal.
If we don’t have our relationship with God (vertical) figured out, we will be out of line in our relationships with one another (horizontal).
Now, I know plenty of people who are good and kind and neighborly who have no love of God. There are many people who have figured out how to be good, generous neighbors without having a relationship with the Lord.
That’s possible.
What breaks my heart is knowing people who claim to love God but have no love toward their fellow man.
There are people who claim to love God and might even do a decent job keeping the first four commandments, but they actively hate a group of people, actively hate a certain race or ethnicity of their fellow man.
There are people who claim to love God, but who hold a grudge toward this person and refuse to forgive them.
I’m afraid there are people in this room who cannot stand one another; people in this room who won’t speak to one another; people in this room who gossip about one another; people in this room who are jealous of what that person has and who desperately want what’s theirs.
>If the Ten Words reveal anything, they reveal how far we have to go. They reveal our failure and sinfulness.
18 When the people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke, they trembled with fear. They stayed at a distance 19 and said to Moses, “Speak to us yourself and we will listen. But do not have God speak to us or we will die.”
20 Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid. God has come to test you, so that the fear of God will be with you to keep you from sinning.”
21 The people remained at a distance, while Moses approached the thick darkness where God was.
The people realize that they are not up to the task of even hearing from the Lord, yet alone keeping His Law. The people realize their unholiness as they stand before and hear from the Holy God.
We are in the same boat; if we’re honest with ourselves, we will realize we’re not up to the task. We cannot keep His law, not on our own. But saved we are! The Holy God came and took our place, fulfilling the demands of the law, “hushing the law’s loud thunder, quenching Mt. Sinai’s flame.”
We’re going to look at each of the Ten Words next Sunday. So this week, spend some time contemplating each of these, how they apply to you, how you fail at each one (more than likely).
And then rejoice that there is a Savior! Jesus the One who obeyed the Law fully—steps into our dark world and saves us by His blood. He teaches us how to love God and love people. Let us hide ourselves in Him and follow His lead.