Photo by Jan Tinneberg on Unsplash
Read: Exodus 20: 13-15
Every year around Easter week, you can find the glowing, spray-tanned face of Charlton Heston playing the part of Moses as he brings two perfectly carved blocks of stone down from Mount Sinai in the Oscar award-winning film “The Ten Commandments.” It’s incredible how much art can influence the way we imagine history unfolding. As I read any of the narrative Biblical accounts of Moses’ life, I always see him in my mind as a bronze-faced, steel-gazed, skinnier version of Charles Spurgeon, aka Charlton Heston. My mind has been imprinted by Cecil B. DeMille!
Whose imagination has not been captivated by the dramatic way in which God delivered the commandments to His people? Do yourself a favor. Go back and read Exodus 19. God Himself comes down to a mountain, His voice in the thunder and His presence so electric that lighting fills the skies, causing the mountain to tremble, shake, and be wrapped in smoke like a kiln! If anyone touches the mountain, they die! This is the kind of immense power and magnitude that Marvel movies seek to emulate in their fictional characters! Here is where we truly discover that we are mere mortals, and God is someone wholly other than us.
However, within the commandments themselves, we also discover that this immensely powerful God loves us. In fact, one of His primary purposes in creating us is to lavish His love on us and make us His children (I John 3:1). God’s commands reveal to us the laws of love, and the three commands that we’re studying this week have the love of one’s neighbor right at their heart. Larry pointed out several weeks ago that the commands to not murder, commit adultery, or steal are less about prohibiting personal freedoms and more about loving one’s neighbor. These commands take a foggy, blurred image of what love is and bring definition and clarity. Without these commands, “love” becomes as ambiguous as the individual moral and ethical compasses of every person.
A common characteristic of “wise” people is that they are able to foresee the both the intended and unintended consequences of certain actions and make decisions based on that foresight. When in our right minds, most of us can foresee the consequences of murder, adultery, or stealing. However, passion, anger, and greed are powerful emotions that have led great and wise men and women to break these commands (see Rachel, Moses, David, etc). If David is said to have had a heart much like God’s and yet succumbs to breaking all three of these commands in one instance, then surely none of us are bulletproof. Diligently guard your heart and mind, and don’t disregard the beautiful provision of accountability that God has given you through the church.
But just as there are unforeseen consequences in breaking these commands, there are also unforeseen consequences in keeping these commands. In an article written for Desiring God Ministries, Ray Ortlund ponders the effect that keeping the seventh commandment (Do not commit adultery) would have on society. It’s a great article where he delves into the effect it would have on the debate over sexual identity and whole-hearted worship. But at the end of the article he makes a remarkable statement about how sexual fidelity would affect a society. He says this,
“The seventh commandment within us creates a social environment around us, where no one in our presence has anything to fear. Everyone can relax, open up to Jesus, and grow and rejoice and flourish without distraction or pressure or weirdness.” (God Calms Our Sexual Insanity: The Seventh Commandment for Today)
In other words, when we live out the commandments, it opens doors for God’s kingdom to reveal itself here just as it is in heaven. Isn’t that what Jesus taught us to pray? Amen. Lord, let it be!
