Tag: commandments

  • A River of Redemption Flowing from Eden – The Ten Commandments

    Then all the people responded together, “We will do all that the Lord has spoken.” So Moses brought the people’s words back to the Lord. – Exodus 19:8 CSB

    Everyone knows The Ten Commandments – 

    As we noted previously, commandment implies both authority and relationship. Jesus’ answer to a lawyers’ question, “Master, which is the greatest commandment?” did not mention even one of the Ten Commandments, but rather pointed toward our relationship to God.

    When someone asks you about the Ten Commandments, what is your immediate response?

    Do you know them? (It likely depends on your religious upbringing.)

    I was raised in a family which worshiped the Lord where children and youth were weekly schooled  in a primer of faith. Therefore, from my Sunday-school training I instantly regurgitated, ‘Exodus 20,’ as response of quick recall about the Ten Commandments. Exodus 20 is actually just one place the Commandments are mentioned, but let’s start there.

    How many of the Ten Commandments can you name?

    How did you do? According to a source quoting a USA Today poll, if you could name five Commandments you did better than six out of ten Americans. If you correctly named all Ten Commandments, you are one of only fourteen in one hundred Americans [14%] who could do so. Sadly, this knowledge of Scripture is even lower in many countries on other continents.

    Background and Context of the Ten Commandments

    Did you realize that the Ten Commandments appear multiple times in the Bible? Though not listed every time, the record of the Ten Words gives context to their application and emphasis to their authenticity.

    Exodus 20

    Exodus 24:3 Moses came and told the people all the commands of the Lord and all the ordinances. Then all the people responded with a single voice, “We will do everything that the Lord has commanded.”

    • 4 And Moses wrote down all the words of the LORD… 7 He then took the covenant scroll and read it aloud to the people.
    • 12 The LORD said to Moses, “Come up to me on the mountain and stay there so that I may give you the stone tablets with the law and commandments I have written for their instruction.”

    From the Hebrew:

    24:12  וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָה אֶל־מֹשֶׁה עֲלֵה אֵלַי הָהָרָה וֶהְיֵה־שָׁם וְאֶתְּנָה לְךָ אֶת־לֻחֹת הָאֶבֶן וְהַתֹּורָה וְהַמִּצְוָה כָּתַבְתִּי לְהֹורֹתָֽם׃

    Law – תּוֹרָה – Torah and Commandment – מִצְוָה – Mitzvah

    The Two Stone Tablets

    18 When he finished speaking with Moses on Mount Sinai, he gave him the two tablets of the testimony, stone tablets inscribed by the finger of God.

    “…and they are indeed a stiff-necked people.”

    The word of the LORD, of His chosen nation.

    Violation of the LORD’S spoken Word!

    Exodus 32:

    7 The Lord spoke to Moses: “Go down at once! For your people you brought up from the land of Egypt have acted corruptly. 8 They have quickly turned from the way I commanded them…

    9 The Lord also said to Moses: “I have seen this people, and they are indeed a stiff-necked people. 10 Now leave me alone, so that my anger can burn against them and I can destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation.”

    11 But Moses sought the favor of the Lord his God: “Lord, why does your anger burn against your people you brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and a strong hand? … Turn from your fierce anger and relent concerning this disaster planned for your people. 13 Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac, and Israel…

    15 Then Moses turned and went down the mountain with the two tablets of the testimony in his hands. They were inscribed on both sides—inscribed front and back. 

    16 The tablets were the work of God, and the writing was God’s writing, engraved on the tablets.

    19 … Moses became enraged and threw the tablets out of his hands, smashing them at the base of the mountain.

    We will not here today dwell on Moses’ role as the hand of the Lord’s vengeful wrath. You may recall a sanitized image of the idolatry of the golden calf, but consider from scripture what took place.

    25 Moses saw that the people were out of control… 26 And Moses stood at the camp’s entrance and said, “Whoever is for the Lord, come to me.”

    … “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says, ‘Every man fasten his sword to his side; go back and forth through the camp from entrance to entrance, and each of you kill his brother, his friend, and his neighbor.’”

    28 The Levites did as Moses commanded, and about three thousand men fell dead that day among the people. 

    Did you remember this terrible refining of the camp of the Hebrews and slaughter of three thousand men?

    I didn’t, for I had not read this scripture recently.

    31 So Moses returned to the Lord… 

    33 The Lord replied to Moses: “Whoever has sinned against me I will erase from my book. 34 Now go, lead the people to the place I told you about; see, my angel will go before you.

    But on the day I settle accounts, I will hold them accountable for their sin.”

    Would you have been among those slaughtered for your idolatry? Or would you be among those enduring earthly plague, never entering the promised land?

    Is it not a fearful for us to be held accountable for our sin?

    The Lord Again Writes Down The Ten Commandments

    Exodus 34:

    The Lord said to Moses, “Cut two stone tablets like the first ones, and I will write on them the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke.

    4 Moses cut two stone tablets like the first ones. He got up early in the morning, and taking the two stone tablets in his hand, he climbed Mount Sinai, just as the Lord had commanded him.

    34:5  וַיֵּרֶד יְהוָה בֶּֽעָנָן וַיִּתְיַצֵּב עִמֹּו שָׁם וַיִּקְרָא בְשֵׁם יְהוָֽה׃

    5 The Lord came down in a cloud, stood with him there, and proclaimed his name, “the Lord.” 6 The Lord passed in front of him and proclaimed:

    The Lord—the Lord is a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger and abounding in faithful love and truth, maintaining faithful love to a thousand generations, forgiving iniquity, rebellion, and sin.

    But he will not leave the guilty unpunished, bringing the fathers’ iniquity on the children and grandchildren to the third and fourth generation.

    8 Moses immediately knelt low on the ground and worshiped.

    Ten Words and More Commands

    10 And the Lord responded: “Look, I am making a covenant… 11 Observe what I command you today… 

    27 The Lord also said to Moses, “Write down these words, for I have made a covenant with you and with Israel based on these words.”

    28 Moses was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights; he did not eat food or drink water. He wrote the Ten Commandments, the words of the covenant, on the tablets.


    This hearing of the Law: To be continued…

     

  • What do I do with this? – Law

    What do I do with this? – Law

    “You shall therefore love the LORD your God and keep his charge, his statutes, his rules, and his commandments always. Deuteronomy 11:1

    Think of our everyday life as a brief journey to a place of which we have only dreamed. How do I get there? (I don’t even truly know where I am now?) I know God wants me in a different place today than where I failed so miserably in sin yesterday.

    Adam failed to follow just one law in Eden. Abraham obeyed God to become a sojourner to a promised land, a sort of new Eden from where the chosen people of God would be fruitful and multiply from a place of a new righteousness.

    Moses, raised as an Egyptian prince, lived a comfortable life and at a comfortable time in life (80 years old) God commands, ‘Go back to Egypt. You will lead My people to the land I promised to Abraham.’

    Again, suppose you are Moses in that ‘comfortable’ place in life; or suppose you are no prince at all and slave away in that terrible workplace so out of your control. You struggle to find a way to lead your loved ones through this drudgery – you have just what you need, but your daily life is far distant from a dream of promise.

    God says, ‘Get ready to follow my chosen leader to the place of impossible dream.’ (Of course with God, all things are possible for those who believe. Mark 9:23) Moses returns and says, ‘The Lord says, ‘Follow me. I will make a way for you.’”

    Will you do it?

    Miracles in the land which convince even unbelievers, then the sea parts and you escape. The LORD IS all-powerful. It is the LORD, “I AM,” who leads.

    Exodus 3:13-16 KJV

    And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them?

    And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.

    And God said moreover unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, The LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you: this is my name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations.

    Now that we have GOD on our side – we have followed the LORD through the sea, of reeds and have HIS POWER – we will do great things for God.

    Let’s take the short cut. We will lead GOD to our promised land.

    Isn’t that how we would do it? Yet would the place of promise not then be polluted with that same sin of ours (never mind the evil of our enemies we will defeat)? Wouldn’t the promised land then be no different than when Israel (Jacob) led us to Egypt only to have the generations of promise enslaved?

    The LORD has a plan for the faithful: 

    God’s LAW and COMMANDMENT of righteousness.

    I AM,  ‘el yĕshuw`ah Yahh Yĕhovah

    Seven generations (of 60-year lifetimes, 430 years) the Hebrew people had lived in Egypt with scant knowledge of God and NO LAW of God to guide them.

    The righteousness expected by GOD of man made in His Image is forever etched in stone to be spoken into our heart. TEN WORDS – Ten Commandments.

    How can man live in righteousness? How can man live in community? How can we live as family in marriage?

    How can I be God-like without knowing the high standard of the Judge of all men, the Ruler of all creation? What is the will of God?

    “Oh that they had such a heart as this always, to fear me and to keep all my commandments, that it might go well with them and with their descendants forever! Deuteronomy 5:29

    Instruction in Righteousness

    Deuteronomy 5: HCSB sinai GOD speaks

    1. Do not have other gods besides Me.
    2. Do not make an idol for yourself…
    3. Do not misuse the name of the LORD your God…
    4. Be careful to remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy as the LORD your God has commanded you. You are to labor six days and do all your work… (not 5; not 7)
    5. Honor your father and your mother, as the LORD your God has commanded you…
    6. Do not murder. (Includes babies created and conceived in the mother’s womb.)
    7. Do not commit adultery. (Includes women, though scripture points to the man.)
    8. Do not steal.
    9. Do not give dishonest testimony against your neighbor. (Against anyone. Do not lie: as a witness in your words or by the witness of your life.)
    10. Do not covet your neighbor’s wife or desire your neighbor’s house, his field, his male or female slave, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.

    Ten Commands – Laws of the Land – God’s righteousness by which to judge.

    Are these not applicable in your household, your state, our nation?

    “If in this time of evil and place of slavery to sin, Supreme Justices of a land of promise add immorality to the covenant of Sinai, will we not perish in a wilderness of our disobedience?

    In our homes and our personal lives we fail to keep the Commandments, especially those which put the LORD GOD first and above all other things.

    You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your mind, all your strength and all your soul. – Deuteronomy 6:5 (and other instructions in the books of Scripture)

    “Be careful to do as the LORD your God has commanded you; you are not to turn aside to the right or the left. – Deuteronomy 5:32

    To be continued…

  • Reflections: Israel – a place in time

    Reflections: Israel – a place in time

    To begin with, the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God. What if some were unfaithful? Does their faithlessness nullify the faithfulness of God? By no means! – Romans 3

    Joshua 1 

    God Commissions Joshua

    After the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, the Lord said to Joshua the son of Nun, Moses’ assistant, “Moses my servant is dead. Now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, you and all this people, into the land that I am giving to them, to the people of Israel. Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given to you, just as I promised to Moses.Promised_boundaries

    From the wilderness and this Lebanon as far as the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites to the Great Sea toward the going down of the sun shall be your territory.

    No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life. Just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you or forsake you. Be strong and courageous, for you shall cause this people to inherit the land that I swore to their fathers to give them. Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to do according to all the law that Moses my servant commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go.

    2014.03.30-The-Ten-WordsThis Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it.

    For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”

    It is a covenant relationship with a covenant people chosen by the LORD. The Hebrew people about to enter the land of Israel promised to Abraham have ONLY to obey the LORD.

    Two basic commands for those entering the Promised Land:

    “This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth

    “you shall meditate on it day and night. – Joshua 1:8

    Joshua 11:3 So Joshua took the whole land, according to all that the LORD had spoken to Moses. And Joshua gave it for an inheritance to Israel according to their tribal allotments. And the land had rest from war.

    Yet between the days of Moses and Joshua, until the days of the Kings of Israel: Saul, David, Solomon and generations to follow; did the people of God not do what was evil in the sight of the LORD?

    And lest we become so full of grace as to not confess our own failings:

    Are Christians any better at keeping the Commandments of God as part of our speech or keeping it in prayer and our thoughts day and night?

    Chosen or adopted, each of us sins and we all struggle with obedience to God.

    Joshua 23:14 NKJV

    “When you have transgressed the covenant of the LORD your God, which He commanded you, and have gone and served other gods, and bowed down to them, then the anger of the LORD will burn against you, and you shall perish quickly from the good land which He has given you.”

    The LORD God is a personal God. He loves those who love Him and hates those who love other gods and do evil. He IS a God of justice, yet a God of mercy. He has compassion on those wronged and will avenge those to whom we do evil.

    What is your witness and covenant?

    Who IS your lord?

    To be continued…

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