Book: Exodus

The Ten Commandments Past and Present — The Eighth Commandment

Full Transcript:

This morning, let us take our Bibles and turn to Exodus 20. We are looking and starting with that passage this morning, as I continue to look at the ten commandments.

Let us look at verse 1 through verse 15. It says:

Then 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.

You shall have no other gods before Me.

You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on earth beneath or in the water under the earth. You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generation of those who hate Me, but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.

You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not leave him unpunished who takes His name in vain.

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 of the Lord your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, or your male or your female servant or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the 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.

Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be prolonged in the land which the Lord your God gives you.

You shall not murder.

You shall not commit adultery.

You shall not steal.

Let’s pray. This morning, Lord, as we again look at your word, I pray that our hearts would be ready to consider Your commandments. For we know Lord, that Your commandments show forth Your character and Your glory. You gave Your people a standard of living, something that reflected Your will and transmitted it to them.

So I pray Lord, we consider the commandments, even Lord for our own day. Even though in Christ we’re not under its condemnation anymore, but we know that it still illuminates sin. It still convicts of that sin and makes it clear. I pray Lord that as we consider the law of God, we know Lord that it’s been fulfilled in Christ.

I pray Lord today that we would live in an obedient manner as we submit to the Spirit of God who gives us the power to live out the truths of Scripture and to live out the communicable attributes of God in our daily life.

Lord, bless us with an understanding of this commandment. I pray this in the Lord Jesus Christ name today. Amen.

Through the law of God, I discover and you discover that we are people who find it difficult to let God be God. The law of God does reflect some of the character and glory of God. When you and I look at the law of God, we see that we have fallen short of the glory of God, that we have broken the law of God, that we cannot keep the law of God. Therefore we fall under its curse.

The law reveals to you and I that we are not good. Actually, we are sinners and rebels against God. The law had a temporary function to it. The mediator function of the law was transitory. It has been replaced by something better. The apostle Paul wrote in Galatians:

but now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor. For you are all sons of God through faith in Jesus Christ.

So our relationship to the law, for those who are believers, has changed. We are no longer under this tutor, as it says in Scripture. Now scripture insists that the law’s old function was as a pedagogy and is no longer necessary.

Let me just explain for a minute. A pedagogy was a slave who supervised the life of young children; they were tutors. The father of that child gave the pedagogy instructions and he saw to it, the tutor, that the children carried out those instructions completely.

But when the child grew up, he became directly now responsible to the father. No longer did the father relate to the child through this household servant, or slave or tutor. The slave was at that point retired, and the service was no longer needed.

So the law is like a teacher, a tutor, that brings us to Christ. Once we come to Christ, we no longer need this tutor. As it says in Galatians, it says the law was our guardian until Christ came. It protected us until we could be made right with God through faith. The whole point of the law was to show sinners that they need Jesus Christ. They need someone to deliver them, to save them, to redeem them.

So then, Scripture’s argument in the book of Galatians is that after Jesus came, and the Holy Spirit was sent into our hearts, the old relationship with the law was superseded by something better. The coming of the Holy Spirit to live within the believer removes the necessity of relating to God through the law.

However, setting aside the law’s mediating function does not mean God is no longer concerned about righteousness. It simply means that God has a better way of helping believers grow in righteousness. Believers in Christ learn to live in response to the Holy Spirit’s inner promptings and leading with the Word of God. That becomes how Christian grows in Christ, how a Christian become righteous. They don’t become righteous on their own power. They become righteous on the power of the Spirit of God setting them apart, sanctifying them. Just like when we read passages of scripture like Galatians 5:16:

But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desires of the flesh.

This passage in Romans is really more pointed, as far as you and I are concerned, where it says:

so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

We have to ask the question when it comes to law: what has changed as far as you and I are concerned? Let’s consider this for a moment. We have the law. Of course, the law is something that we have. We have God and of course God gave the law. God spoke the law and of course secondly the law spoke to man, transmitting God’s will to man. Then the believer express faith in response to the law, or in obedience to the law.

This would be what would happen in the Old Testament, that a person would respond to the law in that way. You had to go through the law to get to the Lord. Of course, that would be through the sacrificial system too, but remember the law always revealed God’s moral character. The law always reveal righteousness and goodness. The law always revealed sin and underscored man’s need for forgiveness and righteousness.

However, the Law never showed how one could be saved. It never produced or provided righteousness to the believer. In fact, if one obeyed, they would receive blessing because of obedience. Of course, that was through offering a sacrifice and coming to the Lord, having their sins forgiven. If they did not obey, they would be under a curse. That’s what would happen.

Now, for those who are believers, who have now the Spirit of God, what has changed? Well, What has changed is that the believer is now related directly to God. Directly to God. We do not go through the law anymore. God the Holy Spirit will direct the believer’s way and will work His own inner transformation. God’s Spirit will produce in us the Holy Spirit’s fruit.

That would be the difference. The law was not able to do that because the law’s righteousness was not fulfilled yet. The justice of the law was not fulfilled yet. But when Christ came and He became our substitute, He fulfills the law. He satisfies the justice of the father. Therefore, we are now set free from the law’s condemnation to live for Christ, to walk in the spirit.

That’s why, if you haven’t noticed, in this passage, it says in Galatians:

But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

There’s no set of rules that you and I live by any longer, as Christians, because we have the Spirit of God. It goes on to say:

Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

Now the Spirit of God has given us new passions and desires. Then it says in verse 25:

If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.

God now commits himself to work directly in our lives and directly upon our character. The focus shifts from just external behavior in the Old Testament to the person we become in the new relationship we have in Christ, now having received the Spirit of God.

Law could never have added anything to the new life a person would receive as a believer in Christ Jesus. that’s just a little theology as I go through the Ten Commandments, just to give you a little bit of update on some of the confusion that would come when we consider the Old Testament law and what it means for us today.

It still does convicted of sin. It still magnifies the sin that is in our heart. It no longer can condemn because that condemnation has been taken for us by our Lord Jesus Christ, who fulfills the law. Because we’re in Christ, we fulfill the law too.

Now in saying all that, I like to watch evangelist Ray Comfort share the gospel on the streets of Santa Monica in southern California. When he gets to the eighth commandment, that’s what I’m focusing on this morning, he sometimes says: have you ever taken something that didn’t belong to you, regardless of the value? This includes stealing an answer on a test, or taking a pen from work, or even keeping extra change that you know isn’t rightfully yours.

If you’ve taken anything that isn’t yours, then you are a thief. Then he usually includes a question: does that concern you? Then he goes on to say and adds usually a comment in the Scripture where he says: do you know no thief can enter the kingdom of God? He usually uses 1 Corinthians and he says:

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, or homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God.

When he says that, he says: by your own admission, you are a blasphemer, liar, thief, adulterer, and so on at heart. If you are judged by the Ten Commandments will you be innocent or guilty?

He has a unique way to get people to say you’re guilty. He’s good at it; he does it every day. He takes the law and applies it to the conscience of a person.Under the judgment of the law, the person have to conclude: you know what, if I stood before God right now, I’m not doing so well. That’s exactly what the law supposed to do. It’s supposed to put us in a place where we have to have something else to save us.

Of course, he then will say something like: if God is good and He’s a righteous judge, He must punish murderers, liars, and thieves. God’s place of punishment is the prison of hell. I don’t want to see you go to hell. I don’t want to see you end up in hell.

At that point, he finally will present the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ, his death, his burial, his resurrection, his death in the place of sinners, his shed blood to wash away the sin of an unbeliever and receive forgiveness, and of course the resurrection unto new life. He says them: if you turn from your sins and put your faith in Jesus Christ, He will forgive you of every sin you’ve ever committed and grant you the gift of eternal life, which is the only way anyone could be saved.

So that is a very good way to witness to people. Take the law and apply it to their conscience. And as it’s applied to the conscience, they really cannot wiggle out of it. They can’t run from it. If they’re really honest, they’ll say: I’m guilty guilty. Of course the answer is in Christ Jesus. That’s the exciting thing about it.

So, right in this commandment we’re looking at this morning, there’s a principle revealed in the eighth commandment. The principle of the eighth commandment, which simply says you shall not steal, is this: it’s the responsibility for honesty to be the policy and the practice of God’s people.

That’s sounds very simple, doesn’t it? This is the policy. It’s been the policy of God’s people all the way along, but now we have to put this policy and procedure and practice into our fabric of our everyday, by the power of the spirit of God.

By definition, stealing is the act of taking property from another without permission and in secret. Leviticus tells us this: you shall not steal nor deal falsely nor lie to one another. Stealing is surely prevalent in our society among pagans who do not plan with God in their thoughts. I’m sure there are amongst us formers thieves who, by the power of the gospel, have been transformed into honest persons. Even professing Christians have been guilty of breaking the eighth commandment – thou shalt not steal. The moral law contained in the commandments is as relevant for God’s people today as it was in the Old Testament. It still reveals sin. When we find ourselves to be guilty of stealing whatever it may be, however it may manifest itself, we still come under the guilt of committing or breaking that particular commandment. In

Scripture, there are all kinds of thefts that the Bible mentions. Matter of fact, looking at this passage of scripture, I was overwhelmed by how many places in Scripture it talks about people stealing. I said: wow, that’s interesting. But it’s not surprising because, you know what, we’re sinners, right? That’s what sinners do. There’s one thing that I think everybody can say: that there’s not been a time in my life that I haven’t taken something that didn’t belong to me.

So, stealing is a broad subject because there are many things that can be stolen: material things, possession, property, money. In Scripture, it could be stealing livestock or things that are valuable.

Take your Bibles and turn to Exodus 22. I want to read the section to you, because it’s a big section about being a thief and stealing.

Notice what it says in Exodus 22:1-9:

If a man steals an ox or a sheep and slaughters it and sells it, he shall pay five oxen for the ox and four sheep for the Sheep.

If the thief is caught while breaking in and is struck so that he dies, there will be no bloodguiltiness on his account. But if the sun has risen on him, there will be bloodguiltiness on his account. He shall surely make restitution; if he owns nothing, then he shall be sold for his theft. If what he stole is actually found alive in his possession, whether an ox or a donkey or a sheep, he shall pay double.

If a man lets a field or vineyard be grazed bare and lets his animals loose so that it grazes in another man’s field, he shall make restitution from the best of his own field and the best of his own vineyard.

If a fire breaks out and spreads to thorn bushes, so that stacked grain or the standing grain or the field itself is consumed, he who started the fire shall surely make restitution.

If a man gives his neighbor money or goods to keep for him and it is stolen from the man’s house, if the thief is caught, he shall pay double. If the thief is not caught, then the owner of the house shall appear before the judges, to determine whether he laid his hands on his neighbor’s property first. For every breach of trust, whether it is for ox, for donkey, for sheep, for clothing, or for any lost thing about which one says, "This is it," the case of both parties shall come before the judges; he whom the judges condemned shall pay double to his neighbor.

So in that passage, there is a lot of stuff in there about different situations, about how people can steal. It’s not just taking from somebody. It could be very subtle. It could be planned. It could be just ignorance – ignoring your own stuff that gets into other people’s stuff. We have other words or terms for it: stealing, extortion. Zacchaeus made restitution for him extorting money because he was a tax collector, if you remember in the New Testament. Breaking and entering, shoplifting, larceny, embezzlement, stealing time, stealing ideas, stealing people. The Bible addresses that in Exodus 21:16 – kidnapping. In fact, it says:

He who kidnaps a man, whether he sells him or he is found in his possession, shall surely be put to death.

For kidnapping the penalty was death. But what about stealing God’s property? What about stealing from God? I like you to take your Bibles and turn to Joshua. I want you to notice in Joshua 7, not only that he stole, but I want you to know again the progression of temptation. Remember, that progression I mentioned last week, that somebody sees with her eyes, they then desire it with their heart, and then they take it.

Notice in Joshua chapter 7:20-21. Achan was stealing God’s property. What’s interesting in Joshua is that God says: listen, when you go in and destroy all the people then that booty from that warfare is mine. All that Achan had to do is wait for the next town and it would have been his. God, in the next town, gave it to the people. But this time he says: no, I want it. Notice in Joshua 7:20-21 it says:

So Achan answered Joshua and said, "Truly, I have sinned against the Lord, the God of Israel, and this is what I did: when I saw among the spoil a beautiful mantle from Shinar and two hundred shekels of silver and a bar of gold fifty shekels in weight, then I coveted them and took them; and behold, they are concealed in the earth inside my tent with the silver underneath it.

So in that passage of Scripture, you see the progression. I saw; I coveted; I took. Stealing from God brings consequences. In Achan’s case, not only was he stoned to death and his goods burned, but his whole family, his wife and family, were too. He took what was under the ban, what was God’s possession. He took and of course, he suffered the consequences for that. He stole from God.

Here’s a passage to look at, Malachi 3:8-9. It says:

Will a man rob God? Yet you are robbing me! But you say, "how have we robbed You?" In tithes and offerings. You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing Me, the whole nation of you! Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse.

now, in that passage of Scripture, one of the things that people were doing was: they were giving, but they weren’t giving it all. They weren’t given their best. They weren’t giving their first. They weren’t doing that. So they were saying: what do you mean we haven’t been giving? We’ve been giving. What do you mean we’re robbing god? God says: you are robbing me, because you’re not giving me the first and the best. You’re giving me the chump change. You’re not giving me what comes out of the first fruits of your labors. That’s mine. See, we can be stealing from God when it even comes to that. Not giving God what He’s due in our own Christian life.

You know, our time is not our own. Our bodies are not our own. We looked at that, saw that last week. Our life is not our own, right? We are actually slaves to a good master, and His name is Jesus Christ. Now we’ve been freed up by the Spirit of God to actually serve God with joy and with gladness and with the desire to want to see His name uplifted and glorified. In doing that, we received blessing from the Lord.

So we can steal from God with our not giving Him our time, not giving Him the use of our spiritual gifts, not giving Him our possessions in the sense of giving each week as part of worship. It’s giving back to God what He has blessed us with. So stealing has other forms than theft and robbery. It could be the misuse of a trust fund. That could be fraud. Or it could be unfair wages. Like it says in James:

Behold, the pay of the laborers who mowed your fields, and which has been withheld by you,

In other word, somebody did the work and you don’t want to pay them. That is also considered theft and robbery. Scripture talks about in Exodus 22: excessive interest. The people of God are warned that if you lend to people, you cannot excessively impose upon them a high interest. Sometimes it’s no interest at all. The best way to do if you’re ever giving money is to give money with no strings attached. You don’t expect anything back. If you don’t expect anything back, you don’t expect anything. I want to give out of the goodness of my heart. I thought about it. This is yours. That’s it. It’s closed, not coming back later and saying: you know what, that money I gave, I need it back. No, that’s not the way we should do things.

Also, using inaccurate measurements of weights and sizes and volumes. There was a warning in Scripture, that people were not to use weights and measurements inaccurately. I knew a guy who used to visit the gas stations, and they would pull apart the pumps and they would make sure that the gauges on the pumps were actually giving the right amount of gas for the right price to everybody. I don’t know if they still do that. They probably do it electronically now, but they used to be able to fix things. It’s like the old proverbial thing, that you go to the butcher shop to get a pound of meat and the butcher has his thumb on the scale. That’s the kind of thing that goes on all the time. You feel like sometimes, when you go to buy something, you’re getting taken. Sometimes you’re not, but sometimes you are. We shouldn’t be doing that as God’s people. We should be upfront.

Unpaid debts. Failing to pay to another that which is due. Even credit cards. Using credit card, where we are way over the top and not realizing that when you use that credit card, you should be thinking: if I don’t have the cash to pay for this, I’m not going to use this card. You shouldn’t be paying interest and finance charges. That means you’re not using your money right. That means something is wrong. You need to see Khaleef and get into the YAM class on on finances, and he’ll set you straight. He’s learned all those lessons and now he’s able to teach them.

Receiving stolen goods, like pirated software, music, videos, movies. Ezekiel talks about robbing souls of truth, not giving people the Word of God and giving it out like you’re supposed to.

So stealing also includes deception – covert planning for the opportunity to take what is not yours for yourself. It includes the misuse of intellectual ability, ingenuity, skill, and gifts that God has given you, to merely serve yourself and not serve the Lord and others. And usually coupled with the thought that when you done that, you’ve gotten over on someone.

So the thief has a strong desire to obtain things without the desire to work for it. He has a shortcut in mind. He may think it is easier to take from others who have worked for what they have than to go through all that hassle of working, those long hours for such little. I’ll just take it. That’s what’s in his mind. In the end, the thief’s view and understanding of work is twisted of its original shape into something thought as good to the thief, but in reality very perverted when you come to the Word of God.

What are some of the causes of theft? A simple heart of unbelief – a person who has a high distrust in God’s providence. Like it says in Psalm 78:

Therefore the Lord heard and was full of wrath;

Why was He full of wrath? This was in the wilderness where God supplied all the people – their food, the manna from heaven. Their clothes didn’t wear out. He supplied them water in the wilderness. He made a river in the desert and a road in the wilderness. God did that, and yet it says in scripture: they did not believe in God and did not trust Him for His salvation.

So unbelief in God’s providence could be that we do not trust God, that He will provide, so we have to scheme to get it on our own. Get something on our own because we don’t believe God will supply.

Also, a sinful heart of covetousness. I’m going to cover this in the tenth commandment. The tenth commandment is a very interesting commandment. The term covetousness really signifies immoderate desire of getting something, which is at the root of all theft. A person covets more than what has been given them. So the person takes it from another. He schemes to take from another.

And then just downright greed. Greed is prevalent in scripture in all kinds of ways. In Proverbs 15:27, notice what it says:

He who profits illicitly troubles his own house, but he who hates bribes will live.

Then this passage of Scripture is so convicting, in Timothy where Paul was telling young Timothy this about people who love money, it says:

those who want to get rich

What’s interesting there is: it doesn’t mean they ever will. But they want to. I’ve known people who have all their life wanted to get rich, and never did. When you look in their car, where they sit is all filled with old lottery tickets. Because they always wished to hit that jackpot, to hit the big one. If you look at the rest of the passage:

they fall into temptation and a snare and many foolish and harmful desires which plunge men into ruin and destruction.

For the love of money is the root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.

See, these get rich quick schemes, these Ponzi pyramid insurance schemes, lottery and gambling, all those things are all prevalent in our society. They are, many times, the temptation to just fulfill that desire to want more than you should have or God intended to give you.

And there’s the external causes to thievery, it would be just the world system itself. The Bible says in Ephesians 4 that:

the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind,

and then it says:

practice of every kind of impurity with greediness.

But you did not learn Christ in this way,

Paul says in Ephesians. Then Satan’s solicitations. You find that Satan can use wealth to tempt us. An ideal person is tempted by the devil to take what is not his. Satan wants to actually rob us of our innocence in this area.

We find Judas, when Judas, it says Satan entered into him. He was the person who took care of the money bag. He loved money more than he loved Christ. Then Ananias and Sapphira, where they wanted to mimic what Barnabas was doing. So they gave land, but they only gave a part of it. Barnabas gave all of it. And that’s why it says in Scripture in the book of Acts, Peter says:

Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back some of the price of the land?

See, there’s internal causes in our own sinful heart. There’s external causes that could bring someone to be tempted to be a thief. There’s many examples in scripture about thievery. Rachel stole her father’s idols. Somehow I looked at that and said: maybe that’s not a bad thing, to steal his idols. But she never told her husband Jacob. Jacob said: I did not know Rachel stole them. She stole the idols.

Then Joseph’s brothers were concerned that they would be accused of stealing Joseph’s silver cup. Remember the silver cup ended up in Benjamin’s bag, right? And then of course he got taken in in a big ordeal. God was teaching a big lesson to the brothers for selling Joseph into slavery.

Then we already saw that Achan stole items that were devoted to God. Ahab and Jezebel stole Naboth’s vineyard. In Judges, Micah stole 1100 pieces of silver from his own mother, but then gave it back to her.

Remember when David sinned with Bathsheba and killed Uriah her husband. Nathan came to him and told the story about someone robbing someone’s little lamb. Remember the parable of stealing the poor family’s pet sheep. Then Nathan the prophet said to David: you’re the man who did that. You’re the one who stole. Not only was it adultery, it was murder. It was also thievery that David was guilty of. He should have been put to death, but God forgave them. There’s the intersection of the mercy of God in the mist of sin that you cannot rescue yourself from, unless God intervenes.

And of course the varied penalties for theft: death, double payment, fourfold payment. The judges would make decide what restitution needs to be done. If you didn’t have anything to give, you would be sold into slavery.

In other cultures, they used to have debtor’s prison. A person would be put in prison because they didn’t pay their debt, or they would be sent to jail. Some places like in the Middle East, cut off your ears, cut off your nose, cut off your hands. You stole – boom, that’s it. Tell me that won’t prevent you stealing again, right? But that’s what they do in other places.

Now, you don’t have that kind of level of penalties for stealing in the Old Testament. Death came only if you stole someone or you stole from God. With other things it was really payment restitution, giving back. But you gave back two-fold, four-fold. The thief had to feel the penalty, the weight of what he took from somebody else, usually twice-fold and four-fold.

That brings me to this morning to the New Testament, the principal in the eighth commandment related to life today. Let’s take our Bibles and turn to this passage of scripture, just one section of scripture. Remember, this is in light of the apostle Paul teaching about the Holy Spirit. Carrying out these things because you have the Holy Spirit. You are a believer. The Holy Spirit indwells you. Now I can actually overcome this sin of stealing by living in the Spirit.

Ephesians 4:28. If you were in the habit of stealing things, steal no more. Now in Christ, if you are in Christ, become an honest workman. You noticed that in the passage of scripture, it says:

He who steals must steal no longer;

Now that is assuming that a person is a believer and has the Spirit of God to be able to actually put this into practice. If on the other hand, thievery continues, if there is no change, then it just shows the person has not yet matured spiritually or is not a Christian at all.

However, let it be known that this epistle is written to believers who are being progressively sanctified. Believers are call to walk in holiness, meaning they are not practically made perfect yet. They will never be made perfect on this side of eternity, but they are growing in maturity. Some sins we were quickly delivered from when we became believers, but the others we need instruction from the Word of God. We understand, in our thrashing about against sin, that the struggle is not immediately over. No matter how long you will be a believer, you’re always going to be struggling against some sin. As you mature, you see your sin more clearly. As you mature in Christ Jesus, you see your thoughts as being sinful. That’s the root. You want to take care of the root. That’s where you want to kill it.

The Spirit of God shows you the things that you’re thinking are not honoring to the Lord. We are going to go on struggling with remaining sin. We are going to be tempted to sin, tempted by past sins, and entice to sin even in present situation.

What the Word of God is doing is instructing us to stop stealing. Scripture is informing us that we have the Holy Spirit. We have His power. He is presently at work in us, to will and to do of God’s good pleasure.

We are not struggling in our sin against our sin alone. We are not fighting against our sin own. We are part of the body of believers who are being made strong, in order that we will live for God in this world and imitate the character of God. The character of God here is that we would not steal.

I want to split the passage in half. What is interesting is this: the second part of it is the solution to the thievery. Look at what it says in verse 28. The insistence in our passages is upon honest work, but urges one to labor so diligently that he may have some surplus with which to relieve his fellow brother or sister who’s in need. Look at what it says:

but rather he must labor, performing with his own hands what is good,

so that he will have something to share with one who has need.

So theft, in all its forms, misappropriate to one’s own use, the results of labor which belong to another. Thus by way of contrast, the highest motive for patient and humble toil is the desire thereby to acquire the power to relieve those who are in distress. The supreme inspiration in labor is not personal gain, but it’s sympathetic service to others. It’s worship to God.

In other words, our passage doesn’t say: become an honest workmen so that you may support yourself. That’s assumed. It really says: become an honest workmen so that you may have something to give away to those who are poorer than yourself, those who are in need other than yourself.

It’s always dying to self here, when it comes to our money and our finances. If a person has need, I see that need, and I have compassion on them. Compassion seizes and supplies.

If God did not have compassion on us, if He didn’t see us in our need, He would never supplied. But His compassion sees and provides. It’s the same here, that we see what we need to do. Then we work in order to give. We work in order to give. The christian ideal is that we work, not to amass things, but to be able, if need be, to give them away.

That’s pretty odd kind of way of thinking. That’s not the way of thinking pretty much in America, in this system that we live in. For the Christian, the stealing, which takes from others to give to oneself, must be replaced by hard work, which takes from self and gives to others. Selfishness is thus replaced by unselfishness in a very, very practical way.

The solution for hedging against the temptation to steal is to work. To work. To put your hands to good use and good labor, for what motive? So I have enough to take care of myself, and I have enough to give to somebody else. To give to the Lord’s work – I have enough to do that without strapping me. I’m learning how to use finances in a way that I’m freed up to do that.

Now a lot of things have to take place for that to happen in some of your lives, right? You may have to adjust, take care of things. But you know, when people say: well I can’t afford to give. Well, you can’t afford not to give. That’s the way it ought to be. That’s a cliche, I know that, but that is true.

I can’t afford not to give to God because God is the greatest giver in Scripture. In other words, when we give, we are acting like God. We are exemplifying the character of God through the Spirit of God, out of our lives to other people. We’re not taking; we don’t have to take. We can give. When we give, then we are acting like God. In fact, it’s Timothy who told Paul:

Instruct those who are rich in this present world not to be conceited or to fix their hope on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly supplies us with all things to enjoy.

God wants to give to us so we can be happy. So we can be content. So we don’t have to be looking to the left or to the right, or our neighbors. Look, they have that; maybe we should get that. We don’t have to be looking like that. We can just be content. If God bless somebody else better than me, God bless them. God didn’t bless me like that. That’s all right. Just be content. That’s the motive the Spirit of God gives Christians. When we do that and we were able to handle our own finances and our own property the way we should, then God gets the glory.

Remember, God is the giver. He gave His Son and did not withhold His Son. He gave His Spirit. He gave life to us. The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life. He gives us spiritual understanding. Gospel of John tells us: We know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know Him who is true.

He gives us the gift of faith. He gives us the gift of grace. But to each one of us grace was given, according to the measure of Christ’s gift.

So for the thief not to consider these gifts and the blessings they bring is to treat with disdain what God has given to us. God doesn’t make us stingy. He opens our hands and makes us givers. That’s what He does. That’s His nature. He does that to us. He expects his children to do the same thing.

So, saying all that and considering this commandment, what is to be done to be avoiding this? Avoiding stealing, avoiding this particular conduct. Some simple things, but it’s true: live as those who have been called to be in Christ. The passage of scripture we just looked at in Ephesians 4:28:

He who steals must steal no longer; but rather he must labor, performing with his own hands what is good, so that he will have something to share with one who has need.

Live as a person who is in Christ, and that’s what a person in Christ does.

Secondly, keep in mind the shortness of life and what one departs with from this world. What do you depart with? Listen at what it says in 1 Timothy 6:6-7:

But godliness actually is a means of great gain when accompanied by contentment. For we have brought nothing into this world, so we cannot take anything out of it either.

When you leave, you’re not bringing the U-Haul with you. You’re leaving alone. You’re leaving. That’s it. Consider that – we don’t take anything with us. So everything God has given you is for now, this side of eternity. Use it well. Don’t hoard it. Be wise with it, but be able to freely give when called upon.

Then some other ones would be this: keep in mind the instability and unpredictability of wealth. Proverbs 23:4-5 says:

Do not weary yourself to gain wealth, cease from considering it. When you set your eyes on it, it is gone. For wealth certainly makes itself wings like an eagle that flies towards the heavens.

It goes in one pocket and it goes out the next, right? I sit there and I do my bills, and I’m saying: do I have to pay this bill? Yeah, I have to pay this bill. I still write checks. I know the millennial generation don’t write checks anymore, but I write a check. I am kind of splitting it now, half electronic and half I write. Somethings I have to know I paid, you know, and I copy it and file it.

Anyways, you probably do the same thing, but we should have some kind of filing system. When the electric goes out, and we don’t have any more internet, I’ll still have my bills paid and you won’t. That’s the way I think. I want to write out paper stuff.

Then the next one would be this: be content with the estate that God has given you. Remember, godliness with contentment is great gain. To me, that is probably where the hardest part of Christian growth is, the Spirit of God getting us to this point that we are just content. That means we’re not complaining. We’re not grumbling. We’re not murmuring under our breath about our situation. We are thankful. We know we’re being blessed by God and that God has His hand of protection upon us. He’s giving us way more than we deserve. That’s in our mind when we think of this particular subject: be content with the estate that God has given you. What does it say in 1 Timothy 6:8:

If we have food and covering, with these we shall be content.

You know what God promised you? He promised you food to eat, clothing on your back, housing, and work. That’s it. He didn’t promise you to be healthy, wealthy, and fine. He’s never promised that. Now He does allow some people to have wealth, but the warning for a wealthy person is pretty high. If you have that kind of wealth, you better be using your money in a way that honors Him if you’re a believer. There’s a great emphasis put upon that. I like what it says in Hebrews 13:5:

Make sure that your character is free from the love of money, being content with what you have; for He Himself has said, "I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you,"

It’s amazing that that’s in that passage. When we’re not content, we’re thinking: God’s not with me. He deserted me. He’s not taking care of my needs. That’s what we think. That’s the temptation right there. The temptation is don’t go there. Be content. I don’t have all the answers why I’m in the situation I’m in. I may never get all the answers about the situation I’m in. But I am going to be content in the situation I’m in, because I know God will never leave me or forsake me. His Providence I can trust, even though I don’t see clearly.

You and I are going to be in that situation a lot of times, but God’s not going to take a left turn on us. You can just keep following and trusting in Him because He will always be faithful to His kids. Always. Satan don’t want you to believe that. He doesn’t.

And just this one right here: trust in God, not money. It says in Psalm 62:10:

Do not trust in oppression and do not vainly hope in robbery; if riches increase, do not set your heart upon them.

Don’t trust in what money can do. Trust in what God can do and will do. A lot of times, we get to the place where we have a little bit more, and we start trusting in what it can do. All that that means is that God has given you a little bit more. Now, how am I going to use it in the right way? That’s how we should be thinking.

Then one last thing is: send your treasure on ahead. Matthew 6:19-20:

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal;

That’s what we need to do. Live for the Lord. Our greatest treasures is going to be when we get to heaven. We’re going to have as our possession God Himself.

I don’t understand all that. I can’t wrap my mind around that, but I know the Scripture is true and tells us that. We are going to be heirs together with Christ. That’s a promise in Scripture. That’s a promise that we’re going to be heirs together with Christ. Thank you for that.

Let’s pray. Lord, this morning thank you for the wonderful knowledge that You give us. How great a God You are, how great a giver You are. Lord, You give good gifts to Your children. And You withhold things that we think are good, but are not. Thank You Lord for that.

When we work honest with our own hands, we are acting like You. And when we work like that, and we use our possessions and our finances in a way that we can not only take care of our own needs and bills but we can also have leftover to give. Lord, that’s what You want us to do. In doing that, we are going to hedge against the temptation to steal. For we know, Lord, that never honors You. Help us to do that, Lord.

Help us to overcome and put to death this particular sin and its temptation, so we can live for You in a way that honors You. Being a christian is being renewed in the image of our Creator and after God’s likeness. So, I pray, Lord, that as we walk in the power of the Holy Spirit of God, we would exemplify this character of being honest, hard workers, and people who know how to handle what we have for the glory of God.

I pray this in Christ’s precious and most holy name. Amen.

April 7, 2019
The Ten Commandments Past and Present — The Seventh Commandment (Part 3)

In this sermon, Pastor Babij finishes his exposition of the seventh of the Ten Commandments, “You shall not commit adultery.” Pastor Babij explains how marital faithfulness reflects the faithfulness of God. Pastor Babij also gives three reasons why a person must avoid adultery and any conduct that promotes sexual impurity:

1) The Lord is the avenger of wrongs
2) God’s purpose is for His people’s absolute holiness
3) God’s Spirit is the ultimate standard

Full Transcript:

Let’s bow together in a word of prayer. We’re going to be in Exodus 20 and then 1 Thessalonians and then also 1 Corinthians. Let’s pray. Lord, this morning as we look at your Word, I pray that Lord you would take it and mold us and shape us with it. Lord, challenge us with the Word of God so your Word becomes what You want us to do in our life. Our will would be changed to Your will. I pray, Lord, that Your name would be honored as we consider the Word of God and the implications it has in our daily life. I pray that You would bless our time together in Christ name. Amen.

This morning, let’s take our Bibles. I eventually will be looking at Thessalonians, but let’s go back to Exodus 20:14 and then Deuteronomy 15:18, which really says the same thing. We’re looking at the seventh commandment this morning.

It is the commandment that is very direct. It was for the people of Israel. Its implications still have a strong effects in our life as believers. That comes out of the Law of God.

But remember this: the Old Testament law was never a ladder for unsaved people to climb up the heaven. It was never for that. The law of God brings us bad news. Through the law of God, I discovered that I am a person that it finds it difficult to let God be God.

The law of God reflects some aspect of the character in the glory of God. When I look at the law, I see that I fall short of the glory of God, that I have broken the law, and that I cannot keep it. Therefore, I fall under its curse.

See the law reveals to me that I am not good. Actually, I am a sinner and a rebel against God. We’re not looking at ourselves like that, but when we look the Word of God, that’s how the Word of God presents us – as people who fall into sin. The sin of Adam is transmitted unto us and therefore we also have the nature of sin and will sin. So when we come to the New Testament, we find and discover the same thing. It says in Romans 3:23:

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God

1 John 3 tells us:

everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness

Here’s a definition for sin: sin is lawlessness. That means you are living without any law, without any guidelines from the Word of God, from God himself. You’re living under own, based on what you think and the way you think you should live.

When you come to the law of God, you realize that the word of God and the Ten Commandments show us what God requires upon us, not only worshipping him but how to interact with people.

So the law of God is like an x-ray to the soul. God holds the X-ray to the light and asks us to look at it. If you’re looking at it properly, we will not like what we see. Then the law is like a light, to expose our sin. We are sinners by nature and by practice.

Yet, the law of God is a good thing, for it shows us the truth. It shows us the genuine state of our hearts. It shows us that we cannot rescue ourselves from its condemnation.

Thank God the law announces our need of Christ. Remember what it says in Galatians? It says that the law of God was our teacher to bring us to Christ. As one translation put it another way: the law was our guardian until Christ came. It protected us until we could be made right with God through faith. So the whole point of the law was to show sinners their need of the Messiah, of Jesus Christ, of the deliverer, of the Savior.

Today, for believers, the law shines in our souls. When we look at the law, God says to us we have to admit that He is speaking directly to the primary battles of our own Heart. These are the things we battle with, in the Ten Commandments. No matter when you lived, you’re going to battle with these things.

So the Ten Commandments speaks to the most significant struggles of the human experience. The law of God keeps us running back to Christ. That’s what it keeps us doing. That is a good place to be, and that’s the place we ought to be.

This morning as we look at Exodus 20:14, it says simply:

You shall not commit adultery.

That’s a clear command. As I mentioned last time in that command, the seventh commandment expresses the responsibility of God’s people to honor the marriage institution by remaining faithful to one’s own spouse, and by respecting the marriage of other people. In fact, the children’s catechism says the result of the seventh commandment for children is to be pure in heart and language and conduct.

That’s the result. That’s where it will bring us. God again is serious about fidelity, about purity, about morality, because God is a moral being. He has created people in His image as moral beings. He will hold people morally accountable for how they live their life.

Humanity rejects God’s rule and then asserts its own rule, violating and perverting God’s fixed order of moral law. If God’s moral law in absolutes are violated, then there is always a “then”. There is serious consequences. It’s really living in lawlessness.

God is serious about His marriage institution. He’s the one who designed it because it reflects God’s faithful relationship to his covenant people and to His people Himself. In connection with the seventh commandment, the question would be: why should I not commit adultery? The bottom line would be this: it is because God is faithful. He is faithful to us.

The implication of not committing adultery is being faithful to your spouse. Since Christians are God’s people, the greatest challenge for God’s people is to reflect the character of God in the world.

When we live out our faithfulness to our spouse and to God Himself, we honor Him and we honor the marriage institution by reflecting something of the glory of God in our very actions, our very words, our conduct. That’s exactly what supposed to happen. That’s what the spirit of God is going to do. We’re going to look at that a bit, because you cannot do that on your own. Don’t ever be under the assumption that anyone can keep the law or keep living for the Lord in communicating these attributes in our daily walk in life on your own. You cannot do it on your own. You need God’s power to do it.

So far we’ve been looking at the four things to maintain or to hold marriage in high honor. 1) Maintain the correct mindset concerning marriage. 2) Maintain the correct behavior in marriage. We saw that from Hebrews 13. 3) Maintain a correct view of God in marriage. The last Lord’s day we were considering the will of God concerning how to understand and live out our sexuality so as to please God. That brought us to the fourth one and of course the fourth one included 1 Thessalonians 4:7, where it says:

for God has not called us for the purpose of impurity, but in sanctification.

This last one – to maintain a correct and a consistent conduct that aligns with pleasing God, is really where Paul is going in his teaching to the Thessalonians about coming from an idolatrous, sexually impure culture to now meeting the holy God who has requirements on how we are to live. The epistle is being taught to these former idolatrous Thessalonians to provide a perspective that is really too often neglected in a sexually intoxicated culture like theirs and like ours.

I’d like you to turn to Thessalonians 3 and 4. We see there that it is the Lord who is teaching us that there is a way to live in our life that is honoring for the Lord. Paul is telling that in 1 Thessalonians 3:13, he says:

so that He may establish your hearts without blame in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all His saints.

Then in 4:7:

For God has not called us for the purpose of impurity, but in sanctification.

That is how you and I are to conduct ourselves as we go in and out of living our life on the earth. Not only is there unattained maturity, but there is also old taboos and lifestyles and practices that we need to drop off as Christians.

The scripture really now gets very specific about what that means. Christians are called to the highest standard of living. It is in this passage before us, we will see God’s will in the matter of our purity. WSome of these are by way of review. Also, God’s provision in order to maintain purity, and then God’s revenge for our failure in purity.

The first thing that we already mention is that it is God’s will for our sexual purity. Now if you look up 1 Thessalonians 4:3, it says:

For this is the will of God, your sanctification; that is, that you abstain from sexual immorality.

Now, how are we to do that? He already mentioned here that we are to pursue a life of holiness. That means God’s will is the thing God wants. Wants what God wants is what pleases Him. And what does He want? He wants us to know His will and it’s very clear what His will is right here in this passage. His will is our sanctification.

He wants us to live separated lives unto Him. When believers do come to Christ in all their sin, they receive the cleansing of the atoning death of Christ. Then every day, we become more and more set apart to God as the word of God transforms our minds and the Spirit of God does His work in making us holy. This means to be set apart, holy to God, and separated in the consecration of life and conduct.

That means in our passage, if you noticed the word, that we are to live a life of abstinence. We are to keep free from any form of sexual immorality. This verb – to abstain, really means to keep away from. The Christian is to have nothing to do with any form of the Greek word pornea, or sexual immorality.

We are to treat that like we would treat a sign that says “high voltage”. If you’re being wise about that sign, you’re going to stay away from anything that has that sign, lest you get fried.

Again, we should consider that this word, pornea, where we get the word pornography from, is used here in an all-inclusive term, designating complete abstinence to any form of sexual immorality. There are many forms of it.

Some people may say: well, the Bible isn’t talking about this form. No, he’s talking about all forms because human beings can be very creative when it comes to this particular very powerful sin and temptation to sin in this way.

This includes abstinence from any real or imagined sexual deviant behavior. As I mentioned last time, as the Lord said, we can commit adultery in our own mind without even committing the act of it. God wants us to take care of our sin inside of our heart. The word of God would again teach us that that is not pleasing, even in our hearts. We have to be very careful about that as believers.

That brought me to my second point: God’s provision is our self-control, that in this we are to have self control. In verse 4, where it says:

that each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor.

What are we to know very well? Here we are to learn to know to practice the habit of purity, from my very thoughts to our very words to our very actions. That your habit of sin becomes your habit of holiness and righteousness.

In this passage, I believe the emphasis in verse 4 is on getting a handle on learning how to keep your own body under control, so you will preserve it for purity, right up until the day you get married. Or you meet Jesus, whatever comes first. Or maybe you won’t get married and the Lord has given you the gift of singleness, and that’s all right. But He still expects a person to live righteously.

So when we ask the question: why do you restrain yourself and give your members over to the power of the spirit of God for righteous living? Well, because you learn to obey God and love the Lord and love His Word and know His Word is true. You endeavor imperfectly to live a life of holiness and godliness. Godliness, remember it says in Timothy, takes practice. We have to practice godliness.

This must be the primary reason to abstain from sexual immorality. The primary reason would be not only that God is faithful to you, but we are to be faithful to God and love Him.

That will bring me today to the third point in chapter 4 verse 6. That is: God’s revenge is our terrifying motivation. If you notice in verse 6, I’ll just read the whole passage there.

that no man transgress and defraud his brother in the manner.

That means in the manner of not living a pure life, not living a holy life. In other words, you refuse to put yourself in jeopardy and to defraud your future partner. It says there in verse 6 don’t sin against your brother or sister in this way. That means to transgress them. That word there means to go too far or to go beyond what is right.

And then it also says that no man defraud his brother or sister in this manner, meaning to take advantage of someone or to cheat them of something. This all means that any and all acts of sexual looseness represents an act of injustice towards someone else. God is concerned about that and He wants His people to live in a way that is honoring to Him. With this powerful sin, sexual infidelity, there needs to be a soberness and a healthy spiritual fear that should be present when we consider a sin like this.

The reason why is because it’s so easily fallen into in our thinking and in our minds. All we have to do is be on the internet and one click away is an image that’s going to tempt you to think about things you ought not to as a believer and it’s going to lead you into further sin. So that sexual looseness before marriage symbolizes the robbing of the other, of that virginity which ought to be brought only to the marriage.

The scripture really does give the reason why this sort of conduct needs to be completely avoided in all relationships, whether you want to call it dating or whether you want to call courtship or going steady or any other way people they mentioned that. There are reasons to stay away from that kind of conduct. One of them is in verse 6, where it says this, remember: the Lord is an avenger of wrongs. He is an avenger of wrongs. Notice it says:

and that no man transgress and defraud his brother in this matter because the Lord is the avenger in all these things, just as we also told you before and solemnly warned you.

So we see in this passage of scripture, there is a warning that is coming to these Thessalonian believers and to us today to avoid such conduct. And why is that? Because God is the one who punishes.

There should always be some kind of terrifying motive that we have as believers when it comes to sin. Not only should we grow to hate our sin, but we should grow to be afraid to sin. Why is that? Because you and I as believers live under the watchful eye of God.

We also have the Holy Spirit of God living in us. We know that the Holy Spirit of God can be grieved and can be quenched by what we think about and also by what we do. There’s no place we can go that the eyes of the Lord are hidden or that we can hide away from the eyes of God. Wherever we go, god goes. God knows what we’re up to.

So this first reason here that we are to remember: that the Lord is an avenger of wrong, specially in this area of sexual purity and impurity. The first reason to really to avoid such sexual misconduct does appeal to the fear of the consequences of disobedience. If one is truly saved, they will heed the warnings.

Any discipline the Lord would give them at a particular point in their life if they have fallen into this sin, they will repent and they will give evidence of their salvation.

So you and I are warned today from Scripture not to take lightly society’s lackadaisical attitude concerning sexual conduct. The Word of God strongly, strongly warns of God’s judgment and punishment on those who live impure lives.

Now, we do know that the Thessalonians were actually living this way because he compliments them. He says to them: listen, you’re living this way now; don’t stop there – keep on abounding in that kind of lifestyle. Keep on growing in the Lord so that become such a habit in your life that you even stop thinking about it and the temptation becomes less powerful for you as the Lord begins to fill our minds and transform our minds and keep our minds on the will of God.

The second reason that we are to have this sort of conduct in our life is found in verse 7, which I mentioned already, where it says this:

for God has not called us for the purpose of impurity, but in sanctification.

So the second reason is pointing us backward to what God has done. And what has he done? Our effectual call to trust in Jesus Christ alone for salvation also means that we were called to a certain kind of living. God had a definite purpose in mind concerning the way we should live our everyday life. To live in sexual impurity is to rebel against God’s purpose in His calling you to be His children.

You can mark this on your calendar: no matter which way you may think or someone else may impose upon you, that is how you should live your life. It’s clear here that you are not to live for the purpose of impurity or impure motives, but instead you have been called by God to live a life of holiness, sanctification, dedication.

I do want to just stress that word in verse 7, that God has not called you to something but he’s called you to something else. God has called us for a decent sex life, consistent with His aims and his purposes. It was necessary for the apostle Paul to place this lofty ideal before the Thessalonian christians while they’re living in a very pagan and of course sexually intoxicated world. It’s equally true now, is it not? It’s equally important now that you’re call to Christ will not allow you to live in a way you used to live. All immoralities must be avoided as being inconsistent with God’s gracious call of you.

You cannot live as if you do not know God anymore. You cannot live as if God’s not there and God doesn’t see or God doesn’t matter. What He requires christians to have in their calling is to be progressively made more and more holy everyday. It’s called theologically progressive sanctification. We talked a little bit about that this morning. Sanctification, of course, happens after someone repents of their sin, comes to Christ, at which point they are now indwelt with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit in conjunction with God’s Word and the cooperation of the sinner with God’s word, begins to grow the Christian in Christlikeness and holiness and godliness. Puritan

Thomas Watson summarize the principles of sanctification, gathered by Dr.Richard Mayhue in his book. Thomas Watson said: sanctification is a salvific work that is continued by God in this life unto completion in heaven. That means we’ll never become perfect this side of eternity, but we will be set apart more and more by the spirit on this side of eternity, making us ready for the presence of God. Once we drop off these bodies, we’ll go into the presence of the Lord and be perfect.

He said also sanctification is a salvific work that cannot be separated from salvation or glorification, that real salvation will lead to glorification. But we’re not going to be glorified here on this side of eternity.

Sanctification, He said also, is a salvific work of God, which once begun cannot be lost or stopped or be undone. The Lord, once He starts working on you, He will finish work on you until the day of Jesus Christ, right? He will finish the work that He started in us and saving us and transforming us.

Also. He said this: sanctification is a salvific work of God that prompts a holy response of Biblical obedience from those who are genuine saints. In other words, once you become a believer, I want to obey. I want to do what God wants me to do. The Spirit of God puts that desire in our heart, that we’re motivated by obedience.

He also said that sanctification is a salvific work of God that does not eradicate sin. We will never become sinless on this side of eternity. Sin will be eradicated when we are glorified, when we have new bodies in heaven.

Also sanctification is a salvific work that provides confident hope in this life because of a certain eternal hope in the next life. Several passages of Scripture that come to mind – where Jesus said in His high priestly prayer: sanctify them. John 17:17:

Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth.

And then he says in 2 Timothy 2:21:

Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from these things, he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified, useful to the Master, prepared for every good work.

And then 1 Thessalonions 5:23 says:

Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

In other words, the Lord is going to take us through this whole process of sanctification for what reason?That we would be presented to the Lord Jesus Christ at the end, right? God doesn’t save someone and leave them. God is right there working on you. Even when you don’t cooperate, He’s working on you. He’s going to bring you to the place where you want to cooperate. He’s going to show you your sin and He’s going to bring that to light. That sin is going to be the thing that you’re going to want to put the death and put aside because you realize it’s hindering your forward growth in Christ Jesus.

Warren Wiersbe tells of a church member who criticize her pastor because he was preaching against sin in the lives of Christians. She says: “after all, sin in the life of a believer is different from sin in the life of an unsaved person.” The pastor replied: “yes, it’s worse”.

It is true, Christians are not under the condemnation of sin, but it is also true that they are not exempt from the harvest of sorrow that comes when Christian sow to the flesh. If you sow to the flesh, you will reap a harvest. If you sow to holiness and godliness, you will also reap that harvest. That is the harvest that God wants us to reap. He wants us to reap a harvest of holiness and godliness.

That brings me to a third reason why this sort of conduct needs to be completely avoided. Here it is: this sort of conduct needs to be completely avoided because God’s Spirit is the ultimate standard.

It says in 1 Thessalonians 4:8:

He who reject this is not rejecting man but the God who gives His Holy Spirit to you.

In other words, anyone who treats sexual sin as no big deal is actually treating God and His Word as of no account. How are they doing that? By resisting the sanctifying process of the Holy Spirit.

If you notice the end of that verse, God has given His Holy Spirit to you as a down payment, as someone who seals you until the day of redemption, and someone who leads you into truth, so the truth sanctifies your mind.

This word here, “he who rejects”, this word means to refuse or to ignore, to invalidate the Word of God. Those who justify their licentious behavior, they do not hesitate to set aside God and sin against God who is present at the moment. Here we have a person who takes God’s demand for sexual purity so lightly that he or she makes it void by refusing to obey it. As we already said, God is an avenger and has given the Holy Spirit to empower saints in their struggle for holiness. And it will be a struggle.

To go on to live in impurity is a direct insult to the divine Giver. It is a sin against the Holy Spirit who is the power unto holiness, that He’s given to us. So to live in sexual impurity without any repentance is to reject God. A professing believer who commits and continues in impurity without genuine repentance can have no assurance of their salvation.

That’s one thing that sin does. If you’re living in sin, you’re not assured of your salvation because sin is opposite of what God wants to do with you. You lose your assurance. Of course, a christian who’s in the family of God should expect discipline from the heavenly Father because the heavenly Father is not going to allow His children to live in any old way they want. He’s going to discipline them. Discipline is for our good, but it leads us to know the holiness of God and want to live a holy life.

If a person is truly saved, they will heed the warning and any discipline and will repent, giving evidence of their salvation. So the christian life is not a matter of believing in Jesus and then trying our best to live according to God’s law. God’s promise is that when you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit will come. He will reside in you, in your life. You will receive power, and that power will make the difference between a battle in which you are destined for defeat and a battle in which there will be ultimate victory.

There is the difference, that God the Holy Spirit is living inside the believer. As the believer yields their life to the Holy Spirit, He the Holy Spirit cleanses and then create holy desires within us. The Holy Spirit also empowers us to walk in holiness and not be detoured into the lust of the world and into the lust of the flesh and into the pride of life and into the lies of Satan.

It is by walking in the spirit that we get victory over the lusts of the flesh. That’s what Paul said in Galatians 5:16:

but I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desires of the flesh.

Every day that’s how we are to do it. Walking means to live your life every single day, and you live your life in what God requires from the Word of God. In doing so, the Spirit of God will empower you to live holy. So in the presence of the Holy Spirit that makes our body, which is considered the temple of God where the Spirit of God dwells, it makes us realize that wherever we go with our body, we go with the Holy Spirit. That that becomes a consideration for all believers, when we consider this understanding of what the Bible teaches about sexual purity.

Now thinking of that, take your Bibles and turn to 1 Corinthians 6. We’re going to be looking at verse 12-20. It says:

All things are lawful for me, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be mastered by anything. Food is for the stomach and the stomach is for food, but God will do away with both of them. Yet the body is not for immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body. Now God has not only raised the Lord, but will also raise us up through His power. Do you not know that your body are members of Christ? Shall I then take away the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? May it never be! Or do you not know that the one who joins himself to a prostitute is one body with her? For he says, “The two shall become one flesh.”But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with him. Flee immorality. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.

That passage of scripture is really pointing out to us, giving us a scriptural view of sexual impurity, enabling us at the same time to fight with the goal to victory. To think about it, the right way to have God’s point of view on it. Now, that’s the passage. In that passage there are several things. Here are the things that we want identified.

1) Sexual impurity misuses the body, where it says that the body is not for immorality. So any kind of sexual impurity, no matter what it may be, however people may define it, it misuses your physical body.

2) Sexual immorality drags Christ into your sin. It says: do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take away the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? May it never be! We shouldn’t be even thinking like that. We don’t want to drag the Lord into our sin.

3) Sexual immorality, in verse 18-19, is a sin against the temple of the Holy Spirit. That’s why it says flee immorality. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body. So there, sexual impurity is against the temple of the Holy Spirit because the Holy Spirit indwells your body. He lives within you.

That brings us to that last thing: 4) sexual impurity misuses something that belongs to God. What belongs to God? If you notice in verses 19b-20, it says: and that you are not your own. You have been bought with a price. And what is that price? That prices is the precious shed blood and death of the Lord Jesus Christ, what He did on the cross, what it took to pay for us.

To satisfy the justice of the Father on the cross so we can be saved is something that cannot escape our mind. It’s something that needs to be in our mind every day. The reason for that is because that’s what God did for us. When we actually think that way, we can actually glorify God in our body and not misuse our body.

So then, to write-off what God commands as nothing is to invite the judgment of God, and is also to grieve the Spirit of God. According to the book of Proverbs, the teaching of wisdom warns young men and women to be very wary about going down a path that is lined with sweet smells, glittering lights, and enticing words, and delicious promises. That’s how sin is usually presented to us. Right? It’s not presented as something ugly. It’s presented as something desirable. Wow, that looks like I want to be involved with that. That looks like fun. That looks like it’s going to feel good. That looks like it’s got some great promises that I like to be involved with. That’s what sin is. Sin is given to us as a desirable package. I want it.

Now notice some of the things that happen when a person hears wisdom being taught to the young people. This is how it goes. Look what it says, the first one. 1) Unbiblical thinking is: it will feel good. The Word of God says in Proverbs 5:3-4:

for the lips of an adulteress drip honey and smoother than oil is her speech; But in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword.

What’s the real experience? It will produce shame and guilt. Of course sin doesn’t tell you in front that it’s going to produce shame and guilt. It never mentioned that. Satan will always lie to you. Temptation will never give you the end result. But see, that’s the the key with wisdom. Wisdom thinks about: if I have this thought, if I’m tempted in this way, it’s going to lead to this at the end. Why do I want to do that? That’s foolish. That’s the point. You don’t want to be foolish.

2) Unbiblical thinking is: it will make me feel better. It says in Proverbs 5:11-14:

And you groan at your final end, when your flesh and your body are consumed; and you say: “how I have hated instruction! And my heart spurned reproof! I have not listened to the voice of my teachers, nor inclined my ear to my instructors! I was almost in utter ruin in the mist of the assembly and congregation.

In other words, it’s going to produce regret if someone falls into the sin. Why? Because they’re going to say: I knew what to do and I didn’t listen. And I reap the results. I think we all can say, at some point in our Christian life, that we have regret, that we have fallen into a sin and knew it was wrong before we did it and fell into it anyway. Then I felt the regret of sinning. A wise person does not want to feel the regret of sinning anymore. The way they do that is they learn everyday to walk in holiness.

3) Unbiblical thinking: no one will know. Look at what it says in Proverbs 5:21:

For the ways of a man are before the eyes of the Lord, and He watches all his paths.

I’m going to need to confess it openly. Why? God knows what I’m doing. He knows where I’m going, and I shouldn’t be there. Why? I’m taking the temple of the Holy Spirit into a situation that I don’t belong.

Then here’s another set.

4) Unbiblical thinking: you’ll not hurt anyone. You hear that all the time, right? I’m not hurting anybody if I do this. But notice Proverbs 5:8-9:

Keep your way far from her and do not go near the door of her house, or you will give your vigor to others and your years to the cruel;

And then Proverbs 5:22:

the evil deeds of the wicked ensnare him, the cords of his sin hold him fast.

And then Proverbs 7:21-23:

With her many persuasion she entices him; with her flattering lips she seduces him. Suddenly he follows her as an ox goes to slaughter, or as one in fetters to the discipline of a fool, until an arrow pierces through his liver; as a bird hastens to the snare, so he does not know that it will cost him his life.

That means saying that it won’t hurt anybody, actually, it will waste your time and energy. It could also ruin your health. It will ruin your relationships because trust will be gone. It will hurt your wife, and for a woman, it will hurt your husband. It will ensnare like a trapped animal. In the end, you’ll give your glory to another; that means you will rob God of His glory.

One last one, just to give you a sense of Proverbs, is this: well. Wow, that looks good. Sin is always given to us as something that looks good, right? Remember the eye gate. What goes into your eye is very important because you’re going to get it to your mind. So what I’m looking at, if I look too long, then it’s going to start capturing me, capture my attention. Notice what it says: she looks good. But notice what it says in Proverbs 7:26-27:

For many are the victims she has cast down, and numerous are all her slain. Her house is the way to Sheol, descending to the chambers of death.

What is she? The sin to be led into sexual immorality. It’s really a sin that leads its disguise with destruction, its disguise with death ultimately. A wise person doesn’t want to go there.

So, let’s conclude some things this morning, the principles in the seventh commandment related to life today. There are several of them. I want to look at some of them, but I just want you to listen. If you’re taking notes, you should take some of these down because there are some helpful steps to consider, to avoid these kinds of sins.

The first one is this: that you must make yourself aware of the downward spiral of temptation that leads to sin. What do you mean by that? I mean that: what you see will lead to a desire to have, which will lead to move your will to actually take it. So in other words, you have to arrest the process of temptation before it gets to the end result.

Here’s a good example. I just want to want you to see the highlight. This is David’s sin with Bathsheba, where you can build adultery. Notice what it says. It says that he saw a woman bathing, and then also secondly he inquired about the woman. She was a married woman. Then he took her. Then when she came to him, he laid with her. He had sexual relationship with her. We know that this particular sin in David’s life was very destructive, in his whole family. Matter of fact, the implications of the sin never left him at all. It followed him to his grave.

Remember the results of this kind of sin in the Old Testament was death. But God forgave him. Nathan the prophet came to him and said: David, you committed the sin. The wife of Uriah, you robbed her from him. And so you’re the man. You’re guilty.

You find this all over the scripture. You see, your heart passion desires, and then your volition makes things up to take it, makes plans to take it. Put it to death at the eye gate. Remember the passage I mentioned in Job where he says: I have made a covenant with my eyes; how then could I gaze on a virgin? How can I do that? So that’s the first thing.

The second thing is: you must avoid any person who might lead you into temptation. That means you need to cut off all relationships, companionship, with persons who have been involved with you in wrongdoing. Then you must form wholesome and pure new friendships to fill the void.

Remember what Paul told the church in the context of the resurrection. He said: do not be deceived; bad company corrupts good morals. That is definitely something that you have to be concerned about.

Thirdly you must avoid every situation that might lead you into temptation. Too much time alone with nothing to do places you in the way of temptation. You must plan to become active in some kind of wholesome work, hobby, or study. Remember what the scriptures tells us in 1 Corinthians 10:13:

No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it.

You will be able to through it on the side of victory, because the Spirit of God has been given to you. The Word of God has been given to you. The church has been given to you. Truth has been given to you, that you would be able to say no to the sin and run from it if need be.

Then you need to consider your thinking habits. Your thinking habits. What kind of things fill your thought life? Practice avoiding every book, magazine, TV program, movie, video, computer program, internet site, that might prove sexually stimulating. Remember, if garbage and filth gets into your mind, garbage and filth will come out of your mind. Violence, crime, and sex – that’s what usually sells. It will take over your thoughts and hamstring your morals. Instead, you and I must read and memorize and know the Word of God, especially portions that will provide help for you in time of temptation.

Some of these passages scriptures are good ones to memorize and to get familiar with when it comes to filling your mind with the Word of God, to enable you to resist temptation.

Also, listen to the Word of God preached. It will renew your mind and you can get God’s point of view on that. You’re not getting God’s point of view anywhere in the world. You’re not getting God’s point of view, for many of us, from our own families. They never had God’s point of view. You’re only going to get God’s point of view in the church that are preaching and using the Word of God as our final rule of authority for life and godliness.

Then of course, remember, keep your mind on the right things. Whatever is pure, let your mind dwell on these things. That’s what Paul told the Philippians. Also you must maintain a regular prayer life. That passage of scripture where it says: the Word, that I have treasured in my heart that I might not sin against you. It should be something that we are considering.

Also you must practice calling upon God when sudden temptation strikes. God will answer any sincere request for help. That’s what he’ll do. He’ll answer us. God wants you to win the battle.

Remember, when Jesus was walking the earth, and He came to a time where He was going to be crucified, and He was in the garden of Gethsemane, and He was praying. Then He said to His disciples: please pray with me. Pray for, not only me, but for yourselves. This is what He says that them, and this is very telling here, this passage of scripture. He tells them: keep watching and praying that you may not come into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. That’s always the case. So you want to strengthen the spirit and weaken the flesh. That’s the goal of the Spirit of God: strengthen the spirit and weaken the flesh.

Then, of course, some of the practical things is this: consider your appearance. Clothes and morals are closely linked. Women who dress provocatively to arouse impure thoughts in the minds of men have sagging morals. Men can do the same. Modesty is the best policy. I would say: no, holiness is the best policy, which will include modesty.

Also you must make yourself accountable to someone who is more mature than you. For a man, a male. For a woman, a mature Christian woman in the congregation.

Then we need to keep our line between the unmarried state and the married state drawn distinct and clear. Remember, chastity before marriage is what pleases God and how God designed things. Trust Him that He is going to enable you when He give you the desires in your heart to want to honor Him.

Then view marriage as something set apart, something very special and sacred before God and also to you, because it’s a right for granting a special place of privilege. It’s a special place where the sexual union can take place in which God designed.

Then remember, fall in love with the Lord Jesus and desire to want to live for Him alone. Keep pure for God and for that special someone in the future. You’re keeping yourself pure for that person. If the Lord will give you someone to marry, He’s keeping you pure for that person. And then He’s keeping you pure if you’ll never get married for Himself.

If anybody here today has fallen into wrongful, sinful practices remember, it is possible to break these habits in the power of God’s spirit. The Lord Jesus Christ stands ready to forgive you of past sins, to enable you who are His children to keep you free from such sin in the future. But you must be willing to do your part. Then, cast yourself on the mercy of God for deliverance.

Now, if you remember, one day as recorded in John 8, Jesus commented on adultery. The sin of adultery has an awfulness to it. But the forgiveness of Christ has a wonder to it. The scheming religious leaders of Jesus’ day tried to entrap Him by bringing a woman before Him who violated the seventh commandment. According to the Old Testament law, the crime was punishable by stoning. They wanted Jesus to condemn her or else be forced to show that His refusal to carry out the law of God was a rejection of the law of Moses.

What did Jesus say to them? This is what He said to them:

But when they persisted in asking Him, He straightened up, and said to them, “He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” Again He stooped down and wrote on the ground.

So, what happened is that convicted by their own guilty consciences, the crowd of accusers slipped away one by one. For the woman, He spoke words of pardon and mercy. No matter how deep and dreadful the sin, the Savior stands ready to forgive all who seek His mercy.

As the scripture continued in John 8:9-12, it says:

When they heard it, they began to go out one by one, beginning with the older ones, and He was left alone, and the woman, where she was, in the center of the court. Straightening up, Jesus said to her, “Woman, where are they? Did no one condemned you?” She said, “No one Lord.” And Jesus said, “I do not condemn you, either. Go. From now on and sin no more.

Don’t commit sin like this anymore. Of course, there may be an assumption there that she did come to Christ. Verse 12 says:

Then Jesus again spoke to them, saying, “I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in darkness, but will have the Light of life.

Jesus wasn’t condoning her sin. He was showing that there is no one who has not in some way committed that sin. But there’s always forgiveness with Christ. There’s always mercy with Christ. That’s where we run to. Again, the law in the christian life will keep us running to Christ, where we receive cleansing of our sin. He cleanses us from all unrighteousness – that’s the promise He gives us.

Let’s pray. Lord, thank you this morning. Lord, we want to have command of our bodies, a command that is led by your Holy Spirit. We want our minds to be transformed, that we would know the good and acceptable will of God. And Lord, may we have the strength that when we are tempted in this way, that the power of temptation would become less and less as we grow more and more in godliness. And I pray, Lord, that we would find our joy and our happiness in this life in You.

Also, that we might stand before You unashamed one day, because our lives have honor the name of your son Jesus Christ. And so Lord today, we want to offer ourselves as a living sacrifice to You. We know this is our reasonable service of worship, and we want to do that with one motivation: because of your mercy, because You did not give us what we deserve in Christ. Lord for that, we are forever thankful. We thank you Lord today. Make us people who everyday desire more to walk in holiness than to commit sin. And I pray this in Your name, amen.

March 31, 2019
The Ten Commandments Past and Present — The Seventh Commandment (Part 1)

In this sermon, Pastor Babij begins examining the seventh of the Ten Commandments: “you shall not commit adultery.” Pastor Babij explains how the central principle of the commandment is to honor God’s institution of marriage. In application, Pastor Babij discusses several key ways for believers to protect their marriages from compromise.

Full Transcript:

Today, we will be looking at Exodus 20:14, which is the seventh commandment, along with other passages of Scripture to help us understand these commandments. Exodus 20:1-14 says:

Then 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. ³“You shall have no other gods before Me. ⁴“You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. ⁵“You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, ⁶but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments. ⁷“You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not leave him unpunished who takes His name in vain. ⁸“Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. ⁹“Six days you shall labor and do all your work, ¹⁰but the seventh day is a sabbath of the LORD your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you. ¹¹“For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the 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. ¹²“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be prolonged in the land which the LORD your God gives you. ¹³“You shall not murder. ¹⁴“You shall not commit adultery.

Let’s pray:

Lord, as we continue to look at Your word and these commandments that have timeless and universal principles embedded in them, I pray Lord that we would put ourselves in the equation. That we would not think that this is for someone else, but it’s for us. I pray Lord that we would take what it says to heart and practice it in our very behavior and thinking. Lord, as we do that, we would learn how to live Godly lives and holy lives. Lives that are not perfect but lives that are moving towards righteousness and putting the things that we do know into practice. Lord increase our knowledge and make us into Your image as we know the spirit of God will do that. Lord, we want to submit and bow before Your word. Use it in our own lives Lord to honor Your name. I ask and pray in Christ’s name, Amen.

As we look at this passage of Scripture, we’re brought face-to-face with the realities of God’s plan for marriage and also for personal morality as God intended it. We are all aware that moral standards are laughed at or ignored by a majority of a people in the world. However, high standards of personal purity are what God has intended for His people.

Over 3,000 years ago, the people of Israel had to face the kind of situation we face today. They were going to settle in the land of Canaan where their neighbors are notorious for their complete lack of morality and purity. Culturally, the Pagan religions did not demand sexual purity of its devotees. The gods and goddesses were grossly immoral.

The laws God gave to the Israelites touched the areas of their lives that he knew would or could be most affected by association with the wicked culture. These commandments really are for us today because they are timeless and universal. They fulfill practical principles that we can implement every single day of our lives.

Now, it’s very clear that we are living in a kind of a pornographic society. Our culture is really bombarding us with images and designs to capture our lusts. Mediums of TV, commercials, movies, YouTube, social media, and internet sites are designed to figure out your habits, to track where you go on the site, what you buy, and they get to know you in a way. They start advertising certain things to you.

In fact, marketing professionals understand this. They capitalize on it and one area that they capitalize on is pornography. They get that out to people. Thus, our nation has been really steeped in a revolution, and we have been losing very badly in this revolution. We have been thrust from the sixties into a sexual revolution that has moved into a homosexual revolution that has ushered our whole nation into a revolution of insanity.

That’s where we live today. We live in the realm of insanity. The Bible is very clear on that. When that happens, Romans 1:24, 26 says:

Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them…²⁶For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural

This whole thing of insanity is that there’s insanity on the street level where the Bible says in Romans 1:28:

And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper.

Then, that insanity trickled right up to the government. We have a revolution of insanity at the governmental level. The Bible does tell us that they do the same thing and they give hearty approval to those who practice such things. Today, we are living in that realm and we are challenged by the word of God to live according to the way God wants us to live.

Now, we come to this seventh commandment, which is brushed aside today. It’s not really practiced at all in our culture to any extent. Yet, for the church, they are to keep this. The church is to make sure that things that are going on honor God.

The seventh commandment is a straightforward command. You can even feel the force of it when you read it even though it’s so short. It impresses immediately upon your mind and your conscience that God disapproves of every kind of adultery and sexual deviant behavior. Every kind of it, God is against and it’s not the way he designed things.

In Scripture, the principle is that we have a responsibility to honor the marriage institution By remaining faithful to one’s own spouse and by respecting the marriages of other people. Again, it says very clearly:

You shall not commit adultery.

God designed you As a sexual being and placed His dynamic creative force within you. It should be reasonable that the Designer, the Maker, would not leave you or I without direction regarding the powerful sexual machinery He has placed within us.

Secondly, let me remind you that the Designer has given you precautions, and restrictions found in His instruction manual called the Bible. God is for you and me in this matter, and He is not trying to make Your life miserable, but wonderful. Since God created man’s sex hunger. God plans for man’s sex hunger to be satisfied by the reuniting of woman to man as it occurs in marriage.

We all have been exposed to many different ideas and views concerning sex, love, and marriage. Society has loudly and frequently said that everyone must make their own personal decision concerning this matter. This is true, but according to whose agenda will one make their decision:

Are you going to view your sex drive as simply another biological phenomenon like hunger or thirst and then feed it the way you think it should be fed, or is it something far more meaningful and wonderful than that? Will you consider your sex urges as something to be satisfied now, or something to be diverted until you get married – that is, if you get married?

Whose advice will you seek and follow in regard to your sexual conduct: your parents, the kids that you grew up with, the neighbors on your block, or maybe some actors and musicians? Even better, we should get our direction from the Lord, God because He is the designer and the architect of the marriage institution.

Not committing adultery is literally sexual intercourse with someone who is married to another. It was considered to be such a breach of faith in marriage and so horrendous that it was thought to pollute the culture. God considered this sin so serious that it was punishable by death in the Mosaic law. Leviticus 20:10 says:

If there is a man who commits adultery with another man’s wife, one who commits adultery with his friend’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.

We see the seriousness that is coming through Scripture to us concerning this matter. I grew up as a really good Catholic boy, but not a person who was introduced to anything in Scripture that would remind me of these things. Yes, I did know the Ten Commandments, but it’s not like it came to mind. I wish somebody sat down and said something to me on what the Bible says and what God thinks about the sexual union in marriage.

Basically, you are told to wait until you are married, right? Generally, that’s what people would say, which is better than nothing, but it doesn’t explain what I ought to be doing, thinking, or not doing. Those are the kind of things that when I come to Scripture, I see how weighty these things are as we read them in the word of God. Deuteronomy 22:22 says:

If a man is found lying with a married woman, then both of them shall die, the man who lay with the woman, and the woman; thus you shall purge the evil from Israel.

God made sure that His people knew that this kind of activity was evil. It was wicked. It was something that would pollute the culture. It would pollute society. It would destroy families. Therefore, God’s people were to make sure those things were not taking place and they were following with the word of God. This seventh commandment was put it very simply by man named D. Stewart, who wrote a commentary on the book of Exodus:

No one is allowed to have sex with any married person except his or her spouse. No married person is allowed to have sex with anyone other than his or her spouse.

That is very clear and very simple, and that’s the way it ought to be. That should be clear in our minds. Keep in mind as we consider the seventh commandment, adultery suggests the wrongness of all sexual impurity in deed, thought, and word. Remember, Jesus raised the bar in Matthew 5:28 where He says:

but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

In other words, God judges sin not by the fruit on the branches, but on what’s going on inside the heart since that’s where it all comes from. This is a sin against God. It divides what God has united in marriage – one man and one woman. Any other cultural construct is wrong. God alone has the authority to define marriage and determine the proper use of sexuality.

Again, adultery is sexual unfaithfulness of a married person. It is voluntary sexual intercourse of a married man with another than his wife by a married woman with another than her husband. Christians know from the word of God, beyond a doubt, God’s standard of right and wrong is very clear when it comes to sexuality.

Adultery destroys the holy oneness and the harmony that marriage possesses. It is a sin against more than one person and against God. It wrongs the innocent. The whole family is hurt. Often, children are left victims of a broken home, which leads them to visualize and understand a wrecked marriage concluding not to get married at all.

The testimony of the Christian church is maligned when it happens along with the nation being weekend. Thus, it weakens at every level and finally destroys. Yes, the sin of adultery hurts those who are guilty of it. King David, after committing adultery with Uriah’s wife, Bathsheba, wrote in Psalm 51:3-4:

For I know my transgressions, And my sin is ever before me. ⁴Against You, You only, I have sinned And done what is evil in Your sight, So that You are justified when You speak And blameless when You judge.

In the book of Proverbs, the wisdom literature of the Bible, says the person who commits adultery lacks sense and destroys his own soul. Proverbs 6:32-33:

The one who commits adultery with a woman is lacking sense; He who would destroy himself does it. ³³Wounds and disgrace he will find, And his reproach will not be blotted out.

When sex is taken outside the marriage, the fire of sexual passion will consume and destroy even the most precious things in one’s life. Adultery can be committed in and outside the family unit, which pollutes the whole community and it is coupled with serious consequences. Again, in Leviticus 20:10, we see adultery outside the immediate family unit:

If there is a man who commits adultery with another man’s wife, one who commits adultery with his friend’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.

Then, you see that adultery can be committed inside the immediate family unit where it says in Leviticus 20:11:

If there is a man who lies with his father’s wife, he has uncovered his father’s nakedness; both of them shall surely be put to death, their bloodguiltiness is upon them.

It’s a wicked spiral when sex is out of control. In Leviticus 20:12, it’s talking about incest, which is sexual intercourse between persons related by blood or marriage:

If there is a man who lies with his daughter-in-law, both of them shall surely be put to death; they have committed incest, their bloodguiltiness is upon them.

Then, Leviticus 20:13 spirals into homosexuality:

If there is a man who lies with a male as those who lie with a woman, both of them have committed a detestable act; they shall surely be put to death. Their bloodguiltiness is upon them.

In Leviticus 20:14, it is referring to polygamy:

If there is a man who marries a woman and her mother, it is immorality; both he and they shall be burned with fire, so that there will be no immorality in your midst.

In Leviticus 20:15-16, it is referring to bestiality, which is people having unnatural sexual relationship with animals:

If there is a man who lies with an animal, he shall surely be put to death; you shall also kill the animal. ¹⁶‘If there is a woman who approaches any animal to mate with it, you shall kill the woman and the animal; they shall surely be put to death. Their bloodguiltiness is upon them.

Then, there is pedophilia, which is an erotic desire of an adult to have sexual relations with a child. Did you know that sex trafficking is the second fastest growing criminal enterprise in the world, right under drug trafficking? There has to be demand for it, right? Do you know where the demand comes from? The good old United States because we’re free, right?

When were free and we leave God out of things and there’s no more structure in our society for morality or ethics, then everything goes wacko and crazy. All you have to do is turn on the news and find out what’s going on in Washington and see that there is no common sense. It’s insanity. There’s no common sense when there is insanity. The Bible is teaching us that our Lord, God is against this kind of activity within relationship of human beings.

That brings me to two things that really have to do with a marriage when it is ratified. This day that we vowed our love before our friends and God above. The day when somebody gets married, two things are going on to ratify the covenant. Number one, a verbal oath, a solemn promise, of the vows made before God and witnesses will be kept. Number two, the ratification sign, the private act of sexual consummation, which signs and seals the covenant.

So, how are we to hold the marriage institution in high regard? We must understand and accept what God’s word says about marriage; then, maintain what it says no matter how much pressure we receive from the world around us that’s trying to conform us, press us into its mold, and get us to think like they think. We cannot think like they think. We must think in a way that honors the Lord.

I want to direct your attention to a passage of Scripture in the New Testament, in Hebrews 13:4. In the context of Hebrews 13, it’s about running the Christian race. Remember, the race is not a sprint race, but it’s a marathon race. It’s not a matter of whether your first. It’s a matter of finishing. Some take longer than others, but we ought to be finishing the race in a way that honors the Lord.

Here, the Jewish audience were on the brink. Some of them were coming to trust Christ as Lord and Savior, and there were some of them not coming all the way over to trust the Lord as their Savior. Thus, he is still giving the nation the principles on how to live in this world. In that, there are four main things in order to hold marriage in high honor.

First, to maintain a correct mindset concerning marriage, the word of God is exhorting gathered believers to maintain the correct mindset and the correct thinking on marriage, which is to have a Biblical mindset. Hebrews 13:4 says:

Marriage is to be held in honor among all, and the marriage bed is to be undefiled…

In this verse, there are two words regarding marriage. It’s the word honorable, which means that it’s valuable, precious, costly, and to be respected. That’s the mindset that we are to hold when it comes to the marriage institution. The second word is undefiled, which means to be pure, unsullied, and unstained. That’s how we are to look at marriage.

There are always different mindsets in regard to marriage. There is the mindset of no marriage at all. People just doing what they think is right and avoiding the contract and the commitment in marriage. Well, that’s foreign to the creator’s design. Then, there is asceticism, or the ascetic mindset, which are the people who become monks and live on top of a telephone pole.

Those are the people that think marriage is really not honorable at all, but actually dirty, defiling, and filthy. They have an agnostic type of mindset where they think the body is dirty and the spirit is good. They believe if the spirit in the body come together, then the body defiles to spirit. There is also the same sex mindset. They think that they are right, but they are wrong that two people of the same sex could be married, which is foreign to the word of God. In fact, the word of God says that’s an abomination.

Then, there is the Biblical mind set. There is nothing dishonorable in marriage or defiling in the marriage relationship or the marriage bed for sexual intercourse. It is pure and holy before God. Remember, marriage itself is not a Christian institution. It is a creation institution. These mandates go out from the Creator to the creatures that are to be obeyed and lived out in the culture in which they live. As a result, the standard for the church goes up.

The Bible says that marriage is a divine institution. Contrary to some contemporary opinion, marriage is not a human institution that has evolved over centuries to meet the needs of society. Marriage was God’s idea and it is a good idea. Also, marriage is to be regulated by divine instruction. Since God made marriage, it stands to reason that it must be regulated by His commands, which we’re looking at today. In marriage, both husband and wife stand beneath the authority of the Lord. In Psalms 127:1, it says:

Unless the LORD builds the house,
They labor in vain who build it;

If you’re going to build the house, then build it God’s way according to the blueprints God gave us. Then, your house is going to stand. If you go opposite of that, then you’re just laboring in vain. Then, a few troubles and mindsets will come along and there it goes. Building marriage with Gods blueprints is the point of marriage.

Also, marriage is a covenant agreement between two parties based on mutual promises and solemnly binding obligations. God’s covenant with Abraham and his descendants is summarized in the statement:

I will be your God and you shall be my people.

Marriage is the statement, “I will be faithful to you, you be faithful to me.” Marriage is called a covenant, the most intimate of all human covenants. The key ingredient in a covenant is always faithfulness. Faithfulness to the covenant vows and obligations.

Marriage is also a whole person commitment. God meant it to be a total commitment of a man and a woman to each other. It is not two solo performances, but a duet. In marriage, two people give themselves unreservedly to each other. What God has joined together, Scripture says let no one separate.

God has declared till death do us part. That is not a carryover from old-fashioned romanticism, but a sober reflection of God’s intention regarding marriage. Ultimately, marriage is a divine illustration of the love relationship that God establishes with His people. Thus, the Christian marriage should be an object lesson in which others can see something of the divine human relationship reflected in it.

In Ephesians 5, we see that a husband is to love his wife like Christ loves the church and wives are to submit to their husbands as the church submits to Christ. As our marriages grow and develop and our minds are changed by the word of God, then we will reflect that kind of picture more and more as we put God’s word into practice.

So, how are we, the church, to keep marriage honorable? By never allowing its honor to be defiled by sexual violations, which is the first. Second, we are to maintain a correct behavior in marriage before and in marriage. Again, Hebrews 13:4 says:

Marriage is to be held in honor among all, and the marriage bed is to be undefiled; for fornicators and adulterers God will judge.

Fornicators and adulterers are two words that bring defilement into the marriage. Fornication, which is where we get the word pornography from, is one who practices sexual immorality or a fornicator. This is defiling behavior that dishonors marriage in advance of marriage, or before someone gets married.

Fornication is what happens when somebody doesn’t have a good understanding of what marriage is and how God designed it, so they act out their sexuality before marriage with someone else. This term really designates those persons who indulge in sexual relationships outside the marriage bond both heterosexual and homosexual.

This includes all kinds of impurity and unnatural vices. All kinds of sexual deviant behavior are not to be acted upon even before one gets married. Then, the second word is the word adulterer, which is defiling behavior that dishonors marriage after marriage has been entered into. This term indicates those who are unfaithful in their marriage vows.

These two adjectives – fornicator and adulterer – covers all who recklessly engage in forbidden practices against the one who sets the boundaries and rules for such relationships, which is God himself. Meaning, it is the responsibility of Christ’s church to view marriage as honorable and undefiled. We are never to disgrace this institution by sexual unfaithfulness. You must have the correct behavior of marriage before you enter into marriage and you are to maintain that mindset and behavior while you’re in marriage.

Thirdly, we should maintain a correct view of God. In Hebrews 13:4, God will judge fornicators and adulterers. Illicit sexual sins defile the marriage bed and profanes what God has made holy. Therefore, a healthy fear must be kept in regard to our Lord God. Anyone who defiles marriage through any illicit sexual encounter will face the certainty of divine judgment. Some theologians actually point out that this verse, and others like it, also includes the final judgment that determines your destiny. Ephesians 5:5 says:

For this you know with certainty, that no immoral or impure person or covetous man, who is an idolater, has an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.

Someone who practices this activity thinks they’re getting away with it because that’s the choices they made, that’s the road they have been led down, or they think that they’re just going to get a pass on it since everybody else is doing it. However, according to Scripture, it could be that very sin that sends you into a lost eternity because God is holy, just, righteous, and He is the judge.

God is serious about fidelity, purity, and morality. God is a moral being and he created people in His image as moral beings. Consequently, God holds people morally accountable. When humanity rejects God’s rule and asserts its own rule by violating and perverting God’s fixed order and moral law, then there are serious consequences. That’s what’s coming out of the word of God from the beginning of the Bible to the end of the Bible.

God is serious about His marriage institution. More than any other picture, it reflects God’s faithful relationship to His covenant, to His word, and to His people. It has become also a picture of how Christ loves and is faithful to His church and how the church is to be faithful to Christ and respectfully and lovingly submit to Christ.

Fourthly, as I consider the passage altogether, marriage is to be held in honor among all. We must take Hebrews 13:4 very seriously and live it out every single day of our lives. We’re always fighting against sin and temptation. Through the word of God and the power of the spirit of God in us, He gives us the ability to resist that temptation and put into practice what is written in the word of God.

It doesn’t mean that the temptation goes away because you had victory one-time. We’re going to get bombarded and knocked from pillar to post when it comes to temptation. It’s going to be at different levels. It’s usually going to be when we least expect it. It could be at the time when you think you are the strongest in your Christian walk, then boom! You get hit with that.

You must have your mind come back to this passage. You must have your mind go back to the Ten Commandments. One of the things that will help us in temptation is loving God, which is a level of maturity. We must love God more than we love our sin. Thus, we must maintain a consistent and correct conduct that aligns who we are and what pleases God concerning marriage.

The Apostle Paul understood the allure of sexual sin, so in his epistle, to the formerly idolatrous Thessalonians, he provides a perspective that is too often neglected in a sexually intoxicated culture like theirs and like ours today. In 1 Thessalonians 3:13, Paul gives instructions that is practical for us:

so that He may establish your hearts without blame in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all His saints.

This is how we are to conduct ourselves as we go in and out of living our life on the Earth. Not only is there unattained maturity that we are to obtain, but there is lifestyles and cultural practices that must disappear completely from our life as we grow more and more like Christ. The scripture now gets very specific as to what that means. 1 Thessalonians 4:7 says:

For God has not called us for the purpose of impurity, but in sanctification.

Let me start off by asking and answering some questions. First, what is sexual purity? God’s will is our sexual purity. In 1 Thessalonians 4:3, it says:

For this is the will of God, your sanctification; that is, that you abstain from sexual immorality

This is all over the Bible. You cannot get away from it and I believe the reason why is because it’s so powerful. It’s so tempting. It’s so easily falling into as a sin. God’s design is that man and woman would exercise their sexuality and experience sexual pleasure in only one context, which is in the marriage relationship.

Any sexual impurity dishonors our marriage and defies our marriage bed. It is taking the affection that we vowed to our spouse alone and giving it to another. It is a horrible offense against our spouse, so a definition would be this:

To be sexually pure is to receive sexual pleasure and satisfaction only from your spouse and to give sexual pleasure and satisfaction only to your spouse.

If you are single, then this means abstaining entirely from sexual pleasure and satisfaction as long as God keeps you single. In the meantime, you are to pursue the greatest kind of pleasure and the greatest kind of satisfaction, which is knowing God. In fact, you are to do that before you get married and you are the continue to do that in your marriage.

This is really the key to a happy marriage. I say to young couples the key to a happy marriage is Jesus Christ and the principles of the word of God that is going to rescue you from all kinds of trails and temptations that you can get dragged down into.

To be honest, it is uncomfortable preaching about stuff like this that is so direct, but I wish someone did it for me when I was younger and reinforced where possibly our parents are stumbling around trying to communicate. You are going to go to the young people, to school, or college and get bombarded with completely the opposite of this.

In fact, it’s going to be stuff that they’re going to be convinced of by people that they may have some respect for such as a mentor in their life. Nonetheless, believers need to stick to the word of God, stick to what it means, and practice it every day. This is something we ought to practice every single day in our culture.

If you are here today and you have fallen into wrongful sexual practices, and if you think in your mind to have sex without even the act, that’s sin. That’s pretty serious before the Lord. Some of these habits seem impossible to break, but only by the power of God can it be broken. It will be broken, and it should be broken.

The Lord, Jesus Christ stands ready to forgive you for past sins and to enable you to keep free from sin in the future. In sanctification, we are to cooperate with God concerning what the word of God says about how I’m to be behaving, what I’m to think, what I allow into my mind, and what I allow my mind to dwell upon. All those things are super important for you and me to have victory over this prevailing sin in our culture.

You must be willing to do your part and cast yourself on the mercy of God and the strength of God’s spear to deliver you when that temptation comes. Remember, temptation is not sin, but it will lead to sin if you give into it. If you play with it, if you entertain it, and if you feed it, you’re going to get hooked. There’s going to be a point where you won’t be able to resist anymore.

In this area, young people, adults, married couples, and everyone needs to put into practice this particular principle that says you shall not commit adultery, and what that principle means in practical implication. As I close, here are some practical things in how to protect against slipping. Now, this is going to relate to those people who are possibly single or even those who would eventually get married.

When you are single going out with someone of the opposite sex, on a date, courting, or whatever you want to call it, then you must stay active. You have to stay with others. You should not allow too much time alone with each other. Plan that time together so it is filled with absorbing wholesome activity. That’s what you have to do to start resisting temptation.

Then, you can’t lower your inhibition or dull your judgement or your conscience by letting your conscience to be seared in anyway by some kind of thing that will deaden your God-given higher faculties of soul. You have to allow your judgment, your conscience, your reason, and your self-control not to be short-circuited. If you allow that to happen, then you’re actually saying, “I don’t care, and I want the temptation to come on because I’ve been desiring and think about that for a long time.”

You have to depend on the holy spirit of God to keep self-control. Another thing is that you can’t allow your mind to be all tied up with sexual thoughts. You have to divert your thoughts onto other interests such as hobbies and things you like to do like music and noble endeavors that are going to keep your mind occupied. Of course, the word of God definitely comes into that. Philippians 4:8 says:

Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.

You also have to avoid self-defeating behavior. If someone says to you, “can I even look at another person?” Yes, you can just as long as your prolonged looking does not foster unwholesome thoughts. Don’t even practice this kind of self-defeating behavior because it’s going to end up giving you trouble. Even Job, one of the first books of the Bible, concluded:

I have made a covenant with my eyes;
How then could I gaze at a virgin?

He realized that’s going to get you into trouble. In your mind first, it’s going to get you into trouble. There are various services that filter out some of the inappropriate web pages and email information that comes across your computer. Parents, if you don’t have it and if you may need it for yourself, there is something called “Covenant Eyes,” or “Safe Eyes.”

These are things you should have on your computer. Just the very fact that you would not be led into temptation. You know how things get on your computer. If you’re going to certain sites, they have these little cookies that connect to your programs and then they send these kinds of messages into your computer.

Pornography is just a click away and you can do it in private and nobody knows you’re doing it, but God knows, which is the point. God knows you’re doing it and God takes it so seriously, so don’t think you’re getting away with it. It has serious consequences. Then, we want to resist temptation. Psalms 119:11 says:

Your word I have treasured in my heart,
That I may not sin against You.

The word of God is going to be a very important ingredient that saturates your mind so you would not be led into a sin and you’ll be able to resist the temptation when it comes. I think the great advice that Paul gives to young Timothy, who was going to pastor the church of Ephesus is simply to run. In 2 Timothy 2:22, Paul says:

Now flee from youthful lusts and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart.

Flee, but don’t leave a vacuum. If you leave a vacuum, you will get sucked back in, so pursue something. Call upon the Lord with a pure heart, which is a heart that is seeking and wanting the will of God in their life. See, that’s what we ought to be doing. Flight is usually the best approach to sexual temptation. To stand and resist temptation is possible, but it’s much easier and makes more sense to run from it and pursue what you ought too.

Then, keep the line between the unmarried state and the married state. It should be drawn distinct and clear. Chastity before marriage is what pleases God. Purity before marriage is what pleases God. If you practice it when you’re single, you will also practice it when your married.

Don’t ever get caught in some illusion that you’re never going to be tempted just because you’re married to a sexual sin. You will, but you got to be ready for it. Don’t get caught in that trap.

We must have a clear view of marriage as something set apart, something sacred, something special, and granting a special place of privilege before God. See, that’s what the Lord calls us to do. Let’s pray:

Lord, may we be in command of our bodies. The holy spirit of God has been given to us for self-control. May we have the strength to flee from temptation. Not only that we find happiness in this life, but we find our happiness in You. Also, Lord, that we might stand before You unashamed one day because our lives have honored the name of Your son, Jesus Christ. Lord, for all of us, whether we are married or not, we would, from our very thought life and heart, start thinking the way You want us to think. Lord, when we are tempted, we would immediately go to what Your word teaches us, and the principles found in the word of God. That we would resist it. Lord, give us the wherewithal to know when to run and when to stay away from things. Give us wisdom in this area, Lord, so we don’t get caught in the cultural complications that are going on all around us. I pray, Lord, in doing that we may honor Your name in our behavior and in our activities with other people. I pray this in Christ’s name, Amen.

March 17, 2019
The Ten Commandments Past and Present — The Sixth Commandment

In this sermon, Pastor Babij teaches on the deeper meaning behind the Sixth Commandment: “Thou shall not murder.” Pastor Babij explains how the Scriptures teach that people are to fundamentally care for and protect human life. Making note that the correct interpretation is “murder” not “kill,” Pastor Babij delineates the different kinds of killing that exist as well as their different and associated penalties. Pastor Babij concludes with an admonishment against holding onto anger against anyone, warning that all who do so do not have eternal life.

Full Transcript:

When death was arrested, our life began for those who are in Christ. Amen. That is something that we can rest in and trust in for eternity.

This morning, we’re going to be looking at Exodus 20, and then we are going to be looking at other passages in Deuteronomy and Numbers. It is important for the understanding of this particular commandment, which is going to be the sixth commandment.

The commandments clearly spell out what is involved in our relationship with God, but also in our relationship with others. In the first commandment, we recognize that He alone is God and he has to have first place in our hearts and lives.

Secondly, the second commandment showed us that man must not attempt to make any visible representation of the invisible God. To do so would actually distort who God is and His holiness.

The third commandment brings us to a place where we are responsible for taking up the name of God. As we go into our world and as we live our life, we are to be an example before a dying world on how we treat and honor the name of God by our words, deeds, and thoughts.

The fourth commandment brought us the responsibility of worshipping God one day in seven by attending to God’s honor and to our own soul on that day. Then, the fifth commandment brought us the responsibility to honor our fathers and our mothers.

Today, we are going to look at our responsibility in the sixth commandment and that’s found in our Bibles in Exodus 20:13:

You shall not murder.

Our responsibility for that commandment is to care for and protect others welfare and their physical life. It is all of our responsibilities to do that before God. Now, there’s much more detail than that, which we’re going to look at this morning, so let’s pray:

Father, we thank You for this privilege to come, have Bibles, and be able to open them up, read them, study them, and take them home with us where we can read them throughout the week and think about the words of God in our mind. It was created for that purpose, so our ears can hear Your truth and our minds can think about it. I pray as that happens, Holy Spirit, You would take us and You would transform our minds so we would know the good, the acceptable, and the perfect will of God. Then, Lord, that we would put into practice what we’re learning and our whole character would be transformed by You, so we can be Your vessels on this Earth to bring the light and the salt to those who don’t have it yet. I pray that You would use us in that way and specifically understand this commandment as we go from the Old to the New Testament. I pray in Christ’s name, Amen.

In the Hebrew, this commandment is only two words. This commandment is something that seems straightforward as soon as you read it. However, there are further Scriptural boundaries that are around this command. We need to find out what they are so we can grasp the scope and the control of this particular commandment.

In today’s culture, there’s still plenty of killing and murder. In fact, one statistic said:

By age 18, our children, with all the media we have, will witness 80,000 or more murders.

This simply makes children numb to life and often robs them of the preciousness of life. However, that’s the day in which we live in and that has to be controlled by parents, so they don’t get a steady diet of what the world is giving. Though, we, as people, have not advanced beyond such sinful and depraved behavior. It’s all around us every day. It’s in the news. It makes good novels and great movies.

The more and more we drift away from God’s holy standards and the Biblical understanding of the true nature of man, the more we opted out for a new morality in which everything is being redefined by new ideas.

For example, a number of psychologists say that murderers are mentally ill and simply needs therapy. Some and most sociologists claim that murderers are usually helpless victims of an unjust society, and their taking of someone else’s life is simply lashing out against the society in which they have been oppressed and depraved. Erwin Luther said:

It is a dangerous thing when we too easily accept new ideas as truth.

Unfortunately, in our day, our news wants to push upon us things that are not true at all, but they make them seem true. They pound it on so much that they become true to people even though they’re not. Thank the Lord when we come to the word of God, what we get is true. We get pure truth, and there’s a certain ring about truth. When something is true, you know it’s true. When you read the word of God, you know it is true and you cannot argue with that.

When we come to this commandment, it contains a principal where we have to flush out the meaning of it throughout Scripture. There is a distinction in this command, which is to care for and to protect the welfare of human life.

All loss of life is a serious matter in Scripture. The reason for the seriousness is that God has placed an emphasis on the sacredness of human life and even His own sovereignty over that life. Only God has the right to say when it begins and when it ends.

The Bible places a high premium on life of a human being. Unlike other creatures, we were created uniquely. Humans are unlike animals that can be killed to be eaten and sacrificed in an offering. The reason why taking a human life is so serious in Scripture is because life is made in the image of God. Genesis 1:27 says:

God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

In the word of God, human beings are of unique value in the sight of God. When we get to Genesis 9:5-6, it prohibits the taking of human life:

Surely, I will require your lifeblood; from every beast I will require it. And from every man, from every man’s brother I will require the life of man.

⁶“Whoever sheds man’s blood,
By man his blood shall be shed,
For in the image of God
He made man.

The reason why we’re so different from every other created thing is because we were created in the image of God. We have certain aspects and characters that God wanted in our being that He has in His being. Thus, the act of killing a human being is a killing act against God himself. Murder is a sin against a victim, against a family, and against God. There’s no such thing as a perfect murder.

The reason for that is because God is all-knowing and sovereign over all things. No one can hide that deed from Him. In fact, right in the beginning when Cain killed his brother Abel it says in Genesis 4:8-10:

Cain told Abel his brother. And it came about when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him. ⁹Then the LORD said to Cain, “Where is Abel your brother?” And he said, “I do not know. Am I my brother’s keeper?” ¹⁰He said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to Me from the ground.

The Lord will vindicate and punish all who take human life. Whether they could get caught in this life or not, they will stand before God. God knows what has happened and no one will get away with it. So, thou shalt not murder.

In Hebrew, the word murder is “ratzákh,” and it’s a word closely related to physical force and violence. The term really should not be translated as just simply kill, and the reason why is because there was a difference between killing and murder. In 1 Kings 21:19, this word ratzákh is translated as kill, and in Numbers 35:6, it is translated as man-slayer.

The word itself doesn’t necessarily make a distinction between premeditated or involuntary killing. In other words, the context in which this term is used often determines the meaning. This can be identified by different passages that this word murder, or ratzákh, is used.

In other words, there is a different kind of killing that the Bible teaches us. When we think about killing, there are two general things that must be taken into consideration. When we consider murder and killing, we consider the circumstances in the matter, which the Bible uses, and the intentionality of the killing – what was the intention and why did that take place?

The first killing the Bible mentions is that of involuntary killing. This killing is involuntary manslaughter, accidental killing, or a lack of intent or design to commit the killing. Deuteronomy 4:41-42 says:

Then Moses set apart three cities across the Jordan to the east, ⁴²that a manslayer might flee there, who unintentionally slew his neighbor without having enmity toward him in time past; and by fleeing to one of these cities he might live.

We see that there was something that was not intentional. In this case, it was an accident. It was an accidental death. Numbers 35:22-23 says:

But if he pushed him suddenly without enmity, or threw something at him without lying in wait, ²³or with any deadly object of stone, and without seeing it dropped on him so that he died, while he was not his enemy nor seeking his injury

There are circumstances in which the Bible teaches that it is not murder. It is actually an involuntary or an accidental killing that happens even today. People could lose their life because of an accident that happened on the job, on the road, or something where somebody didn’t have an intent in their heart to do that.

When it just happens, there’s nothing you can do about that. Those are still painful and hurtful times when someone gets robbed away from a family. It is something that is not easily forgotten by people even if it didn’t have intent behind it.

This brings me to the second kind of killing in the Bible, which is premeditated killing. Premeditated killing, or premeditated murder, is an intent and a design in the act of taking a human’s life such as harboring some hatred, grudge, anger, malice, or deceit toward a person. Even some personal gain that someone could acquire by taking someone else’s life.

Also, there is a plan to carry out the act. Then, there is also the actual carrying out of it. Someone can be convicted of murder and not actually have murdered someone if the intent and the plan was there and it could be proved. Of course, they would be lesser charges because a life was not actually lost. Nonetheless, somebody can actually go to jail for that. Concerning premeditated killing, Deuteronomy 19:11-13 says:

“But if there is a man who hates his neighbor and lies in wait for him and rises up against him and strikes him so that he dies, and he flees to one of these cities, ¹²then the elders of his city shall send and take him from there and deliver him into the hand of the avenger of blood, that he may die. ¹³“You shall not pity him, but you shall purge the blood of the innocent from Israel, that it may go well with you.

We see the plan and the intent, in the word of God, that shows us that this was definitely a murder. This was taking someone’s life with intent and design, which leads to a certain penalty. In Scripture, there are certain penalties concerning the killing.

First, it is the loss of liberty. In Deuteronomy 19:1, the Lord gave the Levites six cities of refuge and he gave that to them for an inheritance. Also, those cities were given for the purpose if someone killed someone unintentionally, then they were to flee to one of those cities of refuge for their own safety. The cities of refuge were established by God’s law to prevent vigilante violence against someone who is suspected of killing someone whether it would be proven or not, or whether the person did it intentionally or not.

If a person unintentionally killed someone, they were, at that point to run to that city, the nearest city they can go to, and stay there. If the one who was appointed to be the manslayer would find him, even before he made it to the city, could put him to death. This was God’s provision of mercy. Deuteronomy 19:1-5 says:

“When the LORD your God cuts off the nations, whose land the LORD your God gives you, and you dispossess them and settle in their cities and in their houses, ²you shall set aside three cities for yourself in the midst of your land, which the LORD your God gives you to possess. ³“You shall prepare the roads for yourself, and divide into three parts the territory of your land which the LORD your God will give you as a possession, so that any manslayer may flee there. ⁴“Now this is the case of the manslayer who may flee there and live: when he kills his friend unintentionally, not hating him previously— ⁵as when a man goes into the forest with his friend to cut wood, and his hand swings the axe to cut down the tree, and the iron head slips off the handle and strikes his friend so that he dies—he may flee to one of these cities and live

Here’s a Biblical example on how it happened. It can happen at any time, so the avenger of blood was not permitted to pursue him once that person got to the city of refuge. However, if the person who committed the killing wandered away from that city, they could be caught by the avenger of blood, who has the authority to put that person to death. Deuteronomy 19:6, 10 says:

otherwise the avenger of blood might pursue the manslayer in the heat of his anger, and overtake him, because the way is long, and take his life, though he was not deserving of death, since he had not hated him previously…¹⁰So innocent blood will not be shed in the midst of your land which the LORD your God gives you as an inheritance, and bloodguiltiness be on you.

God is giving Israel, the people of God, guidelines on how to carry out the sixth commandment. I think these are very important for us to do so. Even though they killed somebody unintentionally, they will lose their liberty and they could not go back to where their home was until the high priest in that City died.

That means, if the high priest was old, then maybe he would only be there for a short time, but if the high priest just got in there and he has plenty of health, then he may be there a long time, and you may die before he dies. This was a measure where you would not be put to death, but you would have the mercy of God to run to that place.

A second kind of penalty would be the loss of life. If they are found to be a murder, then Deuteronomy 19:12-13 says:

Then the elders of his city shall send and take him from there and deliver him into the hand of the avenger of blood, that he may die. ¹³“You shall not pity him, but you shall purge the blood of the innocent from Israel, that it may go well with you.

In the Bible, there is a death penalty in place by God. Another way to pay would be a fine. In Exodus 21, a fight took place resulting in permanent injury or death. In this case, it says in Exodus 21:18-19:

If men have a quarrel and one strikes the other with a stone or with his fist, and he does not die but remains in bed, ¹⁹if he gets up and walks around outside on his staff, then he who struck him shall go unpunished; he shall only pay for his loss of time, and shall take care of him until he is completely healed.

Thus, he pays a fine, which includes medical bills and taking care of them until they are able to get off on their own and be completely healed. Then, he’s released. Also, there was a payment that fits the incident or the crime. Again in Exodus 21:22 says:

If men struggle with each other and strike a woman with child so that she gives birth prematurely, yet there is no injury, he shall surely be fined as the woman’s husband may demand of him, and he shall pay as the judges decide.

There is no real injury here, but there was a fight that caused woman that to give birth prematurely. Therefore, he’s to be fined for that matter. Also, there is what the Bible calls an accidental, non-negligent death of someone by an owner’s animal. Exodus 21:28 says:

If an ox gores a man or a woman to death, the ox shall surely be stoned and its flesh shall not be eaten; but the owner of the ox shall go unpunished.

That’s something you could not help just like when somebody gets in a car accident. Sometimes death could occur, but it wasn’t intentional, yet that person is not going to be convicted of murder if nothing happened. Then, there’s a negligent death of someone whose owner’s animal was unruly, and he didn’t do anything about. Exodus 21:29 says:

If, however, an ox was previously in the habit of goring and its owner has been warned, yet he does not confine it and it kills a man or a woman, the ox shall be stoned and its owner also shall be put to death.

This is a negligent homicide. A person did not take care of something that they knew was wrong, and it ended up killing someone. In the Bible, you see the wisdom spread out concerning this commandment on how to handle it, and how different situations and circumstances can determine what kind of killing it was, which is still very important today. In Scripture, nobody can be put to death, even when it came to capital punishment, who didn’t have at least two trustworthy, reputable witnesses.

Interesting enough, there are several areas in which the sixth commandment would not forbid the taking of human life or life of another creature. Number one, the sixth commandment does not forbid capital punishment, which I just mentioned, imposed by an established court of law of a legitimate government. Capital punishment is a defense of the image of God where it says in Exodus 21:12:

He who strikes a man so that he dies shall surely be put to death.

If somebody died, there was intent, and it was proven by witnesses in a court of law before judges, then, in Scripture, that person would be killed.

Secondly, it does not forbid the killing of an enemy in just wars. Whatever a just war is, I don’t know, and I’m not here to find out right now. Nonetheless, because we live in a sinful, sin-cursed world with demonic influences, war is sometimes necessary to keep and defend peace. Is it not?

Military killing of an enemy with the interest of one’s nation and freedom is not forbidden in Scripture. In fact, you can find many examples where God says to go and attack your enemies so they would not teach you their lifestyle, and you’re to war against them until they fall, until they are done, and until they are completely annihilated.

Sometimes, war becomes an awful necessity. I don’t think we should ever be in a war that we shouldn’t be there. Some of the wars we fought, we should have never gone there. Going to war is a very serious matter. It should be one of the heaviest and weightiest matter.

The reason why is because we send young people into battle, and sometimes they don’t come back, or they come back severely wounded whether it would be physically or mentally. When they come back, the suicide rate from war-torn areas, where they have seen people killed, is very high. Like the song writer says, “war changes a person,” and you never come back the same.

You come back dealing with very heavy things and images in your mind that you can never get over, so war has to be taken very seriously by any nation. I think the reason why our country needs to keep a strong well-trained, well-equipped military is for the purpose of avoiding war. President Reagan used to say:

We are going to negotiate on the position of strength.

Meaning, I got a lot of muscle back here, and I want to negotiate, not use that muscle. We always have to have a strong military because we live in a sinful world. We can’t forget what the Bible says about Satan in John 8:44:

You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning…

He incites murder and is often the one who is the source of murder, wars, and our human heart. James tells us war starts in the heart, which produces all kind of carnage when that happens. Then, the sixth commandment does not prohibit self-defense. Exodus 22:2-3 says:

If the thief is caught while breaking in and is struck so that he dies, there will be no bloodguiltiness on his account.³“But if the sun has risen on him, there will be bloodguiltiness on his account. He shall surely make restitution; if he owns nothing, then he shall be sold for his theft.

If somebody has to use self-defense and then kill somebody, it is not prohibited in Scripture, which also has to be proved. Lastly, the sixth amendment does not prohibit the slaying of animals for necessary and responsible uses. However, in general, Scripture does say that we ought to show care and kindness to animals because they are God’s creatures, so be kind to that pooch. Animals are unique creatures that God’s given us.

I wanted to bring these things about because the Bible mentions these things surrounding the sixth commandment. However, deliberate violation of one of the first six commandments carry a mandatory death penalty because such violation invites the Lord’s wrath, and thereby threatens, in this case, the foundation of Israelite society.

Of course, the violation and disregard for these commandments will threaten the foundation of any society because these are things that should be in place for life to be safe and enjoyable to live. There’s a disease released and a dark cloud of impending gloom that hovers over a nation that is on the slippery slope of unrighteousness when they decide against God’s Sovereign mandate, which is to put aside the ten commandments.

This becomes evident in a nation when we’re not putting murderers to death. Because of this commandment, Israel didn’t have jails or prisons. We have been convinced, in the general population, that the death penalty is barbaric. The New Testament has not an annulled capital punishment. According to Romans 13, it says on government:

for it is a minister of God to you for good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid; for it does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil.

The government does not carry the sword for no reason. The sword refers to the power to take life and to make judgments. It is the designated instrument for capital punishment for those found guilty of murder. The word of God never gives unauthorized private persons or groups the right to end human life or to be judge and jury on them. He only gives governments that right.

However, when the government stops doing it, then they’re already setting aside God’s mandate and that nation will suffer the consequences. Another way that becomes evident is by putting to death the innocent. Making abortion, the killing of innocent children, not only legal but acceptable. Even telling women, who are thinking of having an abortion, that adoption is sinister advice and a violation of free choice.

The myth that the fetus is not human has become the driving thought in the new morality. Did you know that 97% of all abortions occur simply for convenience? There are over 1 million abortions a year. It has become this nation’s means of birth control. Years ago, Peter Singer wrote in a medical journal called Pediatrics and said:

We can no longer base our ethics on the idea that human beings are a special form of creation made in the image of God and singled out from all other animals.

Today, abortion is considered a reputable business, raking in millions and millions of dollars annually. It was the past US Surgeon General C, Everett Koop, who I believe was a believer, said:

More than a million unborn lives a year cannot be violently terminated without taking its toll on us as a nation. The story of the incarnation leaves no room for doubt: the angel told Joseph that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. From the moment of conception, God has entered human life. Pregnancy begins with fertilization, not with implantation.

Again, these are things that we sometimes don’t even think about or consider anymore. Righteousness exalts a nation. When somebody lays aside the righteous standard of God, that does not exalt a nation. Rather, it causes a nation to implode from the inside. We don’t have to worry about armies taking over. We’re doing a fine job destroying ourselves.

We have thrown God out. We have thrown his standard of living life with each other and giving Him honor, so we are going to suffer the consequences. Evolutionary theory has helped this along because they regard humans just as a higher form of animals. We are not created in the image of God. We’re just an animal and be discarded as someone wills.

This is a great sin before the Lord, and the Bible warns us about taking the life of the innocent. In fact, some of the idolatrous worship in the country was that Israel was told to go in and annihilate were they were offering up children on the altars before their gods and burning them.

So, we’re just doing the same thing, but we package it in a nice way. We convince people that everybody’s doing it and you don’t want your life to be destroyed by having children. All that stuff goes on and it’s destroying our nation.

Christians, we need to rise up and we need to say something. When you come up across a young lady who is thinking about an abortion, then you need to come alongside of her. Thank the Lord for all those who are believers. They’re forgiven of a sin if that was part of their life. Jesus Christ’s blood has covered that sin and will cover all sin.

However, it’s a good opportunity for you if you meet somebody who’s going to be thinking about it, and they’re not going to get the other point of view because nobody’s giving it to them. Unless there’s a crisis pregnancy center that’s got the guts to do it, and they’re still in business to help women make a choice that is honoring for the Lord and that they’re not going to regret for the rest of their life.

This commandment moves us to realize that just because we look the other way, it doesn’t mean we’re not guilty of certain crimes going on in our world if we’re not saying anything about it, if you’re not doing anything with it, and if we’re just sitting there going downstream. We need to be swimming against the current and be somebody who has a voice to say:

No, that is not right, that’s not what God intended, and this is what you are to be doing.

All of this leads me to the New Testament. The Lord takes up this issue in the Sermon on the Mount and begins to reiterate and talk to the religious leaders about the real intention of the sixth commandment. They were thinking this sixth commandment forbids and punishes the outward act and restrains the end not the beginning of the scene. The person was liable to the Judgment of the court and is guilty before the court if they are found guilty of this particular sin.

In this passage of Scripture, Jesus is correcting fallaciously held interpretations of the Old Testament. He does not start off by telling them what the Old Testament said, but what they heard it said. Jesus is not negating something from the Old Testament, but something from their understanding of the Old Testament was incorrect, so the people heard that anyone who murders under the Mosaic legislation had to appear before the court to be judged.

However, was the outward action, the mere external act of murder, the only thing at stake even in the sixth commandment? Absolutely not. It was not just external acts, but it was internal motive. Jesus goes much further than the Mosaic Law and explains that murderers’ despicable anger and venomous wrath lurk in the dark shadows behind the deed itself. The root of sin, a corrupt, wicked, and selfish heart lie in the backdrop of the premeditation of murder. Matthew 5:19-22 says:

Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. ²⁰“For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. ²¹“You have heard that the ancients were told, ‘YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT MURDER’ and ‘Whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court.’ ²²“But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court; and whoever says to his brother, ‘You good-for-nothing,’ shall be guilty before the supreme court; and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell.

This is a very important understanding of what the sixth commandment actually meant, and what it means for the church and for believers today. Jesus is giving us the ethical attitude of this command and is using, in this passage of Scripture, three illustrations. In Matthew 5:22, He talks about costless anger or unjust anger for He says:

But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court…

Jesus is saying even anger toward a brother is forbidden. We are not even to have hard feelings against another brother or sister in our heart.

Jesus says it’s not only the external deeds that are sinful and are in danger of judgment, but the innermost thoughts are sinful and are in danger of judgment. How many people do you know that have been tried and convicted for anger and found guilty in the court of law? Nobody, but what if a person was tried first based on what they were thinking? The person would be guilty.

Anger is the seed and the bud of murder, but Jesus does not say that anger leads to murder. Jesus is saying anger is murder. Anger seems trivial in appearance, but the offense is deadly. In Christ’s eyes, the principal that causes anger is what matters. Not merely the letter of the law, but the spirit in how we carry it out in our heart.

Christ is saying that as Christians, to hate, to feel bitter, or to have this unpleasant unkind feeling of resentment toward another human being without a cause is murder and subject to judgement. Now, the question is what is anger with a cause? In Ephesians, it says to be angry and to sin not. Holy anger proceeds from love and righteousness.

Also, it has in view the good of him against whom is it is exercised. It looks to glorify God. For example, if you meet a woman who is thinking about an abortion, Holy anger should move you to tell her the truth and to help her through that process, so she makes the right decision. Holy anger is a very powerful emotion.

The Lord knows we can’t shut it off, but we can to redirect it, and the Holy Spirit of God directs our anger to the right place where we can actually have righteous anger. Again, we cannot handle anger very long before it turns sinful.

Unholy anger comes from pride and selfishness. It desires revenge against the one who it is directed at and it seeks to injure the one who it is directed to. Anger is lawful only when it burns against sin. Actually, Holy anger leads you to hate what God hates, not want it in your life, and put it to death. If you’re going to kill anything, kill your sin. That’s what we are to be killing and we do that by righteous anger. The Lord gives us an example of contemptuous, snobbish, and frightful content towards another person in Matthew 5:22:

…and whoever says to his brother, ‘You good-for-nothing,’ shall be guilty before the supreme court…

Notice that the level of the court is going up. This is where our anger explodes into words, which is coming from an uncontrolled temper. He’s expressing contempt towards the man by saying, “You stupid and your brainless idiot.” This is anger in danger. The Bible says of the Supreme Court, which would be the highest level of court in Israel.

The principal with contemptuous anger is that we can destroy a man’s reputation and shake someone else’s confidence in him or her by whispering criticisms or by deliberate fault-finding against that person. The Bible is saying that murder is worthy of judgment in the highest human court. Then, He takes it up a notch and says in Matthew 5:22:

…and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell.

To the Jews, a moron is significant and is equal to a rebel against God, so that one using this term assigned himself the passing of judicial sentence on someone else, which had no authority to do so. The Bible is saying that this murder in the heart is worthy of hellfire. This is the final and eternal judgment. You cannot get a worse judgment then your sin landing you in hell. Here, landing someone in hell is the sin of a heart of murder.

They never committed the act, but the intent has always been there. The way we think about other people in our mind, whether we commit the act or not, is what the Lord’s looking at, and he’s really saying:

Listen, if the regular habit and pattern of your thinking is to murder people, and if you had the chance, you would eliminate them and move them from out of your way, then you are guilty of hellfire.

You are guilty of the worst judgment, which will lead to be separate from the Lord, His character, and His standards forever. 1 John 3:14-15 says:

We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love abides in death. ¹⁵Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer; and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.

This chapter is talking about habitual sin. Someone who commits habitual sin is someone that does not have the seed of God in their heart. Now, they’re not a child of God, they’re a child to Satan even if they’re claiming to be a child of God. In other words, if this habitual pattern of sin of a murderous mindset has been in you all along, then there’s no salvation evident in you at all, so you are not a believer.

Of course, the Lord doesn’t want us to have this kind of mindset in an hour as a believer. He wants this mindset to go out. It has to be gone. In Scripture, there is no foundation at all for you to have a just reason to be angry at someone. Long-term, there is none. If God removed his wrath from you, His anger from you because of Chris, then you and I should never have that anger displayed towards someone else because we think we’re justified in it.

We are believing the lie of Satan and not the standard of God. If that’s our mindset, we’re not aligned with Scripture at all. In Matthew 5, it says that if you have that barrier in your life, there’s a way to remove that barrier so you can maintain a right standard before God. Matthew 5:23-24:

Therefore if you are presenting your offering at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, ²⁴leave your offering there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and present your offering.

This is urgent so that one can keep unhindered worship with God. We should actually take steps to remove the cause of the trouble. God is concerned that you and I maintain a right relationship with Him vertically and with others horizontally. He uses Old Testament pictures to bring across the points a person who makes a ceremonial sacrifice to cover his moral failures where he brings the sacrifice before the priest.

He is in the very act of presenting that sacrifice to the priest, so the priest can take it to God, which is meant to restore and to forgive a broken relationship between that person and God. That’s what they sacrificed, so they could offer the blood to be shed for the covering of a sin.

Thus, that’s the picture that he’s giving us in this passage of Scripture. All right. Meaning, there are three things we do to remove the barrier of a habitual pattern of anger.

Thus, that’s the picture that he’s giving us in this passage of Scripture. All right. Meaning, there are three things we do to remove the barrier of a habitual pattern of anger. A sin that so easily bests you is that you remember.

Suddenly, it flashes through your mind that you have done something to a brother fitted to provoke angry feelings either with him or with you and lay it down. Lay that offering down on the spur of the moment before the altar without handing it to the priest to be offered by him at your place.

Don’t do it yet because you’re coming before God, so you’ve got to get rid of that sin first. Sometimes, we have to go to somebody and say that you were either angry with and you want to clear the air because you can’t worship God with this in your heart. You must get rid of it.

Secondly, interrupt your religious action and go to that errand right away if any sacrifice was to be valid. Confession and restoration were involved so it could mean going to that person or could mean calling them on the phone. It could be emailing them, or you could text them. You can send them a letter or card. Maybe the best way is to do it face to face.

In the sight of God, there is no value whatsoever in an act of worship if we harbor known sin if we remain angry with someone. You can’t worship God and have these things festering in your heart. Once you get right, you go back and present your offering from a pure conscience, from a confessed heart, from a desire to make a relationship right, and you go, and you make it right. This is how barriers are removed between people and God and people and people.

When we come to the Lord’s table, one of the first things we are come with self-examination. We’re examining our own heart and we’re also examining how we are doing with our brothers and sisters in Christ. We are making those relationships right and are we confessing sin and we are not harboring anything in our heart. That should not be there, so we are getting them, laying them down, and putting them to death.

Every first Sunday of the month is getting those things right, so we can continue to worship God unhindered and without that garbage collecting in a heart. Bottom line, you shall not murder in your heart, which is where the root of that sin starts from. Let’s pray:

Lord, the word of God has evident information and very clear principles on what you think, Your commandments, and how they are to be lived out and worked out. I pray Lord, as we think of these righteous standards that are beneficial for all of us in our worship to you in a relationship with one another, You would allow us to search your heart honestly. Lord, if there has been anything in our hearts festering, anything that has not been confessed, then I pray, Lord, that we wouldn’t go one step further, and we would come before You in confession. If that means we have to go to somebody and make things right, then I pray that we would do that. Give us the ability and strength to do that. Then we come back and resume our walk with You and worship You. Lord teach us to be people who are considering what’s going on inside of our heart before it ends up on the fruit of our branches. I pray, Lord, that You would allow us to examine our self-deep in the recesses of what we think because You know what we think, and You know the intents of our heart. Your word reaches deep down into the dark places of our heart and exposes us for who we are. I pray, Lord, as You do that, we know that when we come to Christ and what He accomplished on our behalf, we can have healing, we can have real forgiveness, we can have restoration, and we can have a joyful and a peaceful spirit because you’ve taken care of things on that Cross. Lord, I pray we would rest in that today and that You would allow us to continue to have unhindered worship to You and good relationships with our brothers and sisters in Christ for the sake of the advancement of all that You say in the word of God, for the preaching of the Gospel, and for the lack of grieving the spirit of God and quenching Him. That we would have the power of God’s spirit to live our Christian life. Bless us with that today and every day. I pray that in Christ’s name, Amen.

March 3, 2019
The Ten Commandments Past and Present — The Fifth Commandment

In this sermon, Pastor Babij focuses on the fifth of the Ten Commandments, the command to honor one’s mother and father. Pastor Babij first points out this command’s transitional position within the Ten Commandments, moving from responsibilities toward God to responsibilities toward men. Pastor then explains the two key components of this particular rule:

1) The Meaning of the Fifth Commandment
2) The Motivation of the Fifth Commandment

Pastor concludes by highlighting how Jesus is the ultimate example of someone who faithfully obeyed this commandment during His life and death and how believers are to emulate Jesus with their own parents.

Full Transcript:

Let’s turn to Exodus 20:12 where it says:

Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be prolonged in the land which the LORD your God gives you.

Let’s pray:

Lord, as we come before You, we humble ourselves before Your word. I pray that You would take this passage to teach us not only what you taught the nation of Israel, but even Lord what the church needs to know about the truth found in this passage of Scripture. I pray Lord for the young people that they would hear the things mentioned here in Scripture, and that it would bring clarity to their mind, conviction to their heart, and practice to their words, actions, and deeds. I pray, Lord, that through it, they may reap the benefits of what is taught in this commandment. I pray, Lord, that Your name would receive the glory. I thank You for this in Christ’s name, Amen.

We have been looking at the Ten Commandments, and they spell out for us our relationship with God, who is Holy. The first commandment is that we are to recognize that he alone is to have first place in our hearts and our lives. Secondly, that we should never make any attempt to make any visible representation of the invisible God. To do so would lead ourselves into idolatry.

Thirdly, we are responsible to take the name of God and live it out in the world and treat the name of God wherever we go and whatever situation we’re in with honor, respect, and reverence. That it would specifically be seen in our thoughts, words, and our deeds.

The fourth commandment, which I spent three weeks on, is our responsibility of one day in seven to attend to God’s honor and our soul. Not one day that we come up with, but one day that God has come up with. For Israel, it was Saturday, the Sabbath or day of rest. For us, it is Sunday, the day we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Also, we celebrate our rest in Christ, who has fulfilled the Sabbath, He becomes our rest.

The Lord’s Day, Sunday, is a special day. It is a time that we rest from the temporal cares of our life where Christians can enjoy their relationship with Jesus Christ, and their present and future rest. Also, the Lord’s Day, Sunday, is a special day where we voluntarily assemble ourselves with other Christians for solemn worship, for happy service to God, for fellowship with our brothers and sisters in Christ, for a time of praise, and for spiritual activity.

The Lord’s Day, Sunday, is a special day where we come and celebrate the resurrection of Christ and rejoice in our new life in him. We are reminded that we are born anew by faith and thank God for the miracle of redemption that He has performed in us. The Lord’s Day, Sunday, is a special day where we come and offer to God, as an act of worship, our very lives, our wealth, and our service.

Today, we come to this fifth commandment found in Exodus 20:12:

Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be prolonged in the land which the LORD your God gives you.

This commandment is referred to as a transitional commandment. It’s smacked right in the middle of The Commandments. This is because the family structure lays at the foundation of all other forms of authority and obedience within culture. Parents were and still are given the responsibility to teach their children how to live within the framework and structure of the law or the word of God. For the Jew, the law of Moses, which included the moral, judicial, and ceremonial. For the Christian, it’s the law of Christ.

This is to be done in the context of family and community. The conscious reality when we come to the fifth commandment is that we, as human beings, were created in the image of God and are responsible for our character. We are responsible for our actions. We are justly held accountable for our habits, words, and deeds. This fifth commandment is the bridge between our responsibility God-ward, in the first four commandments, and our responsibility man-ward.

Parents do, in some sense, occupy to their children the place of God. I was not asked whether I would come into existence or not. No one consulted me. No one consulted you. That question was determined for me by my parents. Of course, the sovereignty of God and the providence of God were in play when all those things took place.

Just think for a moment: much of what and who we are comes from our parents. There is this mysterious relationship between our moral life and the moral life of our parents. There is equally a connection between our physical and intellectual life and their life. Our voice, the length and shape of our limbs, our height, the color of our hair, our strength, clearness of our site, the soundness of our brain, our muscular vigor, our whatever constitutes our weakness, or our power has largely been determined for us by what our parents were.

Also, we were and are dependent upon them for the food and clothing provided to us. Care that they have given us. If not, we would have died. We are dependent on their wisdom or their whim. On their harshness or their kindness. For our happiness or lack of it. For the influences, which gave the original direction and form to our development of our character. Of course, parents have a lot to do with the development of their children’s character.

Here’s the profundity of the fifth commandment: we alone are responsible for our actions. If you notice our text, it says:

Honor your father and your mother

This is the first place that we will learn how to interact with others. Whether we come from a good family or not so good, we are still responsible as to how we respond to our parental relationship. The ultimate idea of the relationship between parents and children is found in the relationship between God and all mankind. Honoring parents and God are closely related. You cannot separate those two things.

Now, let’s look at this fifth commandment and begin to look at the meaning of it. The meaning of the fifth commandment would be the first thing. If you notice the passage of Scripture starts out with the word, it says:

Honor your father and mother.

To give honor to where honor is due. It is the Hebrew word, “kavod,” which means heavy or to be weighed down. In this case, it means that the parent is to be weighed down with respect. Meaning, honoring your father and mother is a very serious and weighty commandment. To honor one’s parents means much more than obedience and includes obedience.

Further, it is to give your parents a place of superiority. To hold them in high esteem. The parental relationship, according to Kevin DeYoung, in his book on the Ten Commandments, says:

The parental relationship is the first and most important relationship. It is a relationship that will shape all other relationships. Of course, there are all kinds of exceptions. Good parents to bad kids. Bad parents to good kids.

Of course, we know that the sovereignty and providence of God comes into that. We live in a cursed world. When we start having kids, no one gives us a book that says this is exactly how you should do it. If you do it this way, it’s all going to turn out right. However, we do have a book called the Bible, and the Bible is a book that not just teaches children to respect their parents, but the parents should have learned that. If they did not learn that, maybe they weren’t believers.

If they didn’t learn it, now they’re learning it after the fact, and it is important for us all to learn this principle and to pass it on to younger people. Older women passing it on to younger women, and men passing it on to young men. We can get into our own minds and in the minds of our children what God expects of us.

Parents, who are absent and have pushed off their responsibilities to someone else, are worthy of neither respect nor honor. Such disregard not only damages the community, but the church. Also a child’s natural bent is to defy parental authority, which is to be dealt with, by the parents, at the youngest age. Right before any kind of disobedience or rebellion gets ingrained in the child’s character, the parents are to take care of that.

In fact, when a parent disciplines their child, they are disciplining their child really for two reasons. Number one, disobeying their voice. Number two, any kind of rebellion that’s already in their heart. We need to steer them away from their natural bent to sin in particular areas. Parents are the ones that are observing their children, teaching their children what they ought to learn, and heading off at the pass of any kind of bad behavior that could be ingrained in their character where the child would make a ruin of their life later on.

A parent is to do it while they are pliable, tender shoots, and can be molded and shaped in any direction. The goal is to move your child, as a parent, from being a child that could be naive or foolish to someone who can be wise. Someone who could give honor to their parents, and then ultimately would give honor to God.

Parents, you can get your kids to listen to your voice and to follow your lead, which will then be transferred over to the Lord. In that child’s heart, it is a willful honor and obedience to the God, who has created the heaven and the earth, who has given us the plan of redemption, and in whom they are responsible to for their actions, words, and thoughts.

Nonetheless, this is how God set up the design of things. When we follow them, we please our Lord. When we don’t follow them, we displease our Lord. God places a special value on parental authority. Parents, you do have the power, and I have said that before in my messages. Use that power over your kids. If you still have young kids, use that power that God has given you, and the authorities God has given you to direct that child, to discipline that child, to admonish that child, and to teach that child what it means to live a sober and serious life before God.

The parent and child relationship are the first place where we learn what it is to have someone in authority over us. It’s where we learn to listen to people. It’s where children learn how to obey even when they are told things to do, they don’t want to do. It is the place children learn how to honor and respect others, and what it means to worship God and to carry out the first four commandments.

Remember, this fifth commandment is the transitional commandment the other four come before it, so it’s really about God and how we should worship God first by properly giving Him the honor and day of worship. Then, parents are the ones who now teach that and live it out before them.

It’s not just sitting down and having a Bible study every evening, but it’s living it out in your words, thoughts, deeds, and your actions. Also, in what you do with your schedule and habits. Your kids are learning all those particular things.

The meaning of this fifth commandment is one in which we are honoring our parents with positive actions. First, it involves listening to our parents. Honoring your father and mother means that the first thing we’re to do is listen as it says in Proverbs 23:22:

Listen to your father who begot you, And do not despise your mother when she is old.

The Scripture is telling us that the first thing a child needs to do is listen, right? When a child is born in the world, they’re listening and gathering information. The first thing a parent is to do is to direct that child in what they need to hear, and the child is now listening. They listen for a long time, and even before they say a few words. A lot of diapers are changed, a lot of words are spoken, and they’re listening.

The mother and father are part of this process. According to Scripture, the responsibility is not just laying on one and not the other day. It’s laid on both of them as their authorities that God’s given them in the first part of their life. They are involved with listening.

Finally, it involves adhering to what they’re listening to, which are two different things. I can listen to you, But that doesn’t mean I’m going to put into practice what I’m listening to, so secondly, it is adhering to the teaching. As the parent is communicating to the child, the child has been listening all along, but are they going to do what you are telling them to do?

You are the authority, so you can tell your children what to do and what not to do. As a parent, you must be tough and consistent. You have to put these things into practice every single day before your child. They have to know your voice inflections. They have to know when you are fooling around with them and when you are serious. The rules should be: when you speak the first time and you’re serious, they should come the first time.

If they don’t come the first time, there is that element of rebellion brewing in their little heart. If you let them go, then they will think your words are not serious and that you don’t really mean it the first time. You meet the tenth time, or when your voice gets louder and you’re yelling. If you’re yelling, you’re no longer in control, the kid is in control. Proverbs 1:8-9 says:

Hear, my son, your father’s instruction And do not forsake your mother’s teaching; ⁹Indeed, they are a graceful wreath to your head And ornaments about your neck.

When a child is obedient to the instruction of their father and the teaching of their mother, it’s a beautiful sight to see. It’s a wreath on their head and ornaments around their neck. Obedience and honor to parents is a beautiful sight for people who are looking on and evaluating a child’s character. That kid has a good character, a good outlook on life, and there is something going on in that kid’s life.

The best way to show yourself a fool is to think your parents are fools. Of course, this is what happens with children. The Book of Proverbs reiterates and admonishes to honor one’s parents extolling them as fountains of wisdom. That’s what you are, parents. You are a fountain of wisdom. Proverbs 10:1 says:

The proverbs of Solomon. A wise son makes a father glad, But a foolish son is a grief to his mother.

Obedience and honor foster self-discipline, which, in turn, brings about a stability and even a longevity, quality, or well-being about life. It starts with the parents and the child honoring the parents. So, we honor the parents by positive actions of listening, obeying, and putting into practice what you’re listening to.

Secondly, we honor our parents by avoiding negative actions. There are at least five negative actions that are mentioned in the Old Testament that ought to be considered by us as parents and children. You have parents, so if you’re listening, these are very important for you not only to avoid completely, but also to watch out in your life. The first one is found in Exodus 21:17 where it says:

He who curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death.

First, it would be of not cursing them. The severe threat, in this passage, posed by violation of this commandment functioned as a deterrent for those who would have a rebellious nature to them. I didn’t grow up in a Christian home, but my parents were good parents and we lived in a very peaceful home. We never cursed at each other. We treated each other with kindness and those kinds of things. However, they didn’t have the principles of Proverbs in my home, so things did get out of hand once in a while.

Nonetheless, when I would go over my friend’s house and I would see how he would talk to his father, I would think how my father would never put up with that. They would call him old man and derogatory names, and I leave they’re saying that’s not good. I was just a kid then, and as I would walk home, I would think how I was glad that wasn’t going on in my house.

When kids curse their parents, it’s not a pretty sight. It’s like the lowest you can be. That is definitely a thing that the Bible is telling to not do. Secondly, do not treat your parents with disrespect or dishonor. Deuteronomy 27:16 says:

Cursed is he who dishonors his father or mother.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’

Deuteronomy means second law. It was a reiteration of the commandments given to Moses in Exodus, but it was an expansion of them and how it works out in practical life. Every year, the whole congregation to come together and they would read out the law, and every time Moses would be done with a section, the people would say, “Amen.” Thus, you are never to treat your parents with disrespect.

Thirdly, you are not to steal from them. Proverbs 28:24 says:

He who robs his father or his mother And says, “It is not a transgression,” Is the companion of a man who destroys.

Meaning, a crooked perversion of what is right is a transgression. The action of a child to disregard his parents’ possessions is also going to be in violation of the next couple commandments: thou shalt not steal.

My mom is getting up there in age, and I have to read these articles on elder law. One of the things I’m discovering is when a parent gets to a certain age, their children start robbing them and taking things from them that really don’t belong to them. Sometimes, when parents get to a certain age, they have a lot more than you have, so you have to be very careful.

When you’re taking care of a parent, they’re starting to fail, they can no longer write out checks, and you have to take care of their bank accounts, you must be very careful that you do not steal from your parents in anyway. That would be definitely dishonoring to them. They may never know it, but it’s not about them anymore. It’s about your relationship before God. God knows it. Therefore, I am honoring my parents because God says to.

Of course, we come from different situations, different context, and different power parental styles. Maybe your parent wasn’t even there for you. Nonetheless, I’m talking about a parent who’s been around, who’s had influence in your life, who has cared for you, who has been there through thick and thin, and ups and downs. Thus, we are not to steal from our parents.

Next, we are not to strike them. Proverbs 21:15 says:

The exercise of justice is joy for the righteous,
But is terror to the workers of iniquity.

In the Old Testament, it was very severe if somebody did this and if it was a habit in their life. Most of these characteristics would be habitual. This is the character of the person. This person is always striking people. A son or daughter who strikes or curses his or her father or mother was to be stoned to death. That’s pretty serious.

It would upset the whole community and the whole nation. If you let this Rebellion go on, or this cancer go on, it will take over. Then, the younger kids growing up would think they can take that example too, so that bad example would be embedded in their character.

If you let that go, then you become an enabler of a person who has a bad character, which will destroy any community and any nation. If all you have is rebellion in the character, it will destroy a county. Thus, we’re to avoid these things.

The next thing would be that we are not to flagrantly disobey our parents. Again, a son or a daughter, who persistently disobeys parents, were to be stoned. Deuteronomy 21:18-21 says:

If any man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey his father or his mother, and when they chastise him, he will not even listen to them, ¹⁹then his father and mother shall seize him, and bring him out to the elders of his city at the gateway of his hometown. ²⁰“They shall say to the elders of his city, ‘This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey us, he is a glutton and a drunkard.’ ²¹“Then all the men of his city shall stone him to death; so you shall remove the evil from your midst, and all Israel will hear of it and fear.

The motivation for the children is: if I persist in that attitude, that could happen to me. Again, the responsibility that a child has, as they’re growing up, is to honor their parents. This is the way they do it in a positive way, and they can also avoid the negative where their sin nature would take them.

Meaning, the general principle was disobedience and dishonor promote a lack of discipline, which in turn brought instability into the community, shortened life, and a lack of well-being. That all evaporates within the context of family and community when Rebellion is allowed to go on.

There’s an obvious difficulty that arises from this subject. Some young people may say today that their parents are not lovable, therefore they cannot love them. Some may say that they are not wise, so therefore I cannot respect them. Some may say they are unreasonable, selfish, and have vices of temper and speech. Therefore, it is impossible for me to honor them.

There are not a few children, in our day, that are inclined to take this position. At first, hearing this could seem to be reasonable enough. If the tables are turned on the children, would they want their parents or guardians to judge them with that same standard? The answer to that would be no, they would not.

What would happen if your parents had given you only as much affection and care as you seem to deserve when you were not very lovable, helpless, very needy, and – for some – very troublesome. Happily, most of our Christian fathers and mothers – even if they were not but they were in the sense pretty decent people – would think this is a gift from God.

The honest truth about most of us was that we were very plain. With somewhat cloudy intelligence, our tempers were far from likable. On top of these, we were very selfish and self-centered. As one pastor had concluded, we were demons in diapers.

However, our parents did love us the best way they could. Just the way we were because we were their children. Their love really transfigured us. They loved us in spite of our faults and our shortcomings. Young people, your parents, who have lived in this world 20 or 30 years longer than yourself, have found out some things that you don’t know anything about. If you are silly enough to dispense all their experience, then you will suffer for your folly.

However, according to Scripture, it says honor your father and your mother. Do not express the habit of contempt if your parents are not what they ought to be, if they’re not as smart as you think they are to be, or if they have certain prejudices that you think should not be there. They do know more than you do, and you might possibly see in them, as you look at them properly, a power and a wisdom, which you, as a youth, have not experienced yet. You will discover that their experience does mean something, and they know more than you about life.

Bottom line, if parental authority came to be generally disregarded in any nation, in any country, in any community, or in any family, the whole structure of a community, society, and country would dissolve. It would be gone. In fact, the Old Testament prophet, Micah, speaks of eight extreme declines in the order of family relationships, friendships, and even in neighborhoods when this particular attitude takes over. Actually, you get to the point where you cannot trust anybody. Micah 7:5-6 says:

Do not trust in a neighbor; Do not have confidence in a friend. From her who lies in your bosom Guard your lips. ⁶For son treats father contemptuously, Daughter rises up against her mother, Daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; A man’s enemies are the men of his own household.

When society is taken over by an attitude where one does not honor parents anymore, they do not regard God as an authority in their life and they despise those things. As a result, nobody can trust anybody. To despise those who brought them into the world and nurtured them is a sign of the times even today. In the New Testament, Paul tells young Timothy, who’s going to pastor, in 2 Timothy 3:1-4:

But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. ²For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, ³unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, ⁴treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God

As soon as you have disobedience to your parents, you already have people that don’t love God. They love pleasure, so those two things go together. They’re very closely connected. There are examples, in Scripture, of parental displeasure over the action of their children.

In Genesis, Jacob fears Rebecca’s cunning plan that his mom could offend his father. In Genesis 26, Esau’s foreign marriage is unpleasant to his parents. Ruben commits incest and is cursed by his father. Recorded in 1 Samuel, with Eli being a priest, his sons did not know the Lord and we’re disobedient to him. Absalom, David’s son, steals the heart of Israel and invades his father’s harem.

In Genesis 9, Ham’s affair violated the fifth commandment because of the disrespect he had against his father. The Gospels bring up what Jesus said about the Pharisees, the religious leaders of the day teaching the word of God. They are the ones who were leading the nation, and teaching fathers and mothers how to be parents from the Torah. As the Lord walked the earth, Jesus took issue with them because they found a way to subtly withhold support from their parents when they got older. He calls them out for breaking their way through the commandments. Mark 7:6, Jesus says:

And He said to them, “Rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘THIS PEOPLE HONORS ME WITH THEIR LIPS, BUT THEIR HEART IS FAR AWAY FROM ME.

Their lips give the external impression of devotion, but their hearts and lives are a great distance from God. In other words, Jesus illustrates their error and exposes the sin of hypocrisy. Jesus really indicts the Pharisees and scribes self-invented tradition and presses them with a very personal example on how their system of rules and regulations put lesser things before weightier things like the fifth commandment. Mark 7:10-11:

For Moses said, ‘HONOR YOUR FATHER AND YOUR MOTHER’; and, ‘HE WHO SPEAKS EVIL OF FATHER OR MOTHER, IS TO BE PUT TO DEATH’; ¹¹but you say, ‘If a man says to his father or his mother, whatever I have that would help you is Corban (that is to say, given to God)

The term “coroban” is to say given to God or sacred to God. If someone wished to dedicate some of his money or property to God, he dedicated and said coroban. Once given to God, it could never again be used for any ordinary or secular purposes. So then, if father or mother needed help, some would declare coroban, which is saying I can’t help you. In other words they were saying:

Sorry. I cannot give you any help because nothing I have is available because all of its dedicated to God.

Jesus says in Mark 7:12:

you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or his mother.

You put yourself in a place that you don’t have anything put aside so you can help out when help is called for, so Jesus is saying that they have abolished the authority. Not only of the fifth commandment, but of the very word of God. Then, He says in Mark 7:13:

thus invalidating the word of God by your tradition which you have handed down; and you do many things such as that.

He was only giving one example of many things they’ve done wrong. Any regulation, which prevented a person from giving help where help was needed, was nothing less than a contradiction to the law of God. Jesus shows here that rigid adherence to the traditional law can actually mean disobedience to the law of God. Adding things, like your own traditions, as equal to the word of God diminishes and even cancels out Scripture. Therefore, you can’t even do what God asked you to do because of your own foolish philosophy of life.

Jesus rebukes the religious leaders of the nation concerning the fifth commandment. If they were doing it, could you imagine what was happening on the lower rungs of society. When Jesus comes, His message to the religious leaders are that they hypocrites, vipers, and whitewashed walls. Inside they are nothing but dead men’s bones. You have no life of God in your soul. That’s a great indictment. They had the word of God and they didn’t have to go there.

That is the meaning of this fifth commandment flushed out, which brings us to the motivation that is found in this commandment. Again, Exodus 20:12 says:

Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be prolonged in the land which the LORD your God gives you.

The motivation is that of a better quality of life. Honoring parents brings goodness into one’s life. In fact, the honoring of one’s parents leads to a lengthening of one’s days. The same result that ensues for fearing God. Proverbs 10:27 says:

The fear of the LORD prolongs life,
But the years of the wicked will be shortened.

Living long in the land was more than just chronology. The phrase really has to do with abundant life and quality of life. If you want to enjoy the full blessing that God has for you in the Promised Land, then you’ll listen to your mom and dad. That’s really the bottom line.

Kids, if you want to enjoy life, Listen to your mom and dad. If they are believers and they know the word of God, they know way more than you know. They have the Word, they have experience, they have age, and they can direct you in the right path. They have your best interest in mind. Not only that, but they could make your life go very smoothly. Your home is enjoyable. When you grow up and want to have some education, they may help you out with that.

They will direct your life. They’ll put you on the path so you can be an independent, productive citizen of society, and you will go out into the world with an attitude where you know what you are to believe, you know who you are, and you know the blessing that you had with your parents. Therefore, you are experiencing abundant life.

God is promising you a better quality of life if you listen to your parents. If you don’t obey your parents, you will not. This fifth commandment is transferred over to the New Testament. Ephesians 6:1-3 says:

Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. ²HONOR YOUR FATHER AND MOTHER (which is the first commandment with a promise), ³SO THAT IT MAY BE WELL WITH YOU, AND THAT YOU MAY LIVE LONG ON THE EARTH.

Remember, it doesn’t say nation or the Promised Land. It says the earth. When Paul applies the commandment to the Christian readers, he omits any reference to the land of Israel and universalizes it to the promise that you may live long on the earth. Wherever you may live on the earth, this principle applies to you, and because it applies to you, then you are the one who is to receive the promise.

First of all, we see that the picture is a picture of a child who starts to learn God’s commands for the first time. This is how a Spirit-filled child responds to his parents. A Spirit-filled child, who is obeying and honoring his parents, reaps the promise and the blessing that goes with it.

A promise is something that has positive characteristics to it, and it creates hope and anticipation. Honoring your father and mother is the first commandment with a promise. It’s like when a father is promising his children a big, old sloppy banana split at the end of a hard day’s. If you get through this day, we’re going to have the biggest banana split with everything whatever you want on it.

In turn, it creates in the child a desire and an anticipation that if I do this good day’s work, then I’m going to get that big, old banana split. Now, I don’t know if you like Banana Splits. I don’t know of anybody who doesn’t like that, but that would be a motivation for me. I tell you that right now, I want that banana split. That’s what we have here in Scripture: we have the promise that if you obey your mom and dad, the Lord will give you a banana split… I’m sure that one will get some mileage.

The promise creates desire. Kids, when you honor your mom and dad, you actually gain respect, trust, and freedom. The freedom that you actually crave comes from obedience, not disobedience. It comes from honoring your parents and then honoring the Lord, not from rebellion. Rebellion works against you. Disobedience works against you. Honoring your parents and God works for you. It’s a positive thing.

It says in Deuteronomy to keep the Lord’s commandments and His statutes, which I am commanding you today for your good. I’m telling you these things for your good, so you can live a happy, peaceful, and enjoyable life. The main teaching of Ephesians 6:3 is perfectly plain. This divine command is coupled with the divine assurance of blessing to all by whom it is obeyed, so that you may be well with you and that you may live long on the earth.

A second thing that we could observe here is that the onus is put on the one making the promise, which is God. The Lord keeps His promise, so God has to deliver on His promise, which really causes an atmosphere of also mutual trust. A child learns to trust God. If I honor my parents, then the Lord blesses me. The children will learn to trust in the Lord and the word of God early in their life.

Another observation is that a young person would be motivated to go on to listen to the voice of God, the rest of the commandments, and the rest of the word of God. They will pursue more of the knowledge of God and the whole divine revelation that’s been given to them. Learning that God, who has revealed Himself to His creatures, in the word of God, and in creation, has from the beginning taken care of His children by His own hand. He cares for their welfare and makes known to them His will and marks out to them the way to be happy. This is the way to be happy.

So then, a child learns early that listening and obeying to those in authority over them is beneficial and also becomes motivational. I’m motivated to do this because God says to do it, which brings tremendous blessing to the one who actually does it. The Lord looks down on those who keep His word with pleasure, and He smiles upon kids who practice obedience.

Thank God for such a promise as this. Everybody knows obeying is not easy. Sometimes it means obeying when you don’t understand. Sometimes it involves obedience when your personal desire is indirect opposition to your parents’ desires.

Yet, if You honor God, then you must honor your parents’ desires. Not sometimes or when you think you are, but always. Of course, if your parents are telling you to do something opposite of what God says to do, then that’s a different story. That’s when you learn to have discernment to know if my parents are telling me to do something that’s illegal, something that is dishonoring to Him, then that’s where I disobey. Unless you obey God, then that is not the way to go.

Kids, mark it down, obedience comes easier when there is proper respect for your parents Meaning, we have the reward of an abundant life. Proverbs 3:2 says:

For length of days and years of life And peace they will add to you.

According to a man named Douglas Harris, who wrote a book on the Biblical concept of peace, said:

Shalom (which is the word peace in our passage of scripture) includes harmonious relationships within the family. Payment of all debts. The collection of all loans. It means rewards or wages. Ultimately, even a right relationship with God, which comes through Jesus Christ, our peace.

For a wise person, they receive the peace of God, which will be, length of days or abundant life. Also, in Proverbs, when a wise man has a controversy with the foolish man, the foolish man either rages or laughs. There is no rest with a foolish person. They don’t experience the rest and the blessing that comes from obedience to parents and God.

They experience the unrest of their own disobedience and their own rebellion. That’s why they always have ants in their pants. They never seem to rest in anything. They’re always looking for something else to do. Usually, some trouble to be in.

Remember, this is not a promise of long life in the world. It could be. It’s not a promise of life in the world in every instance as a result of obedience to God or every obedient person will live to a ripe, old age. The general tendency is that keeping the divine precepts issue in the prolongation of life and the preservation of mental, spiritual, and health. In other words, a quality-of-life.

Obedience of children to wise and loving parents results in habits of industry, self-control, self-respect, faithfulness, kindness, and worship tour the Lord, which is an absolute guaranteed of the success of a continuance of life that has quality to it.

Why would somebody have quality who decides to put this to practice? That person lives in the realm where the word of God is desired, delighted, honored, and practiced. They live in the realm of obedience where obedience is actually practice. They live in the realm of sobriety and the realm of temperance. They have balance in all things in their life.

They are a people of hard work. They have contentment because of putting these things into practice. Their tempers and their passions are controlled by God’s spirit. Sexual fidelity is practiced. Integrity, kindness, and love are practiced. The worship of the Lord is practiced. Not only on a Sunday, but on a daily basis in their own heart and mind before God.

They are reading the word of God, putting what they’re learning into practice, and wanting to honor God in all the relationships they have because they know what they’re doing. Prayer to the Lord becomes regular. Preaching is heard regularly and practiced. They learn and they want to learn sanctifying truth. They want to serve the brethren. They want to fellowship, and they want to contribute to the growth of the body and the advancement of the Gospel. They’re concerned about people’s souls.

All these and more have a way of preventing the wear and tear of the constitution and give a general prosperity and well-being of a person who pursues God’s wisdom. In all of this, is God’s wisdom.

Lastly, there is the reward of a wise life. Really, it is leading to this: raising up a child that’s wise, not perfect. Not a child who never makes a mistake or never falls off the bench, but a wise child. They get it.

They understand from honoring their parents, learning from the word of God, and following them. They’re learning things and they’re growing older. They are starting to mature and starting to put into practice the things they’ve learned. Proverbs 15:20 says:

A wise son makes a father glad,
But a foolish man despises his mother.

Also, Proverbs 17:21 says:

He who sires a fool does so to his sorrow,
And the father of a fool has no joy.

The foolish son brings grief to his mother. She sees his foolish choices or hurtful choices are ripening into character and into destiny. In other words, he or she is not behaving in accordance with what she taught them. It could be the case where a child will grow up and they will rebel against the wisdom that a parent had given their child.

Nonetheless, the joy and gladness are of a parent who sees a wise child and who definitely knows that their children are putting into practice what they taught them, yet imperfectly. Proverbs 23:25 says:

Let your father and your mother be glad,
And let her rejoice who gave birth to you.

As she sees you grow up and become responsible and dependent on the Lord for living your life, and who learns how to walk in the Spirit, not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. Consequently, when young people obey, several positive things take place. They learn how to avoid much conflict. You can’t avoid all conflict, but much of it.

They make their parents glad. They become that beautiful picture of a young person who honors their parents. You feel glad yourself. You avoid dangers and difficulties that your parents foresee, but you can’t because your youth and lack of experience. You learn to please God and reap the benefits of what that means. You learn to enjoy life, the life that God has given you, and you become increasingly thankful for it. You grow into a wise and productive person.

Young people, if you haven’t been doing well in this area, then today, show your parents, show your mom, and show your dad that you mean business. Prove it to them by practicing it every day. It may mean that you must come and repent and believe in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. Maybe you have not done that yet. It may mean that you need to yield yourself to the Holy Spirit of God’s control if you are a believer. Also, that he may be able to give you the power to live as an instrument of righteousness in this world.

Let me just say this: if there is one ultimate example, in Scripture, of someone who kept the fifth commandment was Jesus Christ. He is our ultimate example and it happened when He was just 12 years old. Mary, Joseph, and their whole caravan went to Jerusalem for the holy days. As the days were over and they were heading back home, Jesus and His parents got separated.

Mary and Joseph thought they were with other family members and part of the Caravan, and Jesus was still back in Jerusalem talking with the elders in the temple. When Mary and Joseph realized that he wasn’t there and Mary Joseph could not find Him in the midst of the Caravan, they headed back to Jerusalem and found Him in Temple talking to the elders.

When they found Him and directed Him to come with them, Jesus’ attitude continued in subjection to them. His mother treasured all these things in her heart, and Jesus kept increasing in wisdom, stature, and favor with God and men. Jesus honored His parents as a 12-year-old. Maybe that’s the height of the switch between being just a child in the home and independence. That’s a crucial time, and it shows that He obeyed.

Then, in manhood, Jesus at His death on the Cross showed honor to His widowed Mother by entrusting her to John’s care. John 19:25-27 says:

But standing by the cross of Jesus were His mother, and His mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. ²⁶When Jesus then saw His mother, and the disciple whom He loved standing nearby, He said to His mother, “Woman, behold, your son!” ²⁷Then He said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” From that hour the disciple took her into his own household.

Jesus becomes the example of what it means to fulfill the fifth commandment. Let’s pray:

Lord, thank You for the word of God. Lord, it has been a tremendous blessing to us. Lord, these Commandments are profound. We know, Lord, that they could only have come from You because we would not have narrowed things down to ten important principles and commandments to live by. If we live these out, then everything else seems to fall into place properly. I pray, Lord, that You would give us wisdom every day as Your people, and to put these things in the practice. I pray that young people would learn that honoring their mom and dad is actually a benefit for them. I pray that it would be a motivation for them, the promise that is connected to that for an abundant and good life. Lord, use these things to build Your people strong, to build a church strong, to build a community strong, and to build the nation strong as Your church puts these things into practice. I pray this in Your name, Amen.

February 17, 2019
The Ten Commandments Past and Present — The Fourth Commandment (Part 3)

In this sermon, Pastor Babij explains how the Sabbath commandment was originally designed by God to provide rest from life’s normal temporal and physical labors so that people might enjoy the worship of God. Pastor delineates four assertions from God concerning what is and what is not true rest:

1) God’s promise
2) God’s warning
3) God’s oath
4) God’s offer

Pastor concludes by admonishing believers to let nothing keep them from participating in God’s graciously designed rest.

Full Transcript:

Today, we will be looking at two sections of Scripture. One is in Exodus 20:8-11 where we are looking at the fourth commandment. The other is in Hebrews 4 where it talks about the Sabbath rest for believers. Exodus 20:8-11 says:

“Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. ⁹“Six days you shall labor and do all your work, ¹⁰but the seventh day is a sabbath of the LORD your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you. ¹¹“For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the 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.

Let’s pray:

As we look at this commandment, I pray, Lord, we would see the fulfillment of it in Hebrews concerning rest. I pray, Lord, that we would get a better grasp of it today and be able to practice it. Each day, on the Lord’s Day, we learn to rest in You as we pull ourselves apart from all the business of life. I pray, Lord, we would come and enjoy You, worship before You, hear Your word, and fellowship with Your people. Also, in our soul, we would find rest and refreshment, so we can live the next week until the next Lord’s Day. Bless us in our understanding today. In Christ, I pray. Amen.

We’re finding that the commandments clearly do spell out what is involved in a relationship with God, who is Holy. We are to recognize that He alone is God and is to have first place in our hearts. Worship of anything or anyone other than the redeemer God is absolutely prohibited, and it is called idolatry, which God hates.

Also, man must not attempt, in the second commandment, to make any visible representation of the invisible God. To do so would really degrade Him and destroyed His holiness. We know that anybody who does have something they use as an aid to worship eventually becomes God in their minds and that is whom they usually worship rather than the true God.

In the third commandment, we are responsible for the reputation of the Lord as we go into the world. We are to represent Him in a way where we are honoring His name, giving Him respect, and giving Him reverence in our thoughts, words, and deeds.

Lastly, we’ve been looking at the responsibility of one day and seven to attend to God’s honor and our soul. Both of them go together. The fourth commandment really teaches God’s people to keep this holy day and set this day apart as special. When we look at the word of God, we find that the Sabbath is one of those commandments that is not transferred into the New Testament as for us to do. However, it doesn’t mean that we don’t keep it, but we keep it because we are in Christ.

In saying that, turn to Hebrews 4:1-11. The slickest temptation that any Christian may be tempted with is the thought that turning to Christianity was a big mistake. That’s what the writer of Hebrews is dealing with in this epistle. Remember, in Hebrews majority of the audience is Jewish, so they have left Judaism because now they believe in Christ.

Most of their identity of being in the synagogue, being in the town, and working in their area has been tipped upside down. They have come to Christ and they were promised initial rest, but so far, they have experienced trials and suffering, and they have to resist the spiritual enemy against them. They have a struggle within their flesh. They have the opposition and currents of the world and society against them. Family has gotten a little distant with them since they have become believers.

Demeaning comments have come their way by those who were closest to them by saying to them that they are crazy. This new thing is false religion and it could even be a crutch to them. Then, you start to be tempted to think Christianity is not living up to its perceived expectations.

In the book of Hebrews, these Jewish Christians were beginning to think that Christianity was a big mistake and that they should turn back to their religious system of Judaism, which was really a system of works. Instead of rest, they were experiencing turmoil. They had given up their ancient religion, but we’re suffering for their new faith. To some, it seemed that the initial experience of rest as a cruel delusion. This is why it is very important for us to take heed of the warning we find, in this passage of Scripture, and hold on to the promise that is found.

If you grasp the promise and heed the warning, it should move you and I forward in the process of being more and more set apart to God, which leads to a greater daily trust in Him and in His providence. Then, it should move us to the place of resolve, which is to make you firm in your confession and stop you wavering in your faith. Therefore, anything that would cause you to mistrust the Lord would be, at that point, discarded from your life.

Last time, we ended with the observation about Sunday worship. On Sunday, the Lord’s Day is to celebrate actually two things: our present salvation and anticipate our future eternal rest. Both are for us to understand and think about the rest that we have as believers.

There are four important things concerning rest in this epistle. I want you to really understand what’s happening because the first thing we’re going to look at here is God’s promise. Hebrews 4:1 says:

Therefore, let us fear if, while a promise remains of entering His rest, any one of you may seem to have come short of it.

The first thing we see here is that God did give a promise to His people. That promise would be that there is a way of entering God’s rest. Remember, on the Sabbath day, the people rested physically from any kind of work, so this rest is going further. The Old Testament dealt with the shadow or type of what would come in the literal, practical rest that we receive when we become believers.

After all that has gone before, there remains the promise of entering into that particular rest in God. Before I look at that, I want to look at some other things found in our passage, which is what rest is not. First, we see in Hebrews 4:3-4:

For we who have believed enter that rest, just as He has said, “AS I SWORE IN MY WRATH, THEY SHALL NOT ENTER MY REST,” although His works were finished from the foundation of the world. ⁴For He has said somewhere concerning the seventh day: “AND GOD RESTED ON THE SEVENTH DAY FROM ALL HIS WORKS”;

In other words, this rest is not the rest of God after He finished creation. There was a morning and the evening for six days, but on the seventh day, there was no evening. Meaning, the day of God’s rest shall have no ending to it, so that Sabbath day was the beginning of an eternal rest that would come to the people of God. The rest of God is forever. Got started it and opened it up to all who would believe. It’s not specifically talking about what happened there after the world was made.

Secondly, it is not the Sabbath rest given in the law of Moses. Hebrews 4:5-6 says:

and again in this passage, “THEY SHALL NOT ENTER MY REST.” ⁶Therefore, since it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly had good news preached to them failed to enter because of disobedience

Moses gave the Sabbath rest on the seventh day that they were commanded by God to do that. Although the rest on the Sabbath was a constant reminder of God’s rest, it looked forward to a rest God’s people receive in the coming of Messiah, Christ. Even though that shadows started there, it was not finished until Christ fulfilled it.

Thirdly, it is not the rest of Canaan, which Joshua brought the people into. Hebrews 4:8 says:

For if Joshua had given them rest, He would not have spoken of another day after that.

The Scripture is saying that what happened back there was just a picture. It was pointing forward to something. He’s telling these Hebrew Jews to not give up and turn back to the old system because the old system was just pointing to the Messiah. This is a fulfillment of everything else you believed in. You heard from generation to generation, so don’t give it up.

Instead, Scripture is telling us that these are comparable to types and shadows of what is to come by pointing to the days of the Gospel, the days of God’s final Revelation in Jesus Christ. In Scripture, these things listed were only a shadow and pointed to the substance, which was what Christ accomplished on the Cross. He accomplished not only the redemption of sinners, but a new creation. 2 Corinthians 5:17 tells us:

Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.

The word of God tells us that we become new creations in Christ. Then, it leads to a resurrected body and eternal state. All these things are pointing to a rest that God has promised us way back in the beginning. Colossians 2:17 tells us:

things which are a mere shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ.

All those things are pointing to Christ, so don’t give that up. That’s the very essence of what God was saying in all those rests mentioned in the Old Testament of creation, of the Sabbath rest given in the law of Moses, and Joshua bringing people into the promised land, which gave him the rest from the wars, their own property, and learn to rest in their own land. That was only a picture, a type, pointing to the fulfillment in Jesus Christ.

So, what is rest? First, it is the present rest that we have. Some have called this the Gospel rest. This is a rest particular to the Gospel. It is a rest believer’s have in Christ. Trust in Christ’s sacrificial death begins our soul rest by giving us rest from the burden of the guilt of our sins. From giving us rest from the gnawing conscience that we had because of our sin and because of all the things that we’re building up in our life. Knowing that someday our conscience would be opened up and everything that we committed as far as sin in our life would be revealed.

We learn to trust in the sacrificial death that begins our rest and then to trust in God’s character as an almighty God, as a loving Savior, who gives us rest as we live by faith. Then, we learn to cast our burden on Him.

For example, when you’re reading through Scripture, you are going to find passages of Scriptures that give us the principles like this: don’t worry. Then, it doesn’t just say stop worrying. Matthew 6:33 says to not worry and:

But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

Then. 2 Timothy 2:22 says:

Now flee from youthful lusts and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart.

We have this peace and rest that God has already given us in Christ, and we are to practice this. The Bible says to not hold on to your care but cast it on God so the peace of God can reign in your mind, not your worry, care, and patterns of sin that drag you away from it and rob you of this rest that we have in the Lord himself. In Matthew 11:28, there is an invitation that Jesus gives with a description of the people He’s inviting, and a promise in the invitation:

Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.

That’s an invitation, simple command, and exhortation. Don’t come through priests, ministers, sacraments, ceremonies, churches, or temples. He is saying to come to Him personally where He will give you rest. In other words, He is saying:

Come directly to Me guilty and sin laden as you are. Don’t try to clean up your life to come to me. Bring it all to Me. Bring who you are to Me.

You will find that you are to come to Christ as He is, you come as you are, and He promises that He’s going to give all those who come to Him rest. Then, Matthew 11:29 says:

Take My yoke upon you…

A yolk was to keep two animals together, so that they would not go off on their own direction. Instead, they would be in subjection to their masters. That’s why they used to yolk animals together. If they didn’t, they would be wandering all over the place. Just like us.

Here, yoke is when we enter into submission to Christ. When we come and take His yoke, the sinner finds rest in surrender and obedience to Jesus Christ. Then, we’re not wandering off all over the place trying to get rest somewhere. We find that rest with God himself.

Before you can experience the peace of God, you must be at peace with God, which is important in Scripture. When a sinner submits to Christ, only then can they be yoked to Him. If they are not willing to submit to Him, they cannot be yoked to Him. He continues in Matthew 11:29:

and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and YOU WILL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS.

This is another command, which means to find out and discover the purpose of life. When we come to Christ, we discover why we were born, why we are here, and why we are living now. You can have a million questions and maybe get those questions answered somewhat, but you really don’t get real answers until you come to Christ.

When they get the answers and when they come to Christ, everything opens up to us. Now, we know why we’re here, we know what God did – created Heaven and Earth, we know the purpose of life, and we know where we are going when we die.

Do you know how many people try to search those things out? They come up with wacky solutions and results. It’s right here in Scripture, but you don’t rest in that knowledge until you come to the One who can give you the truth, which sets us free. In Matthew 11:28, He gives a description of those He invites:

…all who are weary and heavy-laden…

Not everybody who has it together or the righteous. His invitation is open to those who are exhausted, burdened down, and exhausted in their search for meaning and truth. People who feel the crush of life, the crush of sin, the slavery of sin, and the things you have to deal with in this cursed world. They are crushed by those things. People with troubled consciences, minds, and hearts that are empty, unfeeling, and afraid is who God is calling.

That’s who we are. That’s us. God is calling those people because He’s the only one who can settle the restlessness of your soul and give you the answers to know who you are, who Christ is, and what He has done.

John Bunyan, who wrote the second best-seller to the Bible called the Pilgrim’s Progress, describes the Christian Life, what you go through, and how narrow the road is to the celestial city. He wrote another book called Abounding Grace and wrote on his restlessness:

For five years and more, John Bunyan could not call his soul his own. He did not dare to sleep because he was afraid that he would wake up in hell. He was troubled all day long about a soul. His mind tumbled up and down, but when John met Jesus, he found rest.

Every Christian, who understands the Gospel and what it means to come to Christ, that’s what you find when you come to Christ. You find a peace, rest, and joy that the world, nothing in the world, or no one in the world can give you. We need this rest.

You cannot rest and riot in your sin. Jesus says to trust Me, believe Me, and follow Me. If you want to come, it shows that God has been at work in you to draw you to Himself. Again, in Matthew 11:28-29, there is a promise:

…and I will give you rest…and YOU WILL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS.

This is the eternal part of us. This is the part that lives forever. Our bodies will die and go to the grave, but our souls are eternal. Created in the image of God, the body goes to the grave and the soul goes into the presence of God awaiting the resurrection of our new body, which we will have when we live with God forever.

He gives us rest where we really need it, which is inside of us. The Lord deals with us in the turmoil of our soul. This is the gospel rest that comes to us when we believe in Jesus Christ. In the Scripture, the word “rest” means refreshment. Refreshment for your eternal soul. Peace with God through the Lord Jesus Christ. Rest of conscience, rest of mind, rest of heart, and rest of spirit.

Jesus brings complete satisfaction to all of man’s spirit. I don’t really know any Christian, who has grown in the faith, that would deny Jesus right now and give it all up for the greatest riches that this world can offer. I don’t think any Christian, who understands this, would ever say I’ll make the exchange. The reason why is because they have the greatest treasure that anybody could ever want and that’s the very peace of God.

I am right with the God who created the Heaven and the Earth through Jesus Christ. I have a rest in my soul that nobody can give me, but God. Why would I want to give that up to a life of restlessness? I don’t want to give that up. 1 John 5:3 says:

For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome.

When we willingly obey God, it’s not a burden to obey God. It’s something I want to do. It’s something that my soul wants to do because God has placed it there. What will Jesus say to those who come to Him? Matthew 25:34 says:

Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.

Here is that promise again. Come all of you who are burdened and heavy laden. Come bankrupt, ruined, and empty-handed, but come! That’s the invitation and Jesus will give you rest. That’s what He will do, which is Gospel rest.

In Hebrews 4, it is talking about the promise of this Sabbath rest. The second one is a future rest coupled with the Gospel rest. If you have the Gospel rest, you will have this rest. When people pass away and die, then they say that that person has gone to their rest. No, if they don’t know Christ, they have not gone to their rest. They have gone to a place of restlessness because they will never have that peace of God since they have rejected Christ.

They did not want Him, ignored Him, and put Him aside because they had their own way of saving themselves. Whether it is their own or a religion, they just put it aside and they will not have rest. They will have restlessness along with everything else that goes with being separated from God.

So, the Sabbath rest is a day in which we look forward to and when we can enjoy all that God has done in Christ for us. Right now, we are enjoying partly what Christ has done for us, not fully. We have to drop off these bodies to be in the presence of God and experience the fullness of it.

God did not need to rest because He was tired in Genesis. He rested because He was finished with creation and found refreshment after all His labor, and that’s what we will find too. We will find this refreshment that comes in knowing Christ and anticipating our future rest in the Lord. God has a rest being offered to people, and in Hebrews 4:1, the second thing is a warning and the warning says:

Therefore, let us fear if, while a promise remains of entering His rest, any one of you may seem to have come short of it.

God is offering people rest as they come to the Messiah, Jesus Christ. While the promise is there, the warning is offered to those who didn’t come call the way. This is the language that that the writer of Hebrews is using with the Jewish people. Specifically, he is saying to them:

You have all this knowledge of the Old Testament. You have all these types and shadows pointing to the reality and you are not going to come all the way to Christ? Come on. That’s Insanity. Don’t stop there. Come all the way over.

A lot of times when you’re witnessing to people, they will have certain facts of the Gospel. They will know certain things about Jesus being the Savior, dying on the Cross, and the resurrection. We celebrate those days, but they have never really come all the way to the truth of what that means and giving themselves to it.

In our text, the word “fear” is the kind of fear that causes us to not run away from something, but the kind of fear that causes us to face the issue head-on. Here, the issue is to have fallen short and to have been left behind. Here’s the picture from the desert of those who are loaded down with unbelief, lagged behind on the journey, and they were left behind in the desert where they perished and failed to enter the Promised Land.

Today, the warning to us is to not fall short the same way they did concerning the promise that is now preached to you of entering God’s rest by listening to and heeding the good news of Jesus Christ. Hebrews 4:2 says:

For indeed we have had good news preached to us, just as they also; but the word they heard did not profit them, because it was not united by faith in those who heard.

The failure of the past generations was that they merely heard what God said, but they didn’t believe Him. Hearing is one thing and believing is another. The word warned them not to harden their heart, yet they spurn the good news and the promise rest. The word of God is really saying to us to not repeat their folly. Don’t repeat their foolishness.

What is belief? Well, there’s a belief that emphasizes the content of faith. This is a mental acceptance of certain facts that are true. Jesus died, Jesus rose, and Jesus is coming up again. This belief does not save. It may lead to salvation, but in and of itself, it does not save.

Thus, profession does not mean possession. I can profess something, but I may not possess it. True saving faith means that I professed it and I now possess it. Someone may make a public profession of Jesus, yet he or she may be unregenerate. They may even be faithful to go to church because they think that’s what they ought to be doing. However, that still does not completely prove that they are a genuine believer.

Though, there is a belief that emphasizes the act of faith, which is a wholehearted trust in the truth. When a person hears the truth, they are moved in his and her will to act upon what they heard and to do what the truth requires. For example, the invitation, in Matthew, was to come.

Now, people could have heard, but never came. They could have listened to the whole message and never have appropriated what they heard, which is to step forward, come to Christ, and believe in Him. Yet, they haven’t done that. Thus, the person hears the truth and is moved in his will to believe what they hear and make that truth their own. For people who have whole-heartedly trust God to enter that rest, Hebrews 4:3 says:

For we who have believed enter that rest…

The promise is out there, and the warning has been given. Don’t be foolish like other people who have full knowledge of the Gospel, yet do not take it. Don’t be like them because you’re going to end up in a place you don’t want to be. Be like people who, at that point, just believe it and act upon it. The Bible says that if you have believed that way, you have not only Gospel rest, but you have eternal rest.

Remember, that rest began in creation and it will go right through to the new creation, new heaven, new earth, and new Jerusalem. All those things are going to take place, but why don’t people believe? People don’t believe the good news because they have a heart problem. Scripture tells us that in Acts 7:51:

You men who are stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart…

Meaning, they are stubborn. They are so set in the way they think and in their ways that they can’t even come to the truth. Of course, they’re also dead spiritually, and they have to be made alive. Also, they don’t come because they have a hearing problem. They’re deaf spiritually. They only hear what they want to hear. Because of their deafness, it says in Acts 7:51:

…and ears are always resisting the Holy Spirit; you are doing just as your fathers did.

He is saying, in other words, when you hear the truth, you resist it. You just don’t give yourself to it, so they had a hearing problem. In reality, they stopped listening to God, and because they stop listening, they misunderstood the message. In fact, they not only misunderstood the message, they end up misunderstanding everything else including their own history.

There are things that will always resonate with people who are spiritually hard-hearted, spiritually dead, and deaf. They think that they do not need anything and that they are all right. They will say things like:

You leave me alone and I’ll leave you alone. Let me go on my merry way. I’ll be alright.

People actually settle in that kind of thinking. Also, they resent the implication that there is anything wrong with them. They hear the message, the word of God slices and dices their hearts, presents them as sinners before God, and they say:

Well, that’s not me. That’s somebody else. That’s probably my neighbor, my relative, or someone that I work with, but that’s not me.

As a result, they fail to see the gravity of listening to God. They fail to receive the truth; therefore, they misunderstand the true meaning. However, when you are a person who truly listens, then you will regularly trust when you truly listen to God’s voice. You will not only regularly trust Him, but your faith will be strengthened, your hope will increase, and your rest will be evident. Your peace will be evident. Your joy will be evident knowing that it does not come from any earthly source, but from God himself.

When you truly listen, you will desire to grow in your understanding, which leads to greater faith. You will never be satisfied with what you know about the word of God and about the Lord. You will always want more.

When you stop listening, you become ignorant. When you stop listening, you lose sight of the glory of God. When you stop listening, you actually start disdaining God spokesman’s and preachers because you can no longer endure God’s word. 2 Timothy 4:3-4 says:

For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, ⁴and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths.

We are living in that right now, and that is a reality that we all have to experience and deal with, which leads me back in Hebrews 4 to the third thing. God presents an oath to those who would listen in Hebrews 4:3:

“AS I SWORE IN MY WRATH, THEY SHALL NOT ENTER MY REST,”

Then, Hebrews 4:5 says:

and again in this passage, “THEY SHALL NOT ENTER MY REST.”

God is really saying to anyone who decides not to believe, they will not enter. Hebrews is referring to something that happened in in the wilderness when God sent out spies to spy out the new land. He tells them to go search out the new land and come back to Him with a report.

There were two groups of people. One came back and gave a bad report and says these people are giants with fortified walls. They got cities and armies, so we can’t defeat them. Then, Caleb and Joshua, who came back, said, “Let’s go!” Based on the promises of God, they went and believe Him. They were the only ones in that generation who entered into the promised land.

In other words, unbelief is a message of a bad report. Meaning, the only way to be made right with God is through Jesus Christ, and if you don’t believe that, then that’s a bad report. Basically, you’re saying that God didn’t do it and cannot do it.

Therefore, if you believe that, then that’s why God is angry here in this text. He is angry here in the text because they did not believe. Christian pilgrims, in the Contemporary world, must realize that in the light of this passage, it will not do to confess a merely nominal allegiance to Christian truth or to pay occasional lip service, meeting, and services to faith in Christ. Our commitment must be sincere and genuine.

If you don’t believe, you lose out. If you don’t believe in Christ, you are left in your restlessness. There will be no rest, peace, or joy. That is the oath God has placed before not over His people, but the world. If you come, it’s available to you. Believe in Christ and you will have this rest. If you don’t, then you shall not enter it.

This leads to the fourth thing, which is an offer from the Lord. After all of this, the Lord has an offer found in Hebrews 4:6-10:

Therefore, since it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly had good news preached to them failed to enter because of disobedience, ⁷He again fixes a certain day, “Today,” saying through David after so long a time just as has been said before, “TODAY IF YOU HEAR HIS VOICE, DO NOT HARDEN YOUR HEARTS.” ⁸For if Joshua had given them rest, He would not have spoken of another day after that. ⁹So there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. ¹⁰For the one who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from His.

If you know Christ, if you have submitted to His offer, and if you have believed in Him wholeheartedly where He has given you His spirit, then the promise is yours. You will enter His rest. However, if you are at a point where you never really came all the way, asked Jesus Christ to save you from your sin and the condemnation of it, and believed wholeheartedly in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, then the offer is still there.

Don’t harden your heart. You are not guaranteed tomorrow. You don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow. I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow. So, the rest to which the Scripture speaks has a present and a future aspect to it. It must be entered presently, here on earth, by faith. That’s Gospel rest.

It must be pursued presently here on earth by faith, which is Gospel obedience. Also, it is Gospel sanctification. God’s going to sanctify you. Then, it must be entered bully in the future because the people of God have a heavenly life. They have a heavenly destiny. When faith turns to site, the people of God will have full possession of all that has been prepared for them.

That’s our hope. That’s what keeps us going. That’s where our faith goes through Christ right into eternity. The term “today,” in Hebrews 4:7, means while you’re alive. While there is yet time. Right now, give God the trust and obedience that He must have as God. Give it to Him while you have a chance. Not only in believing in Jesus Christ, but in serving Him with the rest of the time you have left on this Earth. Give Him the submission you ought to give Him before your days end, and we don’t know when that’s going to be.

That is the message that is coming through this passage of Scripture, and it’s all connected to the fourth commandment. Then, Hebrews 4:11 says:

Therefore let us be diligent to enter that rest, so that no one will fall, through following the same example of disobedience.

Here is the command: let us make every effort to believe and obey. If you don’t want to fall into unbelief and destruction, then labor by faith and obedience to enter the fullness of Christ’s rest. These Hebrew Christians are being assured that they have this rest right now, and they need to persevere in it.

Once you have it, you persevere in it until you reached the rest that is still to come, which is the future rest in heaven. It is the very rest that God himself enjoys. He offers it to us, but you and I must trust if you are to have it. You must trust wholeheartedly and on-going as they did in the Old Testament.

God desires that His people enter the Gospel rest through Christ, and then the benefits of that rest into the Sabbath rest, or eternal rest. So, the invitation is still open. It’s going to be open until Christ comes again, or He takes you out. It’s going to be open when you’re gone. We must realize that the pursuit of this rest, in the course of our pilgrimage, may very well be costly. We must strive and apply ourselves diligently to the journey ahead of us.

However, don’t misunderstand, it is not attained by works. That is not what I’m talking about. It is God’s rich gift to the faithful and obedient pilgrim at the end of his days when he ceases, and she ceases from labor as God did from His. The very desire to live at our best for Christ is really an ambition our Lord has planted in our minds and our hearts. He’s put that there.

All of that is leading to the Lord’s Day. When we come to the Lord’s day, it really is a day of restful worship. In comparison, the Sabbath rest is essential but not idleness, and for the Lord’s Day, worship is essential but not idleness. Both the Sabbath and the Lord’s Day are one day in a week. For the Sabbath, it’s duty to a command, and there are severe consequences for breaking the Sabbath. In the New Testament, on the Lord’s Day, there are no direct consequences for not observing it.

However, to deprive ourselves of such a happy and holy day is more than an error or a mistake. It is sin. It is not so much sin against a command or a law, but sin against love. Remember, I said already that the Lord’s Day is a day that is not about keeping it, but a day about Christ. It’s a day about the person so we ought to be considering that we serve God willingly.

The Sabbath is a day of gladness and cheer. The Lord’s Day is a day of praise, thanksgiving, and joy. The sabbath is no defined worship, but a focus on the works of God in creation and the beginning of redemption. The Lord’s Day is the define method of worship by following the means of Grace, listening to the Apostles doctrine, fellowship, the breaking of bread, prayers, and giving.

The Sabbath was a day of doing good. The Lord’s Day is a day of doing good, visiting the sick, comforting the sorrowful, teaching the unlearned, and using your spiritual gifts. Also, the Sabbath celebrated the God of creation and redemption, and the Lord’s Day celebrated a resurrected, exalted, and triumphant Christ where redemption is done.

Then, Sabbath is the creator’s day. The Lord’s Day is the redeemer’s day. Jesus is our true Sabbath. He stopped the curse of the law by fulfilling it and redeeming His children from the slave-market of sin. Then, we find that the Sabbath-Saturday is a blessed holy day. Israel had the shadow day in the Sabbath, and it pointed forward to the substance, Messiah.

Under, the Christian dispensation, the day has changed to Sunday, but the significance of the day is more pronounced. On the Lord’s Day, Christians have the substance in Christ. Jesus is our true rest. Again, Colossians 2:17 says:

things which are a mere shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ.

We come and worship the Lord not because the law says to do it, but because we want to do it since we love our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Also, the Sabbath is a cessation from secular and worldly occupations, and the Lord’s Day is a day that should be free from the demands that are on your life in order to trust the Lord in thoughtful worship and soul rest like we looked at in Matthew 11:28.

It is a day all believers need to stop working, cleaning, planning, plotting, fretting, fussing, and worrying and rest in God. Could you do that as Americans? Could you do that? American’s live by watches. Leave your cellphones in your car, and if you need to, take your wrist watches off and just relax. If you’re a Christian, rest in the Lord.

There’s nothing to be worried about. God’s taking care of everything. Leave all the baggage outside the door. Whatever went on in the week, leave it outside. Whatever is going to happen tomorrow, don’t even think about it. Matthew 6 says to not worry, there’s plenty of concern tomorrow, right?

I thank the Lord for so many present tense verbs in the New Testament because it’s not about yesterday, it’s not about tomorrow, but it’s about today. Live today. Don’t live in the past. Don’t live in the future.

Learn from the past, plan for the future, but live today. That’s what God wants us to do and when we come to worship on Sunday, that’s what we ought to be doing. We ought to be relaxing, worshipping, not scheduling, not doing the next thing, and not planning things. Just come and relax in the Lord. See that’s what we ought to do.

Neglecting the Sabbath brings the curse of the law. To neglect the Lord’s Day, such a privileged invitation, is to refuse God’s Lordship in your life and the blessings that He has for you on this day. It includes not listening to your flesh. Every time I decided not to listen to my flesh, and I went to church anyway, I always got my socks blessed off me. I could have stayed home and missed that? I would have missed that fellowship, that message, or that blessing that came from somebody. I’m not going to miss that anymore.

That’s what we were taught to be thinking. I’m not going to miss that unless I’m providentially hindered. The only excuse I ever thought that was legitimate for being providentially hindered is death. You’re going to be in heaven celebrating the Sabbath eternal rest, right?

When I was an assistant pastor, there was one man that would have the same routine every Sunday morning. He was faithful. You can set your clock by his faithfulness. He would stop at the carwash and get his car washed every Sunday.

Well, one Sunday, right in the middle of the car wash, it broke down. He couldn’t get out, so we’re all asking him where he was. He said, “you’re not going to believe this,” and he tells the story. That’s pretty legitimate. There’s not much you can do, and he only had one leg, so he couldn’t really just climb out of the car. That was a providential thing.

If none of that is in the way, be here. Be here with a restful spirit and soul, and trust God for not only the Gospel rest He gave you in Christ, but the eternal rest that we have all together as believers and what we anticipate that’s going to happen. That’s what we ought to be doing. Let’s pray:

Lord, You are an awesome God. You tell us from the word of God what we ought to know, and what we didn’t know. What we couldn’t have come up with on our own. Lord, it’s right there in Scripture. I thank You, Lord, that what was accomplished in creation, on the Lord resting on that seventh day, led to a picture and a type of what would ultimately come in Christ through the Cross, through us being redeemed and bought from the slave-market of sin, and then Lord into the Eternal rest that You promised everyone who would believe. Thank You, Lord that, You’re the only one who could do that. We want to praise You today. We want to lift up Your name. We want to give You the honor that is due Your name. I pray Lord, every single week, we would deal with the things that would rob us of our rest, peace, and joy. I pray we would make ourselves ready every day and every week to come and worship with other believers. Also, that we would be prepared to hear, to serve, and to honor Your name. I pray this in the precious name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

February 10, 2019
The Ten Commandments Past and Present — The Fourth Commandment (Part 2)

Pastor Babij continues his teaching on the fourth of the Ten Commandments by directly comparing the Sabbath and the Lord’s Day. Pastor explains how the Sabbath was specifically designed for Israel but also how the Sabbath always pointed to Jesus Christ, Who is the Christian’s Sabbath rest. Regarding the Lord’s Day, Pastor discusses several reasons why Christians now regularly worship on Sunday:

1) Jesus rose on the first day of the week
2) The early church met on the first day of the week for matters of worship, fellowship, and preaching
3) The Holy Spirit was given on the day of the wave sheaf before the Lord

Pastor concludes by admonishing believers to genuinely observe the Lord’s Day, not due to legal obligation, but out of love for Jesus and His church.

Full Transcript:

Let’s take our Bibles and turn to Exodus 20:1-11:

Then 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. ³“You shall have no other gods before Me. ⁴“You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. ⁵“You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, ⁶but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments. ⁷“You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not leave him unpunished who takes His name in vain. ⁸“Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. ⁹“Six days you shall labor and do all your work, ¹⁰but the seventh day is a sabbath of the LORD your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you. ¹¹“For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the 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.

Let’s pray:

Father, as we again come to Your word, we want to humble ourselves under Your mighty hand. We know Lord that as we open up the word of God, it is a serious matter to listen to the word of God, to understand it, and then to put it into practice. Lord, let us understand the things that are contained therein and how they relate to the New Testament, so we can faithfully and regularly practice the Lord’s day. Lord, thank You again for giving us and allowing us to have the word of God and follow through with it as we can read it ourselves, take it home with us, and read it during the week. It is a great privilege. Help us to never take that for granted. I pray this in Your name, Amen.

This is the second message of this fourth commandment, and I’ll probably do one more before I go to the fifth commandment. It’s the longest commandment as you have already noticed. It gives more information than any other one.

The first commandment means that we recognize that He alone is God and is to have first place in our hearts and lives. The second commandment is that man was to not attempt to make any visible representation of the invisible God.

Thirdly, we saw that we have a responsibility to take up the name of God and are responsible for His reputation before a lost and dying world by treating His name with honor, respect, and reverence in our thoughts, words, and deeds.

Last time, we looked at some things that were a necessity when it came to the Sabbath day from the Old Testament for Israel. There were four ideas in mind. First, God is a God of remembering. Secondly, He is a God of rest. Thirdly, He is a God of redemption. Lastly, He is a God of righteousness.

This second message on this fourth commandment includes two very important days in the Bible, the Sabbath, which were looking at, and also the Lord’s Day. Now, I would like to proceed to examine the Lord’s Day.

So far, we have gleamed some principles from the Sabbath day from last message. Today, I would like to examine the requirements and obligations regarding these two days and identify any similarities if there are any. Then, what it means for a believer now.

Last time, we looked at Mark 2:27 where Jesus was saying that the Sabbath was made to benefit people, not people to benefit the Sabbath. Jesus, the Man from heaven, also claimed in Mark 2:27-28:

Jesus said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. ²⁸“So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”

What does Christ being Lord of the Sabbath mean for Christians? That means our Sabbath or rest is not prescribed in a day. Actually, it is prescribed in a person to whom the Sabbath of the Old Testament pointed to. The Sabbath, in the Old Testament, was a shadow of what was actually going to come in the person of Jesus Christ, so it pointed to Jesus Christ. The Christian rests in Christ having seized from all self-efforts to be saved. In other words, Christ is our Sabbath rest. Hebrews 4:9 says:

So there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God.

Just as God kept working, despite His creation rest to sustain the world in His mercy, so Jesus would continue to teach and heal on the Sabbath day, which is what we see in the New Testament. Jesus did things on the Sabbath that annoyed the religious leaders, but He was making a point.

The point was that He was the Lord of the Sabbath. He can do what He wanted on that day. Jesus said that one day His redemptive work would be complete, and the Sabbaths purpose, as a sign of redemption, would be accomplished. Remember, Sabbath means to cease or desist, and it was given to Israel as part of the Mosaic law, but when Christ died for sinners on the Cross of Calvary, the entire system of shadows and types came to an end. Jesus fulfilled them in His person and in His work.

Meaning, the death of the Lord Jesus Christ brought an end of the legal Sabbath observance. His resurrection marked the beginning of a new and a special day called the Lord’s Day, which we celebrate today. Therefore, the weekly Sabbath has not been changed from Saturday to Sunday necessarily. The Sabbath has actually been fulfilled and completed in Christ. If somebody were to say:

Are we required as Christians to keep the Sabbath today?

I would have to say yes and no. No, we don’t actually worship on Saturday as Christians. We worship on Sunday, but we do fulfill the Sabbath because we are in Christ, who fulfills the Sabbath, which I’ll explain a little bit more next week. So, why do most Christians today worship on Sunday instead of on Saturday?

It is because resting in Christ for salvation frees us from the bondage to the law of the Sabbath. The Resurrection made Sunday a joyous and an appropriate day to gather for worship to celebrate Christ’s victory over sin and death. That is why Christian’s set aside Sunday as a special and a holy day.

The Sabbath was for Israel, not for the church. Since we are now under the New Covenant, as Hebrews 8 tells us, we are no longer required to observe the sign of the Mosaic Covenant, which was for Israel. In other words, the Sabbath was assigned to Israel of the Mosaic Covenant. Exodus 31:16-17 says:

So the sons of Israel shall observe the sabbath, to celebrate the sabbath throughout their generations as a perpetual covenant.’ ¹⁷“It is a sign between Me and the sons of Israel forever; for in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, but on the seventh day He ceased from labor, and was refreshed.”

This passage of Scripture is relating to us that this Sabbath day was a sign between Israel and the Lord forever about His creation work and His Redemptive work in delivering them from the bondage of Egypt, which is going to point to the ultimate deliverance of those who believe in Jesus Christ.

That leads us to some things that were said in the New Testament. The Apostle Paul is telling the church, which includes Gentiles and Jews together, that the Gentiles are not required to do what they did in the Old Testament. The New Testament never commands Christians to observe the Sabbath. The Apostle Paul actually warned the Gentiles about many different sins in his letters, but breaking the Sabbath was never one of them. All the Commandments are transmitted to the New Testament except the Sabbath because the Sabbath was for Israel, not the church. In Galatians 4:10, Paul is saying:

You observe days and months and seasons and years.

He’s afraid that they are being entrapped by the legalistic keeping of the law. He continues to say in Galatians 4:11:

I fear for you, that perhaps I have labored over you in vain.

Paul warned the Gentiles about these particular things. He is saying to the Galatians that you are trying to find favor with God by what you do and don’t do certain days, months, seasons, or years. He rebuked the Galatians for thinking God expected them to observe special days, including the Sabbath day. Basically, he is saying that the New Testament never commands Christians to observe the Sabbath. Then, Colossians 2:16-17 says:

Therefore no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day— ¹⁷things which are a mere shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ.

He is telling them that all these things that the Old Testament shadows were pointing to has its reality in what Jesus Christ did when He came into the world, died on the Cross, and lived an obedient and a perfect life. Then, He defeated Satan and death, and rose from the dead, ascended into heaven, and sat at the right hand of the Father. All those things are fulfillment of what the Old Testament was pointing forward to what He would do.

Paul explicitly refers to the Sabbath as a shadow of Christ, which is no longer binding since the substance has come, and the substance of the shadow is Christ himself. In other words, don’t let anyone condemn you for what you eat or drink, or for not celebrating certain holy days, new moon ceremonies, or Sabbaths.

Clearly, we do not become righteous or gain God’s approval by observing the Sabbath or celebrating certain holy days. Instead, Christ provides the true spiritual test for our souls through faith in Him. The Sabbath was to be a shadow while Christ himself is the reality of that shadow, so that becomes a very important point in the New Testament.

Secondly, under this point, there is no hard, fast rule for a Christian with regard to the Sabbath. Even Paul said in Romans 14:5:

One person regards one day above another, another regards every day alike. Each person must be fully convinced in his own mind.

In the same way, some think one day is more holy than another while others think every day is alike. Well, each person should be really convinced about the matter, and the way they are convinced about the matter is to understand how Christ fulfills the Sabbath rest that was given to Israel. In other words, Paul forbids those who do observe the sabbath, at this point in history, not to condemn those who do not observe the sabbath. Specifically, the Gentiles who really knew nothing about observing the Sabbath.

Even when the church councils were convened to decide crucial church matters, in the book of Acts, not one word was said about keeping the Sabbath. In fact, in Acts 15:10, it’s recorded:

Now therefore why do you put God to the test by placing upon the neck of the disciples a yoke which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear?

He’s talking about the yoke of the law. They were to be law-keepers, and specifically of those things which have now been fulfilled in Jesus Christ. The conclusion of the council was that the Gentile Christians were to abstain from certain things like the drinking of blood or of fornication, but if the Sabbath keeping were mandatory in those councils, then it would have come up and it did not come up. Theologically, Jesus Christ became the fulfillment of all those pictures, types, and shadows in the Old Testament.

Again, it’s not about the law, but it’s about the person, Jesus Christ. Christianity is about the Person, not about a religious system. It’s not even about do’s and don’ts. It’s about worshiping Jesus Christ, who becomes the focal point of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Meaning, when we meet on Sunday, there’s a basis on why we meet on Sunday, which is what is explained in the New Testament. First of all, we worship on Sunday because the Lord Jesus rose from the dead on the first day of the week. That’s why we worship on Sunday. However, most Christians treat Sunday as a special day, a day of rest and worship.

Sunday, in a sense, replaces Saturday as the Sabbath because Jesus resurrection occurred on a Sunday, so it is sometimes called the Lord’s Day. In other words, the Lord’s Day should be what we call it because it is a focus on the Lord. It becomes His day in which He filled all the requirements of the law, which is what we come to celebrate. We come to celebrate what He did for us. John 20:19 says:

So when it was evening on that day, the first day of the week…

Now, it’s not a common thing for writers of Scripture to identify a day unless it was a Sabbath or a special feast. He is specifically saying, in this passage, that on the first day of the week, something is happening. John 20:19 continues to say:

and when the doors were shut where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.”

Remember, this is after the resurrection. Jesus is now visiting His disciples. He’s not walking through doors. He’s not knocking on doors and walking. He is simply appearing to them while they’re in a closed area with a locked door, and this is all happening on the first day of the week. This is the day of the Resurrection. They are afraid of the Jews, they lock themselves away, and Jesus shows up on that first day of the week. That becomes a very important day. Then, John 20:26 says:

After eight days His disciples were again inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors having been shut, and stood in their midst and said, “Peace be with you.”

Of course, eight days would be the first day of the week, and we see that this first day is highlighted for us as a special day, a day of the Resurrection.

In Acts 20, the curtain is kind of pulled back for us to see some things that happened in the New Testament worship service. It is very significant because Dr. Luke, who wrote the book of Acts, mentions the day of the week. Elsewhere, he will rarely identify a day unless it’s a Sabbath or special feast.

In the passage, the phrase “we gather together” is a semi technical term in the New Testament to identify a Christian assembly for worship. The Sunday meeting was obviously treated as a special occasion for believers. In Acts 20:7, they met on the first day of the week, which is Sunday, in a designated place. On a Sunday, we gather together with other believers in a designated place, which can be anywhere. It doesn’t have to be a building.

Also, when they gathered, they gathered together to break bread. Here, this is included in worship. The Lord’s table was something that was taking place when the Lord instituted the Lord’s table. The church began to continue that, and we are continuing it today. The elements of the bread that represents the enfleshment of Christ coming into the world, and the element of the fruit of the vine that represents the blood of Christ are crucial to the Gospel.

The Lord left us that ordinance, so we don’t forget it. We do this in remembrance of the Lord. Again, the Lord becomes the focus on the Lord’s day. It’s not the law, but the Lord becomes the focus.

On the Lord’s day, they listened to preaching. Paul began talking to them, intending to leave the next day, and he prolong this message until midnight. Nice, long Gospel message. That’s what I like. Long Gospel messages where people are there ready and eager to listen to me or to listen. They meet and he preaches the word of God. Unfortunately, along the way, some people may fall asleep. Acts 20:8-10 says:

There were many lamps in the upper room where we were gathered together. ⁹And there was a young man named Eutychus sitting on the window sill, sinking into a deep sleep; and as Paul kept on talking, he was overcome by sleep and fell down from the third floor and was picked up dead. ¹⁰But Paul went down and fell upon him, and after embracing him, he said, “Do not be troubled, for his life is in him.”

Uncalled for on the Lord’s Day, they did good deeds. Paul resuscitated this man by the power of God. He was dead and now he is alive, so they did good deeds on Sunday. After a nice long message and he did that, the people were quite encouraged. In Acts 20:11, they fellowshipped on the Lord’s day.

When he had gone back up and had broken the bread and eaten, he talked with them a long while until daybreak, and then left.

Here is a bit of a picture of what we do today. We follow some of the same things today. This is where we get the structure of Church. In 1 Corinthians 16:1-2, they took an offering:

Now concerning the collection for the saints, as I directed the churches of Galatia, so do you also. ²On the first day of every week each one of you is to put aside and save, as he may prosper, so that no collections be made when I come.

It was a practice on the first day of the week. The people would come, and they would give for various needs to supply needs, to supply for the Lord’s work, and to supply for whatever was needed. The gathered assembly could no longer depend on anyone else for financial support, so the church gathered together and did that. The main purpose behind the church’s Sunday meeting was distinctively Christian. It was distinctively focused in on the person of Jesus Christ. When we get to the book of Revelation, the Apostle John says in Revelation 1:10:

I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like the sound of a trumpet

Even John being imprisoned was practicing the first day of the week as the day of worship for those who have come to believe in and trust Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. Since the time of the early church, the first day of the week has been the Lord’s day. It has replaced the Jewish sabbath as the special day of worship. Here, John saw Sunday as the Lord’s Day.

On this day, Christians expressed their total commitment to Jesus Christ as Lord and Master. It was Jesus resurrection on the first day of the week that demonstrated the Lordship very clearly. Therefore, it was the churches worship of the Lordship of Jesus Christ that expressed and recognized Him as the One who redeem them from the slave-market of their sin and rescue them from its condemnation. That’s what we actually celebrate when we do it on the Lord’s Day. Thus, it is Sunday that is the important day for the believer.

Secondly, we worship on Sunday because the Lord fulfilled the promise of the gift of the Holy Spirit. Remember, when Jesus went back to heaven, He told His disciples, who were sad that He was leaving, that He had to leave because if He didn’t leave, the Father can’t send the promise of the other comforter that’s coming, which is the Holy Spirit.

It was the Holy Spirit that was poured out on the church on the first day of the week. In the early church, worship occurred on the first day of the week, a Sunday, to commemorate again Christ’s resurrection, but the early church initially participated in the Jewish ceremonies. It was during the Jewish feast of Pentecost, after Christ’s resurrection and ascension, that the Spirit was poured out. This fulfilled the prophecy of Joel to begin the history of the Christian church. In fact, Acts 1:5 says:

for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.

It had to be that Jesus had to leave and ascend into heaven before the Holy Spirit can come, and the Holy Spirit came to indwell believers, who would be the temple of God. He would come indwell them. It’s not just the individual believer, but it’s when we gather together. The church is pictured, in Ephesians, as being the temple. God dwells amongst us, for those who are believers.

As we gather together, indwelt by the Holy Spirit of God, lift up the name of Jesus Christ and proclaim Him as the one who is our Lord and our Savior. The One who was, is, and is to come. He is the one that we come and worship.

In Acts 1:5, it is referring to a day we call Pentecost. The name of this Festival comes from the Greek word 50^th. It was celebrated on the 50^th day after Passover. Meaning, seven sabbaths after the first fruits, which would be 49 days. This feast is also called The Feast of Weeks. It was a Harvest Festival celebrating the end of The Barley Harvest and the beginning of the Wheat Harvest.

This second great festival, Pentecost, the week of harvest, lasted one day and it was observed on the 50^thday, which was seven weeks after the end of the feast of unleavened bread. Meaning, Pentecost marked the end of the Barley harvest and the beginning of the Wheat Harvest. It says in Leviticus 23:11

He shall wave the sheaf before the LORD for you to be accepted; on the day after the sabbath the priest shall wave it.

The day after the Sabbath would be Sunday, right? It would be the first day of the week. During the unleavened bread and the period of seven days following the Passover, the pouring out of the Spirit of God on His disciples, the birthday of the church, occurred on the 50^th day after the Sunday that the wave sheaf was presented to the Lord. In other words, it fell on Sunday, and it is another reason why we observe it as the Lord’s Day. That is the day that the Lord poured out the Holy Spirit of God. In Acts 2:1-4, it says:

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. ²And suddenly there came from heaven a noise like a violent rushing wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. ³And there appeared to them tongues as of fire distributing themselves, and they rested on each one of them. ⁴And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit was giving them utterance.

This is the birth of the New Testament church when the spirit of God was poured out upon this church on Sunday. The resurrection becomes important for us, and the day of Pentecost occurred on the first day of the week.

That brings me to a third basis of the Church’s worship on Sunday, and that we worship Sunday because the Lord fulfilled the demands of the law. We do not necessarily keep the law in the sense as a legal requirement, but we keep the law in our hearts as something we want to do. Something we do because we appreciate what the Lord has done for us. Matthew 5:17-18 says:

Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. ¹⁸“For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished.

Jesus is saying:

Don’t misunderstand why I have come. I did not come to abolish what Moses wrote, or the writings of the prophets. I came to fulfill them. I assure you until Heaven and Earth disappear, even the smallest detail of God’s law, will remain until its purpose is achieved.

Christ’s covenant with us does not abolish the law, but He fulfils it. The principle that we all need weekly rest and an opportunity to worship. God still holds true until Heaven and Earth disappear. We don’t do it because the law says to do it. We don’t meet together as a mandate like the Sabbath. We do it out of gratitude. We do it out of love for our Lord.

The spirit of God, who indwells us, puts it in our heart to be there amongst God’s people on a regular basis on Sunday because of our overwhelming thankfulness for Him saving us, and rescuing us from the condemnation of sin. We could have never rescued ourselves from it, and that’s why we come together on Sunday.

Sunday worship stems from the New Testament times. The resurrection of the day of Pentecost occurred on the first day of the week, and it soon became the practice of the early believers to meet together, to worship, to fellowship, to praise God, to study the word of God, and to give and serve on that particular day.

It is not a day that is legislated for believers as the Sabbath was. There are no regulations for its observance laid down in the New Testament. In other words, we don’t meet to fulfill legalistic demands. We don’t do that. We meet on Sunday because we love our Lord Jesus Christ, and we desire to give Him the honor that is due His great name.

That is a great motivator for us to not make excuses when it comes to worshipping God’s people. In other words, it’s not a sin against law when we don’t worship God as we ought to, but it’s a sin against love. It’s a sin against not a law written on stone, but a person, who died in our place and who is our Lord and Savior. That’s more serious.

We have to be very careful that we do not treat the Lord’s Day in a frivolous way, but in a very sober way. In a way that we don’t have to do this, but we want to. That’s a great motivator as a Christian: I want to do this because I am so incredibly filled with joy because of what Christ did for me. I want to be there, and I want to serve God, His people, lift up His name, and give praise in the assembly about the great things He has done for me.

Lastly, we worship on the Lord’s Day to celebrate our presents salvation rest and to anticipate our future, eternal rest. In Hebrews, it really explains some of the difficult parts of what happened in the Old Testament, especially concerning the sacrificial system, the law, and even the Sabbath day. Hebrews 4:2-7 says:

For indeed we have had good news preached to us, just as they also; but the word they heard did not profit them, because it was not united by faith in those who heard. ³For we who have believed enter that rest, just as He has said, “AS I SWORE IN MY WRATH, THEY SHALL NOT ENTER MY REST,” although His works were finished from the foundation of the world. ⁴For He has said somewhere concerning the seventh day: “AND GOD RESTED ON THE SEVENTH DAY FROM ALL HIS WORKS”; ⁵and again in this passage, “THEY SHALL NOT ENTER MY REST.” ⁶Therefore, since it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly had good news preached to them failed to enter because of disobedience, ⁷He again fixes a certain day, “Today,” saying through David after so long a time just as has been said before, “TODAY IF YOU HEAR HIS VOICE, DO NOT HARDEN YOUR HEARTS.”

He’s talking about the Sabbath rest that comes to the people of God after they believe in that fulfilment that is found in Jesus Christ. He’s saying that some people heard the message on how to have this eternal rest but rejected it because they didn’t believe in Christ. Then, other people did receive the message and they received the rest that comes in Jesus Christ, which is the Sabbath rest. As the people rested on the Sabbath day, we rest in the finished work of Jesus Christ.

That rest is not only a present rest. I don’t have to be frantic about whether I’m a believer or not. I am a believer if I have trusted Christ, if I’m following Christ, and if I’m worshiping the Lord. He has taken care of that and given to us rest. Rest means freedom from whatever worries us or disturbs us. It means freedom from guilt over sin. Why because Christ has taken our guilt.

It means no more shifting about in frustration from one thing to another. No more running in circles wondering if we’re doing the right thing. Wondering if we have enough good works to please God. Wondering if I have just done enough of anything. That’s not what it’s about. I am to rest in Christ. I am to enjoy Christ, which is what worship is. I am to understand all He has accomplished on my behalf. To enter into God’s rest means that, for the remainder of our lives and for all eternity, we can lean on everything God has done.

Such rest is full, blessed, sweet, satisfying, and peaceful. Amazingly, this is what God offers every person who comes to Christ. Every person can have this rest. However, notice the warning in Hebrews 4:1:

Therefore, let us fear if, while a promise remains of entering His rest, any one of you may seem to have come short of it.

Then, in Hebrews 4:2, it says:

…but the word they heard did not profit them….

Then, Hebrews 4:3 says:

For we who have believed enter that rest

Those who did not believe, did not enter the rest. In Hebrews 4:6, they failed to enter because of disobedience. Who has more knowledge of God than any group of people on the face of this Earth? Israel, right? They had everything. They had all the Old Testament prophets. They had the Psalms. They had the law. They had everything they needed to come to Christ, the Messiah. Therefore, mere knowledge of God’s message is not sufficient for salvation. You can know a lot about the Bible and still not be saved.

A second thing from this passage is that this rest that God gives us must be appropriated by saving faith. I must believe the facts of the Gospel. I must ask God to save me if I call upon the Lord and I believe in my heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. So, I must appropriate the knowledge of what I know about God and where it leads me, from the shadows to its fulfillment in Christ, and believe in the end result. Not get stuck in the law, but where it is all heading. It was heading to a person called Jesus Christ.

Also, those who exercise faith in the message of God, the Bible definitely says to us that we will enter into this spiritual rest, which is God’s eternal and heavenly rest, or Sabbath rest. See, the old Jewish sabbath actually is a type of Heaven. It was only pointing to its fulfillment in the eternal Sabbath, the eternal rest of peace, enjoyment, and communion with God. Hebrews 4:8-10 says:

For if Joshua had given them rest, He would not have spoken of another day after that. ⁹So there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. ¹⁰For the one who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from His.

There’s not one thing we need to do to be saved except believe in the result of all the shadows and types and believe in Christ. Then, Hebrews 4:11 says:

¹¹Therefore let us be diligent to enter that rest, so that no one will fall, through following the same example of disobedience.

In other words, if you don’t believe, you’re disobedient to God. For those who are disobedient to Him, they are still under His judgement and wrath. The writer of Hebrews explains how Christ fulfills the twin Biblical-Sabbath themes of Creation and Redemption. He did so by linking together the idea of God’s rest after creation and is redeeming worth in bring Israel to rest in the land of Canaan. Then, He describes how both these events relate to the present and the future rest that Christians can enjoy with their relationship in Jesus Christ.

Again, the Sabbath is the seventh day, and the Lord’s Day is the first day. Both are separate days, each set apart for the purpose of worshiping God Almighty. Specifically, for us, the Lord Jesus Christ. Secondly, the Sabbath was for the nation of Israel, and the Lord’s Day is for the Church of Jesus Christ.

Next, the Sabbath commemorates God’s creation rest while the Lord’s Day commemorates the resurrection, the fulfillment of the finish work of God. Also, the Sabbath commemorates a finished creation, and the Lord’s Day commemorates a finished redemption. The Sabbath was a day of legal obligation, and the Lord’s Day is for voluntary worship.

It is the law of love for Christ that will regulate and influence the believers conduct on the Lord’s Day. It is the same love that will move the believer to prepare himself for Sunday morning worship, and take care of things on Saturday, make themselves ready for receiving what God has for them on Sunday through the word of God, for the fellowship of believers, and even the taking of the sacraments.

Also, attendance at church and performance of spiritual service should never be done grudgingly, but with an attitude of what a glorious privilege for us to be here, for our ears to hear the word of God, and for us to experience and live out what God has done for us in Christ Jesus.

In considering that, the Lord’s Day is a special day. It is a time we rest from the temporal cares of our life. We pull ourselves away from a regular schedule to voluntarily worship God. Also, the Lord’s Day is a special day where we voluntarily assemble ourselves with other Christians for solemn worship, happy service to God, fellowship with our brothers and sisters in Christ, and a time of praise and spiritual activity like serving and giving.

Then, the Lord’s Day is a special day where we come and celebrate the resurrection of Christ and rejoice in our new life in Him. We are reminded that we are born anew by faith and thank God for the miracle of redemption performed in us.

Lastly, the Lord’s Day is a special day where we come and offer to God, as an act of worship, ourselves, our lives, our wealth, and our time. A time to do good and a time to meet pressing needs. That is all part of why we meet on the Lord’s Day. So, if I could end like this, I believe the Sabbath was the picture, and the fulfillment is Christ. Let’s pray:

Lord, thank You. In some difficult parts of the Bible, we are understanding what You have been doing all along Lord. Your plan is so clear and so complete that, Lord, You tell us, in Matthew, to not worry about tomorrow. Why is it that we don’t worry? Because we are resting in Christ and what He’s done on our behalf. In Christ, we have His spirit and we’re looking forward to the eternal rest we have some day when we are in Your presence. Lord, I must confess and admit that I don’t always live there, but I pray Lord that You would teach all of us here to live there more than we do. I pray, Lord, that we would prepare ourselves for worship on Sunday in a way that were filled with joy, gladness, and with the thought of what a privilege it is to come and worship You. To give You our honor, our praise, our time, and our service. I pray, Lord, we would always think of it like that. Lord, if we haven’t, bring us to the place where we do. Lord, when we do that, we won’t grieve the spirit of God or clench Him, but we will be walking in the spirit and not fulfilling the lust of the flesh. Make us people like that. Lord, I also pray that You would prepare our hearts for the Lord’s table as we partake of the elements that are the focus of the Gospel itself – the body and the shed blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. I pray this in Your name, Amen.

February 3, 2019
The Ten Commandments Past and Present — The Fourth Commandment (Part 1)

In this sermon, Pastor Babij preaches on the fourth of the Ten Commandments, explaining the principles gleaned from the Sabbath command that are applicable to today’s observance of the Lord’s Day:

1) The Necessity of the Sabbath
2) The Idea of Rest
3) The Idea of Redemption
4) The Idea of Righteousness

Pastor concludes by exhorting Christians to carefully prepare for and observe the Lord’s Day as a special day to receive strength from God and increase in love for Him.

Full Transcript:

Let’s turn to the Old Testament book of Exodus 20:1-11 where we are looking at the fourth commandment:

Then 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. ³“You shall have no other gods before Me. ⁴“You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. ⁵“You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, ⁶but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments. ⁷“You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not leave him unpunished who takes His name in vain. ⁸“Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. ⁹“Six days you shall labor and do all your work, ¹⁰but the seventh day is a sabbath of the LORD your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you. ¹¹“For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the 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.

Let’s pray:

Father, as we come before Your word, we come wanting to know what it says and wanting to put it into practice. I pray, Lord, that You would continue to change our mind when it comes to wrong thinking, and even wrong practice. I pray, Lord, that we would learn how serious the commandments are in Scripture. I pray, Lord, we would put them and place them in the right place in our lives, so we would honor You and we would reap the benefits that You planned when You gave them to us. I pray, Lord, as we do that, You would make us believers who are steadfast, steady, and strong in the faith. I pray this in Christ’s name, Amen.

Here, we have the fourth commandment, which gives more detail than the other commandments. The commandment clearly spells out what is involved in a relationship with God, who is Holy. As I have mentioned already, recognizing that He alone is God and He is to have first place in our hearts and our lives. When He’s not, usually our lives and our relationships are in disorder.

The worship of anything or anyone, other than the redeemer God, is absolutely prohibited by the commandments. The right relationship we are to have with God is our responsibility every single day of our lives. Secondly, man must not attempt, in the second commandment, to make any visible representation of the invisible God. To do so would be to degrade Him and distort His holiness. Furthermore, the idol that is intended to represent God as an aid to worship eventually becomes God in the minds of the worshippers.

Thirdly, we have the responsibility of taking up the name of God and are responsible for His reputation before a lost and dying world by treating His name with honor, with respect, and with reverence in our thoughts, words, and deeds.

Now, we have come to the fourth commandment, and we have a responsibility of one day in seven to attend to God’s honor and our own souls. The fourth commandment teaches God’s people to keep the Sabbath holy. Most say that the Christian’s Sabbath is the first day of the week, on Sunday, called the Lord’s day. However, in many places today, Sunday is no different from any other day of the week.

Now, why don’t Christians worship on the Sabbath, or Saturday? Why is Sunday a special day for a Christian? At least it’s supposed to be a special day. In order to answer these questions and others, I would like to present two messages concerning these two important days – the Sabbath and the Lord’s day.

First, I would like to briefly examine each one and then glean some principles from the Sabbath. Next week, we’ll look at the similarities of the two days. Lastly, I would like to conclude with the requirements and obligations regarding these two days. In other words, what it means for the believer. The overall purpose is to get you to think about yourselves and how you are to prepare yourselves for the one day in seven that you are to worship Him.

Today, we will examine the Sabbath as it concerns the Israelites. In the next message, we will examine the principle of the fourth Commandment as it applies to believers today. From the Sabbath day in Scripture, we glean the foundation for the Lord’s day, so the principal found in this fourth Commandment is that of the nature of the Sabbath and it says to remember the Sabbath day and to keep it holy.

When God gave the Sabbath, it was to be a day of rest and remembrance. However, through the years, it developed into a burden for the people because there was a system of terribly hard to-do rules imposed by the Jewish leadership on the people, so there was no lack of rules for surrounding the fourth commandment.

For example, in the time of Jesus, the Pharisees had added hundreds of petty rules that made the law so complicated that people had to study it and study the laws that were on top of it to figure out what God actually wanted them to do. Usually, they never really got to what God wanted them to do because it was so cloudy, but they did fear breaking the fourth commandment. All the rules that surrounded the fourth commandment actually clouded the original sense of the commandment.

When you get to the New Testament, you see Jesus denouncing the Pharisees traditions as transgressing the commandments of God and making them to no effect. Jesus, in many instances, would say to the Pharisees the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. That saying is found in Mark and what Jesus is doing is giving the correct understanding of the Sabbath, so Jesus subordinates the Sabbath to man’s real welfare.

Man was not made for the Sabbath as the rabbi’s assumed with their petty rules. When man messes with the word of God and goes outside the boundaries of the word of God, then they come up with utterly ridiculous traditions and rules.

In relation to the fourth commandment, if a man was bitten by a flea, then he would have to let the flea keep on biting him or be guilty of breaking the Sabbath law. If he killed the flea, he would be guilty of hunting on the Sabbath, so it’s pretty ridiculous.

If a farmer’s ox fell into a ditch on the Sabbath, he can pull it out, but if he fell into the ditch, he had to stay there. In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus blasts the religious leadership of Israel and exposes their errors. Jesus says to them in Mark 7:7-8:

‘BUT IN VAIN DO THEY WORSHIP ME, TEACHING AS DOCTRINES THE PRECEPTS OF MEN.’ ⁸“Neglecting the commandment of God, you hold to the tradition of men.”

Jesus is saying:

You abandoned the commandments of God. You are substituting man’s rules and man’s ingenuity for God’s laws.

They do it very attractively. They put away God’s law in a very nice way. Jesus continues to say in Mark 7:9:

He was also saying to them, “You are experts at setting aside the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition.

In other words, they constantly nullify the divine in order to keep human rule. Don’t do that. Jesus actually exposes the damage done by such self-invented human tradition. A particular term is used in the Gospel of Mark 7:13 where Jesus says:

thus invalidating the word of God by your tradition which you have handed down; and you do many things such as that.

Jesus said that they are robbing the word of God of its authority. In other words, the word “invalidate” means to leave without authority. If you minus or extract the authority of the word of God from the word of God by substituting something man said instead of what God says, you are actually undermining the word of God and making it of no effect. That’s what He says, so don’t do that.

True religion can never be produced by the mind of man. True religion should not be mistaken for mere outward observance and religious acts. The real deception is making the man-made rules appear to be teachings that come from God. In fact, there were more than roughly 1,500 ways that a person could break the Sabbath.

You may ask: why did the Jewish leadership come up with so many rules related to breaking the fourth commandment? Well, if you take your Bibles and look to Exodus 35:2, we get the sense of why they did it, which is because of fear and prevention of death:

For six days work may be done, but on the seventh day you shall have a holy day, a sabbath of complete rest to the LORD; whoever does any work on it shall be put to death.

You can see that they were trying to hedge against somebody losing their life or not in carrying out the Sabbath day the way they should. However, when they took matters into their own hands to try to prevent breaking it, they actually nullified it and broke it, and by fear, they moved away from the meaning and the significance of the special day called the Sabbath.

If they would have just stayed in the Hebrew Scriptures, they would have come up with at least eight specific ways the Bible says on not doing these things on this day. They would have been fine. The Hebrew Bible actually tells us the types of work that are prohibited on the Sabbath.

The first part would be that of leaving one’s place. You couldn’t be moving around on the Sabbath. Also, agricultural activities such as no planting or harvesting on the Sabbath. There is no kindling of fire on the Sabbath. No gathering wood on the Sabbath. Of course, no conducting business on the Sabbath, carrying burdens, treading the winepress, or loading donkeys. These were the eight things found in Scripture. If they would have just kept those, they would have been fine.

Yet, the Lord never intended the Sabbath to be a day of burden and of restriction. It was to be a very special day. It was a day set apart for the Lord in which it was to benefit God’s people with rest and remembrance. So then, in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus is saying that the Sabbath was made to benefit people, not people to benefit the Sabbath, so they got it all messed up. Therefore, they ended up breaking it by trying to prevent from breaking it.

That’s what happens when we mess with the word of God, or we substitute man’s thinking and impose it upon Scripture. We should never do that. The principal under this is the necessity of the Sabbath, which included four benefits on behalf of mankind for the Sabbath day. The first one is the idea of remembering. Exodus 20:8 says:

Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.

The idea of remembering is not primarily recalling something from the past, but it is used in the sense of remembering the law and the commandments with the idea of doing them. Hence, to remember the Sabbath is to observe it by abstaining from work. That’s how you observe it. That’s why God gave it. This principle of Sabbath was rooted in the action of God himself in creation. When God created, He called the first six days good, but the seventh day He called holy. Meaning, it was a day that belonged to the Lord and it was to be used for God’s purpose and not for ours. For example, Isaiah 58:13 says:

If because of the sabbath, you turn your foot
From doing your own pleasure on My holy day,
And call the sabbath a delight, the holy day of the LORD honorable,
And honor it, desisting from your own ways,
From seeking your own pleasure
And speaking your own word

The pattern of the Sabbath was set back then at creation, but it has tremendous value for people every single week of their lives. Breaking away from the regular labor is to honor God in this sense. So, they were to remember that God created the world in six days and then rested on that seventh day. Meaning, the second necessity of the Sabbath is that of rest. Exodus 20:11 says:

For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the 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.

It was to be a day of rest because by the seventh day, God completed His work of creation, which He had done and rested on that seventh day from all the work that He had done. God, as a manual laborer, rested after He had finished creation.

The word “Sabbath” comes from the Hebrew word that means ceasing or desisting activities. The Sabbath does not mean Saturday or the seventh day. What is contained within the word Sabbath is the whole thought of ceasing from labor. The Sabbath is a day when people suspend or cease their normal routine of working.

If you notice, the majority of our life is going to be working. Six days we work, right? We have plenty of work to do. All of us have work to do in our life. However, the Bible is saying that on this one particular day, which is called the Sabbath, is the day that you are going to suspend the normal labor of work and cease from doing it. It is not a day specifically about you, but it’s a day about God. It would be a day of no work, but a day of rest. The word “Sabaton” means complete rest. Exodus 31:15 says:

For six days work may be done, but on the seventh day there is a sabbath of complete rest, holy to the LORD; whoever does any work on the sabbath day shall surely be put to death.

The Lord took this day very seriously, but He took it seriously for the benefit of the people themselves. For your information, God did not rest because He was physically tired. Rather, His rest signified satisfaction with His creation. That’s what it signifies. God tells Moses something very interesting concerning this rest in Exodus 31:17:

It is a sign between Me and the sons of Israel forever; for in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, but on the seventh day He ceased from labor, and was refreshed.

This Hebrew verb means to take a breath or to refresh oneself, so God tells Moses how He was refreshed by His day of rest. Meaning, He meditated upon the satisfaction of what He had done. He created the Heaven and the Earth and everything in it and God stepped back, stopped working, looked at what was done, and He called it very good.

Then, He called, when He gave the commandments, this particular day a Holy day, which is to be set apart. We have this one day we set apart so we can look at what God had done, step back, and rest from our normal routine of working so we can appreciate and drink-in what God has done. In doing that, it refreshes our soul. We have the benefits of getting charged again for the next week of labor.

There is no doubt that God talks about the Sabbath in this way in order to show people that they must follow the pattern of the Creator, which He has set forth to them. God resting from His work is a pattern given to mankind to benefit them. If God, the Creator, rested, then how much more should His creatures rest? It reflects God’s law about the Sabbath. A day of rest is necessary for individuals, for families, for households, and for animals. If you look back at Exodus 20:10, notice the details given:

but the seventh day is a sabbath of the LORD your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you.

The Lord says:

Listen, this is going to benefit everyone. All the individuals within your influence will benefit from that day.

I haven’t met anybody, maybe you know somebody, who wishes that their life was more hectic than it is. Do you know anybody? If you do, then I think you’re a little bit wacky. I mean, I don’t need another thing in my life. I don’t need another thing to do, another thing on my schedule, or another hectic thing to drive me absolutely bonkers.

When we just work and work and work and work, that is not God’s plan. That is very destructive for your spiritual life, for your physical life, for your family life, for your relationships, and for God’s church. He does not want us to live like that, and it is not beneficial for you. It is beneficial for us.

Whatever labor God gives us, to set aside this day of rest is like no other day of the week. It’s a different day. It’s not a day to cut your lawn. It’s not a day to paint your house. It’s not a day to clean out the basement, to change the oil in your car, or to schedule what you are going to do the next week. It is a day just to rest and to focus your attention on the things that are beneficial for your soul.

God instituted the weekly Sabbath, a day of rest, because it reflects His creative work and the blessing that He gave when He had finished creation. It also allowed an opportunity for both people and animals to rest from their work and to be refreshed for the next week.

Christian’s should really ponder the importance of the Sabbath described in the Bible. God’s instructions require all people to observe a regular weekly break from work. One day in seven to rest our souls, to remember, to honor, and to worship our Lord for His works and redemption.

Thirdly, it was for the idea of redemption. In Deuteronomy 5:12-15, we get the idea of redemption. The Exodus account from Mount Sinai and the Deuteronomy account delivered on the plains of Moab were separated by 40 years. The idea in Deuteronomy is a little different than Exodus 20. In Exodus, the focus is on all people as created beings. In Deuteronomy, it is directed to Israel as a nation, a group of Gods’ redeem people. In Deuteronomy 5:12, this is what they were to do:

Observe the sabbath day to keep it holy, as the LORD your God commanded you.

The term “observe” is to distress and to pay careful attention to keeping this specific day. Then, this day is also connected to God redeeming His people. Deuteronomy 5:15 says:

You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God brought you out of there by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm; therefore the LORD your God commanded you to observe the sabbath day.

The Sabbath was God’s signpost to remind His special people of His mercy shown to them when He rescued them from the Egyptian slavery. Exodus pointed to God’s goodness towards His people as their Creator. Deuteronomy went a step further by pointing to God’s mercy towards His chosen people as their Redeemer, who rescued them from slavery.

This was done so they would not forget what God had done. That they would take ownership of what they believed and honor the Lord by putting their belief into practice and into the regular weekly schedule. Meaning, one day was that day in which they were as God’s redeem people, to gather together, and not forget all the great works God has done on their behalf.

It was this sense of: I know that God redeemed me. For the believer, it would be: I know that God saved me, and I know the work that He carried out in order to save me. Therefore, because of that I am going to set aside this one day in seven for my regular weekly practice. Remember, it’s not a day that you come up with or a day that you decide. It’s a day that God decides.

That brings me to the necessity of this special day, and that it was also a day with the idea of righteousness. In Deuteronomy 5:14, God’s people were to be different. Not only in their daily lifestyle, but in their worship of God. They were also to be concerned with the treatment of others:

but the seventh day is a sabbath of the LORD your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter or your male servant or your female servant or your ox or your donkey or any of your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you, so that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you.

God’s people were to have a special concern for others, especially on this one day that they were breaking apart from their regular labor to focus in on people. Because God was merciful to the people of Israel while they were slaves in Egypt, He expected the Israelites to show loving concern for the people who served with them during the week.

Meaning, the Sabbath day offered the Israelites a perfect opportunity to show love and concern to others on that particular day. Remember, the Jewish leadership messed up the whole point of this day of rest and considering what the Lord had done on their behalf by way of redemption and showing people kindness on this day. When you come again to the New Testament, you find Jesus constantly coming against the Jewish leadership because they had so distorted this day, they weren’t even kind to people. For example, Mark 3:1-5 says:

He entered again into a synagogue; and a man was there whose hand was withered. ²They were watching Him to see if He would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse Him. ³He said to the man with the withered hand, “Get up and come forward!” ⁴And He said to them, “Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save a life or to kill?” But they kept silent. ⁵After looking around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, He said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” And he stretched it out, and his hand was restored.

Specifically on the day of Sabbath, kindness was to be shown to people, but they had put so many boundaries upon this commandment, they could not even show compassion to people who needed help. They thought that would have been work. Therefore, they would have been put to death. This special day was never to be a sham. Even the later prophet saw a great deal about the observance of Sabbath being a sham to people.

Many people treated the Sabbath day more as a holiday than as a holy day. They used it as an opportunity for self-indulgence rather than a day for worshiping God. Even some greedy tradesmen found the restrictions of the Sabbath an annoyance to their regular business flow. In fact, the prophet Amos mentioned this in Amos 8:5:

When will the new moon be over, So that we may sell grain, And the sabbath, that we may open the wheat market, To make the bushel smaller and the shekel bigger, And to cheat with dishonest scales

In other words, they were upset that their flow of business was being hindered because Israel decided to take a day off during the week to rest and worship God instead of making money.

In Scripture, even this practice was debunked. Many years ago, there was something called Blue Laws where all businesses were closed on Sunday no matter what. One day, I was preaching in Hicksville Long Island and I went to the town. I haven’t seen Blue Laws in a town for a long time, and I get there and thought we would have a cup of coffee, get something to eat, and then go to the church. Well, there was nothing open. I found out later that this particular town still has Blue Laws in place, so businesses were prevented from opening and making money on Sunday. Of course, that practice is pretty much gone forever.

Now, I didn’t get to the Lord’s day yet, but I’m laying down for you some of the principles that we can glean from the Sabbath because they do translate into the Lord’s day. Not that it’s the same day, but the principles are all there. Even the prophets did not shrink of exposing the disobedience and abuse of the Sabbath laws.

Isaiah said to those who go through the motions for Sabbath worship actually nauseated the Lord by their misuse of it. Jeremiah told the people that they’re breaking of the Sabbath laws would eventually bring destruction of the city of Jerusalem, which it did. Ezekiel warned the people that God had been very patient with His people, but if they continued to disobey the rules of the Sabbath, this one day in seven to rest and worship Him, He would severely judge them, and He did.

It’s not until Nehemiah where we see the Israelites, who come back from exile, be more careful than before to observe this one day in seven. It can be very specific and important day for Israel. There are some observations that we can glean from the Sabbath that is going to be seen and practiced in the Lord’s day. There are several of them made about the Sabbath for the purpose of guiding our understanding of how we should observe an approach the Lord’s Day.

First, it was a special day. It was not a regular day of work. Meaning, God’s people were not to treat it like any other day. Do we treat the Lord’s day like any other day? Do we have our plans all set where we say: I come to church, and when I’m out that door, I’m doing what I need to do that day? I think we need to start changing our mind set on that. It’s not just about gathering and hearing preaching. It’s about what you do when you leave out those doors and go back home or go wherever you go.

Is it something where you are still in the mindset that it is a special day? That it is a day set apart unto the Lord. The rules in the Old Testament about the Sabbath we’re not meant to rule out activity of any kind instead. The laws were meant to stop regular every day work because if God had set aside the Sabbath, the most obvious way of being disrespected was to treat it just like any other day.

It should never just be another day for believers. It was to be set aside with great care and consideration. Also, we saw that the Sabbath was a day of doing good. It was a day for doing good deeds. Many ministries take place on Sunday. Those are not considered by God to be worked. They are considered to be service to your fellow man as good deeds. Matthew 12:11-12:

And He said to them, “What man is there among you who has a sheep, and if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will he not take hold of it and lift it out? ¹²“How much more valuable then is a man than a sheep! So then, it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.”

The Sabbath is a day of doing things but it’s doing things other than would you do during the week. It’s doing Ministry. It’s ministering to people. It is helping people. It’s meeting with people. It’s talking with people. It’s counseling people. It’s going and sharing the Gospel with people. It’s all those things that are included in doing good on the Sabbath.

Also, it was a day which pointed the people to remember how much the Lord loved His people and wanted to draw near to them. Scripture tells us that God gave His people the Sabbath as an opportunity to serve Him and as a reminder of the two great truths in the Bible. One, the God that we serve is the God who created the heaven and the earth and set this principle out for us. To take this one day in seven and rest. Then, the same God gave us the plan of salvation and redemption. If we are saved and if we’ve come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, then that day becomes our special thought.

During the week we can forget about those things because of the business of the week. We shouldn’t, but we may. That’s why every week we must come together and have our focus adjusted again on the right things. Also, it was a day that God’s people valued because they valued the relationship with God.

When you go off to church on Sunday morning and people see you and your family sees you, and when you’re on your way to church and people are on bicycles, skateboards, and doing their business on Sunday, but you’re not. You’re valuing that day as a special day because of your relationship with God, not just to get up and go to church. We should never have that attitude.

This is the day that we value because we value would God’s given us. We value the word of God. We value the rest that Gods granted to us. We value how God is going to use that to benefit us for our life, and for what goes on that next week. We value that and we show it by actually carrying that day out and doing it.

Also, it is a day that tested the people’s loyalty. You can be at a soccer game this morning. You can be at a shower for a family member this morning. You can be in any hundred places this morning, but those are the decisions we have to make before God to show our loyalty to Him.

This day is so important that I don’t replace it with something else. Even though somebody else may think that it’s important for me to be somewhere else instead of here, I decided that I’m going to be here. I know that sometimes our families do not pick up on that nicely. They like to come against us because of that, right? They like to schedule things right when they know you’re in church, and then they ask why you weren’t there.

That’s the struggle we’re all going to have, but see there is a sense of are you loyal to the Lord? If you are here, you’re loyal. If you’re setting apart that day your loyal, so is it day to test loyalty. Also, it was a day of blessing and enjoyment, not a day of Labor and burden. It is a day of rest and remembrance.

The Sabbath day should be a day of delight. A day of joy. A day of not doing the things that I like to do. It wasn’t a day of really seeking my own pleasure or seeking things that I wanted to talk about. It’s a day that I want to hear from God and His word. I want to know what God wants me to do. It’s a day to come, praise, and worship God and lift up our hands and voices before Him.

That becomes a very special day now. The last passage I want to look at this morning is Psalm 92. The reason why I picked this particular Psalm is that on the top it says:

Praise for the LORD’S Goodness. A Psalm, a Song for the Sabbath day.

Remember, the Psalms were songs. This is the song of a Sabbath day where they rested and didn’t labor. Psalm 92:1-5, 15:

It is good to give thanks to the LORD And to sing praises to Your name, O Most High; ²To declare Your lovingkindness in the morning And Your faithfulness by night, ³With the ten-stringed lute and with the harp, With resounding music upon the lyre. ⁴For You, O LORD, have made me glad by what You have done, I will sing for joy at the works of Your hands. ⁵How great are Your works, O LORD! Your thoughts are very deep…¹⁵To declare that the LORD is upright; He is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in Him.

That song gives us a sense of what is in the mind of the people when they come to worship God. It’s about focusing in on what He had done, His character, declaring to Him, giving thanks to Him, praising Him, and declaring that the Lord is upright, good, righteous, and a God to be worshipped. That’s what is in their mindset. That is what strengthened them and refresh them to go on and live another week until the next Sabbath.

Next week, I’m going to examine how the Sabbath principle influences us and how it’s related to life today. Also, we will see if there are any similarities between the two days. Then, conclude with the requirements and obligations regarding these two days, and what it means for a believer as we prepare ourselves for the Lord’s Day each week.

I pray that the Lord’s Day, as we look at this next time, would truly become and remain a special day that is carefully prepared for and observed, so that we reap the benefits of spiritual rest and that the Lord is honored, worshipped, and praised by us for His mercy, faithfulness, and great works. Let’s pray:

Lord, thank You for the kindness that You have displayed to us and given to us. In the sense, giving it first to Your people in the Old Testament, Israel. Lord, Your redeemed people then. Now, Lord, in a special way, we also have a special day. A day to put these principles into practice and not to neglect them. A day to honor Your name with an attitude that You’re pleased with, and with our voices that are prepared to lift up and praise Your great name. I pray, Lord, You would adjust our thinking about how we consider the Lord’s Day from this day forward until next week and each week after. I pray this in Christ’s most precious name, Amen.

Let’s turn to the Old Testament book of Exodus 20:1-11 where we are looking at the fourth commandment:

Then 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. ³“You shall have no other gods before Me. ⁴“You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. ⁵“You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, ⁶but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments. ⁷“You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not leave him unpunished who takes His name in vain. ⁸“Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. ⁹“Six days you shall labor and do all your work, ¹⁰but the seventh day is a sabbath of the LORD your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you. ¹¹“For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the 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.

Let’s pray:

Father, as we come before Your word, we come wanting to know what it says and wanting to put it into practice. I pray, Lord, that You would continue to change our mind when it comes to wrong thinking, and even wrong practice. I pray, Lord, that we would learn how serious the commandments are in Scripture. I pray, Lord, we would put them and place them in the right place in our lives, so we would honor You and we would reap the benefits that You planned when You gave them to us. I pray, Lord, as we do that, You would make us believers who are steadfast, steady, and strong in the faith. I pray this in Christ’s name, Amen.

Here, we have the fourth commandment, which gives more detail than the other commandments. The commandment clearly spells out what is involved in a relationship with God, who is Holy. As I have mentioned already, recognizing that He alone is God and He is to have first place in our hearts and our lives. When He’s not, usually our lives and our relationships are in disorder.

The worship of anything or anyone, other than the redeemer God, is absolutely prohibited by the commandments. The right relationship we are to have with God is our responsibility every single day of our lives. Secondly, man must not attempt, in the second commandment, to make any visible representation of the invisible God. To do so would be to degrade Him and distort His holiness. Furthermore, the idol that is intended to represent God as an aid to worship eventually becomes God in the minds of the worshippers.

Thirdly, we have the responsibility of taking up the name of God and are responsible for His reputation before a lost and dying world by treating His name with honor, with respect, and with reverence in our thoughts, words, and deeds.

Now, we have come to the fourth commandment, and we have a responsibility of one day in seven to attend to God’s honor and our own souls. The fourth commandment teaches God’s people to keep the Sabbath holy. Most say that the Christian’s Sabbath is the first day of the week, on Sunday, called the Lord’s day. However, in many places today, Sunday is no different from any other day of the week.

Now, why don’t Christians worship on the Sabbath, or Saturday? Why is Sunday a special day for a Christian? At least it’s supposed to be a special day. In order to answer these questions and others, I would like to present two messages concerning these two important days – the Sabbath and the Lord’s day.

First, I would like to briefly examine each one and then glean some principles from the Sabbath. Next week, we’ll look at the similarities of the two days. Lastly, I would like to conclude with the requirements and obligations regarding these two days. In other words, what it means for the believer. The overall purpose is to get you to think about yourselves and how you are to prepare yourselves for the one day in seven that you are to worship Him.

Today, we will examine the Sabbath as it concerns the Israelites. In the next message, we will examine the principle of the fourth Commandment as it applies to believers today. From the Sabbath day in Scripture, we glean the foundation for the Lord’s day, so the principal found in this fourth Commandment is that of the nature of the Sabbath and it says to remember the Sabbath day and to keep it holy.

When God gave the Sabbath, it was to be a day of rest and remembrance. However, through the years, it developed into a burden for the people because there was a system of terribly hard to-do rules imposed by the Jewish leadership on the people, so there was no lack of rules for surrounding the fourth commandment.

For example, in the time of Jesus, the Pharisees had added hundreds of petty rules that made the law so complicated that people had to study it and study the laws that were on top of it to figure out what God actually wanted them to do. Usually, they never really got to what God wanted them to do because it was so cloudy, but they did fear breaking the fourth commandment. All the rules that surrounded the fourth commandment actually clouded the original sense of the commandment.

When you get to the New Testament, you see Jesus denouncing the Pharisees traditions as transgressing the commandments of God and making them to no effect. Jesus, in many instances, would say to the Pharisees the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. That saying is found in Mark and what Jesus is doing is giving the correct understanding of the Sabbath, so Jesus subordinates the Sabbath to man’s real welfare.

Man was not made for the Sabbath as the rabbi’s assumed with their petty rules. When man messes with the word of God and goes outside the boundaries of the word of God, then they come up with utterly ridiculous traditions and rules.

In relation to the fourth commandment, if a man was bitten by a flea, then he would have to let the flea keep on biting him or be guilty of breaking the Sabbath law. If he killed the flea, he would be guilty of hunting on the Sabbath, so it’s pretty ridiculous.

If a farmer’s ox fell into a ditch on the Sabbath, he can pull it out, but if he fell into the ditch, he had to stay there. In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus blasts the religious leadership of Israel and exposes their errors. Jesus says to them in Mark 7:7-8:

‘BUT IN VAIN DO THEY WORSHIP ME, TEACHING AS DOCTRINES THE PRECEPTS OF MEN.’ ⁸“Neglecting the commandment of God, you hold to the tradition of men.”

Jesus is saying:

You abandoned the commandments of God. You are substituting man’s rules and man’s ingenuity for God’s laws.

They do it very attractively. They put away God’s law in a very nice way. Jesus continues to say in Mark 7:9:

He was also saying to them, “You are experts at setting aside the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition.

In other words, they constantly nullify the divine in order to keep human rule. Don’t do that. Jesus actually exposes the damage done by such self-invented human tradition. A particular term is used in the Gospel of Mark 7:13 where Jesus says:

thus invalidating the word of God by your tradition which you have handed down; and you do many things such as that.

Jesus said that they are robbing the word of God of its authority. In other words, the word “invalidate” means to leave without authority. If you minus or extract the authority of the word of God from the word of God by substituting something man said instead of what God says, you are actually undermining the word of God and making it of no effect. That’s what He says, so don’t do that.

True religion can never be produced by the mind of man. True religion should not be mistaken for mere outward observance and religious acts. The real deception is making the man-made rules appear to be teachings that come from God. In fact, there were more than roughly 1,500 ways that a person could break the Sabbath.

You may ask: why did the Jewish leadership come up with so many rules related to breaking the fourth commandment? Well, if you take your Bibles and look to Exodus 35:2, we get the sense of why they did it, which is because of fear and prevention of death:

For six days work may be done, but on the seventh day you shall have a holy day, a sabbath of complete rest to the LORD; whoever does any work on it shall be put to death.

You can see that they were trying to hedge against somebody losing their life or not in carrying out the Sabbath day the way they should. However, when they took matters into their own hands to try to prevent breaking it, they actually nullified it and broke it, and by fear, they moved away from the meaning and the significance of the special day called the Sabbath.

If they would have just stayed in the Hebrew Scriptures, they would have come up with at least eight specific ways the Bible says on not doing these things on this day. They would have been fine. The Hebrew Bible actually tells us the types of work that are prohibited on the Sabbath.

The first part would be that of leaving one’s place. You couldn’t be moving around on the Sabbath. Also, agricultural activities such as no planting or harvesting on the Sabbath. There is no kindling of fire on the Sabbath. No gathering wood on the Sabbath. Of course, no conducting business on the Sabbath, carrying burdens, treading the winepress, or loading donkeys. These were the eight things found in Scripture. If they would have just kept those, they would have been fine.

Yet, the Lord never intended the Sabbath to be a day of burden and of restriction. It was to be a very special day. It was a day set apart for the Lord in which it was to benefit God’s people with rest and remembrance. So then, in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus is saying that the Sabbath was made to benefit people, not people to benefit the Sabbath, so they got it all messed up. Therefore, they ended up breaking it by trying to prevent from breaking it.

That’s what happens when we mess with the word of God, or we substitute man’s thinking and impose it upon Scripture. We should never do that. The principal under this is the necessity of the Sabbath, which included four benefits on behalf of mankind for the Sabbath day. The first one is the idea of remembering. Exodus 20:8 says:

Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.

The idea of remembering is not primarily recalling something from the past, but it is used in the sense of remembering the law and the commandments with the idea of doing them. Hence, to remember the Sabbath is to observe it by abstaining from work. That’s how you observe it. That’s why God gave it. This principle of Sabbath was rooted in the action of God himself in creation. When God created, He called the first six days good, but the seventh day He called holy. Meaning, it was a day that belonged to the Lord and it was to be used for God’s purpose and not for ours. For example, Isaiah 58:13 says:

If because of the sabbath, you turn your foot
From doing your own pleasure on My holy day,
And call the sabbath a delight, the holy day of the LORD honorable,
And honor it, desisting from your own ways,
From seeking your own pleasure
And speaking your own word

The pattern of the Sabbath was set back then at creation, but it has tremendous value for people every single week of their lives. Breaking away from the regular labor is to honor God in this sense. So, they were to remember that God created the world in six days and then rested on that seventh day. Meaning, the second necessity of the Sabbath is that of rest. Exodus 20:11 says:

For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the 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.

It was to be a day of rest because by the seventh day, God completed His work of creation, which He had done and rested on that seventh day from all the work that He had done. God, as a manual laborer, rested after He had finished creation.

The word “Sabbath” comes from the Hebrew word that means ceasing or desisting activities. The Sabbath does not mean Saturday or the seventh day. What is contained within the word Sabbath is the whole thought of ceasing from labor. The Sabbath is a day when people suspend or cease their normal routine of working.

If you notice, the majority of our life is going to be working. Six days we work, right? We have plenty of work to do. All of us have work to do in our life. However, the Bible is saying that on this one particular day, which is called the Sabbath, is the day that you are going to suspend the normal labor of work and cease from doing it. It is not a day specifically about you, but it’s a day about God. It would be a day of no work, but a day of rest. The word “Sabaton” means complete rest. Exodus 31:15 says:

For six days work may be done, but on the seventh day there is a sabbath of complete rest, holy to the LORD; whoever does any work on the sabbath day shall surely be put to death.

The Lord took this day very seriously, but He took it seriously for the benefit of the people themselves. For your information, God did not rest because He was physically tired. Rather, His rest signified satisfaction with His creation. That’s what it signifies. God tells Moses something very interesting concerning this rest in Exodus 31:17:

It is a sign between Me and the sons of Israel forever; for in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, but on the seventh day He ceased from labor, and was refreshed.

This Hebrew verb means to take a breath or to refresh oneself, so God tells Moses how He was refreshed by His day of rest. Meaning, He meditated upon the satisfaction of what He had done. He created the Heaven and the Earth and everything in it and God stepped back, stopped working, looked at what was done, and He called it very good.

Then, He called, when He gave the commandments, this particular day a Holy day, which is to be set apart. We have this one day we set apart so we can look at what God had done, step back, and rest from our normal routine of working so we can appreciate and drink-in what God has done. In doing that, it refreshes our soul. We have the benefits of getting charged again for the next week of labor.

There is no doubt that God talks about the Sabbath in this way in order to show people that they must follow the pattern of the Creator, which He has set forth to them. God resting from His work is a pattern given to mankind to benefit them. If God, the Creator, rested, then how much more should His creatures rest? It reflects God’s law about the Sabbath. A day of rest is necessary for individuals, for families, for households, and for animals. If you look back at Exodus 20:10, notice the details given:

but the seventh day is a sabbath of the LORD your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you.

The Lord says:

Listen, this is going to benefit everyone. All the individuals within your influence will benefit from that day.

I haven’t met anybody, maybe you know somebody, who wishes that their life was more hectic than it is. Do you know anybody? If you do, then I think you’re a little bit wacky. I mean, I don’t need another thing in my life. I don’t need another thing to do, another thing on my schedule, or another hectic thing to drive me absolutely bonkers.

When we just work and work and work and work, that is not God’s plan. That is very destructive for your spiritual life, for your physical life, for your family life, for your relationships, and for God’s church. He does not want us to live like that, and it is not beneficial for you. It is beneficial for us.

Whatever labor God gives us, to set aside this day of rest is like no other day of the week. It’s a different day. It’s not a day to cut your lawn. It’s not a day to paint your house. It’s not a day to clean out the basement, to change the oil in your car, or to schedule what you are going to do the next week. It is a day just to rest and to focus your attention on the things that are beneficial for your soul.

God instituted the weekly Sabbath, a day of rest, because it reflects His creative work and the blessing that He gave when He had finished creation. It also allowed an opportunity for both people and animals to rest from their work and to be refreshed for the next week.

Christian’s should really ponder the importance of the Sabbath described in the Bible. God’s instructions require all people to observe a regular weekly break from work. One day in seven to rest our souls, to remember, to honor, and to worship our Lord for His works and redemption.

Thirdly, it was for the idea of redemption. In Deuteronomy 5:12-15, we get the idea of redemption. The Exodus account from Mount Sinai and the Deuteronomy account delivered on the plains of Moab were separated by 40 years. The idea in Deuteronomy is a little different than Exodus 20. In Exodus, the focus is on all people as created beings. In Deuteronomy, it is directed to Israel as a nation, a group of Gods’ redeem people. In Deuteronomy 5:12, this is what they were to do:

Observe the sabbath day to keep it holy, as the LORD your God commanded you.

The term “observe” is to distress and to pay careful attention to keeping this specific day. Then, this day is also connected to God redeeming His people. Deuteronomy 5:15 says:

You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God brought you out of there by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm; therefore the LORD your God commanded you to observe the sabbath day.

The Sabbath was God’s signpost to remind His special people of His mercy shown to them when He rescued them from the Egyptian slavery. Exodus pointed to God’s goodness towards His people as their Creator. Deuteronomy went a step further by pointing to God’s mercy towards His chosen people as their Redeemer, who rescued them from slavery.

This was done so they would not forget what God had done. That they would take ownership of what they believed and honor the Lord by putting their belief into practice and into the regular weekly schedule. Meaning, one day was that day in which they were as God’s redeem people, to gather together, and not forget all the great works God has done on their behalf.

It was this sense of: I know that God redeemed me. For the believer, it would be: I know that God saved me, and I know the work that He carried out in order to save me. Therefore, because of that I am going to set aside this one day in seven for my regular weekly practice. Remember, it’s not a day that you come up with or a day that you decide. It’s a day that God decides.

That brings me to the necessity of this special day, and that it was also a day with the idea of righteousness. In Deuteronomy 5:14, God’s people were to be different. Not only in their daily lifestyle, but in their worship of God. They were also to be concerned with the treatment of others:

but the seventh day is a sabbath of the LORD your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter or your male servant or your female servant or your ox or your donkey or any of your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you, so that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you.

God’s people were to have a special concern for others, especially on this one day that they were breaking apart from their regular labor to focus in on people. Because God was merciful to the people of Israel while they were slaves in Egypt, He expected the Israelites to show loving concern for the people who served with them during the week.

Meaning, the Sabbath day offered the Israelites a perfect opportunity to show love and concern to others on that particular day. Remember, the Jewish leadership messed up the whole point of this day of rest and considering what the Lord had done on their behalf by way of redemption and showing people kindness on this day. When you come again to the New Testament, you find Jesus constantly coming against the Jewish leadership because they had so distorted this day, they weren’t even kind to people. For example, Mark 3:1-5 says:

He entered again into a synagogue; and a man was there whose hand was withered. ²They were watching Him to see if He would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse Him. ³He said to the man with the withered hand, “Get up and come forward!” ⁴And He said to them, “Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save a life or to kill?” But they kept silent. ⁵After looking around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, He said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” And he stretched it out, and his hand was restored.

Specifically on the day of Sabbath, kindness was to be shown to people, but they had put so many boundaries upon this commandment, they could not even show compassion to people who needed help. They thought that would have been work. Therefore, they would have been put to death. This special day was never to be a sham. Even the later prophet saw a great deal about the observance of Sabbath being a sham to people.

Many people treated the Sabbath day more as a holiday than as a holy day. They used it as an opportunity for self-indulgence rather than a day for worshiping God. Even some greedy tradesmen found the restrictions of the Sabbath an annoyance to their regular business flow. In fact, the prophet Amos mentioned this in Amos 8:5:

When will the new moon be over, So that we may sell grain, And the sabbath, that we may open the wheat market, To make the bushel smaller and the shekel bigger, And to cheat with dishonest scales

In other words, they were upset that their flow of business was being hindered because Israel decided to take a day off during the week to rest and worship God instead of making money.

In Scripture, even this practice was debunked. Many years ago, there was something called Blue Laws where all businesses were closed on Sunday no matter what. One day, I was preaching in Hicksville Long Island and I went to the town. I haven’t seen Blue Laws in a town for a long time, and I get there and thought we would have a cup of coffee, get something to eat, and then go to the church. Well, there was nothing open. I found out later that this particular town still has Blue Laws in place, so businesses were prevented from opening and making money on Sunday. Of course, that practice is pretty much gone forever.

Now, I didn’t get to the Lord’s day yet, but I’m laying down for you some of the principles that we can glean from the Sabbath because they do translate into the Lord’s day. Not that it’s the same day, but the principles are all there. Even the prophets did not shrink of exposing the disobedience and abuse of the Sabbath laws.

Isaiah said to those who go through the motions for Sabbath worship actually nauseated the Lord by their misuse of it. Jeremiah told the people that they’re breaking of the Sabbath laws would eventually bring destruction of the city of Jerusalem, which it did. Ezekiel warned the people that God had been very patient with His people, but if they continued to disobey the rules of the Sabbath, this one day in seven to rest and worship Him, He would severely judge them, and He did.

It’s not until Nehemiah where we see the Israelites, who come back from exile, be more careful than before to observe this one day in seven. It can be very specific and important day for Israel. There are some observations that we can glean from the Sabbath that is going to be seen and practiced in the Lord’s day. There are several of them made about the Sabbath for the purpose of guiding our understanding of how we should observe an approach the Lord’s Day.

First, it was a special day. It was not a regular day of work. Meaning, God’s people were not to treat it like any other day. Do we treat the Lord’s day like any other day? Do we have our plans all set where we say: I come to church, and when I’m out that door, I’m doing what I need to do that day? I think we need to start changing our mind set on that. It’s not just about gathering and hearing preaching. It’s about what you do when you leave out those doors and go back home or go wherever you go.

Is it something where you are still in the mindset that it is a special day? That it is a day set apart unto the Lord. The rules in the Old Testament about the Sabbath we’re not meant to rule out activity of any kind instead. The laws were meant to stop regular every day work because if God had set aside the Sabbath, the most obvious way of being disrespected was to treat it just like any other day.

It should never just be another day for believers. It was to be set aside with great care and consideration. Also, we saw that the Sabbath was a day of doing good. It was a day for doing good deeds. Many ministries take place on Sunday. Those are not considered by God to be worked. They are considered to be service to your fellow man as good deeds. Matthew 12:11-12:

And He said to them, “What man is there among you who has a sheep, and if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will he not take hold of it and lift it out? ¹²“How much more valuable then is a man than a sheep! So then, it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.”

The Sabbath is a day of doing things but it’s doing things other than would you do during the week. It’s doing Ministry. It’s ministering to people. It is helping people. It’s meeting with people. It’s talking with people. It’s counseling people. It’s going and sharing the Gospel with people. It’s all those things that are included in doing good on the Sabbath.

Also, it was a day which pointed the people to remember how much the Lord loved His people and wanted to draw near to them. Scripture tells us that God gave His people the Sabbath as an opportunity to serve Him and as a reminder of the two great truths in the Bible. One, the God that we serve is the God who created the heaven and the earth and set this principle out for us. To take this one day in seven and rest. Then, the same God gave us the plan of salvation and redemption. If we are saved and if we’ve come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, then that day becomes our special thought.

During the week we can forget about those things because of the business of the week. We shouldn’t, but we may. That’s why every week we must come together and have our focus adjusted again on the right things. Also, it was a day that God’s people valued because they valued the relationship with God.

When you go off to church on Sunday morning and people see you and your family sees you, and when you’re on your way to church and people are on bicycles, skateboards, and doing their business on Sunday, but you’re not. You’re valuing that day as a special day because of your relationship with God, not just to get up and go to church. We should never have that attitude.

This is the day that we value because we value would God’s given us. We value the word of God. We value the rest that Gods granted to us. We value how God is going to use that to benefit us for our life, and for what goes on that next week. We value that and we show it by actually carrying that day out and doing it.

Also, it is a day that tested the people’s loyalty. You can be at a soccer game this morning. You can be at a shower for a family member this morning. You can be in any hundred places this morning, but those are the decisions we have to make before God to show our loyalty to Him.

This day is so important that I don’t replace it with something else. Even though somebody else may think that it’s important for me to be somewhere else instead of here, I decided that I’m going to be here. I know that sometimes our families do not pick up on that nicely. They like to come against us because of that, right? They like to schedule things right when they know you’re in church, and then they ask why you weren’t there.

That’s the struggle we’re all going to have, but see there is a sense of are you loyal to the Lord? If you are here, you’re loyal. If you’re setting apart that day your loyal, so is it day to test loyalty. Also, it was a day of blessing and enjoyment, not a day of Labor and burden. It is a day of rest and remembrance.

The Sabbath day should be a day of delight. A day of joy. A day of not doing the things that I like to do. It wasn’t a day of really seeking my own pleasure or seeking things that I wanted to talk about. It’s a day that I want to hear from God and His word. I want to know what God wants me to do. It’s a day to come, praise, and worship God and lift up our hands and voices before Him.

That becomes a very special day now. The last passage I want to look at this morning is Psalm 92. The reason why I picked this particular Psalm is that on the top it says:

Praise for the LORD’S Goodness. A Psalm, a Song for the Sabbath day.

Remember, the Psalms were songs. This is the song of a Sabbath day where they rested and didn’t labor. Psalm 92:1-5, 15:

It is good to give thanks to the LORD And to sing praises to Your name, O Most High; ²To declare Your lovingkindness in the morning And Your faithfulness by night, ³With the ten-stringed lute and with the harp, With resounding music upon the lyre. ⁴For You, O LORD, have made me glad by what You have done, I will sing for joy at the works of Your hands. ⁵How great are Your works, O LORD! Your thoughts are very deep…¹⁵To declare that the LORD is upright; He is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in Him.

That song gives us a sense of what is in the mind of the people when they come to worship God. It’s about focusing in on what He had done, His character, declaring to Him, giving thanks to Him, praising Him, and declaring that the Lord is upright, good, righteous, and a God to be worshipped. That’s what is in their mindset. That is what strengthened them and refresh them to go on and live another week until the next Sabbath.

Next week, I’m going to examine how the Sabbath principle influences us and how it’s related to life today. Also, we will see if there are any similarities between the two days. Then, conclude with the requirements and obligations regarding these two days, and what it means for a believer as we prepare ourselves for the Lord’s Day each week.

I pray that the Lord’s Day, as we look at this next time, would truly become and remain a special day that is carefully prepared for and observed, so that we reap the benefits of spiritual rest and that the Lord is honored, worshipped, and praised by us for His mercy, faithfulness, and great works. Let’s pray:

Lord, thank You for the kindness that You have displayed to us and given to us. In the sense, giving it first to Your people in the Old Testament, Israel. Lord, Your redeemed people then. Now, Lord, in a special way, we also have a special day. A day to put these principles into practice and not to neglect them. A day to honor Your name with an attitude that You’re pleased with, and with our voices that are prepared to lift up and praise Your great name. I pray, Lord, You would adjust our thinking about how we consider the Lord’s Day from this day forward until next week and each week after. I pray this in Christ’s most precious name, Amen.

January 27, 2019
The Ten Commandments Past and Present — The Third Commandment

In this sermon on the third of the Ten Commandments, Pastor Babij teaches Christians how to reverence the name of God before the world and what the consequences are of not doing so. Pastor points out three ways people violate God’s name:

1) Connecting God’s name to falsehood
2) Abusing God’s name by treating it in a careless manner
3) Hypocritically invoking God’s name in a heartless manner

Pastor concludes by reminding Christians that speaking God’s name is a serious matter, especially when dealing with the unsaved.

Full Transcript:

We are continuing to look at the Ten Commandments, past and present, and we’re looking at the third commandment. Exodus 20:1-7

Then 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. ³“You shall have no other gods before Me. ⁴“You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. ⁵“You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, ⁶but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments. ⁷“You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not leave him unpunished who takes His name in vain.

Let us pray:

Lord, as we approach Your word, make us people that want to receive it, and want it to be part of our life and our thinking. I pray, Your word would change us, sanctify us by Your spirit, and cause us to humble ourselves under Your mighty hand because You are worthy. Your name is higher than any other. There is no one like you. There never was and there never will be. Lord, we come before the God, who created the heaven and the earth and who set out the plan of redemption leading right to Christ and the Cross. Lord, still we know that Christ has ascended into heaven and we are awaiting His return. I pray, Lord, until then, You would make us faithful and make us ready to do Your work here on Earth and for Your presence someday. I pray this in Your precious name, Amen.

As we come to this third commandment:

You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not leave him unpunished who takes His name in vain.

At first, it seems to be easily understood, but have we, as Christians, stopped and really considered how it would be possible to take the name of God in vain? I want to try to wrestle down what it means to take the name of the Lord, your God, in vain.

Remember, this is before the people went into the Promised Land. The law of God was laid out before God’s people once again, and it’s recorded in the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy 5:11 it says:

You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not leave him unpunished who takes His name in vain.

This becomes a commandment that is very important for us to grasp and understand. The commandments clearly spell out what is involved in our relationship with God, who is holy. First, it means recognizing that He alone is God and is to have first place in our hearts and our lives. Otherwise, all of life and its relationships are in disorder. The worship of anything or anyone other than the redeemer God is absolutely prohibited. This first relationship is man’s primary responsibility.

Secondly, man must not attempt to make any visible representation of the invisible God. To do so is to degrade Him and distort His holiness. Furthermore, the idol that is intended to represent God as an aid to worship eventually becomes God in the minds of the worshippers.

Thirdly, we have a responsibility to take up the name of God, and we are responsible for His reputation before a lost and dying world. God’s children should not even think of taking up the name of another God upon their lips. It was the Psalmist who said in Psalm 16:4:

The sorrows of those who have bartered for another god will be multiplied; I shall not pour out their drink offerings of blood, Nor will I take their names upon my lips.

This leads me to the first of the two points. The first one is a principle within this third commandment, and the principal revealed is the command to revere the name of God:

You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain…

Have you ever thought about the importance of a name? In our culture, we don’t really put a great emphasis of thought into the meaning and significance of names. We do research on names, and we come up with unique names. Today, names are very unique. They are combinations of other names, family names, friends’ names, pets’ names, and they put them all together and make a name.

In the Bible, names are always important. For example, Abraham’s grandson, Jacob, was a name that meant supplanter because he was a deceptive and crafty man. After a spiritual encounter with the Lord, he was given the name Israel, which means prince of God. His name came to represent the whole nation of Israel.

Another example is the name for one of the Apostles, whose name was Simon. Until the day he boldly proclaimed that Jesus was the Christ, the son of the living God, Jesus told him from that point on that he would be known as Peter, which means a little rock or stone. Within his confession, he has set forth the very foundation of the Christian faith and would be given the keys to unlock the Gospel for the Jewish people and to build the church on the foundation of Jesus Christ.

We are told very firmly a truth about one of the greatest names that we would ever hear. Acts 4:12 says:

“And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.”

There is nothing more important than understanding God through His names, and there are many names for God. His name’s reveal to us God’s character, what He’s like, and who He is. For instance, when He calls Himself the Lord God, He is revealing to us His power, His glory, as well as His right to rule the universe and even our own lives.

There are many names for God in Scripture, and they are given to us in order for us to comprehend everything God wants us to know about Himself. That’s how He makes Himself known. The proper name of God, in the commandments, is Jehovah, which is the name God gave to Moses, “The Great I Am.” Exodus 6:3 says:

and I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as God Almighty, but by My name, LORD, I did not make Myself known to them.

To His people He did, but to others He did not. God knew that God was almighty, but not everyone knew that He was the personal covenant-keeping God, the one who sets out a plan of redemption to deliver His people. Not only from Egypt, but we know the greater deliverance, which is from the bondage of sin that comes by believing in Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Savior.

There are personal titles and names all throughout Scripture that really give us a sense of the relationship that He has toward humanity. He’s called, in Ephesians, the God and Father of Christ. He is called, in Isaiah, the high and exalted one. He Is called, in 1 Peter, the God of mercy, grace, and peace. He is called, in the Psalms, the God of salvation. He is called, in 2 Corinthians, the God of comfort.

In the book of Acts, He is the God of Glory. In Joshua, He is the God of gods. In Revelation, He is the King of kings and the Lord of lords. In Exodus, He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and the Hebrews. Again, in Isaiah, He is the God of the whole earth. Then, in 2 Corinthians 1:3, it says:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort

Again, in Isaiah, He is the creator for it says in Isaiah 40:28:

Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth Does not become weary or tired. His understanding is inscrutable.

We’re learning things about God as we understand His character from these names. It says in Job that He’s the preserver of men. It says in Isaiah that He is the King, the Judge, and the Lawgiver. Also, in Isaiah, it says that He is the savior and redeemer. In the Gospel of John, He’s the comforter.

Then, the most personal names are that He is considered the Father. We know God in the Son, in the Word, in Jesus Christ, and in the spirit of God. He is the Alpha, the Omega, the Beginning, and the End. All these names are communicated to us in Scripture so we would know more about God. The more God’s children do learn about how great and how awesome God is, through His name, the more it should cause us to revere, honor, and respect His name. Also, to manifest His name in our own personal life.

Israel already knew God as creator, sustainer, and deliver. Also, they were learning that He was the redeemer and the protector of His people. When we go through the word of God, we find passages of Scripture like Psalm 8:1 where it says:

O LORD, our Lord, How majestic is Your name in all the earth, Who have displayed Your splendor above the heavens!

Then, Psalm 29:2 says:

Ascribe to the LORD the glory due to His name; Worship the LORD in holy array.

Then, when we come to the New Testament, the Lord begins to teach us about prayer, and He says in Matthew 6:9:

Pray, then, in this way: ‘Our Father who is in heaven, Hallowed be Your name.

These passages bleed with holy reverence to God’s great name. That His name must be used neither with contempt, irreverently, or needlessly. So then, the name of God is to be held profoundly sacred by believers and those who know Him. The greatest of sobriety and reverence is called for when we consider the names of God. It needs to be pointed out that the only time the term “reverend” is found is in the King James Bible where Psalm 111:9 reads:

He sent redemption unto his people: he hath commanded his covenant for ever: holy and reverend is his name.

The New American Standard and other translations say:

holy and awesome is His name!

I think they should just have left reverend. It is a good word and it’s a word we don’t often use, but it does give us a sense that there’s something special about the name of God that is connected to His character, which we need to know because it helps us to properly worship Him. The command is coupled with a severe warning found in the second half of Exodus 20, and what it says is quite sobering for us:

…for the LORD will not leave him unpunished who takes His name in vain

That is pretty serious. Remember, this is talking about our speech, but it’s also talking about how we think about God. Meaning, the more we grow in Christ, and in our knowledge and wisdom of Scripture, the name of God is going to become weightier and heavier in our mind. It’s going to push out all wrong thinking and concepts about who God is and replace it with what the Bible actually has revealed to us about who God really is.

In doing so, it makes us soberer and more serious. When talking about the name of God, we make sure that when it comes out of our lips, it’s talking about the God of the Bible in such a serious, humble, and reverent way that people immediately get from us that God’s important to us and His name is important. So, how serious was it if someone broke this commandment in the Old Testament? In Leviticus 24:11-16, there is a young man, who cursed God by using His name in the wrong way:

The son of the Israelite woman blasphemed the Name and cursed. So they brought him to Moses. (Now his mother’s name was Shelomith, the daughter of Dibri, of the tribe of Dan.) ¹²They put him in custody so that the command of the LORD might be made clear to them. ¹³Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, ¹⁴“Bring the one who has cursed outside the camp, and let all who heard him lay their hands on his head; then let all the congregation stone him. ¹⁵“You shall speak to the sons of Israel, saying, ‘If anyone curses his God, then he will bear his sin. ¹⁶‘Moreover, the one who blasphemes the name of the LORD shall surely be put to death; all the congregation shall certainly stone him. The alien as well as the native, when he blasphemes the Name, shall be put to death.

That’s pretty serious and heavy. You’ve got to be completely foolish to know that would happen to you if you would curse God or use His name in a wrong manner. So, God will not allow the violators of this command to go unpunished because He will not allow His character to be defamed through misuse of His name.

As God’s people, we are given a responsibility. While we walk through this world, we are to uphold God’s reputation before an ungodly world. We know how the world uses and misuses the name of God, Jesus Christ, and everything else that is sacred. To take His name in vain means much more than avoiding profanity. There are several goals in view of helping us understand this third commandment.

The first would be to cherish, more than ever, the name of the Lord. More than we have cherished it even before today. Secondly, to bear witness to others concerning the holiness of God’s name. Lastly, to know all forms of profanity are wrong. These goals come out within this passage, so there are different ways in which a person could violate this third commandment. I want to share with you at least three.

The first would be connecting God’s name with what is false. That is, perjuring ourselves by attesting to that which is false. Also, by not carrying out that which we engage upon in an oath, covenant, or swearing to something. Either by entering into something too quickly without thoughtful consideration, or not giving due diligence as to whether we have the power to perform it or to fulfill an obligation that we spew out of our mouths. For example, in Leviticus 19:12, we get a very straightforward understanding of swearing falsely:

You shall not swear falsely by My name, so as to profane the name of your God; I am the LORD.

The Hebrew word for “swore” is “nasa,” and it means to lift up or to carry or to take away. The common gesture would be to lift one’s hands after an oath was taken in the name of a deity. In other words, God’s people were not to raise the name of God in any kind of oaths or buy any kind of swearing in matters that would misrepresent Him, profane His name, or drag His worthy name through the mud by false oaths and evil speech.

God could swear by His own name because what He swears, he will also be able to perform such as His promise to Abraham where He says in Exodus 6:8:

‘I will bring you to the land which I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and I will give it to you for a possession; I am the LORD.’

Whatever the Lord says, He has the ability and power to perform and carryout to its fullest what he says, but we are not able to do that. When we do make oaths, when we do say things with our mouths, the Bible is stressing that we ought to the speaking the truth. For example, in Malachi 3:5, it says:

Then I will draw near to you for judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers and against the adulterers and against those who swear falsely…

This is definitely something that we ought to be considering, and we bring the same thoughts to the New Testament. Remember, the Lord said on the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5:33-37:

Again, you have heard that the ancients were told, ‘YOU SHALL NOT MAKE FALSE VOWS, BUT SHALL FULFILL YOUR VOWS TO THE LORD.’ ³⁴“But I say to you, make no oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, ³⁵or by the earth, for it is the footstool of His feet, or by Jerusalem, for it is THE CITY OF THE GREAT KING. ³⁶“Nor shall you make an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. ³⁷“But let your statement be, ‘Yes, yes’ or ‘No, no’; anything beyond these is of evil.

If you swear anything, don’t do it unless it is all the truth and nothing but the truth because we represent the Lord, who is the God of Truth. As Jeremiah, the prophet said to us very clearly in Jeremiah 4:2:

And you will swear, ‘As the LORD lives,’ In truth, in justice and in righteousness; Then the nations will bless themselves in Him, And in Him they will glory.”

If the truth is not being given, everything else does breakdown and doesn’t mean much. Now, I want to use an example of oath-taking from the New Testament, so turn to Acts 23:11-14. Here, we have Jewish men, who knew the Ten Commandments, and in their strong desire to see their plan go forward, this is what they did:

But on the night immediately following, the Lord stood at his side and said, “Take courage; for as you have solemnly witnessed to My cause at Jerusalem, so you must witness at Rome also.” ¹²When it was day, the Jews formed a conspiracy and bound themselves under an oath, saying that they would neither eat nor drink until they had killed Paul. ¹³There were more than forty who formed this plot. ¹⁴They came to the chief priests and the elders and said, “We have bound ourselves under a solemn oath to taste nothing until we have killed Paul.

To commit sin and break the sixth commandment is bad enough, but to swear to commit sin is worse. It is a high profaning of God’s name, and as it were, it calls God to approve of your plan, which is how we treat the name of the Lord in vain. Also, when you call God to approve your own misguided intentions many times by strong desire. For example, when Christians say things like, “God wants me to do that… God said to me… God told me to do that.”

Yes, the Holy Spirit presses us to do this or that, but not apart from His revealed word and surely not in violation of His revealed word. This could be like the foolishness of the false prophets of the Old Testament. In Jeremiah 23:25-28, we get a good sense of how the prophets came up with their own dreams, and then they prophesied their dreams as those dreams coming from God:

“I have heard what the prophets have said who prophesy falsely in My name, saying, ‘I had a dream, I had a dream!’ ²⁶“How long? Is there anything in the hearts of the prophets who prophesy falsehood, even these prophets of the deception of their own heart, ²⁷who intend to make My people forget My name by their dreams which they relate to one another, just as their fathers forgot My name because of Baal? ²⁸“The prophet who has a dream may relate his dream, but let him who has My word speak My word in truth. What does straw have in common with grain?” declares the LORD.

The point is that it has nothing in common. The truth has nothing in common with those who want to propagate falsehood and attach the name of God to it by saying, “I got this from God.” It is very dangerous when we use loose language to say God spoke to me, or that God said this when He may have not said that.

To attach God’s name on the back of our plans as an absolute endorsement of God’s approval may be to ascribe a false sense of authority to those very plans. Several Christian leaders seem to agree that the culture of today’s Church experiences too much of this kind of language spoken without thought, without question, and not even considering that it is breaking the third commandment. Former pastor of Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia and President of Wheaton College communicated this thought very well:

A more serious way to break the third commandment is by using God’s name to advance our own agenda. Some Christians say, “The Lord told me to do this.” Or worse, they say, “The Lord told me to tell you to do this.” This is false prophecy! God has already said whatever he needs to say to us in his Word. Of course, there is also an inward leading of the Holy Spirit. But this is only an inward leading, and it should not be misrepresented as an authoritative word from God.

We have to be very careful. That kind of language is prevalent wherever you go in Christian circles, and that’s very dangerous. If I don’t speak the truth about what I connect God’s name to, then that is a false prophecy. That is the kind of thing that brings the name of God down, and that is using His name in vain.

A second violation that is very common to us is the violation to abuse God’s name by treating it in a careless, rash, or flippant manner. Again, Exodus 20:7 says:

You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain…

The word “vain” really does mean worthless. It means to speak falsely. Also, it means to misuse a name. In this case, Christians need to abandon their pet expressions that actually show disrespect toward the divine names of God. Many Christians may think I’m safe from this third commandment because they don’t swear, but from time to time, you will use toned down expressions of sinful swearing. In a moment of excitement, you will use expressions like this:

“Oh, gosh,” which is a watered-down version of, “Oh, God.” Or, “jeez,” which is really short for, “Jesus,” or “oh my God.” Then, we use text that use “OMG,” and that’s very prevalent today. We use things like “darn,” which really means “damn.” We use the name Jesus Christ as an expression of anger, indignation, or surprise. We say things like, “the Man upstairs.”

All these kinds of expressions are most likely bad habits or pet expressions that you are using without even thinking about it, but today you need to think about it. These kinds of expressions actually treat the Lord’s name in a frivolous way in which we are thinking lightly and carelessly. So, what does that really show about our attitude toward God Almighty and our understanding of His character?

We are kicking around these phrases and not thinking about them. We are to bear the name of God in an honoring way before the world. These default expressions need to drop out of our Christian vocabulary. These slang expressions must be abandoned for good because they really misrepresent and demean the great names of our God.

I know that sometimes it’s just habit. I know that sometimes we do say those things and use those things in a way that we don’t really think about it, but today, that needs to change. We need to think about how we use God’s name. How we use the name of Jesus Christ. How we use expressions, examine them, and throw them out of our vocabulary for good. We should be very cognizant of not abusing these the names of God in our language every day.

A third violation is hypocritically evoking God’s name with no heart. God’s name is profaned and abused when we do not make progress and improve upward and the inward principles of faith in and love to Jesus Christ. In other words, we are being phony in our Christian life. We don’t come with our heart ready to receive the word of God. We don’t come ready to serve. We don’t come in a way that honors the character and the names of God.

We are being phony. In other words, we’re being hypocritical. It was Malachi, the last word of the prophets, who said something very interesting where he examined the hypocrisy of the day and where hypocrisy actually leads people in their public conversation. Malachi 3:14 says:

You have said, ‘It is vain to serve God; and what profit is it that we have kept His charge, and that we have walked in mourning before the LORD of hosts?

Once we realize this, we mourn. This has been our conversation. We have even thought and have said to other people, “what’s the point of serving God? It’s empty to serve God! What profit is there in serving God?” That’s the end result of phony baloney-ism in the “Christian” life. It is being hypocritical. If we’re going to say one thing and not do something. That’s the same thing as speaking something that we think is true, but in our lifestyle, it proves that it is false.

That happens all over the word of God even places in Scripture where it says that if we do anything that is not of faith, it is sin, and without faith, it is impossible to please God. See, the goal of instruction of the Word is to love from a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere Faith.

These things are some things that we need to be watching out for in our Christian pilgrimage as we walk through this world. That we would honor the name of the Lord not only in what we say, but also in what we do. There is the principle related to life today. One’s name represents one’s character. What we claim to do in God’s name, we do by His authority.

To say the Lord led me to do wrong is to take His name in vain. To take the name of Christian and live like His enemies is to take His name in vain. Taking up the name and lifting up the name of God is to lay out before the world who God is, and to do it in a way that we show honor and respect in all manner of life.

Of course, this means a couple of things. Number one, we watch our language – our words are important. For example, take the words of the Psalmist, which is a good place to go when it comes to honoring the name of God. Psalm 105:1-3 says:

Oh give thanks to the LORD, call upon His name; Make known His deeds among the peoples. ²Sing to Him, sing praises to Him; Speak of all His wonders. ³Glory in His holy name; Let the heart of those who seek the LORD be glad.

Taking up God’s name is necessary to honor Him. When we don’t, we hide, we bury, and we deny the excellencies and the usefulness of His great and awesome name. We should not deny that from Him. We should be very vocal and personify those things in our life. Also, it is to watch your life and thoughts. Psalms 104:34 says:

Let my meditation be pleasing to Him; As for me, I shall be glad in the LORD.

Then, Psalm 139:17-18 says:

How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How vast is the sum of them! ¹⁸If I should count them, they would outnumber the sand. When I awake, I am still with You.

We must allow the Lord to glorify His own name in our lives by removing from our hearts the remaining atheism, ignorance, idolatry, and profaneness, which really tends to dishonor His name. Humans tend to dishonor His name so easily, and so frequently, we lower the thoughts of God before people. They never seem to discern with high regard what is due the name of God. Yet, when we go to Psalms 50:21-23, we get things like this:

These things you have done, and I kept silence; You thought that I was just like you; I will reprove you and state the case in order before your eyes. ²²“Now consider this, you who forget God, Or I will tear you in pieces, and there will be none to deliver. ²³“He who offers a sacrifice of thanksgiving honors Me; And to him who orders his way aright I shall show the salvation of God.”

Just thinking about God in a way that is consistent with what the word of God says about Him. It’s transforming our mind about who God is and as our words are examined, as our thoughts are being lifted up about who God is, that does bleed into our deeds. It’s got to come out of our life. It not only comes out of our life first and believing, but like the Bible says in Romans 10:10:

for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.

So, it is believing and then leading others to Christ, to salvation, to holiness. By our words, we profess Him. By our deeds, we show that we know Him and aim to please Him, and we hedge against living like the Cretans of Titus 1:12:

One of themselves, a prophet of their own, said, “Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.”

He finishes by saying in Titus 1:16:

They profess to know God, but by their deeds they deny Him, being detestable and disobedient and worthless for any good deed.

Our words, thoughts, and deeds all come into play as we consider this principle that is related to daily life. We obey the third commandment by living as Christians. By speaking and doing everything according to our family name. We are in the family of God, right? We are born again into the family of God.

When we go out there and into the world, we are representing our new family. We are representing Jesus Christ, which means we are representing the God who created the Heaven and the Earth. We’re going out and we are representing the name of our family. When we do that, we show high value on the name that is above all names. Colossians 3:17 says:

Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father.

We narrow it down to some very simple things. This commandment can be broken, has been broken, will be broken, but we also now know that when we consider this commandment, it is a serious thing. How we speak about God, how we listen to others, how they speak about God, how they make jokes and innuendos, and bring down and defame the name of God. That’s when we need to speak out. We need to say something.

We need to show them what that means in how we live our life, where we go, the activities that were involved with, and whether we’re growing in the truth so we can share with them the Gospel of Jesus Christ and bring them to a saving knowledge of the Lord.

We go and we represent the name of God. I want to see you and myself do it in a way that really shows what family were part of, and shows that we’re different in our thoughts, words, and deeds. Let’s pray:

Lord, thank You that we find again, in the word of God, the very commandments that You’ve given humanity and specifically Your people to know how to go into a world filled with idols, filled with demons, and filled with those who hate You. That we would represent Your name in a way that will honor You, and in a way that will show who we belong to. I pray, Lord, that You would definitely allow us to go and examine our own words, expressions, and habits that are not good anymore. I pray that we lay them aside and that we would think very clearly and soberly about how we speak before You, and how we represent You in our life. I pray Lord, as we do that, then we will be doing the opposite of the command in the sense that we will be not treating Your name carelessly, but we would be treating Your name with great care. I pray this in Your name, Amen.

January 20, 2019
The Ten Commandments Past and Present — The Second Commandment (Part 2)

In this sermon, Pastor Babij continues teaching on the second of the Ten Commandments. After a brief review, Pastor Babij explains several reasons why God cannot let idolatry go unpunished or faithfulness unrewarded. Christians, therefore, must undertake firm action regarding any form of idolatry in their hearts and lives. Pastor concludes the sermon by urging Christians to grow in their love and worship of God in accordance with the Scriptures and not in accordance with their own devices.

Full Transcript:

Of all the times I’ve been in ministry, I have never really done anything on the Ten Commandments. At least, not like this, and it’s been very interesting as I study through these how pertinent they are to our lives and to understanding the character of God. I know they’ll benefit you to as you understand and follow them. So, let’s turn our Bibles to Exodus 20:4-6:

You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. ⁵“You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, ⁶but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.

Let’s pray:

Father, as we come to Your word, we thank You that we have it. It has been inscribed to us in a written form. Lord, it has been tested and tried throughout the centuries, and it has proven to be genuine and accurate. It has come from Heaven to Earth, and Lord, You have protected it. It has been preached throughout time, and Lord, it will be preached until You come again. I pray as we look at the Old Testament and the Scripture that You decided to put in stone, You would impress it upon our heart. That we would be able to examine ourselves by the things that are contained within Your commandments. Also, Lord, to evaluate and guide us in live our Christian life and interacting with people with in the world. Lord, bless our time and Your word. Teach us what we need to know. In Christ’s name, Amen.

First, we looked at the prohibition revealed in the second commandment, and of course that was the prohibition not to make idols. It says in Exodus 20:4:

You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth.

The second commandment is very different from the first where the first commandment condemns the worshipping a false god, and the second commandment condemns the making of any image or symbol even of the true God. Underneath that is the prohibition to not worship them where it says in Exodus 20:5:

You shall not worship them or serve them.

As I mentioned last time, it’s fitting to bow down to the true and living God, Yahweh, the Lord Jesus Christ. We have many Scriptures that tell us that like in Genesis 24:26:

Then the man bowed low and worshiped the LORD.

The command for anything else is prohibited. Not to worship them, not to serve them, and not to make offerings to them. God does not want us to look at something that is visual in order to help us worship, nor something that is tangible in which we can touch and carry with us. There are two situations in which a person may think about images and it’s that of worshipping God under the symbol of a material image, and also worshipping God under the symbol of an intellectual conception.

It may be alleged that the figure of wood, stone, or metal is the real God. It is regarded by some as being only a symbol of the unseen presence to which the worship is actually offered. In other words, the visible form makes the visible God more real. For example, the golden calf. At the Louvre in Paris, there is a whole section on idols and it’s because people are prone to do this. They still do these kinds of things and they also do it in the sense of intellectual conception, which is thinking about God and formulating a God in their mind that they could manipulate and worship in the sense of who they think God is.

They form for themselves an intellectual image of God and worship by means of that. In both instances, the representation is apart from the divine greatness and glory of the true and living God. Both are guilty of the violation of the first and second commandments. In one case, it really is the work of one’s hands, and in another case, it’s the work of one’s intellect. The purpose of worshiping the material or the intellectual symbol of an unseen God is actually a gross offense to the Lord, which these commandments are forbidding to those who are followers of the Lord God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Any attempt to portray God by creation will actually confuse the Creator with His creation. When that happens, it actually diminishes the greatness in the sovereignty of God over all things, of being God Almighty, of being God omnipresent, and it would diminish all those things.

If someone needs some visible or tangible object like crosses, statues, pictures, and even other things like music to get them going in the sense to bring up religious emotion and thoughts about God, then that they would be in danger whether it is in a visible way or as an intellectual representation of God. That’s the danger of idolatry. The images become more than originally intended. Idolatry is a kind of worship that has been distorted from its original intention.

Last time, I mentioned that the word connected to the sin of idolatry is iniquity, which means it’s a bent and twist in the truth. Then, idolatry is something that is not as it should be and not what God intended. Of course, that led us to the reasons for the second commandments prohibitions. The first reason is that God is a jealous God. Exodus 20:5 tells us:

You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God

The whole thought of jealousy brings to our mind: how can God be jealous? We think like that because we cannot wrap our minds around this attribute because jealousy is such a defect for human beings that we try to give the same definition of what we think it is with God, but it is not so because it gives us understanding that in God’s self-revelation in giving us who He is, God being jealous is, as it says in Scripture, a jealous God jealous for His people, jealous for His will to be done, and jealous even for His own name. Ezekiel 39:25 tells us:

Therefore thus says the Lord GOD, “Now I will restore the fortunes of Jacob and have mercy on the whole house of Israel; and I will be jealous for My holy name.

God’s jealousy is aroused when people worship anyone or anything besides Him, so keep in mind, man is not the measure of his maker. Further, human beings often show the corrupting effects of sin when they do act jealously, but not so with God. God’s jealousy is as J.I. Packer defines:

God’s jealousy is not a compound of frustration, envy, and spite, as human jealous so often is, but it appears instead as a praiseworthy zeal to preserve something supremely precious.

That would be a God-like jealousy, and a God-like jealousy would be zeal to protect a love relationship, or to avenge it when broken. The precious thing is God’s covenant relationship with His redeemed people. God’s jealousy is aroused in reaction to Israel’s or anyone’s violation of the Covenant. As in a marriage relationship, jealousy rises when unfaithfulness is suspected in that relationship, and things go very bad when that happens.

God’s jealousy is His fervent, passionate protection of what is His. He will not transfer the honor that is due His name to another or some other object. The Scripture informs us in Isaiah 42:8:

I am the LORD, that is My name;
I will not give My glory to another,
Nor My praise to graven images.

God seeks what He should seek, which is His glory, and He seeks His glory in and through His people. He is a jealous God. His jealousy, in all it displays, are just as the Scriptures point out. The Lord has His zeal for what is His. What should our response be to that jealousy? Our response should be that we should be all so zealous for the Lord. A right response to God’s love is to love Him, so our right response to His jealousy is zeal for Him, zeal for His person, zeal for His cause, and zeal for His honor.

A zealous person, in religion, is pre-eminently a person of one thing. One thing that is on the mind of somebody who wants to be zealous for God and bring Him glory is simply this: I want to please God. I want to find out what He wants me to do, and I want to please Him. I want to advance His glory in the world. That’s what I want to do. That should be for all believers. That’s the motive of all believers every year and each year.

I want to please God, and how can I do that? I learn the word of God. I find out what it says, and then I live my life in a way that pleases God. When I find that I’m doing something that doesn’t please God, I quickly take care of it because I know that is sin, which is something I repent of, put aside, put to death, and I press on to the high calling of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Then, God refuses to share His people with another god whether made or imagined. God demands from those whom He has loved and redeem utter and absolute loyalty. If His people betray His love by their unfaithfulness, then He will vindicate his claim by stern action, which is where we left off last time.

We find out that jealousy is not a doorman characteristic. It’s a verb that is very active when someone is jealous. It’s always present, in Scripture, as a motive to action. For God, it’s either action of wrath or mercy. In other words, God cannot let idolatry go too long without addressing it. God’s jealousy leads Him, on the one hand, to judge and destroy the faithless among His people, who fall into idolatry and sin, and on the other hand, to restore His people after judgement and after He has disciplined and humbled His people to restore them. What motivates God to these actions, for either one or the other, is the jealousy for His own Glory. Isaiah 48:11 tells us:

For My own sake, for My own sake, I will act;
For how can My name be profaned?
And My glory I will not give to another.

Before I go and move into the passage, I want to take a peek at how prone the sons of Adam are to idolatry. In Numbers 21:1-9, we see the judgment that God sends among His people for their disobedience. Of course, the sin that they committed here in the wilderness was that of coming against God’s leaders and God himself:

Then they set out from Mount Hor by the way of the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; and the people became impatient because of the journey. ⁵The people spoke against God and Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this miserable food.” ⁶The LORD sent fiery serpents among the people and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died. ⁷So the people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned, because we have spoken against the LORD and you; intercede with the LORD, that He may remove the serpents from us.” And Moses interceded for the people. ⁸Then the LORD said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a standard; and it shall come about, that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, he will live.” ⁹And Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on the standard; and it came about, that if a serpent bit any man, when he looked to the bronze serpent, he lived.

This was God’s remedy for their sin of coming against Moses and Himself by grumbling and complaining. Now, the same narrative is brought up by Jesus when He was speaking to a spiritual leader and teacher in the nation of Israel, whose name was Nicodemus. Jesus was talking to Nicodemus about how to be born-again, how to have eternal life, and how to enter the kingdom of God, right? Jesus got Nicodemus’ attention when He said in John 3:14-15:

As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; ¹⁵so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life.

That’s when the light switch went on for Nicodemus and he became a believer. He knew that it was not something you had to do, but it was simply like those people bitten in the wilderness by the snakes. If they looked at the standard, they would be healed. Just to look at Christ, that’s faith. We can be saved from the greatest sting, which is the sting of death that will condemn us forever to hell.

In saying all of that, take your Bibles to 2 Kings 18:3-6. Here, we will find the very instrument God used to carry out His will to save the people from the sting of the serpent, He must destroy. This is what it says:

He did right in the sight of the LORD, according to all that his father David had done. ⁴He removed the high places and broke down the sacred pillars and cut down the Asherah. He also broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the sons of Israel burned incense to it; and it was called Nehushtan. ⁵He trusted in the LORD, the God of Israel; so that after him there was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor among those who were before him. ⁶For he clung to the LORD; he did not depart from following Him, but kept His commandments, which the LORD had commanded Moses.

In other words, the king trusted, clung to, followed, and obeyed the Lord and His commandments. We must learn from Hezekiah because this is how we crush our idols – by repentance and by turning and living for God. Human beings are so religious that they will bow down to anything. Relics, images, or apparitions because they think somehow God is there.

In fact, that’s only one example. I am not even going to bring up the example of Gideon’s ephod where the Bible says the people begin to play the harlot with that, so it became a snare to the household of Gideon. Then, you wonder why we can’t find the original Ark of the Covenant or the ark that Noah was on because you know what we would be doing? We would be bowing down to that thing.

We would be making something special about those things that are not special at all. They’re just things. Of course, they have special significance connected to it, but to worship it would be exactly what God says not to do. So, we are very prone to make up a God in our mind or before eyes and worship it.

This is not how God’s children show love to God. Instead, our love for God is reflected by obedience to His words. God tells us how to love Him appropriately. Jesus said it really simple:

If you love me, you will keep my commandments.

Pretty simple, isn’t it? That is the simple statement that God gives us so we can understand it and actually do it. Meaning, we cannot love God in any old way we please. To do so would actually constitute idolatry. Underneath every sin is idolatry. Idolatry is putting someone or something else in the place of God.

We must see our idols for what they are and idolatry for what it is. Idols are already in the human heart. We’re born with the capacity. The Apostle Paul clearly tells Christians that the works of the flesh are already in the human heart. For example, Galatians 5:19-21 tells us:

Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, ²⁰idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, ²¹envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Idolatry is sin, and a fruit of the sinful nature. It’s already there in us. Idols are also impersonal and powerless. If I were going to just bring some things up from Scripture, idols are deaf, blind, helpless, and dead. Idols are stupid and dumb. Idols are nothing. Demons are behind idolatry.

Idols are not God. Idols provoke the Lord to jealousy. He will not share His glory with another. Idols have no comparison to the true and living God. In fact, for those who practice idolatry, the Bible says forget God, go astray from God, pollute the name of God, and defile the sanctuary of God. They, in a sense, forsake and provoke God. In our passage, it says they hate God.

Also, Romans tells us their vein in their imagination. They are ignorant and foolish. They are inflamed by their idols. They hold fast to the deceit and the lies. They are carried away by it. They go after idols in their heart. They are mad for their idols. They boast about their idols. They have fellowship with demons. They ask council of their idols. They look to idols for deliverance, and they swear by their idols.

In scripture, God warns us not to do these things. God takes this very seriously. In fact, when I was looking at this, there were so many Scriptures and there is no way I can cover all of them. I just gave you a whole list of everything connected with Scripture. That brings me to the reasons of the second commandment’s prohibitions, and the second reason would be that God cannot let the sin of idolatry go unpunished, or faithfulness going unrewarded. Those who continue in a loveless relationship and disobedience to God are actually cursed. The sin of idolatry has long fingers.

If not repented of, it reaches to the succeeding generations affecting great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren. Exodus 20:5 says:

visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me.

This text does not say that God holds one son or grandson personally responsible for their father’s sin. Like Ezekiel teaches already in the Scripture that the person who sins will die, the son will not bear the punishment for the father’s iniquity, nor will the father bear the punishment for the son’s iniquity. The righteousness of the righteous will be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked will be upon himself. However, in saying that, the notion that others are affected by one’s sin is not foreign to the Old Testament or to the Bible itself.

The Bible warns us often that our sin can affect other people and influence other people even though they did not commit it, they are affected by it. As a punishment, in Exodus, is for the father’s sin of idolatry. This text does hold out the threat that one’s descendants may suffer for their parents’ sin of idolatry.

Parents have a great influence over their children about how they think about God, and how they respond to God. They will not only see that in your words, but they will mostly see it in your lifestyle – how you live and what you do. Is God really first in your life, or is God just an add on to your schedule? If I get to it, then maybe I’ll do it.

Is God first in your life where you have a seriousness about how you are reflecting your relationship with God to other people, especially to your children. Leviticus 26:27-30 says:

Yet if in spite of this you do not obey Me, but act with hostility against Me, ²⁸then I will act with wrathful hostility against you, and I, even I, will punish you seven times for your sins. ²⁹‘Further, you will eat the flesh of your sons and the flesh of your daughters you will eat. ³⁰‘I then will destroy your high places, and cut down your incense altars, and heap your remains on the remains of your idols, for My soul shall abhor you.

In this context, it’s about where the person’s love is and where the person’s priorities are. If parents are guilty of idolatry and pass on this practice to their children and if successive generations continue the sins of the parents, then, according to Scripture, there will be a punishment that’s connected to that. Those who transgress God’s will and do not keep His commandments show that they do not love God. They love and worship something, but not the God of the Bible, heaven, earth, and the Lord, Jesus Christ.

They actually hate him, which means that God punishes this sin by removing His care for, His protection of, and help regarding disobedient and idolatrous people. The only way the sin of idolatry can be squashed is by putting idols, in our heart, aside and to death. In turn, serve and love the true and living God.

So, the Lord is quite serious about this kind of sin that reaches into succeeding generations if not stopped. It brings the punishment of the original person who passed it on to the generations. Of course, the only thing that’s going to arrest this is someone’s faith in Christ. That will arrest your whole past.

When a person comes to Christ, all that is ended. Now, you’ll learn how to worship God the way Scripture teaches us, which brings me back to the second of Exodus 20:6. I am so glad it is here for those who love God and obey Him. They are blessed:

but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.

In other words, Exodus 20:6 is in stark contrast with Exodus 20:5. Again, it shows God’s character to us, which informs us that the same holy and righteous God, who cannot let sin go unpunished, is the same God who shows His mercy not to a few generations, but to thousands of generations. Now, the remedy to end committing the sin of idolatry is simply God’s love. That’s what ends the sin of idolatry. Again, Exodus 20:6 says:

but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.

He has shown us through the history, His love towards Humanity. Even Romans 5:8, God demonstrates His love to us. While we were sinners, He died for us and it was demonstrated by the Cross. What He accomplished on the Cross is a demonstration of all humanity of His love toward those who were created in His image, but His special love to those who actually believe in the Gospel of Jesus Christ and come to the Lord Jesus Christ to be saved, forgiven, redeemed, and to be brought into the family of God and be made right with God.

God is showing loving-kindness to thousands, so if you pass on the Gospel to the next generation, to your kids, their kids to their kids, and onward and onward. God will bring that blessing to that generation. They will reap the results of that blessing, which is the kindness, the long-suffering, and the gentleness of God.

God also expects His people to love Him and loving God and keeping His commandments are one in the same. They are not separate from each other. Micah 6:8 says:

He has told you, O man, what is good;
And what does the LORD require of you
But to do justice, to love kindness,
And to walk humbly with your God?

Man’s sin may ripple with negative consequences on to the fourth generation but look at the wonder of our texts here in Exodus where God’s faithfulness is not limited to but extends to a thousand generation. Meaning, there is no end to God’s faithful love. That is, those who love Him and keep His commandments.

This verse stresses God’s ginormous grace as a blessing for obedience. That means, His grace is a blessing for obedience and is infinitely greater than His judgment for disobedience. As I was studying, good families can last a thousand generation. That is, those who worship the God, but bad families often do not make it to the fifth generation, so what happens to them? They die out. Numbers 14:18 says:

‘The LORD is slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, forgiving iniquity and transgression; but He will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generations.’

We are warned, in Scripture, against idolatry and its devastating effects. Deuteronomy 4:19, 23-28 says:

“And beware not to lift up your eyes to heaven and see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the host of heaven, and be drawn away and worship them and serve them, those which the LORD your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole heaven…²³“So watch yourselves, that you do not forget the covenant of the LORD your God which He made with you, and make for yourselves a graven image in the form of anything against which the LORD your God has commanded you. ²⁴“For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God. ²⁵“When you become the father of children and children’s children and have remained long in the land, and act corruptly, and make an idol in the form of anything, and do that which is evil in the sight of the LORD your God so as to provoke Him to anger, ²⁶I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that you will surely perish quickly from the land where you are going over the Jordan to possess it. You shall not live long on it, but will be utterly destroyed. ²⁷“The LORD will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations where the LORD drives you. ²⁸“There you will serve gods, the work of man’s hands, wood and stone, which neither see nor hear nor eat nor smell.

If you’re going to worship other than God, go ahead and do it, and you will bear the results of it. You will live a lie, and you will think that you were living what is pleasing and honorable before the true and living God, but you will not be.

In Biblical history, it really bears out. Because idolatry is so rampant, in both the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah, the Judgment of God was inevitable, and it was because of idolatry. The northern kingdom was defeated by the nation of Assyria and brought into exile, and the southern kingdom was defeated by Babylon. The Babylonian exile landed a fatal blow to idolatry among God’s people.

When we come to the New Testament, we see the Apostle Paul, confronting in every place, he preached the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We come to a book like Acts 17, and he comes to Athens and the Philosopher’s. In a very real way, the culture has replaced worship of the living God with philosophy. Man has the answers, so we are to follow what man says. As Paul was tromping through Athens, his spirit was provoked, and he observed the city full of idols have that happen. Then, he goes on to say in Acts 17:23:

Therefore what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you.

Then, he begins to proclaim to them the true and living God and he said it says in Acts 17:22-26, 29-31:

So Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, “Men of Athens, I observe that you are very religious in all respects. ²³“For while I was passing through and examining the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with this inscription, ‘TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.’ Therefore what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you. ²⁴“The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands; ²⁵nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things; ²⁶and He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation…²⁹“Being then the children of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and thought of man. ³⁰“Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent, ³¹because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead.”

You can go to not only Athens, but in any place, you will find objects of worship that people are formulating in their mind as God and begin to give them trust and attention. So what should we do? In the present, there are some things that we should do according to Scripture. First of all, once you get a Biblical understanding of idols or idolatry, keep away from them. Joshua 23:7-8 says:

so that you will not associate with these nations, these which remain among you, or mention the name of their gods, or make anyone swear by them, or serve them, or bow down to them. ⁸“But you are to cling to the LORD your God, as you have done to this day.

He tells us very clearly that we are to cling to the Lord, thy God. Then, in the New Testament, there is a very important passage of Scripture in 1 John 5. There is a sin leading to death and there’s a sin that is not leading to death. As I began to realize the sin that leads to death is the sin of idolatry, which is the sin of having a misunderstanding of who God is and then living your life accordingly. His advice to those who are reading is in 1 John 5:20-21:

And we know that the Son of God has come, and has given us understanding so that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life.

²¹Little children, guard yourselves from idols.

For this reason, we are to be careful. If it doesn’t come from Scripture and Scripture is not formulating our understanding of God, then don’t go there. Don’t think God is something when He’s not. Don’t add or take away from a characteristic of God that is not there. So, keep away from idolatry. Second thing is to flee from idolatry. Very clearly 1 Corinthians 10:14 says:

Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry.

In other words, run as fast as you can and as far as you can for my idolatry. Then, we learn from Deuteronomy that a third thing would be not to have anything connected with idolatry in their houses or in your house. Deuteronomy 7:26 says:

You shall not bring an abomination into your house, and like it come under the ban; you shall utterly detest it and you shall utterly abhor it, for it is something banned.

Of course, it could be also on the dashboards of your car or hanging on the mirrors of your vehicle. Statues, rosary beads, and all those things. Now, just think about that for a moment. Sometimes people have a statue of St. Christopher, Mary, or rosary beads around their mirror. What they’re thinking is that it has the power to protect them. Unconsciously or consciously, that’s what they’re thinking.

They are thinking that if it’s taken away, they will get into a car wreck. That’s their luck charm and little protection charm. Innocently, we may put that there and then we go and trust that it’s going to do something magical for us, and it’s not. They mean nothing.

I tell people the story that when I became a Christian and I was going overseas to join the Marine Corps, someone had given me a present and the present was a Saint Christopher medal. Saint Christopher is supposed to be the one who protects you on your travels, and I came to the place where I realized that’s not the case.

No one can protect me except God. When I actually became a Christian, I symbolically and actually through the Saint Christopher medal in the Mediterranean Sea. I did it for this reason, I realized that I was putting special emphasis on these images. Somehow there was some mystical thing connected to them that can somehow protect me and that’s just wasn’t true. I realized that these Scriptures are really serious about what we trust in to protect us.

Many times, it’s mystical and the fancies of our own mind create these things in our mind that somehow these objects have some kind of power to them and they don’t. That’s the great problem of all these things.

This leads me to the next thing, which is to not intermarry with those who practice idolatry. Once they understand what being a believer is, then an unbeliever should never ever consider marrying an unbeliever. They do not have what you have. They may get it, but you may not be the instrument of evangelism to share the Gospel with them where they may come to believe. From the get-go, you pray for someone’s salvation, but to marry someone who does not believe in Jesus Christ or isn’t a faithful genuine believer, then you should never consider marrying an unbeliever.

Make sure you’re a believer first, but never consider marrying an unbeliever. I can’t stress that more. When people do meet other people and they get bit by the love bug, all the theology goes out the window. Thank the Lord, He is merciful in spite of us to save some people who have done that and save both of them. If we’re not believers, we don’t know any different, but when we’re believers, we do.

Also, we should not make arrangements with those who practice idolatry. Meaning, those who worship heavenly bodies, angels, departed spirits, earthly creatures, images, or anything that replaces God. The objects of their worship are the sacrifice to them. They burn incense to them. They pray to them. They bow to them. They kiss them. They sing and dance to them. They even cut their flesh to them. 1 Kings 18:28 says:

So they cried with a loud voice and cut themselves according to their custom with swords and lances until the blood gushed out on them.

A lot of people do those things today because they have a wrong understanding of who God is. Lastly, we refuse to engage in it at all even if threatened by death. Now, if you remember Daniels three friends, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego when they refused to bow down to Nebuchadnezzar. They said in Daniel 3:18:

“But even if He does not, let it be known to you, O king, that we are not going to serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.”

That kind of staunch position against any kind of form of idolatry is what we are to have as believers and have a correct balance of things. Now, you say: what about in the future? In the future, idolatry will still play a huge part when the false prophet will go one step further and he will actually make an image appear alive. In Revelation 13, we learn that the image of the beast will be worshipped before the return of Christ. In 2 Thessalonians, it also tells us that they’re going to believe what is false.

They will believe the claim of antichrist that he’s a god greater than all gods. They believe the lie as if it is the truth, they believe in him, a false god, but not according to reveal truth, which is Scriptures, according to the signs, that point to the reality of his claim. They are keeping the rejector of truth spellbound in admiration to the lawless one as being God himself. In Revelation 13:12, the false prophet’s job was to draw worship to the first beast:

He exercises all the authority of the first beast in his presence. And he makes the earth and those who dwell in it to worship the first beast, whose fatal wound was healed.

Without going through it all, what happens in the end times when antichrist comes on the scene is that there is going to be a kind of mock death and mock resurrection where He is healed from a fatal wound. Satan’s desire has always been and will always be a desire to be God. To show himself that he is just as close to God as you can be, so Satan has a particular goal in mind.

To reach his goal, he must deceive the whole world and get them to worship him. His goal is, I believe two-fold, to wear out the saints and to get people to worship himself. Now, this kind of illustrates what I’m talking about because there is such a thing in Scripture as a diabolic trinity.

First, you have the unholy trinity. You have the dragon that represents Satan himself and he is the counterfeit father. Secondly, you have the Antichrist, from Revelations 13:1-10, he is the man of lawlessness. He is the counterfeit son and the beast out of the sea. Then, of course, you have the false prophet. The false prophet is the religious leader. He is a counterfeit holy spirit, and he’s the beast out of the earth. The dragon gives the Antichrist power, a throne, and great authority. Revelation 13:2 says:

And the dragon gave him his power and his throne and great authority.

He was given the authority to rule politically because he will be the ruler of the final world empire spoken of in Daniel. He has a method of how to gain the following. Antichrist or the man of sin will truly be an amazing figure and will display a subtle magnetic draw upon people of the world. All idolatry is devil worship. Revelation 13:14-15:

And he deceives those who dwell on the earth because of the signs which it was given him to perform in the presence of the beast, telling those who dwell on the earth to make an image to the beast who had the wound of the sword and has come to life. ¹⁵And it was given to him to give breath to the image of the beast, so that the image of the beast would even speak and cause as many as do not worship the image of the beast to be killed.

In other words, part of what’s going on there is that this image or idol will actually come to life, and it will speak. That will be quite amazing, right? Back in 1964, Walt Disney unveiled the technological marvel at the New World’s Fair. It was a representation of Abraham Lincoln that moved, spoke, and even rose to his feet from a sitting position. Disney called this new form of animation audio-animatronics. Man had found a way to make an inanimate object move talk and exhibited even facial expressions using the special form of robots. I actually went to see it somewhere else and it is quite amazing.

Since then, we have come a long way. You can see all types of man-made inanimate objects miraculously come to life through audio-animatronics. Even the Creation Museum and the Ark Project has implemented these in their life like displays, and they’re quite amazing. It remains to be seen how far technology will advance before the time comes for the lifelike image of the beast to make its entrance.

In other words, the false prophet will delude much of humanity into believing he has the power to create life. Remember, in real Biblical worship, we are always challenged with the exercise of the mind in which divine revelation mold and shapes us. False worship is ignorant worship because there’s no reliable source of truth to exercise the mind. To evaluate whether it is true or false.

Religion may begin with an emotional response, but in time there must come a thought response. We must examine what we are experiencing, feeling, or involved in. God’s people are always called to Biblical discernment and respect to teachings and experiences as to whether they are true or false.

These days, in which we live, there is an unhealthy trust in man’s knowledge to save the world. Climate change? Come on. We’re going to be able to change the climate and save the planet? This is a disposable planet. Don’t worry about the planet.

Today’s segments of society deify science and mankind’s capacity to make materials on earth to conform to his will. The mantra is man, human beings control life. Arrogantly, defying God. In other words, the worship of technology, science, and medicine where man’s own mind is trusted to obtain some kind of utopia on Earth, which can be generated by techno-wizards and scientists.

Instead of worshipping, like Paul says, the Creator, they worship the technological works of their own hands. With this philosophy widely spread throughout the world, who needs God? That’s what’s happening today. Who needs God?

Bottom line, in relation to the first two commandments, God did not reveal himself in a physical form. God has made himself known through his voice and has inscribed what He said on two tablets of stone and on parchment in the written word. This means that any symbolic representation of God, in order to depict Him in a physical form, will be a distortion and grossly insufficient to properly characterize who He really is. Therefore, that is idolatry.

Now, do you recall what is recorded in 1 Thessalonians when the people of Thessalonica came to repent of their sin and believe in Jesus Christ as their own Lord and Savior? It says in 1 Thessalonians 1:9-10:

For they themselves report about us what kind of a reception we had with you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve a living and true God, ¹⁰and to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, that is Jesus, who rescues us from the wrath to come.

Let us be careful to grow in our love for the Lord and our obedience to His commands, and that the motivation and zeal in our heart will be to please the Lord, Jesus Christ, in all things according to the Scriptures. I will end with like the Apostle John ended with:

Little children, guard yourself from idols.

Let’s pray.

Lord, I thank You for all that the Scriptures say about this subject. It is everywhere, Lord. It is in every culture. It is in every geographical area. It is in every religious community. It is even in the political and social realm. Lord, I pray You have guarded us with Scripture. You have told us truly who You are. I pray, Lord, if we have not come to believe in You through Jesus Christ, the only solution to our sin, to being forgiven, and to being made right with you, then today would be the day, so You can rescue us from our false understanding of You and our idolatry. I pray, Lord, for those who know You, keep us steadfast in growing in our relationship with You, our understanding of Scripture, Your character, and bring us to the place where we genuinely have a zeal in our heart to love and please You in all things. I pray this in the name of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

January 13, 2019