The Ten Commandments

Exodus 20:1-2 Who said we should keep the Ten Commandments?

Introduction When I entered High School as an eleven-year-old pupil in 1977 we were issued with a little red book that sadly I no longer possess. It was a short volume of the list of rules and regulations to be observed while a member of that school community. All aspects of school life in a fair amount of detail were covered. How were these regulations received by the new pupils? In public not a word was uttered, but in private conversations were often along the lines of ‘how many of the rules have you broken so far?’ This mindset is far from unique to my peers; in fact it is a universal one. All of us are sinners, in thought, words and actions over the course of our lives, different only in the degree of the violation of God’s guidelines for our lives. It is, though, often only when ‘the law’ is explicitly presented to us that we have a conscious desire to break it. Paul discusses this fact in Romans 7:1-13. He declared: What shall we say, then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! Indeed I would not have known what sin was except through the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, Do not covet (Romans 7:7). How many of us as children or later as adults only wanted to do

something because our parents, or another adult told us we couldn’t do that activity. ‘Who said …?’ is the natural rebellious tendency of the human heart? Is it an opinion I can safely ignore if I choose, without consequences? Or is it a command given by someone I need to obey. Our country’s legal system was founded on the basis of the Ten Commandments, God’s moral law. Although politicians have delighted in adding many thousands of laws to the statute book over the years, they have never improved on the standards God has laid down for us in the Bible. However, since the 1960s, a decade of conscious public rebellion against Christian values, British society has tried to fashion new rules to guide our collective behaviour. This era that overturned traditional moral boundaries has produced, for example, a society where four out of ten marriages end in divorce; an even higher percentage of children are born to unmarried couples and more than that, the total number of abortions in Britain since the Abortion Act was passed in 1967 is now well over seven million. There is now one abortion for every four live births in Britain and one out of every three women by the age of 45 will have had an abortion [cmfblog.org.uk 25 May 2011]; together with seriously high levels of sexually transmitted diseases, figures that

would be greatly reduced were God’s guidelines for human society obeyed.

Yet how serious is our country about fixing the moral mess in which we find ourselves? In November 1993 two ten-year-old boys Jon Venables and Robert Thompson abducted and murdered three-year old James Bulger in a horrific killing that shocked the nation. It was not an accident, they knew exactly what they were doing; it was planned and carried out without remorse or regret. The tapes of their interviews with the police are amongst the most chilling ever released to the public and shown in documentaries about the case. Conservative Prime Minister John Major, in the light of this tragedy launched his back to basics campaign as he sought to give a moral lead to the country. However, he failed to state what the ‘basics’ were or the authority that undergirded them. The press had a field-day with ‘exclusives’ on the private lives of Government ministers and the campaign quickly collapsed. It was not the criticisms of other parties that caused its failure, they said very little acutely aware of similar problems on their own benches. When outstanding head-teacher Philip Lawrence was murdered in 1995 by a fifteen-year-old knife-wielding gang member, Learco Chindamo, a member of parliament was reported as saying that we need ‘something like the Ten Commandments’ to get our country back on track [Brian Edwards, Ten Commandments for today, p.

10]. To add to the moral confusion, when Chindamo was released from prison in 2007, he could not be deported to his country of birth (Italy) according the adjudicating Commission, who ruled that: ‘Chindamo had a right to a "family life" under the terms of the Human Rights Act of 1998’. Did the Lawrence family not have such a right? [various internet sources]. More 1

recently in May 2009 the Daily Telegraph’s exposure of the MP’s expenses scandal during the time of the last Labour Government revealed rottenness at the heart of the political system; profiteering from expenses claims was not unknown across the parties in the Edinburgh parliament either. In the light of these and many other examples, it is with good reason that we turn to what God has to say about the way we should live.

1.Who spoke these words? (Exodus 20:1) And God spoke all these words The Distinctiveness of the Ten Commandments in the Old Testament laws In the law codes of the ancient world, right at the beginning the name of the author is clearly stated. They also explained why this person had the authority to expect the recipients of that law to obey them. Here in the midst of a variety of other forms of laws given to the Jewish people was this distinctive and short set of rules not written down on parchment, like the other laws by a human scribe; instead God gave them to Moses. Exodus 32: 15-16 states: Moses turned and went down the mountain with the two tablets of the Testimony in his hands. They were inscribed on both sides, front and back. 16 The tablets were the work of God; the writing was the writing of God, engraved on the tablets. With respect to other laws, Exodus 24:3-4 records: When Moses went and told the people all the Lord's words and laws, they responded with one voice, Everything the Lord has said we will do.4 Moses then wrote down everything the Lord had said. The

Ten Commandments were concerned in the Old Testament with an external expression of conformity to God’s law in word and deed. However, Jeremiah 31:31-34 indicates a forthcoming change in God’s relationship with His people: 31The time is coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. 32 It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them, declares the Lord. 33 This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after that time, declares the Lord. I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. 34 No longer will a man teach his neighbour, or a man his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,' because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more. This is the passage Paul has in mind when he wrote the following words in II Corinthians 3:3: You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.

In the general rules and regulations for the Israelite people the covenant name of Yahweh is used, in that context indicating that they were only binding on the particular ethnic people to whom they were given. However, here in the moral law, binding on all peoples of whatever race or class the universal majestic name for God, Elohim, is used, indicating His sovereignty over the whole of creation and with the right to command their and our allegiance to His cause. Here the distinctive difference in this law-giving to any other: (a) God spoke all these words (Exodus 20:1). At times we hear a family member or a friend, or a fellow Christian offer some words of advice that we may hesitate to accept. In such circumstances we may rationalise our hesitation by saying ‘it’s just their opinion’. Here we cannot say ‘it’s Moses’ opinion’ because God spoke the words to His servant for His glory and for our good. (b) God spoke these words with authority When God speaks we must listen with reverence and respect; (c) God’s Word must be digested we must also remember what He has said (Psalm 119:11 I have hidden Your Word in my heart that I might not sin against You. (d) God’s Word must be obeyed When God speaks we must then accept and obey it. If we trust Him He will direct our paths. Proverbs 3:5-6: Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; 6 in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight. (e) We must take pleasure in obeying God This is a further step demonstrated by the author of Psalm 119. He wrote in Psalm 119:97: Oh how I love Your law! I meditate on it all day 2

long. If we trust Him He will direct our paths. (f) We must share God’s Word not just among our peers, but from one generation to the next. Deuteronomy 6:6-7: Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. As Christian parents or grandparents do you read God’s Word with

the children under your influence? Do you regularly pray with or for them? Family circumstances and geography dictate the frequency of direct input, but there is no limit on our prayer ministries.

2. What is His relationship with us? (Exodus 20:2a) I am the Lord Your God In the original context as we know it was to the Israelite nation that the Ten Commandments were given, as they alone were the designated as the Old Testament people of God. God was also including within the boundaries of His people the non-Jewish people who owned His name and who had submitted to the rite of circumcision (men only!) and the other regulations binding on the Jewish people of that day. The use of the covenant name Yahweh in verse two, together with the name of God (Elohim), the God of all the peoples, the Creator and Sovereign over all His creation, ties this law code with those regulations that both followed and preceded it in the respective chapters of the book of Exodus. A clear distinction needs to be made between the different types of Old Testament laws. (a) Ceremonial Law This covers all the ceremonies, sacrifices, festivals and priests that loom so large in the book of Leviticus, for example. Every aspect of these ways to approach God was intended to point forward to Christ, the perfect sacrifice who once for all time would offer Himself in our place to provide for our salvation. Jesus was both priest and sacrifice reconciling us to God and God to us. Praise God we don’t have to offer bulls and sheep and goats as sacrifices each week to pay for our sins –Jesus has paid our debt in full! Militant atheists love to pull out obscure verses in the Pentateuch to ask Christians if they are practising such laws. The answer time and again we can give is no, because Jesus took my place and brought me into fellowship with God, so I have no need to practice such rituals. In March 1996 a remarkable event took place in the United States of America. A religious denomination that claimed to be Christian, the Worldwide Church of God, known in the United Kingdom through its free magazine, The Plain Truth, throughout the fifty years of its existence had sought to obey the Old Testament laws to the letter, under its charismatic leader Herbert Armstrong. However, after much soul-searching, new leader Joseph Tkach Jr wrote in the March/ April 1996 issue of Plain Truth that he and others had been wrong to follow exclusively the Old Covenant and instead asked their church members to accept the New Covenant and all that means in Jesus.

They lost more than half their ministers and members over this issue, but grasped the reality of the gospel of Jesus Christ and our relationship with Him. The blood sacrifices had a clear purpose, first to teach us how seriously God views sin. Hebrews 9:22 tells us that: In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness. Hebrews 10:12-14 follows this by reminding us, with respect to Jesus, that: when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, He sat down at the right hand of God.13 Since that time He waits for His enemies to be made His footstool,14because by one sacrifice He has made perfect for ever those who are being made holy. This ceremonial law had a second purpose to point forward to the perfect Saviour and Redeemer Jesus. Paul in Galatians 3:24 says: So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith. (b) Civil Law All

the numerous rules and regulations for the functioning of the routine running of day-to-day life. Exodus 22:1-15, for example, covered the approach to theft of property, where the principle of restitution was central to handling the cases that came before the courts. Under Old Testament civil law it was assumed that convicted criminals would wish to repent of their actions and put right the wrong they had done. All sentences, apart from death sentences 3

for capital offences, were served in the community. There was no plan for keeping people in prison for years. It is interesting that the State of Florida in 1983 set up a scheme called ‘innovative justice’. It is a modernised version of the Exodus 22 scheme in which the victim is fully compensated for their losses and the criminal also spends time with the victim with a view to reconciliation between the two individuals. By 2,000AD 14,000 criminals in Florida had been sentenced to this programme. Under the previous policy of simply ‘educating people not to reoffend’ in prison 75% of prisoners had gone on to commit other crimes upon release. Under the ‘innovative justice’ scheme 93% quit for good a life of crime, only 7% offended again [Brian Edwards, The Ten Commandments for Today, p. 17]. God knew what He was doing with the civil laws established for the new nation of Israel! (c) Food and Hygiene Laws Leviticus 11has a series of guidelines for healthy living, both with respect to diet in the desert and the cleanliness of pots and cooking utensils. In the ancient world no other culture had such strict requirements in this area; Deuteronomy 23:12-14, for example, dealt with sanitation, requiring the rudimentary toilet facilities to be erected outside the camp. We forget it was only in the nineteenth century that Western society began to take these issues seriously.

Hungarian doctor Ignaz Semmelweis (1818-1865) was in charge of one of the obstetrical wards of the famous Allegemeine Krakenhaus teaching hospital in Vienna. He was alarmed at the mortality rate amongst women who had been examined by teachers and their students who had come from dissecting bodies in the mortuary. Approximately one in six of these patients died. No later than 1847 he ordered them to wash their hands before touching live patients and the casualty rate plunged to one on eighty-four patients. Then he extended it to other medical staff asking them to wash between examining living patients. Again remarkable improvements in the survival rates followed. Unfortunately other doctors got him sacked for his silly ideas about washing hands and personal hygiene. All the wash basins he had installed were taken out. He died a broken man as death rates rose drastically again. Yet he was vindicated after his death [various website have details on his work]. Leviticus 15 has numerous guidelines for washing, to prevent the possible spread of infections, in ‘fresh’ or literally ‘running’ water (Lev.15:13). The rules seem so boring and obvious to us today. Pity it took humans 3,000 years to grasp the benefits of keeping God’s rules on health and hygiene! (d) Moral Law The New Testament is our guide as to how we keep God’s laws.

They tell us something of the character of God and what is important to Him and how He views us as His children. Clear guidance is given as to how we are to live our lives in obedience to His decrees. The Moral Law, or the Ten Commandments, were central in the teaching of Jesus for the lives of His followers. Listen to these words from Matthew 22:3439: Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. 35 One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: 36 Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law? 37 Jesus replied: 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbour as yourself.' 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments. A group

of Pharisees asked Jesus what was the most important commandment God had given in the Scriptures for His people to obey. In effect Jesus summarised the Ten Commandments under the guise of offering two of them. In other places He addressed individual commandments, but made it very plain that the Moral Law was central to life in God’s kingdom for His followers. As ‘Lord’ of His people, a covenant, relationship term, God made these laws for their and our good, as well as for His glory.

3. Why should we obey Him? (Exodus 20:2b) who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.

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Redemption from slavery, a helpless downtrodden mass of people brought out and transformed into a nation under the leadership of Moses and Joshua. This is ideal material for a Hollywood blockbuster! Why did God choose them? The Lord did not set His affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. 8But it was because the Lord loved you and kept the oath He swore to your forefathers that He brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the land of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt. 9 Know therefore that the Lord your God is God; He is the faithful God, keeping His covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love Him and keep His commands.10 But those who hate Him He will repay to their face by destruction; He will not be slow to repay to their face those who hate Him. 11Therefore, take care to follow the commands, decrees and laws I give you today (Deuteronomy 7:7-11). God’s motivation for delivering Israel and

transforming their circumstances was simply His love for them. There was nothing in them that was particularly attractive, but He chose to take that course of action. On the human level it is difficult to predict (at least for us men!) who might fall in love with whom, let alone who might commit to and enjoy a lifelong marital union. Every time a Jewish family celebrated the Passover Festival there was an annual reminder of the love of God in their redemption.

(Exodus 12:14-28 gives the details.) The instructions for its observance are given in Exodus 12:24-28: Obey these instructions as a lasting ordinance for you and your descendants.25 When you enter the land that the Lord will give you as He promised, observe this ceremony. 26 And when your children ask you, 'What does this ceremony mean to you?' 27 then tell them, 'It is the Passover sacrifice to the Lord, who passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt and spared our homes when He struck down the Egyptians.' Then the people bowed down and worshipped. 28 The Israelites did just what the Lord commanded Moses and Aaron. As Christians we have a similar command

to observe the Lord’s Supper (I Corinthians 11:23-34). Jesus demonstrated His love for us in dying in our place on the cross. The least He can expect from us is to obey the commands He has given us as we follow Him. Do you / Do I honour Him in our lives as we should?

4. Do these Ten Commandments apply to everyone –not just Jews and Christians?

I have already highlighted the distinctive nature of the Moral Law that transcends time and culture and is applicable in each and every human society in every era. It alone was spoken directly by God; it alone was written on tablets of stone to indicate its permanence. It alone was placed in the Ark of the Covenant for safekeeping. Throughout the Old Testament there was an assumption that all people would keep these rules for living. Eve and Adam sinned in the Garden of Eden for violating the First Commandment by listening to Satan (Genesis 3); God punished Cain for murdering his brother (Genesis 4:8-16); and was outraged by Lamech for boasting about a so-called ‘honour killing’ he had carried out (Genesis 4:23-24). The sanctity of life was spelt out to Noah when the mandatory death penalty for murder was commanded in Genesis 9:6); the sanctity of marriage (Genesis 2:24) highlights God’s opposition to sexual immorality; There are also a number of condemnations of pagan nations for breaking God’s Moral Law, under the assumption that they are also required to obey it.

Nahum in his book castigated the Assyrians for murder, greed and covetousness; Habakkuk brings similar charges against the Babylonians. Isaiah attacks idol worship and the making of such objects by craftsmen amongst the pagan nations (Isaiah 44:9-20). If the Moral Law was not binding on all these people then the above examples would be pointless. The same is true in the New Testament era. John the Baptist fearlessly denounced the adultery of Herod Antipas (Matthew 14:3-4) and Paul in his defence statement before the Roman Governor Felix challenged this mighty official concerning the Lord Jesus and the Moral Law. Several days later Felix came with his wife Drusilla, who was a Jewess. He sent for Paul and listened to him as he spoke about faith in Christ Jesus. 25 As Paul discoursed on righteousness, self-control and the judgment to come, Felix was afraid and said, That's enough for now! You may leave. When I find it 5

convenient, I will send for you (Acts 24:24-25). In his final words to the nation before he died, Moses told them the importance of heeding what God had commanded: Assemble the people— men, women and children, and the aliens living in your towns— so that they can listen and learn to fear the Lord your God and follow carefully all the words of this law. 13 Their children, who do not know this law, must hear it and learn to fear the Lord your God as long as you live in the land you are crossing the Jordan to possess (Deuteronomy 31:12-13). Notice the assumption here that

everyone not just the Jews were expected to keep God’s boundaries for healthy and holy living. An old Methodist preacher once remarked that ‘We either keep the Ten Commandments or we illustrate them’. May God help us to honour the Lord by respecting the boundaries He has given for our lives. May our heart attitude be like that of the Psalmist who wrote: I wait for your salvation, O Lord, and I follow your commands. 167 I obey your statutes, for I love them greatly (Psalm 119:166-167), for Jesus’ sake, Amen.

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Exodus 20 Is the Moral law binding on Christians?

Introduction Exodus 20:1-2 makes it clear that the Ten Commandments were not merely a good idea from Moses, or a flash of genius from this Israelite leader. They came directly from the God of Israel who had brought these people out of Egypt. This moral law was not just a foundation for their society, but also for the other nations of the world. Even before it was given, there appears to be the assumption in the Bible that the activities prohibited in this law code were somehow known in the consciences of the human race as unacceptable behaviour. As a result those who committed these sins were responsible for their consequences. One issue that needs to be addressed before we look at these commandments over a number of weeks is the claim in various guises that Christians are not bound to live by the principles promoted in the Ten Commandments. For some proponents of these views there is the simplistic notion that if we are saved by God’s grace alone in Christ that we are free to live as we like, and we are not constrained by any set of laws in the Scriptures. Two of the misquoted texts for this view include: Romans 10:4 Christ is the end of the law so that there might be righteousness for everyone who believes and John 15:17, where Jesus says: This is my command: Love each other. Paul in Romans 10:4 was speaking about Jesus being the focus or goal of the whole Jewish law as a means of salvation. After His death on the cross attempting to obey the totality of the Jewish laws lost its point, as salvation was available as a free gift. However, we are saved to do good works which God prepared in advance for us to do (Ephesians 2:10). In other words we seek to live a life pleasing to God in response to His love to us in Jesus, not in order to earn His favour. This is what Jesus was commending in John 15:17.

1. Jewish misunderstandings of the Moral Law The Jews had been exiled from their homeland in a series of disasters, culminating with the final group leaving for Babylon (Iraq) after the sacking of Jerusalem in 587/6BC. The Northern Kingdom Israel had been overrun by the Assyrian Empire nearly 150 years earlier.

It was out of this disaster that in exile groups of committed believers began to ask themselves how can I honour God in such a way that we can return to the land and rebuild a nation that has come close to disappearing off the map. Out of such gatherings the people we know as Pharisees emerged. They knew their Old Testament Bibles very well, but wanted to put in place boundaries for living that prevented believers from easily breaking God’s laws for their lives. In effect they decided to observe a stricter interpretation of biblical teaching in the way they lived. This meant in practice that they prepared a list of guidelines to help them prioritise choices in life. Each subsequent generation added more and more rules and the handfuls became hundreds and then thousands of laws to observe in the course of everyday life. In time, not least by Jesus’ day, things had got seriously out of hand and none of the Pharisees knew how to get things back on track. For the few thousand Pharisees who kept all these rules it became an end in itself, something of which you could be justifiably proud –if that wasn’t a sin in itself! Paul (called Saul prior to his conversion) was a classic example of this approach to life, as he explained in his letter to the church at Philippi. If anyone else thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: 5 circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; 6 as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic righteousness, faultless. 7 But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. 8 What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to 1

the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ (Philippians 3:3b-8). Paul had kept all the rules

with a rigid self-discipline, but this enthusiastic theology student at Jerusalem University was not fulfilled through his accomplishments. One day as he watched the stoning of the greatest Evangelist the Christian Church possessed to that point in its history, the serenity and joy on the face of Stephen in the minutes before he died, forever changed the young man holding the coats of those carrying out this brutal murder (Acts 7:54-60). Stephen had something Saul was missing – a short time later on the road to Damascus this brutal and misguided young man gained an extraordinary revelation through an encounter with the Lord and Saviour whom Stephen had served so faithfully (Acts 9:3-5). Saul, now called Paul, did not stop living his self-disciplined life –he was horrified at such a though, as he explained in Romans 6:1-4: What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning, so that grace may increase? 2 By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? 3 Or don't you know that all of us who were baptised into Christ Jesus were baptised into his death? 4 We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. Jesus was happy with the standard Jewish answer to the question: What must I do to inherit eternal life? This was revealed in his debate with a religious lawyer in Luke 10. Jesus invited the man to answer his own question. He answered: 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and, 'Love your neighbour as yourself.' 28 You have answered correctly, Jesus replied. Do this and you will live (Luke 10:27-28). These words were quotations of two Old Testament verses

from Deuteronomy 6:5 and then Leviticus 19:18b. They are also a summary of the Ten Commandments. The issue for Jesus though, was the way the Pharisees and their followers sought to obey these commandments. They had built up such a collection of rules to follow that they had become, in practice, as important if not more so than the Ten Commandments themselves. He drew attention to a good example of this problem in Mark 7:5-13: So the Pharisees and teachers of the law asked Jesus, Why don't your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with 'unclean' hands? 6 He replied, Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written: 'These people honour me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. 7 They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.' 8You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of men. 9 And he said to them: You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions! 10 For Moses said, 'Honour your father and your mother,' and, 'Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.' 11 But you say that if a man says to his father or mother: 'Whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is Corban' (that is, a gift devoted to God), 12 then you no longer let him do anything for his father or mother. 13 Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that . Matthew chapter

twenty-three lists more examples that caused concern to Jesus. Jesus did not doubt their sincerity, most of the time, but He was concerned that they were missing the point God wanted them to grasp. The challenge for us as Christians is twofold. For some believers there is a careless attitude to God’s Word and its guidelines for our lives. If that is an issue this morning then please stop and ask the Lord to enable you to live your life more closely related to His plans and purposes for you. He has given us the Ten Commandments as secure boundaries to direct our paths not to restrict our freedom –just as any good parent will with their children. For other believers there can be the opposite problem in that we take very seriously God’s boundaries for living, but with the best of intentions we make the guidelines stricter and sometimes more numerous than God has done and police them with great zeal! In my teenage years our family went to the South of England for a holiday one year and on the Sunday morning we attended an Evangelical church of a tradition different to our own. This denomination (or at least that local congregation) annually had two covenant services, the first focussed on affirmations of what they believed; the second service, at which we were 2

present, addressed around seventy-five things that people affirmed they would not do, from a prepared statement. I cannot recall disagreeing with any of the prohibitions read out, but wondered how long the list might grow over time? In our Baptist tradition we have, I hope fairly consistently, held firmly to a high view of Scripture and its guidelines for our lives, but been most reluctant to draw up lists of ‘dos and don’ts’ regarding personal lifestyle choices.

Some times the Bible gives explicit advice –you shall not murder (Exodus 20:13), for example- more often it gives us principles to follow and on that basis to make wise choices.

God wants us to heed His limited number of commandments, but most of the time wishes us to grow in maturity as we apply them to the wide variety of circumstances we will experience in our daily lives.

2. Jesus’ attitude to the Moral Law A person who lives only by a list of rules is like a student at school or college who learns information solely for a test or examination. What they are doing might be very good, but it falls short of the greater value such knowledge could be in their lives if they could grasp a bigger vision for the application of the knowledge received. Did Jesus come to abolish the Ten Commandments or remove any requirement for His disciples to observe them? In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus sought to address this issue with His closest followers. Listen to these words from Matthew 5:17-20: Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfil them. 18 I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. 19 Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practises and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20 For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven . It is important to notice that Jesus made no

attempt to apply the civil or ceremonial or other forms of Old Testament law to the lives of His followers in the new era which He was inaugurating, which came to fruition at the Day of Pentecost, and from then until His return in glory at the end of the age. These other forms of law related to Israel, a whole nation in covenant with God, in a specific geographical location. However, the kingdom of God as Jesus explained it transcends national boundaries, and is a message for all nations and ethnic groups, in addition to His continuing purposes for the Jewish people who seek to honour His name (see Romans 9: 6-8). Jesus was much harder on the Pharisees than the Sadducees because they were so much closer to living God’s way and most of them genuinely wanted to honour God in daily life. In Matthew 23, a chapter that records some of Jesus’ strongest attacks on the Pharisees, He began that message with these extraordinary words: Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: 2The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat. 3 So you must obey them and do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practise what they preach (Matthew 23:1-3). By contrast Jesus told His disciples: If you love me keep My commandments (John 14:15 NKJV or if you love Me, you will obey what I command NIV). In fact at the commissioning of Peter in Matthew 16:19 (and the other disciples Matthew 18:18) Jesus declared: I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind on earth shall[already] have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall [already] have been loosed in heaven (New American Standard Version).

Unfortunately most of the English language versions fail to communicate that what the followers of Jesus would declare to people in the future, has already been carried out in heaven. The tense of the verbs used in this verse imply decisions taken in the past which have an ongoing impact into the future, that is decisions taken by God in heaven come to pass on earth at a later time as His kingdom grows when His people step out in faith and act in the light of His promises. Binding and loosing were familiar terms to Jews of that era to refer to 3

things that were prohibited (bound) or encouraged (loosed). In effect the message Peter and the first followers of Jesus were to proclaim was a return to the way God wanted His people to relate to Him rather than through the newer rules of the Pharisees. The Moral Law of God had not changed over the years of human history. What use, therefore is the Moral law to us in the context of proclaiming a gospel of grace? The first use of the law is for the wider society to accept the importance of moral boundaries for our lives. Imagine driving down any public road with each driver left to decide their own rules rather than follow the Highway Code. It would be a nerve-shredding trip. Eighteenth century England was largely a lawless place. There was no police force and all kinds of criminals were on the lookout for victims to assault. As a result the majority of people, especially in urban areas, only made absolutely essential journeys. In 1753 Sir Horace Mann complained bitterly: ‘one is forced to travel, even at noon, as if one were going to battle.’ Ladies were escorted to their card parties by young men armed with clubs [Brian Edwards, The Ten Commandments for Today, p. 11]. What a contrast with the experience we have in living in this law-abiding city of Dundee! The second use of the law is to show us we are sinners, that we can never keep the law perfectly and thereby ‘earn’ our place in heaven. Unless a person sees a need of Jesus for salvation, they will never seriously ask ‘what must I do to be saved?’ The problem with so many people today is that the word ‘sin’ is entirely absent from their vocabulary and not recognising the problem are unable to receive God’s intended cure for it. The third use of the moral law is for Christians to have a guide to regulate our lives as we seek to follow our Lord and Saviour.

Thank God for the law, both in the wider society, as well as in God’s Word, where it is consistent with the principles for conduct taught in Scripture. Anarchy would not be beneficial for anyone!

3. A Practical look at the Moral law (a)The Law and Love In the 1960s heterodox Anglican Bishop John Robinson promoted ‘a radical ethic of the situation with nothing prescribed except love’ [J.A.T. Robinson, Honest to God, p. 116]. It sounds great who would disagree with a person acting on the basis of love? Yet there is a fundamental problem. If a proponent of ‘free love’ wanted to engage in intimate activity with a married person, it is unlikely that the spouse of their proposed partner would view such activity as a demonstration of love! Euthanasia is seen in this way by many of its strongest supporters, but the more such arguments are considered in detail the less attractive they become. Imagine you were standing outside a supermarket without any cash or means of payment on your person and a homeless person came up to you begging for food saying that they hadn’t eaten that day. Would taking a pack of sandwiches from the supermarket without payment for the homeless person stand up in court as a loving act when you were facing a charge of shoplifting! Of course not, because it was an act of theft, taking something that belonged to another person or company. The moral decline of the last fifty years, in particular, in our land, shows how bankrupt and empty are the situation ethics that were hailed as the way forward half a century ago by liberal theologians. Jesus was the most loving person who ever lived yet He was very happy to say these words with reference to His father in heaven. The world must learn that I love the Father and that I do exactly what my Father has commanded me (John 14:31). Jesus said: You are my friends if you do what I command (John 15:14). In the sovereign purposes of God for His people He has this expectation for His spiritual children. In the words of Paul in Romans 8:29: For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. In our contemporary language the great apostle was saying that God the Father has a future vision of heaven in which Jesus is the focus of praise and adoration by the people saved through His sacrifice on the cross. The title ‘firstborn’ is a special honour title 4

used in the Old Testament of both the nation of Israel and Jesus, and in the New Testament of Jesus [Exodus 4:22; Hosea 11:1; Matthew 2:15; Hebrews 5:5]. And, that is not all, believers in God’s new heaven and earth will in their attitudes and aspirations be like Jesus. We recognise a child reflecting their biological parents in their mannerisms and speech; in heaven because we have such a love for God, we will sound like Jesus and obeying Him will be our greatest delight. Jesus in His defence of the Ten Commandments not only affirmed their outward observance, as in the Old Testament, but extended them to cover our words and our attitudes. To use words that suggested we wanted someone dead was to be guilty of breaking the sixth commandment (Matthew 5:21-22); to think with pleasure of committing a sexual act, for example, with a person married to someone else is to be reckoned as guilty of breaking the seventh commandment, said Jesus (Matthew 5:27-30). Jesus wants us to grasp that we can never be good enough to keep God’s Ten Commandments in thought and word and action. It would be a miracle to keep any one of them for a whole lifetime, let alone all ten. To grasp this is to grasp the necessity of Jesus’ demonstration of love for us in dying as our substitute and sin-bearer on the cross. John the apostle wrote these words to a group of unknown Christians: This is how God showed His love among us: He sent His one and only Son into the world that we might live through Him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.12 No-one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and His love is made complete in us (I John 4:9-12). Christ-like love is practical love which

our Lord illustrated by washing the feet of His disciples (John 13:1-17), the task of a Gentile slave in that culture. Paul, likewise, asked Christians in Southern Turkey, to live like their master: You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature, rather, serve one another in love (Galatians 5:13). (b) The Law and Grace Does keeping the moral law save us? If we have grasped it correctly as Jesus explained it in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5), then we will acknowledge that this is impossible. No-one can be that good –and for a lifetime! Paul explained it this way in Galatians 2:19-21: For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God.20 I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.21 I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing! Salvation is either

God’s free gift or a reward merited by our own efforts. Paul had a serious battle with some other Jewish followers of Jesus who taught that by carrying out a variety of ceremonies, including for male children the act of circumcision that a person could earn enough merit with God to be saved. This distortion of the gospel resulted in Paul’s passionate language in the Letter to the Galatians urging them to return to the gospel of free grace. Later that year (AD48) this issue was debated at the Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15) in which the apostle Paul played a leading part in ensuring that the future Christian Church would remain faithful to the gospel entrusted to us by Jesus. It is difficult to imagine what Church life would look like today, had the biblical truth not prevailed at the most crucial assembly in the history of Christianity. However, over the centuries there have often been people at either extreme of the errors that arise from misunderstanding the nature of god’s grace and the applicability of the moral law. On the one hand, a percentage of Christians and Churches who operate with actual lists of rules and regulations, in addition to the Bible, run the serious risk of legalism, similar in principle to that which Paul battled against for much of his ministry. On the other hand are others who talk much of being ‘under grace not law’ and interpret this to mean they can live as they like because God has saved them. Paul passionately rejected such notions in Romans 6:1-14, suggesting that people proclaiming such a view had completely misunderstood Christian discipleship to which we have been called in Christ. Romans 6:1-2 declares: What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning, so that grace may increase? 2 By no 5

means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Someone who has grasped how amazing

grace is will want to live a holy life and be pleasing to Him. Therefore, Hebrews 12:14 reminds us: Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no-one will see the Lord. God’s moral law and grace are complementary, not in opposition to one another in the life of the believer. (c) The Law and the Gospel How is God’s moral law relevant to people who have yet to trust Jesus? In the familiar story of Jesus’ encounter with the rich young ruler in Matthew 19:16-22; Mark 10:17-23) the story begins with a most promising question: What must I do to inherit eternal life? (Mark 10:17) This is the kind of question we would love to be asked in our school or workplace or family circle in some cases, by a person seriously wanting to know the answer. Now each person is different, but our Lord did not quickly ask the man to repeat a simple prayer for salvation and pronounce him converted. Instead He asked him if he had kept the last six of the Ten Commandments. Jesus had no doubt this man had not kept the first four that relate to our attitude to God, but graciously and gently enquired about the ones concerning our relationships with other people. It turned out that this enquirer was not ready to give God first place in his life, only a place. He thought he was being generous by making the overtures he had to God through Jesus. But he did not realise how serious was the problem of sin. Until he grasped the nature of the problem he would not accept his need of Jesus’ solution. The great Norwegian Christian leader of the last century, Ole Hallesby, once said: ‘We can never persuade anyone to believe in the gospel before we, by the grace of God, have persuaded them to believe in the law of God’. Until you and I have grasped the sheer impossibility of being good enough to earn God’s salvation we will never be humble enough to acknowledge our need of the free grace of God. Anglican hymnwriter and Devon vicar, Augustus Toplady (1740-1778) expressed it this way in one of his better known hymns: A debtor to mercy alone, of covenant mercy I sing; Nor fear, with Your righteousness on, my person and offering to bring.

The terrors of law and of God with me can have nothing to do; My Saviour’s obedience and blood hide all my transgressions from view.

The work which His goodness began, the arm of His strength will complete; His promise is Yea and Amen, and never was forfeited yet.

Things future, nor things that are now, nor all things below or above, Can make Him His purpose forgo, or sever my soul from His love.

Eternity will not erase, my name from the palms of His hands; In marks of indelible grace, impressed on His heart it remains.

Yes, I to the end shall endure, as sure as the promise is given; More happy, but not more secure, the glorified spirits in Heaven. Amen

6

Exodus 20 v3 Who comes first?

Introduction In every sphere of life there are requirements that must be followed. Each country, for example, will draw up building regulations that must be followed by architects when planning designs for potential new buildings. It would be no use these professional complaining that their creativity is being stifled by concerns about the safety and security of the premises concerned. In matters of law and order the police can only do their job if the guidelines under which they operate are consistent and clear. Imagine the situation where two officers at the scene of a crime were arguing over whether the events that had taken place were actually a breach of the criminal law or not? Someone, in this case the Government, had to have produced a rule on this matter that determined which opinion here was right or wrong. Or imagine a motorist stopped for speeding by a traffic officer, responding to a question about the speed limit for the road with a response like this. ‘I know officer that the sign indicates a 30mph limit but that’s just the Government’s view they have no right to tell me how fast I can drive my car!’ Contrary views may be fine over the choice of which clothes to purchase; what food to eat for dinner or which football team to support, but there are other scenarios where our opinions are neither here nor there; instead the standard rule must be followed. With respect to some of the other commandments there would be widespread agreement amongst people of different faiths and none that they are good values to hold if society is to function adequately. However, Exodus 20:3 is firm in stating this essential truth: You shall have no other gods before Me. All of us have heard it said by sincere individuals: ‘All roads lead to heaven’ or ‘all religions have part of the truth but not the whole’, but that is in direct contradiction to the teaching of Jesus who said: I and I only am the way, I and I only am the truth, I and I only am the life, no-one comes to the Father except through Me (John 14:6). The early Church taught exactly the same message. In Acts 4:12 Peter made this bold declaration in the grounds of the Jerusalem Temple: Salvation is found in no-one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved. In 1993 the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland was presented with a resolution calling on the churches to reaffirm that Jesus Christ was the only way of salvation.

This motion was defeated by four hundred votes to three hundred [Brian Edwards, The Ten Commandments for Today, p.58]. Yet those same delegates all possessed Bibles that contained sentences like this: 11I, even I, am the Lord, and apart from me there is no saviour. 12 I have revealed and saved and proclaimed— I, and not some foreign god among you. You are my witnesses, declares the Lord, that I am God (Isaiah 43:11-12). This is not a new challenge. I was shocked to note

the observation made by the leading Evangelical Christian politician and social reformer, William Ashley (Lord Shaftsbury), who wrote in his diary, as early as 18 March 1868 the following point: ‘The larger proportion of those who profess to believe are eagerly eliminating from their creed all dogma and doctrine. They accept the Scripture just as far as it suits their philosophy. Such will be the religion of the future, in which Vishnu, Mahomet [sic], Jupiter and Jesus Christ, will be upon a level; with some, all equally good, with others, all equally bad.’ This is not fifty years ago when we might have expected such comments to have been made, but nearly 150 years ago at a time when Evangelical Christianity was at its most influential in our national life. What does the Bible teach on this subject?

1. An Exclusive Relationship Demanded in the Old Testament 1

(a)A Shocking Revelation Although undoubtedly the first humans alive were aware of the one true God, it is most revealing that when God spoke to Abraham, the Father of the Jewish nation, that he was a follower of the moon god Sin, like his family. Were there no faithful believing people alive from whose ranks a man of God could be found? If the answer to that question is ‘no’, then it is both appallingly sad and shocking, but also provides very real hope because God intervened in the life of a man and his wife who had not previously know His name or had any kind of relationship with Him. When the Jewish faith was practised in the Patriarchal Period all the surrounding nations believed in a plurality of nature and fertility gods. Anyone proclaiming belief in one true God would have been seen as decidedly odd.

Likewise in Moses’ day in Egypt and beyond the same situation pertained. The idea that there was a golden age in the past when everyone believed in the one true God is simply untrue.

There are many temptations to believe in other gods whether they are of religious or secular origins. In the light of such a universal reality in their world and ours, God says: You shall have no other gods before Me (Exodus 20:3). A.W. Tozer (1897-1963) once said, in his classic text Knowledge of the Holy: The essence of idolatry is the entertainment of thoughts about God that are unworthy of Him. I believe there is scarcely an error in doctrine or a failure in applying Christian Ethics that cannot be traced finally to imperfect and ignoble thoughts about God . When the Jewish faith was

established in the time of Abraham, God promised to make a covenant or agreement with this man and his descendents, so that He would be their God and they would be His people (Genesis 17:7-8). This was a special revelation that some years previously had transformed the lives of Abram and his extended family, though most were unwilling to give up their comfortable lives to travel to the land which the Lord would later reveal to them. Yet Abram and Sarah entrusted their lives to the One who had called them to follow Him. This is no different in many respects to the call God gives to you and me today to follow Him in a world of many voices inviting us to live contrasting lifestyles to that which is commended in God’s Word. (b) A Foundational Revelation This commandment is the ground of all the other nine. Arthur Pink once wrote: if the first commandment received the respect it deserved, obedience to the other nine would follow as a matter of course [Gleanings in Exodus, p161]. It is impossible to truly follow the Lord and other gods at the same time. This is a statement of the obvious, like 2x2=4. Yet time and again the people of Israel needed to be reminded of the requirement of faithfulness in their relationship with God. Joshua, Moses’ successor at the end of his life put this solemn challenge to the Israelite nation concerning their exclusive relationship with Him: Now fear the Lord and serve Him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your forefathers worshipped beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. 15 But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.16 Then the people answered, Far be it from us to forsake the Lord to serve other gods!17 It was the Lord our God Himself who brought us and our fathers up out of Egypt, from that land of slavery, and performed those great signs before our eyes. He protected us on our entire journey and among all the nations through which we travelled. 18 And the Lord drove out before us all the nations, including the Amorites, who lived in the land. We too will serve the Lord, because He is our God (Joshua 24:14-18). This special relationship was often described as a

marriage between God and Israel. Hosea used this picture of the special relationship between God and His people in his book to declare the faithfulness of God, but the unfaithfulness of the Jewish people to their Lord. This painful reality was illustrated by Gomer, Hosea’s wife, who was repeatedly unfaithful to him, yet he kept taking her back and seeking to restore their marriage relationship, explaining to the nation that their behaviour, spiritually-speaking, was like that of his wife. This demand of God for the exclusive obedience of His people is true jealousy. This characteristic in a human being is a vice, but is a necessary virtue in God. We may be jealous of another person’s talents or possessions or status, because we want in essence to change places with them and are dissatisfied with our lot. By contrast, God lacks 2

nothing that we possess and is only demanding that which is His by right. He alone has the right to worship from His creatures as He is our creator. The words here before Me were used at that time with reference to marriage and the exclusive union that entailed, when a couple swore total loyalty and commitment to one another. Another usage of these words is seen in Exodus 23:15, 17, in the context of worshipping God. (c) A Disobeyed Revelation The Jewish people time and again turned their backs on the Lord their God. As early as Judges 2: 10-15, describing the generation after Joshua’s lifetime, there are these depressing words: After that whole generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation grew up, who knew neither the Lord nor what He had done for Israel. 11 Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord and served the Baals.12 They forsook the Lord, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of Egypt. They followed and worshipped various gods of the peoples around them. They provoked the Lord to anger 13 because they forsook Him and served Baal and the Ashtoreths. 14 In His anger against Israel the Lord handed them over to raiders who plundered them. He sold them to their enemies all around, whom they were no longer able to resist. 15 Whenever Israel went out to fight, the hand of the Lord was against them to defeat them, just as He had sworn to them. They were in great distress. There was a repeated pattern in the books of Samuel. Kings and Chronicles of wilful

sin, judgement, repentance; the nation and their various rulers in the two kingdoms of Israel and Judah rarely ever grasped how they ought to have been living. Even the most committed kings like Josiah and Hezekiah could not eradicate this bias towards idolatry and turning away from the God who had redeemed them from Egypt. By Jeremiah’s day the decline was so bad that idol worship was even taking place in the Temple courts, including Ishtar/ Astarte, the goddess of love/sex/fertility, known to her followers as the ‘Queen of Heaven’.

In his famous and powerful Temple sermon in Jeremiah, the prophet in anguish of heart pleads with the people to turn back to their God. However God’s message to His servant concerning his sinful nation was very solemn: So do not pray for this people nor offer any plea or petition for them; do not plead with me, for I will not listen to you. 17 Do you not see what they are doing in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? 18 The children gather wood, the fathers light the fire, and the women knead the dough and make cakes of bread for the Queen of Heaven.

They pour out drink offerings to other gods to provoke me to anger. 19 But am I the one they are provoking? declares the Lord. Are they not rather harming themselves, to their own shame?

(Jeremiah 7:16-19). Did they heed his call for repentance over the remaining years of his ministry? No! In fact the very opposite was the case. In Jeremiah 44: 15-19 there is a record of it towards the end of his ministry with their frank response: Then all the men who knew that their wives were burning incense to other gods, along with all the women who were present— a large assembly— and all the people living in Lower and Upper Egypt, said to Jeremiah, 16 We will not listen to the message you have spoken to us in the name of the Lord! 17 We will certainly do everything we said we would: We will burn incense to the Queen of Heaven and will pour out drink offerings to her just as we and our fathers, our kings and our officials did in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. At that time we had plenty of food and were well off and suffered no harm. 18 But ever since we stopped burning incense to the Queen of Heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, we have had nothing and have been perishing by sword and famine. 19 The women added, When we burned incense to the Queen of Heaven and poured out drink offerings to her, did not our husbands know that we were making cakes like her image and pouring out drink offerings to her? The extent

of the departure from loyalty to Yahweh even affected people who were otherwise outwardly committed to the God of Israel. For example, Jonathan, Saul’s son and King David’s closest friend was one of many Israelites over the centuries who named their children after pagan gods, in his case, his son Merib-Baal (I Chronicles 8:34; or as ‘son of shame’ Mephibosheth II Samuel 4:4, 9:6); (We might also wonder if this child’s disability and his banishment from public view –as happened with children from our own Royal family with disabilities well into the Twentieth Century- was connected with the choice of names given to him. This is an issue our own society has only begun to address in recent years.) Yet the story ends well through the pain and suffering of the exile in Babylon after 587/6BC. The Jews were 3

determined never to return to idolatry and to honour this commandment. After their return around seventy years later they ensured the keeping of this commitment. They honoured it with the blood of many of their number when the evil Greek ruler Antiochus Epiphanes IV desecrated the altar in the Jerusalem Temple by offering swine’s flesh upon it. A Jewish guerrilla-army was established that eventually defeated the mighty occupying army. They were all prepared to die rather than violate this commandment. At last the message had got through.

2. An Exclusive Relationship Enforced in the New Testament (a) Clear Monotheism proclaimed Jesus told Satan during His time of testing: Away from me, Satan! For it is written: 'Worship the Lord your God, and serve Him only ' (Matthew 4:10). This clear response was given to the tempter after he had asked Jesus to worship him. This was no off-the-cuff response from Jesus. He repeated the same message on other occasions. The first commandment was non-negotiable to Jesus. In a discussion with a religious lawyer in Luke 10:23-28, the Ten Commandments were emphasised as central to obtaining eternal life for this Jew; 25 On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. Teacher, he asked, what must I do to inherit eternal life? 26 What is written in the Law? he replied. How do you read it? 27 He answered: 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and, 'Love your neighbour as yourself.' 28 You have answered correctly, Jesus replied. Do this and you will live. This quotation from Deuteronomy 6:5,

following a repetition of the Ten Commandments in the previous chapter, is strengthened by some very solemn words in Deuteronomy 6:13-15: Fear the Lord your God, serve Him only and take your oaths in His name. 14 Do not follow other gods, the gods of the peoples around you; 15 for the Lord your God, who is among you, is a jealous God and His anger will burn against you, and He will destroy you from the face of the land. Paul makes similar points in his writings: Romans 11:36: For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory for ever!

Amen. In Ephesians 4:6 Paul declares that there is only: one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. God alone is worthy of worship and praise. (b) Clear

Trinitarianism proclaimed The New Testament combines an emphasis on the one true God with the insistence that He revealed Himself in the persons of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. In Titus 2:13 Paul states: we wait for the blessed hope— the glorious appearing of our great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ. Jesus spoke of the Spirit in personal terms. When the Counsellor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, He will testify about Me (John 15:26); In John 16:7-8 Jesus spoke of the Spirit in similar terms: But I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counsellor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you. 8 When He comes, He will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment : Notice the baptismal

language Jesus uses with respect the God under whose auspices the ceremony is carried out: Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age (Matthew 28:19-20). Notice here it is

name (singular) not names (plural); that is one God but in three persons. Note also the grace we often use to close services on a Sunday: May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all (II Corinthians 13:14). It is explicitly Trinitarian in form. (c) Clear Condemnation of Materialism There is a huge New Testament emphasis on not allowing material possessions or our financial strength (if we are privileged to be in that position!) to take a higher place in our affections than God; Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount stated, in Matthew 6:24-25: No-one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money. 25 Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will 4

eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? The remedy in contrast to this common perspective on life is given in Matthew 6:33: But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well . The challenge to the rich young ruler to give away his wealth and

instead have treasure in heaven was given to a person Jesus knew was controlled by what he possessed (Mark 10:17-31). Do you own your possessions or do they control you? How do we value the things we own? Are there things we cannot do without –if we had to? This is a very tough question for Western Christians like us. There is no quick answer to these questions. We can get too comfortable in this world and loose touch with how short our stay here is.

3. An Exclusive Relationship Required Today This means: A What we exclude: (a)Divine Consorts are excluded This may seem a strange issue to raise that is irrelevant to us here. If this is true-praise God! However, some New Agers and strands of the Green environmental movement are devoted to Gaia, Mother earth, and speak of her with almost the language of deity. Some feminist theologians appear more concerned to fashion God in their own feminist image rather than exalt in the God of the Bible. Some strands of traditionalist Roman Catholicism have a view of Mary that is also idolatry. Gabriel Roschini, [in his book The Marian Era, Vol.3, p. 34] wrote: Mary transcends all other creatures…she is not at the base or centre of the universe, but at its summit, and she is there at its apex…Above her there is only One: God…She immerses herself in the infinite luminous sphere of the Most holy Trinity. She was and will be the beloved Daughter of the father, the affectionate Mother of the Son, and the Faithful Spouse of the Holy Spirit. She is related to the three divine persons and belongs to their family, a family which transcends all human families, that is, all that is created. This is idolatry to use such language of a creature, even one so highly respected as

Mary. It was most disturbing that Pope Pius XII designated Mary as the ‘Queen of Heaven’, in a papal bull, as recently as 1950, despite this title being so repugnant to God and condemned in the book of Jeremiah. Equally disturbing was the fact that some medieval images of Mary were replicas of statues of the pagan goddess given that title and condemned

by Jeremiah. God is neither male nor female. All the positive characteristics of fatherhood and the positive feminine virtues are supremely found in God, although He has chosen to reveal Himself using masculine gender pronouns. Jesus was not afraid likewise to define His love for people in similarly exclusive terms: O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing (Matthew 23:37). Psalm 91:4a uses

the same imagery to speak of the love of God the Father for His people. Let us always be careful to use the biblical language and terms that God has revealed to us of His nature and character qualities. (b) Occultism is excluded This was stressed very strongly in the Old Testament with very severe punishments given for infringements of the law. Visits to palm readers, mediums, or similar persons, together with attempts to contact the dead in séances and similar activities are all prohibited. How often spiritual deception of a naïve individual who unconsciously gives away information that may be fed back to them after some form of telepathy has been used to obtain details of the life of the deceased person they wish to contact. We laugh at the horoscopes, but some people live their lives by them, despite numerous stories emerging from various newspapers of other staff members making up horoscopes when the columnist is on holiday and finding no difference in the responses from devotees of that section of the newspaper. Occult films and books of that genre are to be explicitly avoided and repentance sought from the Lord if we have participated in this kind of activity. In the Church at Ephesus under Paul’s ministry a number of people were converted from belonging to these kinds of 5

religious groups. Acts 19:18-20: Many of those who believed now came and openly confessed their evil deeds.19 A number who had practised sorcery brought their scrolls together and burned them publicly. When they calculated the value of the scrolls, the total came to fifty thousand drachmas. 20 In this way the word of the Lord spread widely and grew in power. Fifty thousand drachmas was the

equivalent of a few million pounds in today’s money. No wonder the whole city, twice the size of Dundee in population (c.300,000) was deeply affected by this response to God at that time, by these new converts to Christianity. (c) Other Secular Ideologies are excluded (i) Materialism Is your /my attitude any different from the average citizen of our country to possessions? It should be! Is it always necessary to purchase the latest….? How many adverts urge us to have our lives transformed by the purchase of products we had not previously heard of and which would be, at best, of marginal benefit to us if we purchased them? Paul wrote these wise words to Timothy: But godliness with contentment is great gain. 7 For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. 8 But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. 9 People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction.10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs (I Timothy 6:6-10). Do I

really need that promotion and lose time for family and God? Do I need that extra money the new job ‘promises’-or is the cost too high? (ii) Hedonism In 1985 American social critic Neil Postman wrote a classic text: Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the age of Show Business. Television, the Internet in its many forms; Facebook; Twitter; as well as traditional media like theatre, cinema and familiar sports; the options are endless –but do they dominate our lives or is our interest proportionate? One newspaper claimed that 25% of divorce petitions in the UK mention activity on Facebook as a contributory factor to the demise of marriages -it is a warning to be wise in our choices of entertainments. (iii) Heroworshipping pop-stars, sports figures even TV preachers or? Keep our eyes on the One who alone is worthy of adoration, the Lord Jesus Christ.

B. How we behave (i) A Recognition of who God is Take time to meditate on the greatness and glory of our wonderful God who alone is entitled to our supreme allegiance and devotion. (ii)A Recognition of God’s love for us He gave His Son to save us –no greater love than this. (iii) A Recognition of God’s requirements from us –the total dedication of our lives (Romans 12:1-2) (iv) Three tests to apply to our lives (a)The Money Test Look at your spending over the last full month, for example, exclude the essential items –what impression comes from our spending choices from our disposable income? Would it reveal Christ-honouring priorities? (b) The Thought Test When you actually are alone with free time (it does exist!) – what subjects most excite you, take up the majority of that time? ‘We are not what we think we are. What we think, we are (David Searle, And then there were nine…, p.24); (c) The Time Test How do you allocate your free time? Combining the results of these three tests will be very revealing of what is most important to us. May we never forget that God said: You shall have no other gods before Me (Exodus 20:3), Amen.

6

Exodus 20:4-6 No Idols!

Introduction The first commandment prohibited worshipping false gods. By contrast the second commandment prohibits worshipping the true God in inappropriate ways. Exodus 20:4-6 states: You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. 5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments. After a simple reading of the text it appears that this is

possibly the easiest commandment to keep. After all, have any of us here been tempted to make a representation of God in wood, metal or stone, set it up in our homes and then bow down to it? No? I didn’t think so! However, it involves much more than that, although for some people the subject of worshipping or adoring representations of God or some heavenly being is still a live issue. In 1878 China suffered one of its worst famines. It was reported that around seventy million people were dying of starvation. This was an extraordinarily high proportion of the population at that time. Confucian scholar Hsi Shengmo remembered the fear he had experienced as a boy from gazing on the grizzled faces of the carved idols in his village. The idols had not been central to worship in the community until the famine began to take a serious hold and hundreds of thousands of people were dying. The villagers decided that it might be the gods that were responsible so they honoured them in a variety of ways with feasts and other celebrations; performing shows in front of them to entertain them, but still the rains did not come. Having tried ‘the carrot’ approach and failed, they decided to try ‘the stick’ approach of leaving the idols exposed in the blazing sun. Their paint peeled and they looked much the worse for wear, but still no change with the famine. In exactly the same way as the Baals could not help their prophets in the challenge with Elijah on Mount Carmel (I Kings 18:16-29), these idols were found out as useless. Hsi Shengmo became convinced through this episode that there must be a higher power than these idols, it was to lead to his acceptance of Christ [Brian Edwards, The Ten Commandments for Today, p. 78]. As Augustine (354430AD) the great Algerian Christian theologian once declared, there is a God-shaped ‘hole’ in every life and people are yearning to fill it. The vast majority of people will worship something, there are very few consistent atheists, as it is too hard to close your eyes to the evidence for God in the world around us (Romans1:19-25). John Paton, the former Glasgow City Missioner, who did such an extraordinary work amongst the Pacific Islanders (New Hebrides), also spent a short time in Australia with Aboriginal people. He was greatly disturbed that a significant proportion of the population viewed these native Australians as no different to the animals in the bush. One of the ‘reasons’ for this folly was the claim that they showed no traces of evidence of the worship of any deity. Eventually an Aboriginal friend was persuaded to talk about their beliefs and the man produced a little bag filled with tiny pebbles, representations of their deities. Some bad experiences with white men had led to a reticence to talk about their beliefs as they did not wish to experience further ridicule concerning their beliefs. Paton was convinced that a careful search of all human people groups would provide evidence of the worship of God or gods. He declared: ‘Nor do I believe that any tribe of man will ever be found, who, when their language and customs are rightly 1

interpreted, will not display their consciousness of the need of a God, and that divine capacity of holding fellowship with the unseen powers, of which the brutes (animals) are without one faintest trace.’ Therefore, although at first glance this commandment may appear less relevant to our lives today, this is not the case in practice.

1. The Rule from God (Exodus 20:4-5) You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. 5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; The other commandments follow naturally on from the first one. If God truly has the first place in our lives then we will naturally want to honour Him in the way He has guided and directed us. What was the purpose of this law? People in the ancient world generally believed that by producing carved representations of their gods that they were bringing themselves into closer contact with them. So the intention was to worship the god ‘behind’ the image representing it, but so easily the two could become confused and the object itself gained some kind of sacred status in the mind of the worshipper. This commandment ensured that obedient Israelites would be unlikely to make the same mistake as their Canaanite neighbours. After all no visual representation of God could possibly be accurate and therefore it must be classified as ‘an idol’. So step one was the prohibition of the creation of these ‘aids to worship’. Step two was the banning of these objects in worship services. So pictures, icons, statues or any other religious artefacts were forbidden as representations of God or heavenly beings; However, this was not a ban on religious art or similar crafts. After all Moses was instructed by God to create all kinds of beautiful things for the tabernacle in the desert, including on the Ark of the Covenant: 18 And make two cherubim out of hammered gold at the ends of the cover.19 Make one cherub on one end and the second cherub on the other; make the cherubim of one piece with the cover, at the two ends. 20 The cherubim are to have their wings spread upwards, overshadowing the cover with them. The cherubim are to face each other, looking towards the cover. 21 Place the cover on top of the ark and put in the ark the Testimony, which I will give you.

22 There, above the cover between the two cherubim that are over the ark of the Testimony, I will meet with you and give you all my commands for the Israelites (Exodus 25:18-22). The purpose of the

ban was to insist that God who in His essential nature is a spiritual being is not restricted within a material object or a particular geographical location. Isaiah in a number of passages attempts to explain the distance between God and humanity. Isaiah 57:15, for example states: For this is what the high and lofty One says— He who lives for ever, whose name is holy: I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite . A couple of chapters earlier on the same them, Isaiah represents God as saying: For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. 9 As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts (Isaiah 55:8-9). Therefore God’s big concern was that

their worship be exclusively of Him, not any object they had created.

2. The Response from Humanity (a)The Clarity of the prophets’ messages There are plenty of Old Testament passages that condemn idol worship, but none so clearly and powerfully as those of the prophet Isaiah. In chapter 40 verses 18-20 it states: To whom, then, will you compare God? What image will you compare him to? 19 As for an idol, a craftsman casts it, and a goldsmith overlays it with gold and fashions silver chains for it. 20 A man too poor to present such an offering selects wood that will not rot. He looks for a skilled craftsman to set up an idol that will not topple . Isaiah 44: 14-20 is a fuller exposure of such folly: 14 He cut down cedars, or perhaps took a cypress or oak. He let it grow among the trees of the forest, or planted a pine, and the rain made it grow. 15 It is man's fuel for 2

burning; some of it he takes and warms himself, he kindles a fire and bakes bread. But he also fashions a god and worships it; he makes an idol and bows down to it. 16 Half of the wood he burns in the fire; over it he prepares his meal, he roasts his meat and eats his fill. He also warms himself and says, Ah! I am warm; I see the fire. 17 From the rest he makes a god, his idol; he bows down to it and worships. He prays to it and says, Save me; you are my god. 18 They know nothing, they understand nothing; their eyes are plastered over so that they cannot see, and their minds closed so that they cannot understand. 19 No-one stops to think, no-one has the knowledge or understanding to say, Half of it I used for fuel; I even baked bread over its coals, I roasted meat and I ate. Shall I make a detestable thing from what is left? Shall I bow down to a block of wood? 20 He feeds on ashes, a deluded heart misleads him; he cannot save himself; or say, Is not this thing in my right hand a lie?

Isaiah goes on to give a historical example of the Babylonian gods Bel and Nebo after their empire was brought crashing to the ground. Isaiah 46:1-2 records the cruel irony of their impotence: Bel bows down, Nebo stoops low; their idols are borne by beasts of burden. The images that are carried about are burd ensome, a burden for the weary. 2 They stoop and bow down together; unable to rescue the burden, they themselves go off into captivity. Idols cannot save people, only the Lord God, the Creator and Redeemer of His people can do so. Only once as far as I know did a ruler in the Ancient Near East seek to impose a form of monotheism on a nation. Akhenaten (known as Amenhotep IV) ruled for 17 years and died around 1336 BC or 1334 BC. He is especially noted for abandoning traditional Egyptian polytheism and introducing worship centered on Aten, the sun god. It didn’t work as too many temple priest stood to loose their jobs and status in the land! So after his death things returned to normal and a commitment to worship many gods. (b) The challenge to Israel’s conduct Down the centuries there was a consistent faithful minority who stood firm for the Lord against the idolatry that was endemic in the pagan nations around them. Prophets like Elijah and Elisha stood firm even in the darkest days when the majority turned their backs on the God of Israel.

Even godly kings like Hezekiah (II Kings 18-20 and Josiah II Kings 22-23:30) could not eradicate such practices despite this tribute after his death: Hezekiah trusted in the Lord, the God of Israel. There was no-one like him among all the kings of Judah, either before him or after him. 6 He held fast to the Lord and did not cease to follow H im; he kept the commands the Lord had given Moses. 7And the Lord was with him; he was successful in whatever he undertook (II Kings 18:5-7). The extent of the problem was seen in the conduct of the Israelites while Moses was still on the mountain communicating with the Lord. Exodus 32:1-8 records: When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered round Aaron and said, Come, make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don't know what has happened to him. 2 Aaron answered them, Take off the gold ear-rings that your wives, your sons and your daughters are wearing, and bring them to me. 3 So all the people took off their ear-rings and brought them to Aaron. 4 He took what they handed him and made it into an idol cast in the shape of a calf, fashioning it with a tool. Then they said, These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt. 5 When Aaron saw this, he built an altar in front of the calf and announced, Tomorrow there will be a festival to the Lord. 6 So the next day the people rose early and sacrificed burnt offerings and presented fellowship offerings. Afterwards they sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry. 7 Then the Lord said to Moses, Go down, because your people, whom you brought up out of Egypt, have become corrupt. 8 They have been quick to turn away from what I commanded them and have made themselves an idol cast in the shape of a calf. They have bowed down to it and sacrificed to it and have said, 'These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt . A government or some other authority can

change the outward appearance of its citizens or the public activities they are allowed to engage in, but it cannot legislate for the desires and aspiration of the human heart. The Israelites wanted an object on which to focus in worship. They struggled to accept the plainer and more simple form of worship God had commanded. Church buildings and their ornamentation do tell a lot about the approach to worship of the opinion formers of that congregation. Some of our spiritual ancestors may have gone over the top in insisting on 3

whitewashed walls in churches with only the Ten Commandments written on the walls, but what they were striving for, the purity of worship, was essential. Our focus must be on Him and God alone. No visual images can accurately represent Him, and therefore are misrepresentations and in violation of this principle. The Israelites here and later after the kingdoms of Israel and Judah divided, Jereboam II, ruler of the northern kingdom of Israel erected a similar statue in the key towns of Bethel and Dan: Jeroboam thought to himself, The kingdom is now likely to revert to the house of David. 27 If these people go up to offer sacrifices at the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem, they will again give their allegiance to their lord, Rehoboam king of Judah. They will kill me and return to King Rehoboam. 28 After seeking advice, the king made two golden calves. He said to the people, It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem. Here are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt. 29 One he set up in Bethel, and the other in Dan. 30 And this thing became a sin; the people went even as far as Dan to worship the one there (I Kings

12:26-30). These calf images were meant to represent Yahweh the God of Israel, but the Lord had not asked for this new expression of worship to be introduced. Even legitimate objects used in the worship of God could take on a significance that God never intended for them.

For example, the Ark of the Covenant was the ornate box that carried the Ten Commandments on tablets of stone. They were processed through the streets on occasions and rightly respected as it caused people to think of the God who gave these laws to His people. However, in I Samuel 4 there is the account of a time when the Israelites were living lives displeasing to God and they were defeated by their old enemies the Philistines. What was the response to this wake-up call? Did it bring them to their knees to repent of their sin? I Samuel 4:3-5 states: When the soldiers returned to camp, the elders of Israel asked, Why did the Lord bring defeat upon us today before the Philistines? Let us bring the ark of the Lord's covenant from Shiloh, so that it may go with us and save us from the hand of our enemies. 4 So the people sent men to Shiloh, and they brought back the ark of the covenant of the Lord Almighty, who is enthroned between the cherubim. And Eli's two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, were there with the ark of the covenant of God. 5 When the ark of the Lord's covenant came into the camp, all Israel raised such a great shout that the ground shook. This was a God-honouring piece of craftsmanship built on

the instructions of God and played a part in Israelite worship, but it was not a magical object that could transform their situation. The nation needed to confess its sin of turning away from God and get right with Him, before their problems at that time could be addressed. It was no surprise that the next battle was lost even more heavily because they had missed the point altogether. Likewise today it is not the form of worship services, or our choice of words in private prayer, for example, that makes the difference, most of all, it is the attitude of our hearts towards God that is key. Only in the exile period was there that wholehearted commitment to exclude idols and worship the Lord as He had demanded. It was a hard lesson for them to learn. Does God have first place in your life and mine or does some other person or interest usurp His place?

3. The Reinforcement from Jesus (John 4: 21-24) Jesus did not directly quote this Second Commandment, but in His discussions with the woman at the well in Samaria there is a clear statement of His perspective on this topic. John 4:21-24 states: Jesus declared, Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshippers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and His worshippers must worship in spirit and in truth. On another occasion Jesus saw His disciples marvelling at the amazing engineering

skills required to erect the massive Temple complex in Jerusalem. They had every reason to be amazed at a time when there was no heavy-lifting gear, no cranes or other equipment we 4

take for granted today on civil engineering projects. (Matthew 24:1: Jesus left the temple and was walking away when His disciples came up to Him to call His attention to its buildings.) In response He warned them that the day would come when they would be taken apart block by block and be a pile of ruins, as it was barely forty years later. The essence of Jesus’ teaching was this –our priority is not a particular building but the purity and sincerity of our acts of worship. It is irrelevant in God’s eyes whether our Sunday services are in a consecrated building or a hired hall; what He is concerned about is that it is in spirit and in truth. Over the next few years we may be out of our premises on a Sunday for a period of time, but this should in no way affect the due offering of praise and worship to the Lord to which He is entitled. Jesus had made a point of worshipping in a local synagogue each Saturday morning, as well as the Jerusalem Temple, on the occasions when He participated in the major festivals. But His main concern was whether people were truly worshipping God and seeking Him with their whole hearts, regardless of the geographical location.

4. The Relevance for today (a)A right view of God in contrast to idolatry God gives purpose and meaning and fulfilment to my life God governs the choices I make in my life God is the central focus of my whole way of life God is often in my thoughts and I get enthusiastic when I think about Him God’s Word /His promises comfort and encourage me when I am feeling down God comes up in my conversations with other people, especially with others that also are following Him [based on J. John Ten p.244] I desire to be more like Him and to follow Him more closely Pause for reflection: if you replaced ‘God’ with your career, hobbies, possessions, sport, music, sex or relationships or? Would the above be more accurate for you /me? Idolatry in essence is placing a higher focus on something/ someone other than God; (b) What kind of inappropriate images might people have today? There are many so only a few can be reflected on here: (i)Wealth the obsession with the lottery and other forms of gambling leaves many people obsessed with obtaining a lifestyle 99.9%+ of them can never have; how many have run up debts of multiple thousands on credit cards chasing an illusory dream. (ii) The Body For some strange reason models in clothes magazines etc all tend to be young slim and beautiful; far too often unhealthily thin which can cause not only for some models, but also many insecure young people problems with anorexia or bulimia; the recent controversy over faulty breast implants sold in their thousands to women without a medically diagnosed need of them, together with the growing cosmetic surgery industry amongst men as well as women, must be a concern about the perceived body image at least some of these people have of themselves –one that is less than healthy. (iii)Power Why do people seek office in local regional and national government? Many have good motives to help the less well-off, but how many remain committed to such ideals as they climb ‘the greasy pole’ of party hierarchy? Likewise in positions of power / office in the workplace or even church to ask how am I using this position for God’s glory or the common good? Or is it primarily to benefit me or enhance my CV? Daniel and Esther are two biblical examples of people who kept their focus on God in an exalted public office. (iv)Sex /Relationships How many people live their lives through the characters in their favourite soaps? How many do so because they are dissatisfied with their own lives? The message that comes out through many magazines and televisions shows and feature films is that having a wild sex life with a steady stream of different partners is what brings fulfilment 5

to people? It has never been easier for men and women to access pornography from the comfort of their own homes; never been easier to set up and conduct affairs in an increasingly fragmented society. However, the statistics of broken marriages and the much faster disintegration of the relationships of people cohabiting outside of marriage suggest that this popular idol is a very cruel master. This idol is irrelevant in a world where from a third to two-thirds of the population may be single at any one time. Our security and fulfilment have to be in God not in unrealistic expectations of relationships. (v)Fame In the last decade the celebrity culture is predominant; once it was just Hollywood film stars now celebrity chefs, footballers pop stars even businessmen; shows like Big Brother and more recently X Factor, Pop Idol and others you could add that potentially give ordinary citizens a moment of fame. Now in certain industries you need air time and publicity to get a career off the ground, but something more is taking place at the present time, that appears less than healthy. (c) What kind of idolatry might be a problem in your workplace (i) Security finding our security in our career, trusting it to give us our identity; but what happens when redundancy occurs? (ii) Significance God intended work to be fulfilling and a cause for satisfaction when a job is well done, but the significance of our lives must be greater than that found in work alone. Some companies like my first employer after university had lost a sense of perspective regarding its place in their employees’ lives. (iii) Control so easy to abuse a position to treat others unfairly in work rotas, holiday entitlement and a whole lot more issues, or to favour a few friends at the expense of other employees. Or at the higher management level setting salary / pension arrangements that disproportionately favour a few at the expense of the many; (d) Overcoming idolatry John at the very end of his first letter wrote: Dear children, keep yourselves from idols (I John 5:21). Idols cheat us of the freedom and fulfilment God wants each one of us to have in life, whether single or married; old or young, waged or unwaged The idol of nationalism from the Balkans to parts of Africa and Asia, won’t bring ultimate happiness. Neither should it be that significant which side wins the Referendum vote in a couple of years time! Idols lie about what they can deliver for us. They steal our affection, but ultimately leave people dissatisfied, disillusioned and sometimes even dehumanized in the modern world today. Jeremiah long ago wrote: The whole human race is foolish and has no knowledge! The craftsmen are disgraced by the idols they make, for their carefully shaped works are a fraud. These idols have no breath or power (Jeremiah 10:14 NLT). By contrast to following

idols and all the ultimate disappointment they will bring, follow Jesus –put Him first in your life and know through the good and the bad, the happy and the sad times, the fulfilment He alone can bring. Take away with you these words of Jesus from John 10:10: The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full, Amen.

6

Exodus 20:7 Watch what you say!

Introduction You are sitting down with your spouse and the newborn baby boy, what shall we call himwhat about Adolf? I could probably wager my mortgage securely in the fact that no couple associated with this church ever had that conversation. A name once unremarkable in Germany prior to the Nazi era, now conjures up images of the evil Fuhrer whose actions were infamous and unforgettable. Names matter words are significant. On 15 October 2011 in a game of football at Anfield between Liverpool and Manchester United, Luis Suarez the centre forward for Liverpool FC, called the Manchester United full-back Patrice Evra a ‘negro’. Suarez apparently claimed that in his home country of Uruguay this was an acceptable name to use to a person with darker than average skin colour. The fact that the two footballers had struggled to get on during the match ensured that outside observers appeared less than convinced by this explanation. He was subsequently banned for eight games. Names matter; the significance of words associated with names matters. The old saying: ‘Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never harm me’ is total nonsense. If this is true concerning fellow humans –how do we approach this subject with respect to God? In current British society an alarmingly high number of people routinely take God’s name in vain as a mere figure of speech. An interesting example occurred on Monday 13 February on the Today programme on Radio 4. The context was a debate between Revd Giles Fraser, former Canon of St Paul’s Cathedral, and Richard Dawkins, representing his new organisation: ‘The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science’. Dawkins was waxing eloquent regarding his claim that ‘the majority of professing Christians were not real Christians’ because when stopped in the street and quizzed on their beliefs they could not identify the title of the first book of the New Testament. Revd Fraser then turned the tables by asking a simple question: Richard, if I said to you what is the full title of The Origin Of Species, I’m sure you could tell me that. Dawkins: Yes I could. Fraser: Go on then.

Dawkins: On the Origin of Species…Uh…With, oh, God, On the Origin of Species. There is a sub-title with respect to the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life. [Daily Telegraph, 14 February 2012]

In this context I’m not interested in Dawkins’ inability to pass a test of his own making, rather in his moment of panic the fact that he took God’s name in vain so naturally and easily without any awareness of what he had just done. The fact that some of the columnists who wrote about the exchange didn’t mention it either also speaks volumes about how pervasive this problem is in our society. Exodus 20:7 tells us: You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses His name . It is important to be aware that this commandment covers more than simply the use or non-use of particular words. The name of the Lord is a representation of all that God stands for with respect to His laws, His standards as well as the honour due to His being. It can by extension on occasions include the treatment of those who speak or witness for Him when they are verbally or physically attacked because they are representing God. Saul of Tarsus was profoundly shocked to hear what Jesus had to say in their encounter on the Damascus Road, recorded in Acts 9:4b-5: Saul, Saul, why do you persecute Me? 5 Who are you, Lord? Saul asked. I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting, He replied. This fanatical young Jew thought he was merely attacking followers of a heretical Jewish sect. It never occurred to him that his wrongful acts were by extension seen as attacks upon the One they were representing. However, our focus in this message is the teaching of this Third Commandment with reference directly to God. The breach of this statute is normally through speech. Banning inappropriate speech is something human nature struggles with. James reminds us that: The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell. 7 All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and creatures of the 1

sea are being tamed and have been tamed by man, 8 but no man can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison (James 3:6-8). His key point is that words we utter can be capable of

the greatest good or irreparable harm to other people; therefore, we must be careful in the choice of words we speak.

1. Reverence for God’s Name (a)The Importance of honouring His Name At the start of Exodus 20 prior to the giving of the Ten Commandments there is the revelation of the name of the One who is giving this sacred Law to the Jewish people. I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt…

(Exodus 20:2). God’s name stands for all that He is, for the glory of His majestic person, the living, the Almighty, the all-holy God, and for the glories of His character as One who is allknowing, all-good, ever-loving and merciful Father. It is important to note that the strongest warnings against breaking any commandments concern the second commandment against idolatry and the third here against the misuse of His name for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses His name. Why is this the case? It is possible that breaches of the next seven commandments could be addressed under the judicial system of Israelite society, but the earlier three commandments are between the individual and God. However, this is simply speculation as only God knows why there is such an emphasis here. It is possible that God gives these safeguards because human beings would regard their breach as a trivial or minor thing rather than the serious offence against the honour due to His holy name. This being so, it is a serious challenging of attitudes within our culture today. (b) The Significance of Names (i) Authority when we see a police officer or member of the Armed Forces in uniform we see far more than an individual man or woman. It is what they are representing on duty by the uniform in the name of our country. To a lesser degree the same principle applies with other forms of work dress, but the degree of authority is less. (ii) Power Someone’s ‘name’ in our culture covers their reputation and when that is wrongly called into question then there is the potential for slander or libel proceedings –for those who have the wealth to afford the risk of taking such a matter to court. Think for a moment of the most famous names in business of the current era. What image of a car do you have when you think of a Rolls Royce or Mercedes Benz, is it not very different to that of a Trabant or the Yugo? How would you view the mention of a Rolex or an Apple Product? (iii) Character Names mean so much more than mere labels they stand for an identity and offer a clear message to those who heed what they are communicating. This is why the advertising budgets of major corporations is so large. They are determined that the way their products are viewed will be shaped by their own presentation and message, even when the general public has a good idea already. The intention is to reinforce the character they wish to portray of themselves. (c) God’s view of His Name God was concerned that the people of Israel represented Him accurately before the nations and urged them to do so in a right and holy manner. Deuteronomy 28:9-10 states: The Lord will establish you as His holy people, as H e promised you on oath, if y ou keep the commands of the Lord your God and walk in His ways. 10 Then all the peoples on earth will see that you are called by the name of the Lord, and they will fear you. This consciousness of their responsibility to honour the reputation of God is seen in these two quotations from Isaiah.

Firstly with primary reference to His covenant people in Isaiah 43:7: everyone who is called by My name, whom I created for My glory, whom I formed and made and then note the contrast with Gentile nations explained in Isaiah 63:19: We are yours from of old; but you have not ruled over them, they have not been called by Your name. When Amos uttered his famous critique of social injustice in Israel notice the culmination of his argument in Amos 2:6-7: This is what the Lord says: For three sins of Israel, even for four, I will not turn back my wrath. They sell the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals. 7 They trample on the heads of the poor as 2

upon the dust of the ground and deny justice to the oppressed. Father and son use the same girl and so profane My holy name. Jesus, in the pattern for prayer taught to His disciples, urged us to

say: hallowed be Your name (Matthew 6:9b), that is treat it with the utmost respect and reverence, never lightly or disrespectfully. When Channel 4’s The New Ten Commandments programme put the choices to popular vote, this one was the third to be rejected. Comments ranged from ‘No Point’ to ‘How could we play football?!’ Jonathan Sachs, the Chief Rabbi of the UK in response simply said: ‘Language matters… it can kill’ [J. Parmiter, Ten at Work, p. 148].

At the human level if someone in our hearing is unfairly trashing the name /reputation of a family member or close friend it is unlikely that you would be well disposed towards that person. They have made no reference to you, and may not know of your relationship with the person they are describing, but it makes no difference because they have misused the name of someone special to us and our sense of outrage at this misconduct is an inevitable consequence. (d) Misuse of His name (i)deliberate insults At the current time in text messaging, amongst other forms of communication, ‘OMG’ is a common expletive of surprise or shock- actually it is blasphemy and deeply offensive to the One whose name is taken in vain. How much greater is the offence when someone, a mere creature, misuses the name of Almighty God! In Leviticus 24:10-16 there is the account of an unconverted man who takes God’s name in vain during a fight with an Israelite. The judgement upon him for that offence was the death penalty. In the era of the Christian Church, post Pentecost, taking God’s name in vain has never been a capital offence, but God views this sin no less seriously than in the Old Testament era. Our culture is politically correct and abusive language meant to be outlawed, but have you ever heard someone take the name of Allah in vain or Mohammed or Krishna or Buddha? Why is it the God of the Bible whose name is blasphemed time and again? It is a calculated insult knowing that Christians will not respond with violence. By contrast, when Salman Rushdie wrote his book, Satanic Verses, an irreverent critique of the Islamic faith, many Muslims were outraged calling it blasphemous.

As a result a fatwa calling for Rushdie’s death was issued by Ayatollah Khomeni, the Supreme Leader of Iran on 14 February 1989. In Pakistan a small but increasing number of Christians and representatives of other minorities have been imprisoned or killed as a result of dubious charges of blasphemy. (ii) Improper usage In courts up and down the land witness are required to swear an oath, usually but not exclusively on the Bible to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. To lie under oath is not only to commit perjury, but also to dishonour the God under whose auspices the oath was taken. God’s name can also be taken in vain by Christians who casually inform others that the Lord told them to pass on a word or message that almost certainly was a figment of their own imagination. This may not be a significant issue in Baptist Churches but in some charismatic circles the regular casual claim of divine sanction for words and actions comes dangerously close to, if not actually violating this commandment. A right attitude of reverence for God will help us honour Him in our speech 2. Right use of God’s Name (a)God’s People can use His name The only people entitled to use God’s name in their regular conversation are those in covenant relationship with Him. This is the context of Israel’s relationship with Yahweh in the Old Testament, a community which also included a minority of Gentiles who placed their faith in the God of Israel. Isaiah 43:7 reminds us of our calling: everyone who is called by My name, whom I created for My glory, whom I formed and made…Many of the Israelites incorporated some form of the divine name in their children’s names, for example, Elijah (meaning My God is Yah(weh)) or Isaiah (Yah is my helper).

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This was permitted as long as the families in question were living God-honouring lives in faithfulness to the covenant. However, to live life without reference to God and carry His name as part of your own was an act of mockery of Yahweh. God’s Old Testament people were to worship Him in the correct geographical place –Jerusalem. Deuteronomy 12:5 states: But you are to seek the place the Lord your God will choose from among all your tribes to put His Name there for his dwelling. To that place you must go; Joel’s prophecy concerning the end times and the pouring out of the Holy Spirit upon Gentiles as well as Jews, stated that: And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved; for on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be deliverance, as the Lord has said, among the survivors whom the Lord calls (Joel 2:32). There is

power in this name to grant the gift of salvation. Therefore it is natural to praise God in this way as Psalm 29:1-2 does: Ascribe to the Lord, O mighty ones, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength. 2 Ascribe to the Lord the glory due to His name; worship the Lord in the splendour of His holiness. And Let them praise the name of the Lord, for His name alone is exalted; His splendour is above the earth and the heavens (Psalm 148:13). When Israelites were speaking the truth they

were allowed to make formal oaths in His name to support the claims they were making.

Deuteronomy 6:13 states: Fear the Lord your God, serve Him only and take your oaths in His name. David and Jonathan did that in I Samuel 20:12-17 to stress their loyalty both to God and each other though they would not meet again for the foreseeable future face to face, yet each knew the other would keep his oath –that is true friendship. (b) Don’t misrepresent God In the secular world name-dropping is a growing issue in certain circles; individuals letting it be known that film stars, sports people, politicians or…. are friends, acquaintances or in some way part of their circle of influence- whether true or not. Over the centuries God’s name has been invoked not just for the Crusades to the Holy Land by Roman Catholic Popes, but by Muslim clerics for numerous jihads and lets be fair by some Protestant Church leaders as well. Oral Roberts, American Pentecostal TV preacher who in January 1987 claimed that God was going to ‘call him home’ unless he received donations of around £8 million dollars towards the City of Faith Medical Centre at the Oral Roberts Hospital. 39.1 million dollars came in by April 1987, though by March 1988 the medical facility was closed due to lack of funding [www.ondoctrine.com accessed 17.2.12]. It may have been a great fund-raising technique at the time, but it had nothing to do with God and was a misuse of His name. From the promoters of apartheid in South Africa to some of the Nazi leaders in Germany and to both sides in each of the Two World Wars God’s name has been invoked as being on that particular side in the conflict. A more balanced perspective was given by President Abraham Lincoln in a conversation with a supporter during the American Civil War. After the fall of Atlanta, a woman remarked to him at a white House function: ‘Oh, Mr president, I feel sure that God is on our side…don’t you? ‘Ma’am’, replied Lincoln solemnly,’ I am more concerned that we should be on God’s side [J. Jon, Ten, p.232]. This surely must be our concern as well.

3. Revelation of God’s Name Jesus had a clear reverence for His Father’s name; that is His reputation. He declared in John 5:43: I have come in My Father's name, and you do not accept Me; but if someone else comes in his 4

own name, you will accept him. He made it plain to a sceptical Jewish congregation, that even when He performed amazing miracles the credit ought to go to His Father: Jesus answered, I did tell you, but you do not believe. The miracles I do in my Father's name speak for Me, 26 but you do not believe because you are not My sheep . How did he understand His life’s work? It is revealed in His high priestly prayer in John 17:26: And I have declared to them Your name, and will declare it, that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them (NKJV –NIV

paraphrases this verse). His earnest desire throughout His ministry was encapsulated in John 12: 23-28: 23 Jesus replied, The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. 24 I tell you the truth, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.25 The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26 Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honour the one who serves me.27 Now my heart is troubled, and what shall I say? 'Father, save me from this hour'? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour.28 Father, glorify your name! Then a voice came from heaven, I have glorified it, and will glorify it again. The Early Church followed Jesus’ example in offering reverence to God’s

name. James, after listing some disreputable conduct by professing Christians in James 2:5-6, declares: Are they not the ones who are slandering the noble name of Him to whom you belong?

The New Testament revelation of God is clearly Trinitarian, which means that this respect or reverence for God’s name is not only to the Father, but also to the Son and the Holy Spirit.

The disciples of Jesus made this discovery on an early mission trip. They reported back to Jesus with this joyful exclamation in Luke 10:17: The seventy-two returned with joy and said, Lord, even the demons submit to us in Your name. And we are very familiar with Paul’s words in Philippians 2:9-11: Therefore God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the name that is above every name,10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father .

This is based on a quotation from Isaiah 45:23 that refers to God the Father but now explicitly identifies Jesus as being worthy of the same reverence and praise. Yet Jesus declares that the most serious sin that will never be forgiven is that against the Holy Spirit.

Matthew 12:31-32 states: And so I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. 32 Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come. All three are united in the baptismal command in Matthew 28:19…baptising them in the name [singular] of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

4. Restrictions on the use of God’s Name (a)In Swearing Oaths Jesus did not prohibit all oath-taking in Matthew 5:33-37 where He was cautioning His followers about careful use of language, especially in relation to promises made where God’s name was invoked. After all He spoke under oath in Matthew 26:63-64 in court in response to questioning from the High priest. What He was deeply concerned about was the accuracy and integrity of the words we utter. (b) In Promise-making A promise made has to be a promise kept. Our word should be our bond. Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933) was one of America’s most respected Presidents. His personal integrity was of the highest order. It was said of him: ‘If Calvin says he’ll do a thing, the thing will be done no need to check on him.’ In the words of Ecclesiastes 5:5 : It is better to say nothing than to make a promise and not keep it (NLV). This has obvious implications for business dealings and relationships 5

with colleagues in the workplace, just as much as in our families and in church. We cannot operate differently from Monday to Saturday compared with our conduct on God’s Day, Sunday. In a culture where promise keeping is so lightly valued, not just among politicians but across all strata’s of society this is an opportunity for modelling personal integrity. (c) In normal speech and thought Job, the patriarch had a real concern for his children, continually representing them before the Lord with sacrifices –his equivalent to our praying for our children - in case my children have sinned and cursed God in their hearts (Job 1:5). This will affect our language in conversation and our degree of comfort in watching TV and other forms of entertainment media. If we take this commandment seriously it will affect our pleasure when in otherwise acceptable forms of entertainment actors or comedians blaspheme God’s name and it becomes necessary to change channels or use the ‘off’ button. (d) In acts of Worship In Judges 17:2-3, an extraordinary account of a Jewish mother invoking God’s name to make something prohibited to use in the worship of God. The Lord bless you, my son!... his mother… said, I solemnly consecrate my silver to the Lord for my son to make a carved image and a cast idol. I will give it back to you. We are unlikely to do that, but participation in

multi-faith worship services would be out of order for people who claim to believe in the One true and living God. Jesus taught us to pray hallowed be Your name (Matthew 6:9b), this means ‘set-apart’ or distinct from the ‘names’ of other claimed deities. Nadab and Abihu, sons of Aaron were struck down by the Lord for unauthorised worship (Leviticus 10), that is they performed a ceremony God had not sanctioned as an act of worship in the tabernacle. It is a warning that irreverence and frivolity have no place in acts of Worship as we serve a Holy God. In proclamation of God’s Word the preacher has a duty to speak only that which he genuinely believes is in line with Holy Scripture. Jesus’ words in Matthew 7:21-23 remind us: Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' 23 Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!' Tampering with the

text of Scripture to promote sexual immoral behaviour (in violation of Leviticus 18 and I Corinthians 6:9, for example) or seeking to claim passages of Scripture are not original –such as I Corinthians 14:34 by feminist Bible commentators –purely for ideological reasons is dishonouring His name. (e) In honouring God A comment overheard after a church service ‘I didn’t get anything out of the worship today’. The wise response given: ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t realise it was for you’ [J. Jon, Ten, p.235]. ‘It’s all about You Jesus’ – We sing the words but do we grasp their significance for church and for life –Its for His glory and honour not ours!

When we grasp that truth it may help us reorientate our thinking sometimes and our words. It may provide an opportunity for witness. ‘I don’t know how you did…, someone may say in commending us at a tough time in our lives. If we sincerely believe the Lord enabled us then be willing to say so. (f) In Challenging Blasphemy graciously asking colleagues /friends not to misuse God’s name; actually if we have a reasonable relationship with them already they ought to appreciate our point, because they in turn would want you to respect them. May God help us honour Him in our thoughts, words and actions, Amen.

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Exodus 20 vs 8 to 11 Time for God Introduction If the third commandment is the one that Christians are most conscious of unbelievers around us breaking, it is most likely that the fourth commandment is the one that Christians are least conscious of breaking ourselves. The first part of this, the longest of the Ten Commandments, states in Exodus 20:8: Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. When God specifically includes the word remember with respect to only one of the Ten Commandments, it does suggest that He thinks we are more likely to forget this one than any of the others. The reasons for this are two-fold: First of all some people can react against legalistic lists of prohibitions of a former era where to ask ‘Can I …’ required the answer ‘Not on the Sabbath’. Yet Psalm 118:24 states: This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. American writer Mark Twin in his satirical work, Extracts from Adam’s Diary, translated from the Original MS, wrote: ‘SUNDAY- Pulled through. This day is getting to be more and more trying. Some time later, using the same character, he came to a different viewpoint. ‘I have come to like Sundays myself. Superintending tires the body so. There ought to be more Sundays. In the old days they were tough; now they come in handy.’

[Parmiter, Ten at Work, p. 127]. How do we observe the Sabbath in an age of internet working, banking and shopping, where we might not physically encounter another human being as we engage in one of these activities? Secondly in an increasingly aggressive secular environment where 85% of the population are not in church on a Sunday many work shift patterns, sports or social activities make no allowance for the Christian wishing to honour God’s day.

(Interestingly, if all the social surveys are to be believed, with respect to personal freedom over whether to attend church or not in the last few centuries, there has never been more than half the population in church with any degree of regularity. Prior to the last fifty years (approximately) the unchurched kept a low profile on Sunday mornings but this is no longer the case and keeping God’s day distinctive from the others takes planning and effort in the twenty-first century. Leaving aside the medical profession and other branches of the caring professions where there has always been a requirement for some Sunday working, without in any way this being considered a violation of God’s day, there are now a significant number of careers that would exclude someone who refused to ever work a shift on a Sunday. Therefore, we need to look carefully at what God is saying to us in this fourth commandment and how it can be applied to our lives today.

1. What is the Sabbath? (a)The Sabbath as a foundation for society The word has the idea of rest, to cease from regular activity this dividing up our time to include a cessation from work related tasks. This was not a new proposal to the Israelites. After the creation of the world has been completed, Genesis 2:2-3 states: By the seventh day God had finished the work He had been doing; so on the seventh day He rested from all his work. 3 And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it He rested from all the work of creating that He had done. This was not a declaration that God

needed time off due to exhaustion; on the contrary it was the modelling of a pattern of a productive and fruitful way of life which He was commending to the people created in His image. In other words, observing a day of rest as a foundation for life was a creation ordinance from God applicable for everyone, regardless of their faith or beliefs. This interpretation of these words and their application to us is supported by Exodus 20:11: For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but He rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. As this moral

framework was for all humanity, for all time, it is evident that God’s intention for us was to 1

enjoy a life that included work (that may or may not be financially remunerated), worship and a smaller proportion of safeguarded time within the family circle for other activities. In practical terms for the Israelites this time-planning was spelt out in the provision by God of the ‘manna’ food that was an essential part of their food supply while wandering in the desert for 40 years. In Exodus 16 the Lord told them through Moses that this food supply would be available on six days but food shopping on the Sabbath would be futile. 25 Eat it today, Moses said, because today is a Sabbath to the Lord. You will not find any of it on the ground today. 26 Six days you are to gather it, but on the seventh day, the Sabbath, there will not be any. 27 Nevertheless, some of the people went out on the seventh day to gather it, but they found none. 28 Then the Lord said to Moses, How long will you refuse to keep my commands and my instructions? 29 Bear in mind that the Lord has given you the Sabbath; that is why on the sixth day He gives you bread for two days.

Everyone is to stay where he is on the seventh day; no-one is to go out. 30 So the people rested on the seventh day. 31 The people of Israel called the bread manna. It was white like coriander seed and tasted like wafers made with honey (Exodus 16:25-31). Notice carefully that this event took

place before the giving of the Ten Commandments. Therefore, this moral code was not new to them as individual guidelines for their lives, rather it was now being enshrined as the formal moral standard by which their society should operate and on which their individual lives should be based. (b) Wider use of the Sabbath Principle This pattern of Sabbath observance was not only a weekly schedule, but also included some additional rest days associated with particular religious festivals. For example, Passover, the commemoration of deliverance from Egypt, instituted before the Israelites left Egypt (observed at the same time as Easter in the Christian calendar), began with a Sabbath as an extra rest day, in addition to the regular Saturday observance (Exodus 12:16: On the first day hold a sacred assembly, and another one on the seventh day. Do no work at all on these days, except to prepare food for everyone to eat— that is all you may do.). This schedule was confirmed in Leviticus 23. First Moses confirmed the weekly pattern of behaviour in Leviticus 23:3: 'There are six days when you may work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of rest, a day of sacred assembly. You are not to do any work; wherever you live, it is a Sabbath to the Lord. Then with respect to Passover the guidance included these instructions in Leviticus 23:7-8: On the first day hold a sacred assembly and do no regular work. 8 For seven days present an offering made to the Lord by fire. And on the seventh day hold a sacred assembly and do no regular work. These Sabbaths linked to particular Jewish religious festivals were specific to

the Jewish faith and unlike the Fourth Commandment are not instructions for people outside the Jewish faith to follow. Paul’s words in Colossians 2:16-17 must be seen in this light: Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. 17 These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ . In mixed assemblies of Jewish and Gentile followers of

Jesus it must have required quite a bit of wisdom and grace working out the guidelines for daily living in the first generation of the Christian Church. The sabbatical principle is also taken further in the Levitical law. In Leviticus 25:1-7 there is a system commended regarding the use of land to enable it to yield good harvests –a Sabbath for the soil, thus inculcating a respect for the environment and the rest of creation. Interestingly within the Common Agricultural Policy of the European Union a set-aside policy to take land out of agricultural usage was instituted between 1988 and 2008. There was some criticism in the press of farmers being paid ‘to do nothing’. However, between 2007 and 2009 in the UK the Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs (Defra) investigated the best way to recapture the environmental benefits lost as a result of set-aside being abolished. A policy put 2

in place to reduce food surpluses was actually shown to be good for the environment –the Sabbath principle for the land worked!

2. What is the reason for the Sabbath? (a)To institute a work-rest balance to our lives Social surveys comparing the lives of people a hundred years ago found that the average worker at the present day does twice as much work as their ancestor. Numerous technological advances have allowed for mechanical equipment to perform tasks previous carried out by ‘back-breaking’ labour. All kinds of gadgets and technological advances have transformed offices beyond recognition in the last generation in particular. However, with the assumption that mobile phones, laptop computers or their equivalent are possessed by the vast majority of people the instant erection of a virtual office while commuting to work or at home has erased the formal boundary of the place of work. A recent survey of 2,000 office workers in London found that the lunch-break was virtually extinct with almost all either taking no time off or eating at their desks; what is more 75% of those surveyed, in addition, took neither a morning or afternoon break. The same survey in line with others conducted in recent years found that approximately 60% of people deemed successful professionals by their peers admitted they were suffering from chronic tiredness, stress or depression; and with around two-thirds of those in management positions stating that their employment lacked a sense of meaning or purpose from which they could gain appropriate satisfaction [Parmiter, Ten at Work, p. 128]. How many of us bemoan the fact that administration is taking up an ever increasing amount of time even in supposedly people-centred jobs, without any perceived benefit to the people on whose behalf such exercises are undertaken. The problem of becoming more efficient in carrying out set tasks is that even more are piled into the in-tray of fewer workers to reduce costs, especially in a time of economic stagnation. No wonder in the Western world that though the majority of people are financially richer than their parents or grandparents were at the same stage of life the level of personal happiness or fulfilment with life is significantly reduced. In addition, the advertising and entertainment industries bombarding us with seductive images of what life could be like, only serve to increase the levels of frustration at the quality of life many people experience. Into this frenetic world God has this to say to us in Exodus 20:8-10: Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. 9 Six days you shall labour and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates. 11 For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy .

Observing a day of rest can be guilt free because we do so on higher authority. We need it to preserve our sanity and health, God knew that and instituted it for our benefit, not just for us to honour Him in gathering on His day for worship as a community of His people, though that will be our principal motivation as Christians. (b)To maximise the fulfilment from work We were created to be workers, following the example of our Lord and His Father in heaven. In John 5:17 Jesus declared to a group of people unhappy with his active lifestyle: My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working. In Genesis 1:26-27 it states: Then God said, Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground. 27So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. The implications

of this declaration are that we will want to work and have the capacity to engage in useful activity not only for our own benefit but also for the benefit of others. This is confirmed in Genesis 2 which focuses on the human beings God created and the tasks they were to 3

perform. The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.18 The Lord God said, It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.

19 Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name.20 So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field. But for Adam no suitable helper was found (Genesis 2:15,18-20).

(c)To mitigate the pressures of work Our first human ancestors chose to break the rules God had given them and suffered the consequences of their own folly. Work something that should have been overwhelmingly fulfilling and creative retains some of those features, yet also contains frustrations and pressures and challenges that reduce our pleasure in this aspect of our lives. Genesis 3: 17b-19: Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. 18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field.19 By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return. Holidays, originally

called ‘holy days’, together with the weekly Sabbath are an opportunity to relax, be refreshed and energised once more to continue our regular labours –or that is God’s intention behind this scheduling of our weekly routine.

3. How should we use the Sabbath? (a)It is a day for rest Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. What does it mean to keep it holy? The commandment continues: 9Six days you shall labour and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates (Exodus 20:8-10). The word ‘Sabbath’ means rest. This command is addressed to the

householder in a hierarchical society. He is must set an example in his own life, encourage his family to do the same, together with releasing any employees or animals used to work on his estate from any expectations of service on that day. It is a comprehensive law for all the creatures God has made, together with the rest of creation, as mentioned earlier. It is remarkable that more than three millennia before British people became concerned for the welfare of animals their wellbeing is taken up in the moral law. Our stewardship of creation included taking care of the rest of the created order. Proverbs 12:10 reminds us that: A righteous man cares for the needs of his animal… This principle should be applied in our choices today. We should not normally seek to do our regular work on a Sunday, as far as that is possible, but also not expect others to do theirs in providing services for others. This should involve planning for weekly shopping on other days and not expecting the provision of other goods and services on that day from other people. Safeguarding some time to rest and be with our families or maybe making time to phone or by some other form of communication to set aside time to keep in touch with them is much easier when we guard some of our time. A pleasant afternoon walk in the park or on the beach are amongst some of the simple (and free!) activities we can enjoy. Why not take a break from TV and other forms of entertainment media on God’s day and give that time to spend in activities with others in our family or circle of friends, whom we might have invited round for dinner. The tragedy for so many of us is that the working week is so full of frenetic activity that we want to simply rest or do nothing through tiredness in the extra free hours we have on the Lord’s Day. The health of the nation would be in a better state if some time for rest from the ‘rat-race’ was safeguarded to recharge our batteries. Yet the Lord intended His day to be one we look forward to each week. Listen to these words from Isaiah 58:13-14a: 13If you keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath and from doing as you please on My holy day, if you call the Sabbath a delight and the Lord's holy day honourable, and if you honour it by not going your own way and not doing as 4

you please or speaking idle words, 14 then you will find your joy in the Lord. Have you / Have I lost some of our joy /pleasure by failing to safeguard God’s day as we might? (b)It is a day for worship The motivation behind keeping this commandment is given in Exodus 20:11: For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

This point is repeated in Exodus 31:17: It will be a sign between me and the Israelites for ever, for in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day He abstained from work and rested. At the centre of this day is our privilege of taking time to honour Him and all He

has done for us –here in the creation of this amazing world we enjoy. A second reason for observing this day is given in the recounting of the Ten Commandments in Deuteronomy 5:15: Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the Lord your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day. For the Jewish people it was remembrance of deliverance from Egypt

and their formation as a nation. It was at a cost of the blood shed of the lambs whose blood ‘covered’ them from the judgement of the Lord against the wicked Egyptians who had oppressed them (Exodus 12:21-28). For Christians whose observance takes place on Sunday rather than Saturday the change took place after the resurrection of Jesus. All the dated resurrection appearances were on a Sunday. Sunday was the day when the Holy Spirit came in Acts 2 on the Day of Pentecost (Leviticus 23:15-16). John in Revelation 1, a prisoner of the Roman authorities and in chains on the Island of Patmos, could not gather with other believers in a service of worship, yet Revelation 1: 10 records him writing: On the Lord’s Day I was in the Spirit…unable to gather for worship with others yet on his own having time alone with God. Paul reminded the Corinthian Christians to remember to take up offerings for God’s work when they gathered on the first day of every week (I Corinthians 16:2). Luke records the practice of the Church at Troas to observe weekly communion in Acts 20:7: On the first day of the week we came together to break bread… Hebrews 4 reminds us that the observance of a weekly Sabbath (Hebrews 4:9 There remains then a Sabbath-rest [day] for the people of God] and points forward to the ultimate eternal rest in heaven (Hebrews 4:1).

Unfortunately the writer to the Hebrews had to challenge some of his Italian readers about their lack of self discipline in setting aside time on God’s day for worship. He wrote: Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another— and all the more as you see the Day approaching (Hebrews 10:25). The ‘day’ referred to is the

second coming of Jesus. (c) It is a day for witness J. John recounts the testimony of his friend Gary Grant who is managing director and founder of ‘The Entertainer’ chain of toyshops. Gary began his business with one shop in Amersham in Buckinghamshire in 1981 and for two years worked exceedingly long hours seven days a week to build the business. However, his life was changed in 1991 when he became a Christian. This changed many aspects of our business from product selection to the way we treated our staff, to the hours that we worked, especially Sunday trading. In 1994 Sunday trading became lawful and I was really concerned about how it fitted in with my Christian belief of having a day of rest. I prayed as to whether I should open my stores on a Sunday. I was annoyed that God hadn’t answered my prayers, but one night God said to me, ‘Gary you’ve had the answer, but you’ve been praying for the answer ‘yes’. And to this day, I know that the bit in the Bible where God says He will honour those who honour Him is absolutely true. I can testify that God has prospered our business as we have gone from strength to strength. We have gone from three stores back in 1991 to twenty today (2000).

The last few years havn’t been easy. Many of the sites where we would have liked to open in, we have been barred from, as the landlords are only interested in people who are doing seven day trading. However, we have found that our staff of 300 are pleased we are taking a stance over Sunday trading, as it gives them the opportunity to be at home with their family and their children. As the owner of ‘The Entertainer’ I am in a very privileged position to be able to make the decision not to trade my business on a Sunday. We only trade for six days and our business is financially viable.’ [J. John, Ten, pp.211-212]

People notice the choices we make and when we make good choices in line with God’s guidance it can encourage others to do the same. May He help each of us to honour Him as 5

we honour His day and hopefully find it a delight to have this special time set apart each week, Amen.

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Exodus 20 v12 Time for Your Parents Introduction The rate and extent of family breakdown in Britain has sadly reached record proportions, in excess of forty two billion pounds was spent supporting families that had broken down in 2011, or the equivalent of £1,400 per taxpayer. This is equivalent to one third of the NHS budget, roughly the same as defence spending or interest payments on the national debt [statistics from ‘Free sex-who pays?’ Cambridge Paper by Guy Brandon, January 2012]. In addition to the financial costs there are the moral and social consequences of these sad statistics. Do our political leaders actually care about the crisis in our midst? On the right wing of politics work is king, family friendly economics apparently undermines the competitiveness of the workplace, so the Thatcher and then Major Governments undermined traditional working patterns that safeguarded Sunday as a day of rest, as outlined in the Social provisions of the Maastrict treaty signed by other European Governments. On the left wing of politics New Labour deliberately shifted the tax burden to penalise married couples to the tune of potentially several thousand pounds a years, favouring families in less formally committed relationships, despite their propensity to break down at least three to four times faster than the traditional family relationships. The current Coalition Government in Westminster (and the politicians in Holyrood are no better than their London counterparts) at the insistence of the Liberal Democrats continues the economic and social attack on Christian marriage and the traditional family unit, seeking to destroy the moral basis of our society. The bitter harvest of such policies is seen in school classrooms every day of the week where children, denied the quality of parental care they deserve, struggle to meet the demands of school life, placing heavy additional pressures on the teachers; how many young people ‘in care’ have we as a society failed with the politically correct policies today on adoption and fostering and how many young men in prison are there in part because of a lack of an adequate male role model in their lives?

However we cannot turn the clock back to some idyllic era from the past. We need first to recognise the scale of the challenges we face before seeking how as Christians we can attempt to keep this commandment as God intended us to do.

The Work-Parenting Challenge whether one parent or two in the family home financial pressures to make ends meet mean that a record number of people are in the workplace full or part-time. This means less people are available for providing child-care in the wider family circle than would have been the case in the past. This combined with the mobility in the labour market means people are travelling greater distances to work which adds to the pressures on family life.

The Social-Parenting Challenge Families may live under the same roof, but in which home do families all watch the same programmes at the same time in the same room? Factor in the internet and computers and the choices multiply. With different work shifts; different hours at schools, and different holidays across authority boundaries, time together is getting reduced year on year. How many days in the week does the average family eat dinner together? one or two apparently; how can we function and communicate effectively if we have no time together beyond the briefest of greetings or enquiries about the day?

The Cultural-Parenting Challenge the pressures from advertisers and the entertainment industry break society down into ever smaller niche markets; the sexual pressures in our country have never been greater on our young people; and the opportunities for illicit relationships have never been easier through internet websites; how many people consciously mix with others of a wide age range in their free time? Churches are not the only place where a congregation comprised of babies to great-grandparents and all stages between might be 1

found, but I fear on current trends that places of worship may be the last consciously to resist this cultural trend (and we should resist it with all our might!).

The Family-breakdown-Parenting Challenge statistically speaking individuals brought up in homes that are dysfunctional too often replicate this pattern in their own lives. Children whose parents divorce sadly are more likely to experience the same failure in their own marriages –if they choose to get married. However, there hasn’t been an idyllic period of perfect families in the past. When we start to name some of the major Old Testament characters would you have wanted Abraham and Sarah (with or without Hagar) to run the marriage course? Would King David have been a good adviser for a course on parenting skills? Yet out of the messes they made, God brought good; as parents and in our relationships we may be less than perfect, but with His help we can make a success of family life –even if in some cases it is only salvaging the bare minimum of what God intended to be the norm. In addition, before we sink under the pews with the weight of this gloom, we must not forget that more than half of all marriages are successful and the majority of families are successful in the relationships between parents and children. Therefore, there is no excuse for giving up and not believing that we can make our relationships within our family circle work.

1. The Significance of this commandment Why does God place this commandment at the head of the list of the six directly concerned with our relationships with fellow human beings? There immediately springs to mind a serious problem? How can you honour a parent or parents that have been guilty of physical psychological or sexual abuse? Or one who has deliberately absented themselves from your life? Or relate to parents who have been key people in campaigns of genocide, like the Nazis were engaged in during World War Two? Why should we keep this commandment? (a)We are all part of a family All of us were born to a biological mum and dad. However short a time the family was together or inadequate the relationships, we belong to a family.

We can choose our friends but never our biological relatives! A child-parent relationship is the one common human relationship experienced by us all. A marriage can exist and be very happy without children and children in turn can be brought up without ever experiencing a home where their parents or carers are married, even in the age of IVF a biological father and mother must provide the genetic material that is required to generate life. However, ‘domestic life and domestic discipline must soon be at an end; society will consist of individuals no longer grouped into families; so early is the separation of husband and wife, of parents and children.’ These words were not written in the last decade, though many commentators have produced similar sentiments in recent years, but by Britain’s greatest nineteenth century social reformer Anthony Ashley-Cooper, the 7th Earl of Shaftesbury [Brian Edwards, The Ten Commandments for Today, p. 160] . (b) Obedience to Parents applies to at least three generations at the same time children, parents and grandparents; Honour your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you (Exodus 20:12), is a command that binds the generations together in the wider family network. Children observing their parents relating to and then possibly caring for their elderly parents, is a powerful witness to the next generation of what it means to live this commandment. One of the most moving true stories I learned from my mum’s father was on this subject. It concerned a man who was taking his father to deposit him in the workhouse; the appalling dumping ground for unwanted humans in the Victorian era. The old man was being carried on his son’s back as he could no longer walk himself. The old man had barely spoken a word after hearing of his son’s intentions. On the day not too far away from the workhouse, the son stopped to rest depositing his dad on the milestone nearby.

The old man broke out into uncontrollable sobbing. When at last his shocked son could get a 2

word out of him as to the reason, he admitted that many years earlier he had stopped at the very same spot when taking his own father to abandon him in the workhouse. It was a guilty secret he had hidden from his children until that day. People from other countries are profoundly shocked by how many elderly people have been abandoned in residential institutions by their families, never visited from one year to the next in the worst cases. Old Testament Hebrew apparently has no word for grandchild /grandparent or similar terms –it is always father or mother, even if the relationship is several generations apart. In 2 Chronicles 29:2, for example, it reads: He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, just as his father David had done. These words refer to King Hezekiah, the fourteenth ruler of the nation after David.

Therefore, when an Old Testament Israelite heard or read Honour your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you the assumption would be made that these words applied equally to grandparents or great-grandparents as well –should they still be alive. A high premium is placed on the extended family together learning what it means in practice to live the way God wants us to (see Deuteronomy 6:4-9). (c) Because the home is where the child first learns how to behave appropriately in the summer of 1996 a group of young elephants were taken from the Kruger National park in South Africa to the reserve at Pilanesburg, approximately twenty kilometres from Sun City.

However, something went wrong; instead of behaving like ‘normal’ elephants these youngsters acted like delinquents ripping up trees, attacking tourists’ cars and even threatening their rangers. Why did they behave in this way? They had been taken from their parents too young and had never learned appropriate social skills [B. Edwards, The Ten Commandments for Today, p.162]. Older animals teach their siblings discipline and explain the place of authority in the family in the same way younger children learn from older ones and they in turn see how their parents model behaviour for them. Paul in Ephesians (5:22-33 and 6:1-4) pointed out clearly the responsibilities of husbands and wives in marriage, and they jointly in responsibilities for their children. Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 2 Honour your father and mother— which is the first commandment with a promise— 3 that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth. 4 Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord (Ephesians 6:1-4). The

absence of proper parental supervision in the home environment results in increasing disruption in school classrooms and dysfunctional behaviour too often in adult life. (d) Because behavioural patterns learned in childhood are often repeated later in life A girl as a teenager might want to assert the differences between her behavioural choices and those of her mother, but as the years pass by the similarities will increase –not just copying recipes for cakes or meals, but habits and mannerisms and turns of phrase; similarly a boy with his father. These patterns may be quite unintentional, but are learned forms of behaviour deep in our psyche. Proverbs 22:6 declares: Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it. Sadly this is not an absolute rule that is followed in every case, but there is a high incidence of a children brought up in good Christian homes who after going away from the Lord in early adulthood come back to faith when they realise the wisdom of their parent’s encouragement to join them in following the Lord. Never underestimate the significance of the times spent reading God’s Word and praying with your children each day.

The investment we make in our children is a long term one and parenting like running the marathon is an endurance race not a quick sprint.

2. What are we required to do?

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(a)The importance of respect Honour your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you (Exodus 20:12). This command was repeated along with the others at regular intervals in Moses’ lifetime. Leviticus 19:1-3, for example, declares: The Lord said to Moses, 2 Speak to the entire assembly of Israel and say to them: 'Be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy. 3 'Each of you must respect his mother and father, and you must observe my Sabbaths. I am the Lord your God. Here is a strong assertion to the nation that

acknowledging the Lord as God would be characterised by honouring God’s day and honouring our parents. Likewise nations that dishonour the Lord as our country has done by legislating away a day of rest and passing laws that time and again undermine parental authority, for example, the law that allows nurses in High Schools to distribute the pill or other forms of contraceptives to girls without the knowledge or consent of their parents, is outrageous. This command is counter-cultural today as respect for anyone in authority is in rapid decline. However, if in our homes there is appropriate respect for older people, then this will be transferred to relationships with older people outside the family circle. If in the home this principle of respect is taught as a pattern for our lives then it should naturally follow that we treat people of different colour, race, religion or social status with equal respect as persons. It should also, for example, influence us to be sympathetic to people with mental or physical disabilities. Good citizens often learn that particular skill within their immediate family and then translate it into other social contexts. (b) The importance of obedience Jewish rabbis stressed the duty to observe this command regardless of the age of the parents. Malachi, around four hundred years before the time of Jesus, places this charge from God against his nation, and especially against the religious leaders of the day in Malachi 1:6: A son honours his father, and a servant his master. If I am a father, where is the honour due to Me? If I am a master, where is the respect due to Me? says the Lord Almighty. It is you, O priests, who show contempt for my name. Proverbs 1:8-9 states: Listen, my son, to your father's instruction and do not forsake your mother's teaching. 9 They will be a garland to grace your head and a chain to adorn your neck. Listening is a skill, it is a deeper

form of attention than hearing someone speak; all of us as adults, let alone parents, make mistakes or come to wrong conclusions. Sometimes our children can have a clearer insight into a situation than their parents. However, whether as a child (young or adult) or as a parent we must always be careful how we respond when others make what we believe are mistakes as none of us are infallible. Proverbs 15:20 teaches us that: A wise son (or daughter) brings joy to his father, but a foolish man despises his mother . In the latter days, Paul told Timothy, that one of the characteristics of such an age relates to this commandment: People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy,3 without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, 4 treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God (II Timothy 3:2-4). What

a contrast with the example of Jesus. Luke records a summary of Jesus’ life from the age of twelve to nearly thirty: Then he went down to Nazareth with them [Mary and Joseph] and was obedient to them. But His mother treasured all these things in her heart (Luke 2:51). This behavioural model was reinforced elsewhere in the New Testament. Colossians 3:20 states: Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. Although there are no qualifications to this statement by the apostle Paul, I have no doubt that he was not giving parents the right to make unlawful or unreasonable demands upon their children as elsewhere he urges fathers, as the head of the family unit not to provoke your children to anger by unreasonable actions (Ephesians 6:4). However, the general principle of respect towards people in authority over us due to their position (and their appropriate treatment of those under their authority or care) is consistently stated in the Bible. (c) The importance of discipline it goes without saying that good behaviour is modelled and taught. Parents have a particular responsibility to train their children when they are young.

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Proverbs 22:6 declares: Train a child in the way he should go… A number of other passages in Proverbs make similar points. Proverbs 19:19a: Discipline your son, for in that there is hope…; Proverbs 22:15 states: Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline will drive it far from him. And Proverbs 23:13-14 says: Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you punish him with the rod, he will not die. 14 Punish him with the rod and save his soul from death.

Moderate physical chastisement will be a last resort, but an undisciplined child is an unloved child. More than twenty years ago at a Christian camp I was responsible for a group of boys for a week. Most of them were well behaved and co-operative, but one child whose appearance was a cause for concern, despite having the best quality clothes and possessions in the cabin. His entire vocabulary was confrontational and right up to the day I took the children and their bags to wait for the coach to take them home he objected to every instruction I gave to him. One day was particularly difficult and I’m not sure I handled it as well as I might have done. Yet my dogged persistence and the patience of the other children that day touched his heart. On the day he left his final words shocked me to the core. With tears streaming down his checks he said: ‘I never knew anyone loved me that much’ with reference to the time I spent with him. Unlike the majority of the children that week he had his parents at home who both had good jobs with high incomes. Whatever material possession he wanted he had, except the one thing he really needed, that was their time, their love and discipline. It appeared that he had responsibility for making his own boundaries, despite being under High School age. Until that final conversation I had felt that I had failed him and was pretty down about my contribution that week. Children need clear boundaries within which they can grow; secure well-disciplined children will have a good foundation on which to train their own offspring in due course. Paul urged Christian parents in Thessalonica to relate to their offspring in a similar manner to the way he, Silas and Timothy had cared for the spiritually young congregation. You are witnesses, and so is God, of how holy, righteous and blameless we were among you who believed. 11 For you know that we dealt with each of you as a father deals with his own children, 12 encouraging, comforting and urging you to live lives worthy of God, who calls you into his kingdom and glory (I Thessalonians 2:10-12). These are strong

words which we would only dare write to people we knew and who knew that the information was a correct summary of our conduct. So we can make the same assumption of these early Christian leaders. What a great summary of parenting skills is given here! (d) The importance of caring In II Corinthians 12:14-16a, Paul uses this family imagery to describe the care of Christians for one another in a local congregation, and by implication further afield as well. Now I am ready to visit you for the third time, and I will not be a burden to you, because what I want is not your possessions but you. After all, children should not have to save up for their parents, but parents for their children. 15 So I will very gladly spend for you everything I have and expend myself as well. If I love you more, will you love me less? 16 Be that as it may, I have not been a burden to you. In his first letter to Timothy, albeit in a context where he was

speaking about the ministries of older widowed ladies, but in words applicable to us all, Paul wrote: if a widow has children or grandchildren, these should learn first of all to put their religion into practice by caring for their own family and so repaying their parents and grandparents, for this is pleasing to God (I Timothy 5:4). We are right in our culture to be concerned about the

neglect of some children; however, we ought equally to be concerned about the neglect of the elderly and people with additional needs in our families and our country. Now in some particular cases the best form of care for someone in the family may be in a residential home; a loving adult child or spouse in some contexts may choose that option as the best available provision. All of us are well aware of distressing situations where specialist care is needed.

Let us encourage and support one another in caring both within our family circle together with our church family.

3. The Promise linked to keeping this commandment 5

Honour your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you (Exodus 20:12). Paul repeats this commandment and its associated promise in Ephesians 6:1-3). Proverbs 4:1-5 is a fuller exhortation on this theme. Listen, my sons, to a father's instruction; pay attention and gain understanding. 2 I give you sound learning, so do not forsake my teaching. 3 When I was a boy in my father's house, still tender, and an only child of my mother, 4 he taught me and said, Lay hold of my words with all your heart; keep my commands and you will live. 5 Get wisdom, get understanding; do not forget my words or swerve from them. As is Proverbs 6:20-22: My son, keep your father's commands and do not forsake your mother's teaching.

21 Bind them upon your heart for ever; fasten them around your neck. 22 When you walk, they will guide you; when you sleep, they will watch over you; when you awake, they will speak to you. How

will our lives be extended? Warnings about personal safety will reduce the risk of physical harm; guidance on moral issues might preserve us from other forms of ruin; wise words about the use of finances and budgeting can help prepare a child or young adult for the challenges of paying their way in adult life. In our country the suicide rate, especially of young men is profoundly sad. We cannot shield our children or older parents from the heartaches and difficulties of life, but together we can plan and prepare and with God’s help make the best of what can at times be very difficult circumstances.

In our family circles whether as the parent or the child we have to work with each other through the range of experiences life throws at us, good and bad; enjoyable or distressing. All of these situations are contexts in which we can learn something about ourselves, each other and life in general. We must strive to be fair and even-handed as parents with our children, or with the two sets of grandparents or other people in our family circle. We must always seek to communicate effectively with one another; when time is so pressured –how easily we can misjudge the words or actions of another and this can lead to something small growing out of all proportion to its place. We must also be willing to forgive and be forgiven –this is so fundamental in relationships, being open with issues, dealing with them and closing the case.

Lastly appreciating and encouraging each other to be the best we can be for God and for each other; always remembering that there are no perfect parents or perfect children; it is a steep learning curve sometimes and there are days when we want to quit and ‘throw in the towel’.

Please don’t because God will give us the strength and grace to be the best we can be day by day as we seek His help; let’s encourage one another, not least on the days when we feel like a complete failure, but let’s also have a heart of praise for the privilege of having parents and for some of us of being parents and thank Him for specific named blessings they have brought to us, Amen.

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Exodus 20 v13 Life is sacred!

Introduction This commandment appears to be the easiest on which to agree –You shall not murder -could anyone be found who thinks that murdering other people is okay? How I wish that was the case because, sadly, it is far from a consensus position in our society. How many days go by when there is no reference to murders in a daily paper or on the TV News? In the last hundred years the extent of the killing of other human beings was higher than in any previous century of human existence on this planet. Every other species of creature would have the right to ask whether we humans are entitled to the descriptive term ‘civilised’ with respect to our collective behavioural choices. In the Old Testament there are two key words used for the taking of life. First of all, ratsach which is used here in Exodus 20:13. It is used with reference to the killing of humans, but not with reference to the killing of animals. When reference is made to the killing of animals for food or sacrifices a different Hebrew word shachat is used [B. Edwards, The Ten Commandments for Today has a particularly helpful chapter on this commandment]. Ratsach is almost always used with reference to the unlawful killing of others, with two exceptions, both in Numbers chapter 35. In Numbers 35:27 there is the permission for the authorised individual to execute a person convicted of manslaughter, who had in effect escaped from their place of confinement. The second reference in Numbers 35:30 states that capital punishment is the required sentence for a person convicted of murder. It is important to note here that this commandment in modern English is You shall not murder not You shall not kill. The distinction between the two categories of activity is of vital importance.

1. Is killing lawful in any particular circumstances? (a) Animal sacrifices in the Old Testament The Hebrew word shachat is used here exclusively for animal sacrifices (see Exodus 12:6 and 29:11 where the NIV translates this word as slaughter). God laid down these sacrifices for the Jewish people to bring home to them the seriousness of sin and the necessity of blood being shed to atone for it. They pointed forward to the perfect sacrifice of Jesus, once for all time that abolished the need for animal sacrifices in reconciling us to God. Hebrews 9:12-14: Jesus did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but He entered the Most Holy Place once for all by His own blood, having obtained eternal redemption.13 The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean. 14 How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God! (b) Animals killed for food and clothing In Genesis 3:21 it states: The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. It is permissible to use animal products

for food and clothing. Vegetarian diets are permissible but neither those who eat meat nor those who abstain from it should judge the other for their choices. Romans 14:6 states: He who eats meat, eats to the Lord, for he gives thanks to God; and he who abstains, does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God. The Jewish people led by Moses were given a list of creatures they

were either permitted or banned from eating (Deuteronomy 14:1-21). Therefore, Christians ought not to take a stricter line on diet than that permitted by God. (c) Legal punishment for the crime of murder It is noteworthy that God did not choose to execute the first recorded murderer Cain (Genesis 4:10-16), instead placing him under some kind of life sentence within the wider community. However, by the time of Noah after the Great Flood the death penalty for murder was formally instituted. In Genesis 9:5b-6 God declares: And from each man, too, I will demand an accounting for the life of his fellow man. 6Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God has 1

God made man. In the time of Moses this sentence for murder was confirmed. Exodus 21:12 states: Anyone who strikes a man and kills him shall surely be put to death. This law was repeated

in Leviticus 24:17. It was also a New Testament practice. Paul in his brief statements on the relationship between the Christian and the State includes a reference to the death penalty for murder, as a sanction the state can apply with respect to a citizen who misbehaves (Romans 13:4b But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing). It is precisely because God values human life so highly that the death penalty was put in place for murder.

It can be argued that the abolition of the death penalty for murder is actually a statement of the devaluing of human life not the opposite as its proponents proclaim. It is interesting how often the most vocal opponents of the abolition of the death penalty for murderers are equally assertive of the right to kill innocent young human beings! We must also acknowledge that there were other capital offences in the Old Testament era, for example, for kidnapping, sex offences, idolatry and witchcraft, though this list pales into insignificance with the 350 crimes for which the death penalty was enforced in the United Kingdom in the eighteenth century.

There are no simple answers for a number of crimes as to what should be the just penalty.

How many people think the law is currently fair towards the families of those killed by the reckless actions of drunk drivers, for example? It must also be mentioned that the Bible is very clear that the death penalty was always a matter for due process by the properly appointed judicial authorities and that the category of murder was distinct from that of manslaughter, for which a lesser sentence was given (Exodus 21:13). (d) Lawful killing in a time of war Throughout the Bible it is assumed that the state has the right to use arms for the defence of the realm in a just and proportionate war. There are heated debates about what constitutes a just war, but a totally pacifist position has rarely been a majority view in Christian ranks. In the New Testament, as well as the Old this position is maintained. John the Baptist, for example, when asked by some soldiers how they ought to behave, gave this reply in Luke 3:14: Then some soldiers asked him, And what should we do? He replied, Don't extort money and don't accuse people falsely— be content with your pay. He did not tell them that serving in the Armed Forces was incompatible with living for God. It is interesting that a number of convinced pacifists signed up in World War Two because they were convinced that allowing Hitler the opportunity to remain in power was a greater evil than assisting in the war effort at that time.

2. The reasons why murder is wrong (a) A violation of the image of God Human beings are unique in Creation in being made in the image of God. Genesis 1:26-27 states: Then God said, Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground. 27So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. This is where we

differ from the animal kingdom we alone have moral responsibility for our actions, in a way unique in the world. The speech and actions of a human being are rightly judged differently from the rest of creation. Unsolved murders were a serious issue in ancient Israel. An elaborate ceremony was provided for the community to declare their innocence of the death of the murder victim (see Deuteronomy 21:1-9) with an animal sacrificed as a substitute for the guilty party. Then the leaders of the local community together would recite these words: Accept this atonement for your people Israel, whom you have redeemed, O Lord, and do not hold your people guilty of the blood of an innocent man. And the bloodshed will be atoned for (Deuteronomy 21:8). This ceremony was a declaration that this crime above all others was an

abomination in the sight of God and human society.

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(b) It is an action which cannot be undone This argument is also used against capital punishment in case an innocent person is wrongly convicted. However, this criticism should be directed more against the safeguards that should be in place to prevent such miscarriages of justice. Under Old Testament law two primary witnesses had to testify for a person to be found guilty; confession evidence was inadmissible. Most crucial the punishment for false witness was to incur the punishment due to be meted out to the defendant if found guilty.

Only a complete fool would lie in court under such stringent conditions. A number of the wrongful convictions in our own land in the twentieth century would not have happened if the Old Testament safeguards had been in place. As Christians we reject all notions of reincarnation, an idea fashionable in some circles. We have one life to live here on earth.

Hebrews 9:27 reminds us that man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgement. (c) Its impact transcends the individuals directly involved Thousands of people are convicted of criminal offences every year, but this crime is notorious. When we think of Ian Brady and Myra Hindley; Fred West, Harold Shipman, Peter Sutcliffe etc their actions impacted a nation. Mention the murder of Jamie Bulger or the Dunblane massacre on 13 March 1996 where sixteen children and a teacher were killed and we recognise something of the enormity of the evil committed on those innocent victims. However, ought we not also to be concerned about some of the war games and violent films available that appear to have triggered the evil actions of some killers? Should we not also question the ethics of killing birds or animals purely for sport or entertainment? Respect for life and the value of both other people and the rest of creation is surely God’s plan for our lives.

3. What is prohibited by this commandment? (a) Premeditated killing Exodus 21:12-14: Anyone who strikes a man and kills him shall surely be put to death. 13 However, if he does not do it intentionally, but God lets it happen, he is to flee to a place I will designate. 14But if a man schemes and kills another man deliberately, take him away from My altar and put him to death. The Old Testament law of equivalence in punishment, recorded

in Exodus 21: 23-24, has been criticised by people who fail to grasp the message being communicated here. The regulation states: But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, 2 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot. The first purpose was to eliminate completely the endless cycle of blood feuds so common in surrounding cultures, where completely innocent people were killed; allegedly to avenge the honour of a clan or tribe, as happens to this day in places like Afghanistan. The second and primary purpose was to obtain justice not revenge. It was the duty of appointed officials, not family members in Israel, who decided what punishment fitted a particular crime. Likewise in our country today the same principle applies where the police and judiciary have to handle the administration of justice on behalf of the general public. The principle behind this rule was maintaining the sanctity of life with a view to ensuring the minimum loss of life in society. However, a person who wilfully and callously takes the life of another deserves the full sanction of the law brought down upon them. (b) Loss of life through thoughtless behaviour We all have a duty of care towards other people. It may be okay for Mr Bean the comic character in a popular video / dvd to change from his pyjamas to his clothes while driving down the main road, but for a member of the general public to copy such actions and risk the lives of other people would be reckless. We have a responsibility to drive carefully in our vehicles. Rightly there are often legitimate grounds for criticising the extremes to which health and safety legislation is sometimes taken, but the principle for it is found in the early books of the Old Testament. In Deuteronomy 22:8 there is an example with reference to the building industry. When you build a new house, make a parapet around your roof so that you may not bring the guilt of bloodshed on your house if someone 3

falls from the roof. Exodus 21:33-34, is another example of our duty of care to other people: If a man uncovers a pit or digs one and fails to cover it and an ox or a donkey falls into it, 34 the owner of the pit must pay for the loss; he must pay its owner, and the dead animal will be his. Leviticus 19:16 gives us the general principle here: Do not do anything that endangers your neighbour's life. I am the Lord. Owners had a responsibility to protect the public from dangerous animals

in their care. Exodus 21:18-20 explains the principles in the case of a death caused by a dangerous animal. If a bull gores a man or a woman to death, the bull must be stoned to death, and its meat must not be eaten. But the owner of the bull will not be held responsible. 29 If, however, the bull has had the habit of goring and the owner has been warned but has not kept it penned up and it kills a man or woman, the bull must be stoned and the owner also must be put to death. 30 However, if payment is demanded of him, he may redeem his life by paying whatever is demanded. The

application of this principle to all kinds of workplaces has been long overdue in our country.

It is not that many years ago in the UK when charges of ‘corporate manslaughter’ were brought in and used against company directors that endangered the lives of their employees or members of the public. Other hard cases include the level of responses householders can use against burglars in their homes. Exodus 22:2-3 makes a clear distinction between the level of force permitted in the dark at night compared to that allowed in broad daylight in the middle of the day. If a thief is caught breaking in and is struck so that he dies, the defender is not guilty of bloodshed; 3 but if it happens after sunrise, he is guilty of bloodshed. This is not exciting devotional material, but it is serious practical advice for living in community with other people. (c) Abortion Evangelical Christians have been united in their conviction that life begins at conception. Roman Catholics are better known for their pro-life stance and pro-life atheists the least well known strand of the pro-life movement. However, all these groups are united in teaching that life begins at conception and that children in the womb become conscious of the world around them; feel pain and pleasure at a relatively early stage of the pregnancy. There is no word for foetus in the Old Testament. The same word yeleth is used equally for a newborn baby as for a developing child in the womb. In the New Testament in Greek the word brephos is also used for both a baby in the womb and a newborn child (Luke 1:41: When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. Luke 2:12 records words of the angels to the shepherds after Jesus’ birth: This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.). This word

usage appears to confirm the principle that life begins at conception. In Exodus 21:22-23 there is guidance in Israelite case law about what might happen to a man who strikes a pregnant woman and injures the children (plural of yeleth) in her womb: If men who are fighting hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely [literally if her children come out] but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman's husband demands and the court allows.23 But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life… There is the possibility

at the discretion of the judiciary for the man responsible, if the child dies, to order his execution –if he was guilty of deliberately harming the child to the endangerment of his life.

If there is no serious injury to the child the offender may be fined. However, this passage is crystal clear that the deliberate killing of a child in the womb is perceived by God as an act of murder. In the light of the recent Westminster Government inquiry into practices at Abortion clinics where children were deliberately killed on the basis of gender or where other fragrant breaches of the law took place, reminds us of the shame in our land where such evil practices take place. There are some very difficult cases where a mother’s life may be in danger or where a woman is impregnated during an act of rape, or where the child is diagnosed with such serious health issues that it may not even live to term, for example, but the vast majority of terminations are not in these difficult categories, rather they are closer to abortion on demand or retrospective contraception –this the Bible calls murder. On a pastoral note here there is no sin that cannot be forgiven and people who have made choices in this area that 4

they now regret are advised to seek counselling by professional agencies such as Alternatives who provide an excellent service in our city. (d) Euthanasia Huge pressures are currently being brought to bear in our society to introduce euthanasia as a means to terminate the lives of those who believe that they have no possibility of quality life left here on earth. Or for someone suffering ‘unbearable pain’. There are plenty of heart-rending cases that affect us at an emotional level as we try and put ourselves in the position of these people and their families. However, the judgements required to determine who might qualify for such an end is notoriously difficult to determine and would undoubtedly change the doctor-patient relationship in an unhelpful way.

The example of the Netherlands is deeply disturbing as the categories of those who qualify for this procedure appears to be increasing as are concerns over the deaths of a growing number of those to whom this procedure was applied. Behind the movement for euthanasia is the eugenics movement that was so influential in the twentieth century. Prior to the Second World War it was supported by many politicians, the British Medical Association and many educationalists (B. Edwards, The Ten Commandments for Today, p. 191). It grew out of the popularity of the evolutionary theories of Charles Darwin. A psychiatrist who worked with the Nuremberg Tribunal described the process that led in Hitler’s Germany to the horrors of Auschwitz, Belsen and Treblinka: ‘The beginnings at first were merely a subtle shift in emphasis in the basic attitude of physicians. It started with the attitude, basic in the euthanasia movement, that there is such a thing as a life not worthy to be lived. This attitude in its early stages concerned itself merely with the severely and chronically sick. Gradually the sphere of those to be included in this category was enlarged to encompass the socially unproductive, the ideologically unwanted, the racially unwanted and finally all non-Germans.’ (J. John, Ten, pp.138-139) In an article in The Independent newspaper, Princeton University

Philosophy Professor, Peter Singer, admitted his astonishing opinion regarding the sanctity of the lives of babies after birth. "One point on which I agree with opponents of abortion is that, from the point of view of ethics rather than the law, there is no sharp distinction between the fetus and the newborn baby," Singer explained. However, Singer’s view is that, instead of legal protection, both disabled babies and the unborn deserve death. As he wrote in Rethinking Life and Death, "Human babies are not born self-aware or capable of grasping their lives over time. They are not persons. Hence their lives would seem to be no more worthy of protection that the life of a fetus." [www.lifenews.com 12 September 2006] Singer’s viewpoint is

similar to the official state position in Rome, prior to the first Christian-influenced Emperor, Constantine. Following such views would truly take us back into the dark ages of previous centuries. We need to remind ourselves that it was only roughly forty years go that the USA and Australia stopped determining whether some people were ‘fit to breed’ (some criminals and some aboriginal peoples respectively). We must be on our guard against any possibility of a return to such evil practices in our generation. (e) Suicide The Bible records a number of examples of people who committed suicide, but never commends their choices. It is always a matter of deep regret that a person takes such a step as it can have such a devastating effect on their families. What we need as Christians to communicate as clearly and sympathetically as possible is that our lives are in God’s hands and it is best to let Him determine the timing of our deaths. There will be many grey areas with reference to medical technology affecting these decisions, but seeking to hold a pro-life position can be both consistent and helpful in assisting individuals and their families in some of the most difficult of circumstances. (f) Enjoying murder as entertainment Seneca, tutor of Roman Emperor Nero, expressed his disgust of the possible impact of the use of violent killings in the arenas had on the minds of the people who observed or were ‘entertained’ by such activities. In his Moral Epistles VII.2 Seneca wrote; ‘Come now, can’t you people see even this much –that bad examples recoil on those who set them?’ (B. Edwards, The Ten Commandments for Today, p.193). In our generation there are no gladiatorial combats in public arenas, but there are their equivalent in too many violent games on computers and other equivalent modern forms of technology. The desensitisation of 5

vulnerable people repeatedly being exposed to such material undoubtedly influences some to seek to replicate what they have observed in real life. As a society do we not have a responsibility to restrict the access to such materials? There are serious challenges here also for members of the Armed Forces in Combat zones. Euphemisms such as ‘degrading enemy capabilities’ or ‘unavoidable collateral damage’ involves the elimination of enemy personnel; I thank God for Christians and others in our Armed Forces and their Chaplains who insist on the maintenance of high moral standards in determining operational policies, otherwise the justification for the war in question is seriously undermined. How do those service personnel operating drones in Afghanistan and Pakistan from the Nevada Desert, for example, distinguish in their own minds the difference between what they are doing and computer games? Boundaries are being blurred and time only permits the raising of these kinds of issues which are needing to be addressed at an ethical level. (g) Inactivity in the face of evil The United Nations rightly attracted criticism for allowing the massacre at Srebrenica in July 1995; but why was no serious action taken in Sudan when its evil Government has killed millions of Christians and animists –until years later when finally South Sudan was allowed to secede, but it was far too little too late. These are very difficult choices to make and Governments need wisdom to when and where to intervene. (h) Inappropriate anger Jesus in Matthew 5: 21-22 extended this commandment to include a condemnation of inappropriate anger. You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, 'Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.' 22 But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to his brother, 'Raca,' is answerable to the Sanhedrin. But anyone who says, 'You fool!' will be in danger of the fire of hell. Here the issue is about self control in our words as well as in our actions. Anger can be

a legitimate response to a situation. Out of the 455 times the word ‘anger’ appears in the Bible, in 375 cases it refers to God getting angry about injustice, hypocrisy and other forms if sinful conduct. American President Abraham Lincoln’s secretary of war, Edwin Stanton had a problem with a major-general. The officer had written an abusive letter criticising the decisions of the secretary of war. Lincoln asked the angry Stanton to write a reply in similar abusive language. Before Stanton could post it the President ordered him to burn it, suggesting that his secretary for war had had an opportunity to pour out his feelings in the first letter, prior to replying and posting a more considered and respectful letter (J. John, Ten, pp.147-148). This was a wise course of action. In the age of e-mail, Facebook, Twitter and other forms of instant communications, delayed responses when angry or upset would be a wise path to follow. James 1:19 reminds us: My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry.

This commandment which appears so simple and straightforward covers so many areas of our lives. Its relevance is so obvious in every area of our lives. Let us ask God for wisdom as we seek to apply it to our own daily lives, Amen.

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Exodus 20 v14 Sex is sacred Introduction Something is not right about a significant proportion of attitudes and values in our culture towards sexual activity, relationships and marriage. After more than half a century of increasingly explicit sex education in Britain we know more about pro-creation and human biology than any previous generation, yet as a society we are increasingly incapable of forming and maintaining long-term healthy relationships. The breakdown in marriages coupled with the much greater failure of co-habiting relationships has caused serious damage in the home environment for many adults and their children. Then in the workplace and social settings, what are appropriate boundaries for interaction and friendships? In the past the majority of people would have thought such a question simple to answer –yet today a large proportion of us in Britain would be less than confident about setting boundaries, for example for appropriate dress or topics of conversation in these settings. It has been particularly hard on women, where greater apparent freedoms to work socialise and exercise financial responsibilities take place in a culture where boundaries of appropriate dress or relational attitudes are increasingly blurred.

The seventh commandment recorded in Exodus 20:14 states: You shall not commit adultery.

This seems clear enough. Registry offices in England since 1866 have advertised the following definition of marriage: ‘Marriage according to the law of this country is the union of one man with one woman voluntarily entered into for life to the exclusion of all others.’

The sad reality of Governments in London and Edinburgh, together with most opposition parties, wishing to open that definition to include biblically unsanctioned relationships is a statement about the moral decline in our land that thankfully a majority of people are currently resisting. Adultery is understood as an attempt to break a marital relationship either by one of the two parties that consented to a marriage and/or by a third party from outside the marriage. Does this then mean that this commandment only applies to the 50-60% of the population who are married? Or have nothing to say concerning relationships between individuals who are single? Of course this is not the case. The intention behind it was to limit the full expression of sexual activity to marriage; in addition to prevent the abuse of a gift God has given to us for its use in inappropriate settings, together with prohibiting deviant and perverted forms of sexual expression that can only result in psychological or physical harm to both the victims and perpetrators of such behavioural choices. It is, therefore, essential that we take time to reflect on how God intends us to use the good gift of our sexuality, for our good pleasure and for His glory.

1. Conduct outside the biblical boundaries that is forbidden The pressure to lower biblical moral standards in our society has increased dramatically in recent decades. The message from the entertainment industry is that people of faith and others who share our moral standards are old fashioned and need to lighten up. This message was communicated clearly in the 1998 film Pleasantville. The story presented was of two teenagers, David and Jennifer from the 1990s going back to a small town in America in the 1950s when everything was black and white and boring and with their advocacy of sexual liberation it brought colour and happiness to the lives of the characters in the film. Robert McDaniel in his review of Pleasantville declared: "Pleasantville is a false hope. David's journey tells him only that there is no "right" life, no model for how things are "supposed to be'". (Film and History May–June 2002, pp.85-86). By contrast, the Bible cuts right across the moral relativism of our society and

throws down the gauntlet of how things ought to be for our good and for God’s glory. Our 1

heavenly Father is not a kill-joy wanting to make people miserable. On the contrary He see the pain and heartache caused by the selfish choices some people make in this area of their lives that damages potentially not only themselves, but also their relationships with their spouses, children and other friends.

The Hebrew word na’aph first used in this commandment covers two things in the Old Testament. First of all, a sexual relationship that broke a marriage covenant and secondly spiritual apostasy which broke Israel’s relationship with her God; the New Testament uses a variety of terms to cover a wider range of sexual misconduct in the wider Roman world. The most common word for adultery is moichao, but a more inclusive term porneia from which we derive the modern term ‘pornography’, covers various forms of sexual misconduct.

Matthew 19:9 states: anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness (porneia), and marries another woman commits adultery (moichatai). In Matthew 5:32 the Greek term porneia is translated ‘marital unfaithfulness’; the NIV renders the same word as ‘sexual immorality’ in Galatians 5:19, in the list of sins of the fallen nature. It is followed by two other terms in that list that describe ‘impurity’ in general and ‘unrestrained sexual licence’ respectively. The wide range of sexual activity forbidden that violates the boundaries God has given includes homosexual practices (Leviticus 18:22; 20:13; Romans 1:26-27, I Corinthians 6:9); sexual relations with close relatives (Leviticus 18:6-18, Deuteronomy 27: 20, 22-23); bestiality (Leviticus 18:23, Deuteronomy 27:21); and transvestism (Deuteronomy 22:5); together with inappropriate heterosexual sexual activities prior to or outside the boundaries of marriage (I Corinthians 6:9). God has given us guidelines for living not to restrict our happiness, but with a view to enabling us to enjoy life in its fullness. The message presented in our culture today teaches the opposite to Scripture so often, but the broken nature of so many families and the heartache and pain an increasing proportion of our society are experiencing bring home forcefully to us that our heavenly Father actually does know what is best for us and we should trust Him in this as well as other areas of our lives.

2. Why must we hold firm to biblical standards (a) The significance of sexual relations The Bible has a healthy attitude to human relationships and is unafraid to celebrate the physical aspect of marriage as seen in the Song of Solomon. However, in the early medieval period the Western Church (Roman Catholicism in practice) accepted a secular Greek philosophical idea that bodies were evil and sex was at best a necessary evil to preserve the race. What is worse in order to become a serious Christian you had to commit to celibacy, forget any thoughts of marriage and become a monk, nun or priest. Thank God for the Protestant Reformation of the Sixteenth Century that reclaimed a biblical view of the honoured status of marriage in the purposes of God. Sadly in the Roman Catholic Church they have still clung to the vestiges of that medieval philosophy and banned their clergy from getting married in violation of the biblical principles on this subject. What ever Paul meant in his list of criteria for those holding the pastoral office by the words: the husband of one wife (I Timothy 3:2), and there are a few possible interpretations, a compulsory requirement for celibate single clergy was not one of them.

(b) The importance of the marriage bond Genesis 2:24 is the key verse that describes the special relationship between the first human couple, Adam and Eve. It states that: … a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh. There are some clear principles here: (i) Leaving Why does it only specify the man ‘leaving’ his parents and not the woman? This is easily answered from the cultural practices of the patriarchal age. In that context when a woman was married she left the home of her parents and moving into with her in-laws sometimes as part of his extended family. This is what happened to Rebekah, for example, when she married Isaac (Genesis 24 –especially Gen.24:67). This 2

young woman might never see her family again, and prior to modern communications being invented, might in the worse case scenario have no further contact with them. Therefore, it is abundantly clear what point is being made to the new husband. Your wife might be joining your family, but this relationship is not simply an additional one in your immediate family circle, it is your top priority. This relationship is unique. Although respect towards and care for your parents will continue, it does take a secondary place in comparison with your relationship with your wife. This independent union takes precedence over all others. (ii) Uniting When a couple get married the union covers every aspect of their lives without exception. There is a requirement for complete openness with one another. Now sadly circumstances can arise where this is no longer possible. If one party in the marriage has serious problems handling finance the other may need to have sole responsibility for bank accounts and credit cards to avoid massive debts piling up. Likewise when various forms of addictive behaviour are manifested drastic measures may be necessary, out of love for the one who has succumbed to a problem lifestyle. But the intention is of a sharing of a whole future life together that ought normally to be workable , even if a couple may choose for one or the other to take a lead in particular areas of family life. (iii) Becoming one flesh Marriage involves more than promises being uttered before invited guests and a legal contact being signed; it includes a deep emotional and physical union as the husband and wife are no long two separate individuals. The biblical language is that of a covenant, an agreement with lifelong mutual obligations, that have been freely entered into by both parties. It is no surprise that the language of the marriage covenant is used in the Old Testament to describe the relationship between God and His people. God is described as the loving and faithful husband to Israel (Isaiah 54:5: For your Maker is your husband – the Lord Almighty is his name ); her apostasy from Him is described as a form of adultery, in very frank and harsh language on various occasions (for example, God declares to Israel in Ezekiel 16:32: 32 ‘“You adulterous wife! You prefer strangers to your own husband! The whole story of Hosea and his unfaithful wife Gomer, was a picture of the nation and its departure from loyalty to the One with whom it was in a covenant agreement (Hosea chapters 1-3 in particular). In the New Testament, in the one passage where the marriage relationship is described –Ephesians 5:22-33- at the every end of that section of Paul’s letter, he adds this comment in Ephesians 5:32: This is a profound mystery –but I am talking about Christ and the Church . The loyalty and commitment envisaged in the Bible concerning marriage is completely counter-cultural to the pressures of contemporary opinion formers in 21st Century Britain. Almost everything is time-limited and disposable. Life is too short not to do what makes you most happy and fulfilled, it is claimed.

I wonder what percentage of people who have walked away from a marriage for another relationship have later regretted the choices they have made? No-one can give a definite figure, but my suspicion is that it is much higher than most people would imagine. God wants to spare us and the other people in our lives the heartaches that can come as a result of inappropriate choices. (c) The security of family life for children(c) The security of family life for children It is profoundly sad that a high portion of children from broken homes experience lower levels of educational attainment, a greater proneness to depressive illness and in the worst cases a greater degree of disfunctionality in their own relationships with other people and with the law of the land. Thank God this is not inevitable, but the effort required by the parent or parents responsible for bringing up the children is much greater than if God’s original intention of a father and mother fully involved in their children’s lives is their experience.

Although I have heard it cited much less frequently in recent years, one reason sometimes given for divorce is ‘for the sake of the children’; yet survey after survey reveals that the overwhelming majority of children would prefer their parents to remain together and work through their problems, even when the parents’ relationship falls far short of what we would 3

wish. Sadly this is not always possible and some separations or divorces are almost inevitable, but the emotional and financial implications of such decisions must ensure that this is a last resort not a first option when difficulties arise. (d) Promises matter Jesus’ teaching on divorce In Matthew 19:1-12 Jesus is reported as being involved in an extended discussion on the subject of marriage and divorce. It is important to understand the context of that debate. Under Jewish law at that time a man could divorce his wife but she could only request a divorce which may or may not be granted.

Deuteronomy 24:1-4 was the passage used as the basis for their practice at that time: If a man marries a woman who becomes displeasing to him because he finds something indecent about her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her and sends her from his house, 2 and if after she leaves his house she becomes the wife of another man, 3 and her second husband dislikes her and writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her and sends her from his house, or if he dies, 4 then her first husband, who divorced her, is not allowed to marry her again after she has been defiled. That would be detestable in the eyes of the L ord. Do not bring sin upon the land the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance. However, notice the specific question of Matthew 24:3: Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, ‘Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?’ There was a fierce debate amongst the two schools of Pharisees. The stricter

school led by a rabbi called Shammai held that Moses was restricting the permission for a divorce to the one cause of adultery. The more liberal school of Hillel extended this permission to include any reason a man may choose. The extent of this permission was truly alarming for women. Rabbi Akiba said this included ‘if he found someone prettier he could divorce her (Mishnah, Gittin 9:10); Josephus the famous Jewish historian reported that he had ‘divorced his wife because he was displeased at her behaviour’, but never specified what it was that he had in mind. He also wrote: He who desires to be divorced from the wife who is living with him for whatsoever cause- and with mortals many such may arise (Antiquities 4.253 – both cited by L. Morris, Matthew, p. 480). Hillel himself famously

suggested that a spoiled dinner was a sufficient ground for divorce. How did Jesus respond here? he appeals to the Bible to the teaching in Genesis 2:24, God’s creation mandate for human society. The conclusion He draws from that was given in Matthew 19:6: So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate. The shocked Pharisees remind Jesus of the verses given above from Deuteronomy 24 and suggest that He is being stricter than Moses on this subject. Jesus affirmed their deduction and reinforced it by declaring that although sadly a small number of marital unions become irreparably broken, it was God’s intention for marriage to be a lifelong partnership, not a union broken on the whim of a man having a mid-life crisis! The vulnerability of women and children under such permissive divorce legislation was potentially a very serious problem, but Jesus made every effort to safeguard their rights and urge Jewish men of His day to take seriously their marital responsibilities. In Mark’s account of Jesus’ teaching on this subject (Mark 10:1-12) Jesus made it plain that husbands and wives in His view were equal before the law and that if a man was legally entitled to divorce his wife then she should have the same entitlements before the law, before issuing the same cautions to wives as He had earlier given in that passage to husbands.

3. The dangers to guard against –David and Bathsheba (II Samuel 11-12) In II Samuel 11-12 there is the profoundly sad story of David’s lust for Bathsheba and the appalling consequences that resulted from that illicit union. David should have been away at work, ironically with Uriah, Bathsheba’s husband, who was one of his most loyal army officers. Instead David, for whatever reason, stays at home and spies on his neighbour’s wife having a bath. This was not difficult as washing facilities were outside and Bathsheba would almost certainly not have been bathing herself had she been aware of a possible male audience. His hormones override his brain as he asks an aide to get the woman for him. Sadly 4

the fallout from this action affected first Bathsheba’s husband and it led to his murder; then two families would never be the same again; later the loss of moral authority here prevented David from disciplining his son Amnon when he raped his half-sister (II Samuel 13) which led to Absalom murdering Amnon, which led to the estrangement of Absalom and David and eventually a national civil war between forces loyal to Absalom and those loyal to David. In the decisive battle of the war, on one day twenty thousand men were killed (II Samuel 18:7).

Like the ripples in a pond when a stone has been thrown in, the consequences of the choices we make can be far reaching beyond anything we had thought possible at the time. Michael Douglas, the well-known actor, in his divorce proceedings some years ago pleaded ‘diminished responsibility’. He declared: ‘Sex is a wave that sweeps over me, the impulse that is, and when the urge comes I am helpless every time’ (J. John, Ten, p. 110). Thankfully David when challenged by his pastor Nathan took responsibility for his sin. Psalm 51 is the psalm of penitence he wrote following his restoration to fellowship with God –although the fallout from his misconduct would affect his life for the rest of his days.

4. The example to inspire us –Joseph and Potiphar’s wife (Genesis 39:6b-23) In Genesis 39 there is the account of Joseph during the early years of his time as a slave in Egypt. It is probable that he is in his late teens or early twenties. (a) The predicament he faced Now Joseph was well-built and handsome, 7 and after a while his master’s wife took notice of Joseph and said, ‘Come to bed with me!’ 8 But he refused. ‘With me in charge,’ he told her, ‘my master does not concern himself with anything in the house; everything he owns he has entrusted to my care. 9 No one is greater in this house than I am. My master has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?’ 10 And though she spoke to Joseph day after day, he refused to go to bed with her or even to be with her.

(Genesis 39:6b-10) Joseph had no choice but to work in that place. He could not look for another job. It is most likely that this lady had made the same proposition to other slaves under her authority and had expected their willing submission to her request. As long as she was happy no harm would have resulted to their physical wellbeing. In too many workplaces up and down the land bosses or managers have sought sexual favours from their juniors, sometimes with a hint of possible promotions or the opposite of a threat of redundancy, if an employees needs to be let go. For some people the pressure to yield is enormous and it is very hard to advise them how to respond to these kinds of situations. However, God has created us in His image and we are all able to say ‘yes’ and ‘no’ when choices are presented to us.

Joseph to his credit resisted this powerful temptation. (b) The fallout he experienced (Genesis 39: 11-20) One day this woman physically tried to manhandle him into her bedroom and he took the only course of action available to him of leaving the premises –at the cost of leaving his coat behind. She falsely claimed Joseph had been after her until she screamed and as a result he was put in prison. Some Christians can misunderstand Potiphar’s actions.

Joseph was not put in prison because he was guilty of a sexual assault on his master’s wife – certain death would have followed in that case. It was because he believed Joseph was innocent. Life isn’t fair. Paul in Colossians 3:23-24 gave some advice to Christians who were enslaved, but these words are applicable to us all: Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, 24 since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving . God sees the choices

we make even if our family and friends do not and this ought to guide the steps we take in our relationships with other people. God saw that Joseph had maintained his integrity and would later deliver him from this situation, but this young man was given time and space to reflect on the fact that some years earlier he had given inaccurate reports to his dad about his elder brothers to get them into trouble (Genesis 37:2). He now gained insight into why living a life 5

of integrity is so important. (c) The honour he experienced (Genesis 41:41-43) Joseph became the equivalent of Prime Minister of Egypt. He was an exceptional man in extraordinary circumstances. We may never experience either the heights or depths he faced, but God will honour us as we honour Him with the moral choices we make.

5. The Affirmation of Marriage We need to work at our marriages- unless your marriage is already a perfect one. Marriages are based on (a) Respect Ephesians 5:33 each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. Affirm and encourage not criticise and pulldown, especially in public. After all if we think our spouse is making bad choices –think about whom they married! A single person contemplating marriage ought to ask do I respect this man or woman –if not then marriage is out of the question. (b) Responsibility Philippians 2:4-5: not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. 5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus. This is true in all relational contexts, but especially important in marriage. (c) Relate Time with each other – this is real problem for many couples, not least when children come along. I fear the reason some couples split up when the children leave home is that they no longer have anything else in common and cannot face another twenty to thirty years together with someone who has not been a major part of their lives for years. (d) Romance it is not meant to stop when you get married, but it does call for a degree of creativity as the years go by. (e) Resolve a shared commitment to the highest standards of faithfulness, truthfulness to and honesty with one another for the rest of your lives (5 R’s taken from J. John, Ten, pp,117-119). Job, the Old Testament patriarch made a number of boundaries for his life. In Job 31:1: I made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully at a girl. Each of us have to look at our own lives and ask what boundaries we need to put in place to uphold our own principles.

6. The Affirmation of Single People One of the biggest weaknesses of our culture is the common assumption that if people are not in a ‘relationship’ with someone there must be something wrong or unfulfilling about your life. This is complete nonsense. Jesus never married and had the fullest life possible with a wide range of friends of both men and women, across the faith communities. Had He been married it would have been impossible to do the work He did. We are all social creatures who need friendship. Some people choose the single life. It can allow them more time, for example, at work, or with friends or in certain forms of mission service overseas as the apostle Paul did. There is no simple template that covers everyone’s preferences. All of us need a strong sense of belonging to a family or community and the local church should seek to support all its members whatever our relational status to be the best we can be in Christ, Amen.

6

Exodus 20 v15 Do not steal Introduction In the medieval period a number of diseases were at times of epidemic proportions. In recent decades in the United Kingdom one of the biggest problems is theft. A KPMG survey reported in Human Resources Magazine revealed that 28% of managers and employees had seen colleagues steal from the workplace; 27% knew of staff that had fiddled their expenses and 23% had seen someone stealing money (The Times, 24 March 2005). The Times newspaper on 1 June 2011 had the headline: ‘Britain: a nation of cheats and thieves’, based on a survey of theft in the workplace. The survey showed that around 75% of people in the UK admitted to stealing from their employers, 25% of whom intentionally created opportunities to steal and the other 50% did so as the opportunity arose. This is not an attractive picture of the level of integrity in our nation. It happens at all levels of our society. It is also rooted in our culture.

The General Public, or at least some of us, were horrified by the nature and extent of claims for MP’s expenses, exposed by the Daily Telegraph newspaper in May 2009. A few so -called ‘honourable members’ were convicted in court for what they had done; but the vast majority evaded natural justice as a result of obeying the carefully crafted laws they had put in place to allow them to enrich themselves at the tax-payers expense. It is to be wondered how much of the public outrage was because they got away with it rather than because they had inflated their ‘expenses’? Yet ordinary workers have been just as guilty at times. In the prosperous post-war years at John Brown’s Shipyard on the Clyde, there were 500 wage rates in that one yard. According to the records the ships were built mainly at the weekends, on overtime and half the workers skipped Mondays and Tuesdays! This was bad enough, but the rate of theft of goods was almost institutionalised. In the 1960s when the Queen Elizabeth II ship was being constructed, it was reported that: ‘Many a Clydeside house was proudly equipped with QE2 doorknobs and a patch of pink, puce and plum carpet from the main ballroom’ (The Sunday Times (archive section), 19 June 2011). Much theft, though, is unspectacular and carried out by otherwise respectable people. VAT fiddled, tax evaded, grant or social security applications filled out dishonestly; goods for sale misleadingly packaged or advertised to potential customers, who might in turn bounce cheques or pay with a stolen credit card. Many people might reject overt forms of theft, but taking the occasional extra ‘sick-day’ off; or using company office supplies or phones for personal use can so easily become a part of a regular routine. Some years ago an employee of a company used the franking machine in their office premises to mail Christmas cards to other people in the company, including the managing director, at company expense. It never occurred to the individual that he should have paid the cost of postage. The eighth commandment simply says: Do not steal.

1. Theft is wrong (a) Because it violates the God-given right to own property In Genesis 2:15-17 God gave some clear guidelines to Adam in the Garden of Eden; He was not to take fruit from one particular tree, to do so would be theft. The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, ‘You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.’ I am not convinced that there were any unusual

features about that tree. On the contrary God wanted Adam to accept His boundaries. Their relationship needed to be based on trust. Sometimes there can be misunderstanding about the biblical teaching on ownership of goods, as a result of a particular interpretation of stories 1

like the account of the meeting of Jesus with a rich young man. Mark 10:22-25 states:

21

Jesus looked at him and loved him. ‘One thing you lack,’ he said. ‘Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.’ 22 At this the man’s face fell.

He went away sad, because he had great wealth. 23 Jesus looked round and said to his disciples, ‘How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!’ 24 The disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said again, ‘Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! 25 It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.’ However,

it was the attitude to his wealth not the possession of it that Jesus was addressing in that passage. This is confirmed by the solemn encounter Peter had with Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5. The Jerusalem Church had held some kind of gift day. Members contributed as they felt led and were able to do so. However, this couple boasted about giving a greater sum than they had actually given. Peter, prompted by the Holy Spirit, challenged Ananias about his wrongdoing in Acts 5:3-4: 3 Then Peter said, ‘Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land? 4 Didn’t it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn’t the money at your disposal? What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied just to human beings but to God.’ A tiny proportion of Christians over the centuries have practised communal ownership

of goods, that was or is their choice, but it is not commanded or even commended in the Bible. (b) Because it can easily escalate into other crimes Is there anyone who would be pleased to have their home broken into or their possessions stolen? Of course not! A person setting off to steal runs the risk of violence being necessary to carry out their crime. James in his letter highlights the problem of the heart behind theft and related crimes: What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? 2 You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. 3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures (4:1-3). On Thursday 3 May

2012, Radio 5 Live had a phone in that covered the story of one of the young men convicted for his part in the London riots of the previous year. On the surface his sentence seemed harsh, yet one of the victims of the riots then spoke of the hidden costs to the victims and their families. A Tottenham carpet warehouse was broken into and presumably some carpets taken, but the premises were torched to cover up the crime. Above the warehouse were sixtyfive flats whose occupants lost all their possessions; some of those families are still in Bed and Breakfast accommodation a year later. Another more tragic incident concerned sixtyeight year old Richard Mannington Bowes, who sought to put out a fire in a litter bin started by rioters. He was punched by one of them on 8 Aug 2011, and died three days later in hospital. This may seem a world away from minor pilfering from an office –and it is –but we have a culture today in which stealing has become almost legitimate. When the boundaries of integrity are crossed inappropriately it is almost inevitable that some people will lose any sense of place or proportion. Honesty with respect to minor possessions will ensure temptations to major acts of theft are much easier to resist. (c) Being honest about stealing This begins with integrity in speech. We will only ‘borrow’ things we genuinely intend to return. ‘Helping ourselves to things’ because they were there or because they ‘fell off the back of a lorry’ is out for a person of integrity. Likewise ‘engaging in creative accounting’ or being ‘less than totally transparent’ with tax inspectors is also inappropriate. It is also very possible in speech to say something that is legal and technically correct, but knowingly convey an impression that is false. There are many contexts in private conversations, to negotiations in the workplace where this might happen. In addition, purchasing goods or services without having an idea how you might pay for them is also potentially in violation of this commandment. A lot of people take the view, especially when pilfering goods from major companies, that it is a victimless crime as the insurance company 2

will pay out. However, the general public pays higher prices in the shops for goods and services as a result of covering the costs of the activities of thieves. And when the theft takes place through an intruder in your own home, the loss is even worse as it is a violation of your private space. It is interesting in the list of backgrounds of sinful lifestyles from which the Corinthian Christians were converted included thieves…greedy people…and swindlers (I Corinthians 6:10). If we can maintain high standards in our workplace or wherever we are then this example will be noted by others who might otherwise have been tempted to act inappropriately.

2. Is Stealing always wrong?

This is not an issue for the overwhelming majority of us living in the UK. We have the essentials for survival, but what about the people who don’t? In November 1620 the Pilgrim Fathers landed at Cape Cod in New England. They were exhausted and dispirited after a long and difficult trip. They had little food and were overwhelmed at the sight of endless forests with wild animals and potentially hostile Indians hiding nearby. The weather was freezing cold and they faced the very real possibility of death by starvation had they not come across a buried supply of corn, presumably placed there by Indians. This fortunate find probably saved their lives. However, they had a conscience issue because of the eighth commandment.

It was not should we take it –because to refuse to do so would have meant death for them and their wives and children, rather how should we recompense the people who put the food there in the first place? They concluded: ‘In the sight of God it is a sin to steal, though it would be a greater sin to allow our families to die when food is available, so we will pledge ourselves to replace it though the Indians know nothing of it.’ Fast forward to the nineteenth century and a meeting in London . Late one evening the famous social reformer Lord Shaftesbury was invited to address a meting of around 400 men, at a gathering arranged by a London City Mission worker. It was a cold dimly-lit room. Present were a group of men with some of the worst criminal records in the city. The guest speaker urged them to give up a life of crime and violence and adopt a new way of life. However, when invited to respond many of the men with tears admitted they had no alternative but to steal to prevent their wives and children from starving. On reflection Shaftesbury wondered if the luxurious lifestyles of a minority in London had contributed to or caused the suffering of the many in need? The Old Testament law made provision for feeding the poor and marginalised and in that context enforced the eighth commandment. For example, Leviticus 19:9-11:‘“When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. 10 Do not go over your vineyard a second time or pick up the grapes that have fallen. Leave them for the poor and the foreigner. I am the Lord your God.11 ‘“Do not steal. God has a particular concern for the

welfare of the people on the margins of society ensuring that their basic needs are met. In our well-off country it is totally unacceptable that a single person should have no food to eat, adequate clothes to wear and a roof over their heads. I thank God for the Evangelical Christian leaders in nineteenth century Scotland, for example (most notably Glasgow Baptist shoe-shop owner William Quarrier), who ensured that no child should need to live rough on the streets of our cities with no-one to care for them. It is sobering that this only took place just over one hundred years ago. In 2012 the need for food banks is a fresh reminder of how close to the margins some people are currently living. I thank God that we have been able to support Ewan Guerr and his team in providing some funds and some food to assist their work of feeding needy families. Stealing is always wrong, but in some cases it is a lesser evil. In a civilised society we must continue to ensure that there is no justification for this in our land.

3. The Remedy for theft 3

(a) Strive for personal integrity It is easy to point the finger and say that ‘everyone is doing it’ as an excuse for not respecting other people’s property. When we borrow money individually or in business loans it should be with the intention of honouring our obligations.

The mess that Ranger Football Club have got themselves into is a reminder of how bad things can get when dishonesty in lesser things escalates into a major crisis that affects many people even outside that football club. Psalm 37:21 states: The wicked borrow and do not repay, but the righteous give generously; it goes beyond money to goods. How many libraries have lost a fortune with books borrowed but not returned? How much software is illegally downloaded from the internet? There will always be grey areas in that field, but wholesale downloading of musical files or other goods, especially if for profit to resell is clearly illegal and putting the individual concerned at risk of a potential prosecution. Sadly Christians are not exempt from being careless in this regard. The general principle of Matthew 7:12: In everything, do to others what you would have them do to you applies in this situation. (b) Seek integrity in the workplace We must have the deepest sympathy for the people out of work who have done their very best to find it but are unsuccessful. However, work is not a necessary evil, even if we joke about it at times. Instead it is intended by God as a means to contribute to society and to take pleasure in the accomplishment of tasks for fair remuneration for our service. Ephesians 6:7-8 reminds us to work: wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not men, because you know that the Lord will, reward everyone for whatever good he does whether he is slave or free. Honesty in the conduct of business is essential.

Proverbs 16:11 reminds us: Honest scales and balances are from the Lord –we don’t need

Trading Standards inspectors to remind us of this requirement. Deuteronomy 24: 15 warns against bosses who delayed paying wages on time to impoverished workers: Pay them their wages each day before sunset, because they are poor and are counting on it. Otherwise they may cry to the Lord against you, and you will be guilty of sin. Today’s equivalent is ‘the cheque is in the

post’ – too common a practice in our culture today. Human sinfulness in both employers and employees can be an issue to guard against, in order for all to work together for the common good. There can be a cost to integrity in the workplace. Some years ago a Christian got a management position in a city cleansing department and was responsible for a team of staff in that city. He quickly found out about an overtime racket that many people had benefited from in recent years. As a Christian he put a stop to it at once, but a lot of people had come to expect a sizable proportion of their income to result from this theft from the taxpayers of that city. He was savagely beaten one day by a group of men, almost certainly employees and later left the job. It can take courage to walk the lonely path of right practice sometimes.

However, on other occasions change can result through a positive witness. J. John reported the conduct of a Christian civil servant who was aware of widespread theft and inflation of expenses in his workplace. He was determined not to join in this malpractice. In addition the office photocopiers and phones were used for lengthy print runs or long phone calls that had no connection to the workplace and others began to notice that he didn’t participate in this misuse of company resources. At first he was criticised for his standards, but graciously ignoring it, he persevered and eventually the office culture changed for the better with much higher standards. In this case a quiet personal witness through his own choices, and without words, led to the transformation (J. John, Ten, pp. 90-91). When we see wrongdoing we can ignore it and privately complain to ourselves, we can where appropriate suggest a better way or at the very least seek to set good personal standards of integrity and hope that it will be effective as in this latter case. In the New Testament there is the well-known account of Jesus meeting the dishonest businessman Zacchaeus. The overwhelming majority of people in Jericho had written him off as a lost cause, but not Jesus. Though, He was criticised for attempting to change this man. Luke records the following account of this story: All the people 4

saw this and began to mutter, “He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.”8 But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.” 9 Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. 10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” (Luke 19:7-10). Never underestimate what a good example

can achieve. Other people will always notice the choices we make for good or bad! (c) Seek integrity in economic choices we make it is encouraging that in the past decade the principle of Fairly-traded goods has allowed us to make wise purchases when shopping. No longer can we overlook the fact that excessively cheap products in our shops are often the result of wages stolen from helpless people in Third World countries. Campaigns against bonded labour and other aspects to this problem, including child labourers on the cocoa plantations in West Africa, are increasingly being addressed, but the scale of the problem is huge. In times of economic recession the pressure are huge on Western Governments to cut back in this area and reduce international development aid. It is one of very few areas where politicians from the different major parties emerge with credit as they have consistently refused cease assisting some of the most needy people in the developing world. Governments and the International Monetary Fund also need to be wise in the loans they offer to poorer countries. Too often they are exploited with punitive interest rates or to obtain precious raw materials at less than a fair market price. Increasingly issues relating to the environment are of concern. The pressures to grow crops to produce biofuels is also problematic. A 2008 World Bank report concluded that increased biofuel production is the major cause of the increase in food prices.

(Donald Mitchell, A Note on Rising Food Prices. World Bank, 2008) . Biofuels are crops grown for fuel rather than food. GM giant Monsanto has been at the heart of the lobbying for biofuels — while profiting enormously from the resulting food crisis and using it as a PR opportunity to promote GM foods! “The climate crisis was used to boost biofuels, helping to create the food crisis; and now the food crisis is being used to revive the fortunes of the GM industry.” (Daniel Howden, Africa correspondent, ‘Hope for Africa lies in political reforms’, The Independent, 8 September, 2008). Too often some of the loudest voices promoting green energy

are companies that stand to benefit from it. It would be easy to be cynical and stop trying to make a difference. However, God gave us the creation mandate to take care of this world and we cannot evade our responsibilities, as much as it is up to us. (d) Seek integrity in our attitude towards the things we possess In Matthew 6 Jesus sought to advise His disciples to have a responsible attitude to the things we possess. Zacchaeus, in the story mentioned earlier, was outrageously generous in refunding people he had previously defrauded. He was able to do that fairly easily as he had simply hoarded his vast wealth. But for him it was a principle of doing the opposite of what he had previously done. We live in a culture where many people assume that others will only do good things if they are paid for it.

Virtually every month our street chaplain’s team is asked how much we are paid for patrolling the streets while the nightclubs and licensed premises are open. They are amazed at the response, and some keep pressing to find out some hidden benefit to us –it surely cannot be simply to do it for God and to help other people! Dom Helder Camara(1909-1999), a famous former Roman Catholic Bishop in North East Brazil and educational reformer, once said: ‘I used to think, when I was a child, that Christ might have been exaggerating when He warned about the dangers of wealth. Today I know better. I know how very hard it is to ber rich and still keep the milk of human kindness. Money has a dangerous way of putting scales on one’s eyes, a dangerous way of freezing people’s hands, eyes, lips and hearts’. Another of his memorable quotations was this: “When I gave food to the poor they called me a saint. When I asked why they were poor, they called me a communist.” Jesus said: 31 So

do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first His kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well (Matthew 6:31-33). Earlier in the same passage Jesus also said: For where your treasure is there your heart will be also (Matthew 6:21). In a beautiful passage at the end of Proverbs there is a simple prayer of an obscure man called Agur. It reads: “Two things I ask of you, Lord; do not refuse me 5

before I die:8 Keep falsehood and lies far from me; give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread. 9 Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you and say, ‘Who is the Lord?’

Or I may become poor and steal, and so dishonour the name of my God (Proverbs 30:7-9). It is not

how much we have that counts, but how we use what we have that is important. Robert Edmiston, the founder of the IM Group, the car importer, was worth around 352 million pounds. He plans to give away at least 300 million of that to good causes (J. Parmiter, Ten at Work, p.72). We could say that he would hardly be suffering with what he had left, but how few of the very wealthy even think in the terms he has done? All of us could give a handful of names, but the list is alarmingly short compared to the number of millionaires and billionaires living in the UK. We are all stewards of what we possess; therefore we have an obligation to use our resources wisely and effectively. (e) Seek to honour God in our giving to His work In II Corinthians 9:6-8, Paul wrote: Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. 7 Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. 8 And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. I am really thankful to God for the generosity of people in this church to various causes

overseas. We do not impoverish ourselves by being generous to others. Malachi, an obscure prophet writing a few hundred years before Jesus’ day, was alarmed at the lack of generosity in giving to God’s work. He gave this challenge to his hearers: Ever since the time of your ancestors you have turned away from my decrees and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you,” says the LORD Almighty “But you ask, ‘How are we to return?’ 8“Will a mere mortal rob God? Yet you rob me.“But you ask, ‘How are we robbing you?’“In tithes and offerings. 9 You are under a curse —your whole nation—because you are robbing me. 10 Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the Lord Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it (Malachi 3;7-10). God honours those that honour Him and that includes

our giving of tithes and offerings. Jesus in a lengthy challenge to some religious leaders of His day, included these words: 23 “What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are careful to tithe even the tiniest income from your herb gardens, but you ignore the more important aspects of the law—justice, mercy, and faith. You should tithe, yes, but do not neglect the more important things (Matthew 23:23 NLV).

As we seek to live for God may He not only enable us not to break this commandment, but also to live generous lives that benefit not only ourselves, but our families, our church and community and the wider world in which we have the privilege of living, Amen.

6

Exodus 20 v 16 Tell the Truth!

Introduction ‘I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth…’ –words familiar from many a court when the traditional oath has been taken. The fact that it is necessary to put people on oath speaks volumes about human nature, as well as the solemnity of proceedings.

Truthfulness is a virtue that some people cannot comprehend and which others conveniently forget. How do you and I view it? Often personal advantage is the reason behind the breaking of this commandment, but the increasing departure from it is eating away at the very fabric of our society. We need to be able to trust one another in so many situations. As Christians we cannot transform the whole of our society on this issue, but by our own personal example we can seek to influence the people with whom we have the closest contact. This commandment does cover the offence of perjury, but it goes much deeper into the integrity of our speech in conversation with other people.

1. The requirement of justice In Exodus 20:16 and Deuteronomy 5:20 the words translated false witness have a slightly different meaning. In Exodus the emphasis is on the nature of the evidence given, that the words spoken are as accurate as possible. In Deuteronomy the emphasis is on the spirit in which the communication is made. It is best to take the two complementary guidelines here to provide the guide for our speech. It is important to be as accurate as we can in the words we utter, but it is equally important that our intentions in making a verbal communication are honourable also. To illustrate, for a time I worked in sales for a company. It was perfectly possible and legal to say things to a potential customer that would increase the likelihood of a sale. Yet although the words and statements individually were correct, they could be spoken in a way that conveyed a completely untrue impression to the other person. It was a clever sales trick and legal, but as a Christian I could never operate in that way, even if it meant that my sales figures and therefore salary was lower than it could have been operating in a less ethical way. The two emphases of truth and justice were the big concerns of God behind this commandment –You shall not give false testimony against your neighbour (Exodus 20:16). The big issue behind this commandment in daily life in the Israelite community was to prevent miscarriages of justice. Even in Israel with its high legal standards miscarriages of justice did occur, none more so than in the case of Naboth the Jezreelite (I Kings 21:1-29). There the wicked queen Jezebel arranged the murder of an upright man using due process in the courts, with ‘witnesses’ who were prepared to lie under oath against a totally innocent man. Upon his conviction and execution his property reverted to the crown and all was well in the palace, until God told Elijah what had taken place. The punishment of God was the early death of Jezebel and the wiping out of the dynasty of Ahab within a few years, as Elijah prophesied.

This was such a serious breach of the rules that the Lord intervened and the situation could not be the same again- justice was non-negotiable. Under Old Testament law there were a number of emphases to be noted: (a) Fair play for all (Exodus 21-23) Here is listed a whole series of practical situations where there might be issues to address. For example, Exodus 23:1-3 gives clear guidance about treating everyone as equals: ‘Do not spread false reports. Do not help a guilty person by being a malicious witness. 2 ‘Do not follow the crowd in doing wrong.

When you give testimony in a lawsuit, do not pervert justice by siding with the crowd, 3 and do not show favouritism to a poor person in a lawsuit. God, through Moses, gave clear guidance how

justice might be obtained for men and women, slaves and free people. Coming through loud 1

and clear were messages about telling the whole truth and not telling lies; don’t commit perjury in court; don’t discriminate or be swayed in favour of the rich and powerful, at the expense of the poor and vulnerable. In a number of cases here there was a potential death penalty to be handed out, for example, to a guilty defendant who has been convicted of murder. Exodus 21:6-7 records God’s view of active participants in miscarriages of justice: Do not deny justice to your poor people in their lawsuits. 7 Have nothing to do with a false charge and do not put an innocent or honest person to death, for I will not acquit the guilty.

Justice in a legal setting is naturally the foremost concern in this passage, but it highlights a bigger point that God hears and notes all our communications. He wants us to ensure that we, like Him, are committed to fair play for all people. (b) An obligation to disclose all relevant evidence ‘“If anyone sins because they do not speak up when they hear a public charge to testify regarding something they have seen or learned about, they will be held responsible (Leviticus 5:1). To stay silent when you know something important in a court case or a more informal context might be a serious misjudgement. An innocent person might be convicted because a witness declined to testify; a colleague at work might need our support in a difficult meeting when unfair comments have been made about them or work they have done. In life opting out of doing the right thing is the easy path many people choose today, but it is not the way of integrity. In a legal context people can be forced to testify under oath, when they are reluctant to speak. Caiaphas, the high priest, put Jesus under oath at His hastily arranged trial prior to the crucifixion, in order to require Him to declare His full identity as the Messiah (or ‘Christ’ same word -Matthew 26:63-66). This was the only time Jesus spoke in that trial as the proceedings were a farce and the court judgement was never in doubt, but He respected the due process of the law. (c) The Requirement of two or three witnesses In the very serious cases, most notably those where a guilty defendant might receive the death penalty, the testimony of independent primary witnesses was crucial. Every safeguard possible must be employed to prevent the testimony of false witnesses. Deuteronomy 19:15 sets out this clear message: 15 One witness is not enough to convict anyone accused of any crime or offence they may have committed. A matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses. These principles were retained in rabbinic teaching in Jesus’ day ( Mishnah, Sanhedrin 3:6, 5:2 –N. Shields, Pattern for Life, p.213), yet deliberately flouted in the trial of Jesus as Mark 14:55-60 reveal.

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The chief priests and the whole Sanhedrin were looking for evidence against Jesus so that they could put him to death, but they did not find any. 56 Many testified falsely against him, but their statements did not agree.57 Then some stood up and gave this false testimony against him: 58 ‘We heard him say, “I will destroy this temple made with human hands and in three days will build another, not made with hands.”’ 59 Yet even then their testimony did not agree. 60 Then the high priest stood up before them and asked Jesus, ‘Are you not going to answer? What is this testimony that these men are bringing against you?’ 61 But Jesus remained silent and gave no answer. Under the

law the case should have been dismissed at that point and Jesus set free. God can give clear boundaries, but human beings make choices as to whether we live by them or not. God can give clear boundaries, but human beings make choices as to whether we live by them or not. (d) Punishment for false witnesses (Deuteronomy 19:16-19) 16 If a malicious witness takes the stand to accuse someone of a crime, 17 the two people involved in the dispute must stand in the presence of the Lord before the priests and the judges who are in office at the time. 18 The judges must make a thorough investigation, and if the witness proves to be a liar, giving false testimony against a fellow Israelite, 19 then do to the false witness as that witness intended to do to the other party. You must purge the evil from among you (Other passages make the same point, Numbers 35:30; Deuteronomy 17:6-7). The punishment for the false witness was that which would have been

inflicted on a guilty defendant, which in a murder trial was the death penalty. You could not have a clearer deterrent against lying under oath. (e) Banning of bribery This can be actual cash or gifts in kind or some other favours; it is any action that perverts the course of justice.

Deuteronomy 16:18-20 makes this very plain: Appoint judges and officials for each of your tribes 2

in every town the Lord your God is giving you, and they shall judge the people fairly. 19 Do not pervert justice or show partiality. Do not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and twists the words of the innocent. 20 Follow justice and justice alone, so that you may live and possess the land the Lord your God is giving you. A society where corruption is endemic is less than

healthy and will never achieve its full potential. The leadership of the prophets in Israel ended after Samuel’s day because of the actions of his sons. I Samuel 8:3 reports: But his sons did not follow his ways. They turned aside after dishonest gain and accepted bribes and perverted justice . In the New Testament Jesus warned that: out of the heart come evil thoughts…false testimony, slander (Matthew 15:19); Peter, in I Peter 1:17, reminded his readers that we serve God, a father who judges each man’s work impartially… In heaven the angelic choir included these lines of praise to God in Revelation 15:3: Great and marvellous are your deeds, Lord God Almighty.

Just and true are your ways, King of the nations. In summary Paul told the Ephesians: 31 Let all … evil speaking be put away from you… (Ephesians 4:31NKJV). We serve a God who requires justice for all practised by all of us.

2. The priority of justice (a) A right to be upheld Every human being is a neighbour to others. Therefore, we have an obligation to ensure that each person before the law is treated fairly and with equal rights, regardless of social status or gender. Micah’s famous words echo down the ages: He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God (Micah 6:8). This requirement goes beyond our

personal relationships, where we treat other people properly. It has an expectation that active steps are taken for justice and fairness in the wider society in which we live –and living in a global village we have responsibilities for expressing concern over human rights in other countries as well. James, in his letter to early Christian Churches applied this principle to congregational life in James 2:1-4: My brothers and sisters, believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ must not show favouritism (James 2:1). (b) A Case to be argued for Building on the previous point we can get weary of endless cases of justice being presented to us and the consequent requests for petitions to be signed, letters written and politicians contacted directly from Care or the Christian Institute or Christian Concern; or overseas from Barnabas Fund, Christian Solidarity Worldwide, open Doors or Middle East Reformed Fellowship, to name but a few agencies who regularly highlight injustice issues. We cannot just live in peace in our comfortable society and do nothing when our brothers and sisters are suffering –after all if the situation was reversed I suspect we would be hoping for some action on our behalf? (c) Restraints on litigation The way we seek to make our society more fair is also important.

Litigation ought to be a last not a first resort. Proverbs 25:8a: What you have seen with your eyes do not bring hastily to court… Paul, likewise warned the Corinthians in chapter six of his first letter to the Church at Corinth about taking fellow Christians to court. If any of you has a dispute with another, do you dare to take it before the ungodly for judgment instead of before the Lord’s people?...Therefore, if you have disputes about such matters, do you ask for a ruling from those whose way of life is scorned in the church? 5 I say this to shame you. Is it possible that there is nobody among you wise enough to judge a dispute between believers? (I Corinthians 6:1, 4-5). He

was not advocating that injustice be swept under the carpet, on the contrary, it was his earnest aspiration that in our accountability to one another all such matters could be resolved without requiring civil legal redress. When the courts are required in civil matters it is a sad day because justice has not been seen to be done in a family or work or other form of dispute.

3. The heart of the matter –truthfulness 3

A. The Old Testament emphasis: (a) The truthfulness of God Psalm 146:6: He is the Maker of heaven and earth; the sea, and everything in them –He remains faithful for ever. This means in practice, as I Samuel 15:29 tells us: He who is the Glory of Israel does not lie or change His mind; for He is not a human being, that He should change his mind. Numbers 23:19 records some extraordinary words from that remarkable figure Balaam: God is not human, that He should lie, not a human being, that He should change his mind. Does He speak and then not act? Does He promise and not fulfil? If God is like this then His people ought to seek to follow in His footsteps. (b) The denunciation of lying Proverbs 19:5: A false witness will not go unpunished, and whoever pours out lies will not go free. The Psalms are full of warnings of those

who tell lies. The prophets likewise attack traders using false scales or other unscrupulous business practices. Isaiah was troubled by the growing disparity between people of integrity and those without such standards in his day: Scoundrels use wicked methods; they make up evil schemes to destroy the poor with lies, even when the plea of the needy is just. 8 But the noble make noble plans, and by noble deeds they stand (Isaiah 32:7-8). It is particularly serious when lies are

proclaimed in God’s name. Jeremiah passed on this message from God warning against false prophets. Therefore,’ declares the Lord, ‘I am against the prophets who steal from one another words supposedly from me. 31 Yes,’ declares the Lord, ‘I am against the prophets who wag their own tongues and yet declare, “The Lord declares.” 32 Indeed, I am against those who prophesy false dreams,’ declares the Lord. ‘They tell them and lead my people astray with their reckless lies, yet I did not send or appoint them. They do not benefit these people in the least,’ declares the Lord (Jeremiah 23:30-32; see also Deuteronomy 18:20-22). By contrast, Solomon in I Kings 8:56 can say this of God: Praise be to the Lord, who has given rest to his people Israel just as He promised. Not one word has failed of all the good promises He gave through His servant Moses.

(c) The problem of lying by believers Although this ought not to be an issue, as with other sins, those who claim to know the Lord do at times fall into sin. Jacob deceived his father Isaac to gain the promised blessing that belonged to his elder brother Esau. Repeatedly in Genesis 27 this young man lies to his blind father and obtains something that did not belong to him. What God has planned for Jacob he would have inherited in the proper way in due course. So why did he misbehave in this way? Why did his mother Rebekah put him up to it in the first place? What did that whole situation reveal about life within that family? What is clear is that relations within that family never recovered from the appalling deception by the younger son and mother. As a direct result of what happened Esau deliberately married a Canaanite women who had no time for the faith of his parents (Genesis 28:6-9). Many years ago a Christian businessman was conned in a deal by another man he trusted, also a professing believer –but a less than honourable man away from church. The local church to which he belonged knew about the disgraceful action, but took no disciplinary sanctions- as a result the first man has barely darkened the door of a church to this day. Lies are not just words they can have repercussions over generations. However, careless talk can also be dangerous. Proverbs 11:13 reminds us: A gossip betrays a confidence, but a trustworthy person keeps a secret. Yet there are some very difficult scenarios that cannot be avoided. Should the Israelite midwives have told the truth to Pharaoh about why they were not killing baby boys in line with his orders in the time of Moses (Exodus 1:19-20)? The midwives answered Pharaoh, ‘Hebrew women are not like Egyptian women; they are vigorous and give birth before the midwives arrive.’20 So God was kind to the midwives and the people increased and became even more numerous. These ladies were honoured for not betraying these children. Just as Dutch

Christians who hid Jewish families from the Nazis were in the right to deny that they had any guests staying in their homes during World War II; as was Elisha for being economical with the truth in advising Syrian army officers when their forces were surrounding Dothan (II Kings 6:19). Justification in such matters is a big call, but wisdom from God is required as to how we speak as truthfully as we can under all normal circumstances.

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B. The New Testament emphasis (a) The truthfulness of God Jesus said: He who sent Me is reliable (or true John 8:26). Of Himself He said in John 14:6: I am the truth. And the One to follow Him, the Holy Spirit, is the Spirit of truth (John 14:17). Paul in Titus 1:2 speaks of God who does not lie… and Hebrews 6:18 goes further declaring that it is impossible for God to lie… as it is completely contrary to His nature. (b) The requirement of truthfulness for believers In the spiritual battle in which we are engaged we are invited to put on our spiritual armour that includes this command: Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled round your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place… (Ephesians 6:14). In our relationship both with God and other people may it be an integral part of who we are to be truthful in all the words we speak.

4. Challenges to truthfulness (a) Malicious lies Paul in II Corinthians 12:20 expressed his real fears about the quality of internal relations between believers in that congregation. He wrote: For I am afraid that when I come I may not find you as I want you to be, and you may not find me as you want me to be. I fear that there may be discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, slander, gossip, arrogance and disorder. No wonder the Corinthian church was the least spiritual congregation we read of in

the New Testament. They had to get their house in order. However, guarding our tongues is not easy. James in his letter warned about the dangers caused by an uncontrolled tongue: 6 The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one’s life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell. 7 All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and sea creatures are being tamed and have been tamed by mankind, 8 but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. 9 With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness. 10 Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be (James 3:6-10). (b) Lies of

fear How often have people blamed someone else to try and avoid getting into trouble. ‘It wasn’t me…’ – are they familiar words? One lie is so rarely enough as others are needed to bolster it. As early as Genesis 3 in Eden the blame game began: Adam blamed Eve, she the snake –no-one was responsible! What a cost, of being thrown out of the garden –but they didn’t think of the consequences of a lie! (c) Lies of carelessness presenting information in such a way that the impression given is untruthful. We all unintentionally make mistakes – which we can correct and to some degree is unavoidable. However, there are some people we meet who appear to make a habit of slanting information in unhelpful ways. How many newspaper stories or other media reports would pass the test of truthfulness? Reporting deadlines are an insufficient excuse for being economical with the truth. Taking care how we represent the views of other people, especially when we might disagree with their views, is very revealing about ourselves. (d) The Lie of enlarging the truth ‘The fish I caught was so big’!! the temptation here to present ourselves or others in a better or worse light that a fair presentation would allow. We all have opinions, right or wrong, but distortion of factual information is out of bounds in all normal conversations. (e) The lie for profit The lie of the salesman –you have won a holiday, a … -the list is endless. The deliberate misuse of words for personal gain; It can be so easily done and in some contexts so easy to justify-Craig’s story. (f) The lie of silence When someone’s reputation is being slandered and you know it is untrue- to stay silent is complicity in wrongdoing. It is not easy to speak out in the office or a social setting and may damage a friendship, but doing nothing is not an option, especially when serious untrue allegations are being made. (g) Self-deception Robert Burns in his poem ‘To a louse’ wrote: O wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us. To see oursels as ithers see us! It wad frae mony a blunder free us, An' foolish notion . We must not justify doing ourselves what we would condemn with respect to other people. There has to be one standard for everyone. (h) Lies to God God if you answer my prayer, I will… if you get me out of this mess I will… don’t make promises 5

if you don’t intend to keep them. Psalm 139 reminds us that God knows everything. Are there any things you need to sort out with Him today? Or things with other people that need to be corrected?

5. A Plan of action (a) Being a truthful person Jesus, in John 18:37, told the Roman governor Pilate the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.

Only a person who habitually told the truth could even attempt to say such a thing. If we make it a habit to determine to be truthful –although wise too in what we say, people will respect us so much more than would otherwise be the case. However, it is necessary to limit what we say. A doctor, for example, might not be able to give a full diagnosis to a patient of their condition. (b) Being an encourager There was a heated exchange at a dinner party between Winston Churchill and a female MP. She scornfully remarked: ’Mr Churchill you are drunk’. ‘And you, madam’, he replied ‘are ugly. But I shall be sober tomorrow.’ It was a witty putdown, which probably amused some guests at the function, but others including the recipient of his comments did not forget them (J. John, Ten, pp 68-69). Although, offering opinions about whether a particular garment flatters a person’s figure or whether we need to suggest a size bigger or similar scenarios can be tricky. (c) Be self-disciplined There are some conversations we will choose to opt out of. For example, those that are intended to denigrate the reputation of other people; or dirty conversations that are unwholesome. Sometimes limited input that is guarded to avoid breaking confidences can be necessary. (d) Be brave Sometimes challenging untruths can cost us friendships or make life difficult for a time. Yet God is pleased when we honour Him in our conversations. (e) Be willing to say sorry We all make mistakes –be quick to apologise for harsh words or incorrect ones. A quick response is much more readily accepted than one forced out of someone weeks or months later. Sometimes being willing to be a mediator to bring people to a point of reconciliation is a God-honouring activity.

In all our words to ask –is it true? Is it helpful? Is it encouraging? Is it necessary? When we are doubtful of something we plan to say. Paul gave this advice to the Christians in Philippi: Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable – if anything is excellent or praiseworthy – think about such things. 9 Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me – put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you (Philippians 4:8-9).

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Exodus 20 v17 Be Content Introduction Exodus 20:17 states: You shall not covet your neighbour’s house[everything he owns]. You shall not covet your neighbour’s wife [some relationships are off limits], or his male or female servant [targeting his employees], his ox [a beast of burden –in effect the ‘equipment’ he uses to do his work –ie no asset stripping of his business] or donkey [his mode of transport!], or anything that belongs to your neighbour. In the western world most people will seriously struggle to get their heads around this commandment. What is perceived here as a vice has been portrayed in our culture as a virtue. So we need to take some time to think about what God might be saying to us in this verse. Think about these statements: 1. The closest to perfection a person comes is when they fill in a job application form.

2. The biggest room in the world is the room for improvement.

3. The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.

4. People live in one of two tents: content or discontent.

5. However long you take agonizing over the menu deciding which desert to have, when the next person’s choice arrives you realise you have made the wrong choice.

6. God made us a little lower than the angels, but most of us are concerned to climb a little higher than the Joneses.

7. The average family ambition is to make as much money as they are spending.

8. Our yearnings will always exceed our earnings. [J. John, Ten, pp.21-22] Anyone who claims they don’t desire anything is probably either clinically depressed or close to death, because the desire to improve one’s situation is natural and good. If you are ill it is normal to want to do what is necessary to become well. If you are studying at school, college or university it is not unreasonable to wish to work hard and pass your tests and exams. We all want to be loved and to have people who count us as friends and acquaintances. In the workplace and in our families we desire to be respected and valued for who we are –and for what we do. These are all good desires commended in the Bible and an essential part of the glue that binds us together in human society. However, in recent generations, possibly more than in previous centuries due to the lure of advertising, our thinking has altered in an unhealthy direction. For me to be loved properly I need to alter my body (possibly with cosmetic surgery) because the size __ model is the baseline for an acceptable appearance; for me to belong in my social circles I need to live in this kind of house or drive that kind of car –or? a variety of statements could be made here but the common denominator is the need to obtain more material things that will supposedly fill the ‘gap’ in our lives –if the adverts are to be believed. Yet more than three thousand years ago God sought to address this problem in a considerably less materialistic society than our own by this the Tenth Commandment.

1. What is covetousness?

The root word in Hebrew mans to ‘desire’ or ‘delight in’ something. It is used in the Song of Solomon (Song 2:3) I delight to sit in his shade referring to sit besides the one that woman loved. Peter in I Peter 1:2:2 urged his readers: Like new born babies, crave pure spiritual milk so that by it you may grow up in your salvation . That is, desire to each day each God’s Word and let it soak into your mind so that you become more and more directed by its thinking and teaching. In I Timothy 3:1 Paul used this concept in another constructive way. He wrote: If anyone sets his heart on being an overseer, he desires a noble task . Here are three examples of the positive use of this idea of wanting to grow in affection for another human being; desiring to know God better through reading His Word and wanting to have the opportunity to serve the 1

Lord in the Church through some office or ministry. Jesus challenged His disciples in the Sermon on the Mount with these words in Matthew 6:33: But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. In other words Jesus was saying in your time for the weekly schedule –mark time for God the first entry into your diary whether it is church on a Sunday or the short time for prayer and Bible reading each day block it out so that other things cannot take their place. When budgeting finances do ahead of time and set aside what you will give to the Lord whether through a tithe to the local church or offerings to a range of good causes rather than seeing what is left over when our own immediate requirements are taken care of; when making decisions about possible promotion at work or changing jobs, for example, think carefully how will this affect what I can offer to the Lord as well as how will this affect my family or other areas of my life? Paul in Philippians 3:12-14 challenged these young Christians to think they had ‘arrived’ as mature Christians without a need to seek further spiritual growth in their relationship with God. He wrote: Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13 Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: forgetting what is behind and straining towards what is ahead, 14 I press on towards the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenwards in Christ Jesus. Yet sinful human nature twists what is good into something that is

potentially first unhealthy for us and then possibly harmful to our growth as persons. In Genesis 3 Eve and Adam coveted the one thing that God had forbidden them to possess, the fruit of the tree in the centre of the garden. His intention was the establishing of healthy boundaries for their lives, in their relationship with Him; something every good parent will do with their children; or every teacher with their pupils. When the Israelites were on the verge of entering the Promised Land they were commanded by God to destroy the idols of the defeated nations. Deuteronomy 7:25 states: 25 The images of their gods you are to burn in the fire.

Do not covet the silver and gold on them, and do not take it for yourselves, or you will be ensnared by it, for it is detestable to the Lord your God. The gold and silver were not bad in themselves, but

any association with idolatry had to be avoided. A shop specialising in ‘adult’ dvds might, for example, set up a section of Walt Disney children’s dvds and offer to rent them out for a lesser charge than a regular Video /dvd hire store, but there is no contest about which store a Christian would use if renting a film for their children. At the heart of this matter is selfdiscipline. In Joshua 7 there is the tragic story of Achan, which led first to defeat for the Israelite army at Ai, including the deaths of thirty-six soldiers. In time it led to the death of this man and his family whom he had led into sin. What was the root problem? In Joshua 7:20-21 we read his confession: 20 Achan replied, ‘It is true! I have sinned against the LORD, the God of Israel. This is what I have done: 21 when I saw in the plunder a beautiful robe from Babylonia, two hundred shekels of silver and a bar of gold weighing fifty shekels, I coveted them and took them.

They are hidden in the ground inside my tent, with the silver underneath.’ It was, in effect, a get

rich quick scheme, a gamble that pays off for the very few at the expense of the majority.

How often the casualties of such ventures are ignored and the few success stories lauded to the skies! Covetousness includes a number of characteristics including: 2. Clinging on to what we already possess (a) Unrealistic views concerning our current circumstances I havn’t heard it for years, but as a youngster growing up I heard snatches of conversation between older adults commenting on how much people had left when they died. For some people that was the first section of the regional paper they turned to each week. The answer is of course ‘everything’ connected to the world. In Charles Dicken’s work A Christmas Carol, old Marley’s ghost lamented spending his life hoarding money. ‘My spirit never walked beyond our counting house-mark 2

me- in life my spirit never roved beyond the narrow limits of our money changing hole.’ It doesn’t only happen to people who struggle on the margins of solvency it equally or possible more often happens to the rich. Howard Hughes, one of the richest men on earth when he died left roughly £2 billion in his will. Yet he lived in his later years as almost a prisoner in his own home, in spartan conditions. A commentator on his life described his existence as: ‘sunless, joyless…a virtual prisoner walled in by his own crippling fears and weaknesses’ (B. Edwards, The Ten Commandments for today, pp.257-258) . We live in a society where, with the exception of the last few years in this economic depression, living standards have gone up and up. Even in the mad world of Premier League football we think salaries cannot get any higher –then an even wealthier man buys a club and offers even more obscene payments for chasing a ball around on a grassy park! In 1999 Manchester Untied captain Roy Keane was given a four year contract paying him approximately £50,000 a week – more than ten million pounds in total. Yet today at Manchester City there are a number of players earning over £200,000 a week. Yet does such wealth make them play better and be more socially responsible? Mario Balatelli and Carlos Tevez were but the most prominent examples of a number of irresponsible footballers this last season. We will never be in their league, but the desire for riches is common. (b) Unrealistic views about money Did you know that 99.9999 percent of people who play the National Lottery will never win it? A decade ago £83 million a week (£24.3 billion a year) was spent on tickets and nine out of ten jackpot winners continue to play as before. It is the only tax invented by a British Government that people have willingly paid! In Ecclesiastes 5:10 the author summed up so well the problem faced

by Hughes and so many other people down the centuries: Whoever loves money never has enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with their income. This too is meaningless. Paul, in his first letter to Timothy also commented with perception on this subject. I Timothy 6:10 states: For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. Very few people deep down would deny a desire for a little bit more money, but the problem is the line just keeps extending and calling a halt to the pursuit of it has never been easy. Yet this can extend to each area of our lives as we might imagine or dream that the ‘grass is greener’ elsewhere in other relationships, other jobs, with other friends or families or other churches. Too often people regret mistakes made through imagining unrealistic expectations regarding potential changes in their lives. The real world can be a tough unforgiving and painful place at times.

God wants to spare His children going through the painful consequences of unwise choices that we might be tempted to make when we step outside the loving boundaries for living He has created. (c) Unrealistic expectations of what we need I /we deserve it, therefore…In the 1970s A was a shop-steward at the major employer in this English city. Several thousand men (and a few women) had incredibly well-paid jobs earning easily twice the national average wage. A decision was taken by the Union this particular year to demand a bumper pay rise.

The management pleaded that any pay rise would bankrupt the viable company. The Union ordered the workers out on strike for a few weeks, if I remember correctly. I’m not sure if they ever went back to work. It was a total disaster for that wider community as every one of those employees landed on the dole queue. Looking back A was embarrassed to admit the reckless foolishness of the Union officials in assuming that there were ever larger pots of money waiting to be shared out by the workforce –no thought of the consequences. It can be so subtil the adverts entice us to purchase the latest clothes, cars, furniture or whatever to show that we are with it. Knowing the difference between needs and wants is so important. It could save a home from being repossessed, a marriage from collapsing under a pile of debt and a next generation knowing how to handle money. Success that is earned by hard work in a career; by dedicated training in a sport or with a musical instrument; or a reward that has 3

been waited for will be much more satisfying than benefits that land on our lap without any effort on our part.

3. Countering Covetousness (a)Recognise it and be realistic In the moral realm it is easy to lapse into thinking person ‘x’ whom we don’t really know will be more exciting and the relationship with them more thrilling than the one we currently enjoy. King David’s disastrous lusting after Bathsheba had such appalling consequences for so many people (II Samuel 11). Coveting so easily can lead to jealousy and envy of others. King Ahab (I Kings 21) had affixation with a small vineyard adjacent to the palace property. He wanted it and offered to pay handsomely for it, but its owner a modest God-fearing man called Naboth had no interest in a larger vineyard or a cash payment, he was content with what he had in life. Here was a man whose worldly goods did not even register on the scale of the possessions of the Royal family nearby, yet he was happier and more fulfilled than they could ever dream of. It was because with his work, attitude to possessions and family life Naboth had realistic views on each area. He wasn’t trying to raise the perfect family; he had no desire to get such a big vineyard that he would have no time for his family –working to live not living to work. This latter point is a particular problem in the United Kingdom, compared to most other European countries. Too often an individual might be well-grounded in their views, but pressure from others in their family or workplace pressure them into making choices that are not particularly wise. When we see we have a problem in some particular area –maybe the best option is to seek out a friend of the same gender to whom we can be accountable to ensure we stick to our principles and make the right choices. Paul, very courageously, as he wrote the letter to the Church at Rome as an appeal for funds to assist proposed church-planting work in Spain, admitted he struggled with covetousness. In Romans 7:7-8 the great apostle wrote: What shall we say, then?

Is the law sinful? Certainly not! Nevertheless, I would not have known what sin was had it not been for the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, ‘You shall not covet.’ 8 But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of coveting. For apart from the law, sin was dead. He rightly didn’t go into details, but allowed

these younger Christians to see that even Christians who have been on the faith journey for years still struggle at times with very real challenges to their faith. In Genesis 4 there is the shocking account of Cain killing his brother Abel. It began with jealousy concerning the fact that the Lord appreciated Abel’s offering more than Cain’s. The reason for this is probably because Abel offered the sacrifice that God wanted him to bring. However, Genesis 4:4b-7 highlights the problem that had arisen: The Lord looked with favour on Abel and his offering, 5 but on Cain and his offering He did not look with favour. So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast. 6 Then the Lord said to Cain, ‘Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? 7 If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it.’ The same question comes to all of us –

will we be controlled by our impulses and desires or will we have them under control as we take the key decisions of our lives? In the famous parable of the Sower that Jesus told, one of the responses illustrated the problem highlighted by this commandment. Mark 4:18-19 states : Still others, like seed sown among thorns, hear the word; 19 but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful. Coveting can lead to such a distortion of our priorities in life and our perspective on

choices before us that we can make mistakes that could so easily have been avoided. (b)See through the illusion Covetousness promises what it cannot deliver –happiness and contentment with what we have. It can never deliver on these promises. A number of National lottery winners have branded their wins, in hindsight, as one of the worst days of their lives, because instead of bringing the best quality of life they could imagine it tore 4

families and friendships apart as a result of unrealistic expectations. An anonymous poet once wrote: Money can buy medicine, but it cannot buy health.

Money can buy a house, but not a home.

Money can buy companionship, but not friendship.

Money can buy entertainment, but not happiness.

Money can buy food, but not an appetite.

Money can buy a degree, but not an education Money can buy a bed, but not sleep Money can buy a crucifix, but not a Saviour Money can buy insurance, but not security Arthur Schopenhauer the philosopher once said: ‘coveting is like sea water; the more we drink the thirstier we become.’ Jesus told the story concerning a rich farmer in Luke 12:13-21 to warn about the dangers of covetousness. Someone in the crowd said to him, ‘Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.’ 14 Jesus replied, ‘Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?’ 15 Then he said to them, ‘Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.’ 16 And he told them this parable: ‘The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. 17 He thought to himself, “What shall I do?

I have no place to store my crops.” 18 ‘Then he said, “This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. 19 And I’ll say to myself, ‘You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.’” 20 ‘But God said to him, “You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?”21 ‘This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich towards God.’ This man thought he had every base covered, but never considered that

his time on earth was in God’s hands. (c)Realise that fear feeds covetousness Do I really need to be afraid. Many people fear running out of money so they risk ‘killing’ themselves working to gain enough of it. Our security can only truly be in our relationship with God. Therefore, grasping this point puts the rest into perspective. David in Psalm 27 stated some beautiful words: The Lord is my light and my salvation – whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life – of whom shall I be afraid?

2 When the wicked advance against me to devour me, it is my enemies and my foes who will stumble and fall. 3 Though an army besiege me, my heart will not fear; though war break out against me, even then I will be confident…. I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. 14 Wait for the Lord be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord (Psalm 27:1-3, 13-14).

What if I never meet the man /woman of my dreams and my hopes of marriage are dashed?

What if the career I trained for never materialises? What if my health gives way and my quality of life diminishes? What if ….The list is endless, but it can rob you of the joy of the Lord and the sense of fulfilment He intends for each of us as His children. In Matthew 6:1921, Jesus said to His disciples these words: ‘Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Where is your heart and mine

this morning? In the Bible it has been stated that God says to His people: Do not fear…370 times –doesn’t this statistic point to a deep-seated human problem that may need to be addressed?

4. Cultivate Contentment 5

(a)Keep your heart in the right place Give God the first place in your life. Ask Him to take away desires for things that are not priorities for your life. Ask Him to give you the best desires for that which is most important and to be able to bring that through to fruition in daily life. When our heart is in the right place we can overcome some surprising levels of adversity. In Philippians 1 the apostle Paul mentions that some professing Christians sought to take advantage of his imprisonment to advance their cause, through some form of evangelistic preaching in the public square. Philippians 1:15-18 states: It is true that some preach Christ out of envy and rivalry, but others out of goodwill. 16 The latter do so out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defence of the gospel. 17 The former preach Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, supposing that they can stir up trouble for me while I am in chains. 18 But what does it matter? The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached. And because of this I rejoice. Yes, and I will continue to rejoice…Only the Holy

Spirit can keep us focussed and on track in our faith in such circumstances. (b) Develop an attitude of gratitude In the same letter to the Church at Philippi, the apostle Paul wrote these words from his prison cell: 10 I rejoiced greatly in the Lord that at last you renewed your concern for me. Indeed, you were concerned, but you had no opportunity to show it. 11 I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. 12 I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. 13 I can do all this through Him who gives me strength (Philippians 4:10-13). He continually exhorts these believers to take delight in their blessings. Philippians 4:4 states: Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: rejoice! What an incredible statement and from someone

who lived it! List and focus on the blessings you have and keep it in a safe place to bring out again when you are feeling down and struggling. God is good-all the time, even when we neither feel it not see it in our personal experience, because He cannot but be true to Himself. (c) Be a wise steward of what you possess We are stewards not owners –one day all the things we have will have either perished or belong to someone else. In Luke 12:48b Jesus said: From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked. It is not how much or how little I have, but what I do with what I have that counts. This fact is of crucial importance. (d) Focus on your priorities Romans 8:18: I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. We live in the present, in the light of eternity. Jesus said: It is more blessed to give than to receive (Acts 20:35). What might this look like in my life if Jesus is in total charge? Some questions to reflect on: What do you think about most? What do you like to talk about the most with enthusiasm?

What do you spend proportionately most money on? What do you give most time to? The old chorus says: ‘Turn your eyes upon Jesus, Look full in His wonderful face; and the things of earth will grow strangely dim, in the light of His glory and grace’ (CMP712 chorus), Amen.

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