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By Pastor Glenn Pease
CONTENTS
8. PRESERVATION OF MARRIAGE COMMANDED
9. PRESERVATION OF PROPERTY COMMANDED
10. PRESERVATION OF TRUTH COMMANDED
The editor
of a newspaper was interviewing a man who applied for the job of being a
rewrite man. "Are you good at condensing"? the editor asked.
"Sure", was the snap reply. "All right then, take this and cut
it short", he said , as he handed him a copy of the ten commandments. The
applicant was momentarily startled, but then he took his pencil, wrote briefly,
and handed it back. The editor looked at it and said, "Your hired!"
He had written one word‑‑don't.
This
story illustrates the popular misconception about the ten commandments. They
are seen as negative, and can be summed up in the philosophy that says thou
shalt not enjoy life. Whatever you like, don't do it. Now it is true that 8 of
the 10 are negative, but as we shall see, this is for a very practical reason.
Jesus summed them up, not with a don't, but with a twofold positive do. Do love
God with all your heart, and do love your neighbor as yourself. The first four
commandments deal with loving God, and the last six deal with loving our
neighbor.
But if
these most famous laws in the world can be stated positively, why were they
given in a negative form originally? Those who do not care to look for an
answer just dismiss them as being irrelevant for a positive thinking world.
They claim the negative nature of them leads to excessive negativism. This is
illustrated by the mother who said "Go see what Johnny is doing and tell
him to stop." One little boy under this kind of atmosphere thought his
name was Johnny don't. There have been many Christians who have measured their
piety by the number of things they don't do. The Pharisees were experts at this
sort of thing also, and they were able to compile a list of several thousand
things they did not do. It was a negative religion.
Too many
negatives lead to a life of emptiness. The absence of evil is a good thing, but
when good is also absent, one is not living a life pleasing to God. Jesus told
of the man who had all of the demons that possessed him driven out, and all was
swept clean. All the evil was gone, but no positive good filled the vacuum, and
the result was the evil returned in greater power than it had before. Those who
try to live on negatives often take great falls into sin, for negatives are
just not a good foundation. The negative is only of value when it is a means to
a positive end.
A
missionary in Africa was trying to explain the Ten Commandments to an old
native chief. "You tell me I'm not
to take my neighbors wife?"
"That's right" said the missionary. "Or his ivory or his oxen?" "Quite right!"
"And I must not ambush him on the trail and kill him?" "Absolutely right" said the
missionary. "But I cannot do any
of these things," said the savage, "I am too old. To be old and to be Christian are the same
thing." This illustrates how weak
a mere negative religion and morality would be. Righteousness would be equivalent to inability. If negative
become ends in themselves, then one becomes more and more Christian the less he
is able to live, and death would bring perfection. This is, of course, nonsense.
Negatives cannot be ends in themselves, but must be means to a positive
goal.
We fail
when we lose the positive, for it is the positive that gives authority to the
negative commands. People demand to see
the positive value in having their freedom limited by prohibitions. If you say don't, they want to know why, and the why had better be positive if you
expect people to respect the authority of the negative. Robert Kahn, a Jewish Rabbi, points out that
the Declaration of Independence has this great positive statement‑"All
men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with rights to life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
Then, in order to preserve these positive values, a Bill of Rights was a
appended to the Constitution. When you
read them you notice they are of a negative character. The gist of each is‑
Congress shall make no law
The right of the people to bear arms shall not be
infringed
No soldier shall be quartered
the right‑‑to be secure shall not be
violated
No person shall be held to answer.
No fact tried by a jury shall be otherwise re‑examined
Excessive bail shall not be required
The enumeration of certain rights shall not be
Construed
These are the eight negatives of the ten amendments
called the Bill of Rights. They are
negative commandments for the preservation of positive rights. We see from this, that when negatives are
the means to positive ends, they do not destroy our freedom, but become
foundations for freedom. Without these
negatives to protect us we would be far less free as Americans.
Now if
we go back to the Ten Commandments, we see the same principle involved. It is almost as if the Constitution and Bill
of Rights were patterned after the 20th chapter of Exodus. In Exodus 20:2, we see the positive
statement of God, which gives authority to His Commandments, and which is the
basis for their existence. "I am
the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of
bondage." God did not impose this
list of laws upon a people to suppress them and their liberty. They were the gift of a wise God to a people
He had set free, and who He wanted to remain free.
John
Locke said of the law, "The end of the law is not to abolish or restrain,
but to preserve and enlarge freedom."
This was certainly God's intention in giving the Ten Commandments. If oppression and suppression was His
motive, He could have done no better than to
have left them in their bondage in Egypt. The whole atmosphere surrounding the Ten Commandments is one of
positive liberty. Liberty so new and
fresh and complete that it could only lead to chaos and disaster without the
limitations of law. All of the
negatives are like the Bill of Rights negatives. They are to preserve the great liberty which God had given them.
By
forbidding murder, for example, all are free to live. By forbidding stealing all are free to possess property without
fear. Each negative is for the
protection of a positive value. Freedom
is dependant upon the limiting and the guiding of man by law. Total freedom is a paradox, for it leads to
total bondage. Total freedom is when
every man does what is right in his own eyes, and has no responsibility for the
rights of others. It is absolute
individualism, which is anarchy.
During
the French Revolution they took the not out of the Ten Commandments, and they
put it into the creed. They had, thou
shalt kill, steal, commit adultery, lie; and I do not believe in God the Father
Almighty. The results of this misplaced
not was one of the worst periods of
history. The anarchy and blood bath,
that came because of the absence of this not, was a classic example of the
positive value of negative limitations.
Remove the negative and you destroy the power of the positive. This is true in many realms of life. If you take the negative cable off your
battery the positive cable will not start your car. The two must work together to achieve a positive goal. That is why negative laws are also needed to
achieve positive goals in human society.
When the
Ten Commandments are seen in the proper perspective they become foundations for
freedom, and not hindrances to freedom.
They hinder and restrain only that perverted freedom which leads to
bondage. If there is a world where all
goes well without respect for life, property, and purity, it has not yet been
discovered, and until some space traveler charts it on the map of the universe,
the Ten Commandments will be relevant and essential to the good life and best
society.
Cecil B.
DeMille, in preparing the script for his well known production of the Ten
Commandments, caught something of the meaning of God's eternal Word when he
said, "Our modern world defines God as a "religious complex" and
laughed at the Ten Commandments as old fashioned. Then, though the laughter, came the shattering thunder of great
world wars, each more terrible than the last and a blood‑drenched world,
no longer laughing, cries for a way out.
There is only one way out. It
existed before it was
Engraved upon the tables of stone. It will exist when
stone has crumbled. The Ten Commandments are not
rules to obey as a personal favor to God.
They are the fundamental principles without which mankind cannot live
together. Armies are mighty, atom bombs
are mighty. Ideologies born of blind
pride and passion are mighty. But the
truth of God is mightier than all, and
it shall prevail."
Remove
the laws that limit the earth to its orbit around the sun, and you gain a
liberty which would hurl it into extinction.
We are only free to live and breathe as we do, because of the
limitations of law. So it is with the Ten
Commandments. The New Testament does
not repeal them, but rather, lifts them
to an even higher level by summing them all up in love. Paul in Gal. 5:13‑15, gives us a
perfect example of the necessity of the law being fulfilled in love. "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. The entire law is
summed up in a single command:
"Love your neighbor as yourself." If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you
will be destroyed by each other."
This shows us that the Ten Commandments are as essential for the
survival of the Christian Church as they were for the survival of Israel. The only difference is, the New Israel
stresses the positive aspect of love in the fulfilling of them.
When
they were given to Israel, they were given to a very immature and undisciplined
people. They had been slaves for
hundreds of years, and were not an advanced and highly civilized people. Negatives are necessary on this level of
development. We see this in raising
children. When they are young and
immature, and do not understand ideals and positive values, you are limited to
saying "no, no" to guide them.
The positive replaces the negative only as they become mature. This is the pattern we see in God's dealing
with men. The Old Testament has a focus
on the "no, no", but the New Testament focus is on the "yes,
yes." The more mature people
become in their relationship to God the more valuable and precious the
commandments become. An unknown poet put it‑
"The truth that yesterday was mine is larger
truth today;
It's face has aspects more divine, it's kinship
fuller sway
For truth must grow as ages roll, and God looms
large upon the soul."
When we
see the Ten Commandments from the true Biblical perspective, we see them as
gifts of grace. They came from God who
first delivered Israel, and then gave the law to preserve that liberty He gave
them. The origin of the law is God's
love. The goal of it is that we might
love Him who first loved us, and our neighbor whom He also loved. As given to Israel, however, they were
exclusive and not universal, for God had delivered and redeemed only
Israel. The Ten Commandments as given
in Exodus were only for Israel, but since the coming of Christ they are
universal, and all men are obligated by them, especially those who
believe. Jesus died for the sins of all
men. He became the universal Savior,
and now all men can be led out of bondage to sin and Satan by faith in
Him. This becomes the New Testament
basis for obedience to the Ten Commandments.
All who have been delivered are obligated to express their gratitude by
obeying the laws of their Deliverer.
Laws
become the foundation for freedom.
Obedience to God's laws is our expression of love to Him who first loved
us and set us free. Love and law are
partners in the Christian life, and they work together for the good of
man. As we study the Ten Commandments,
we must be aware that we not just studying what was relevant to ancient Israel,
but what is relevant to our daily life.
What is old is not obsolete just by being old. The laws of nature are very old, but I never heard of a movement
to stop keeping them. I never heard any
parents say, "my folks always told me not to touch a hot stove, but that
is old fashioned. I let my kids touch
the hot stove, and don't push any of that old stuff on them." The reason some things are old is because
they are essential for all generations.
The law of gravity is as old as time, but just as fresh and new and
vital to life as it was on the first day of time. The Ten Commandments are old, but they will never be
outdated. Break them today, and it is
just as foolish as trying to break the law of gravity today. D. L. Moody said, "The commandments of
God given to Moses in the mount at Horeb are as binding today as ever they have
been since the time when they were proclaimed in the hearing of the
people."
We are
saved by faith alone in Jesus Christ, but saved people must still obey the laws
of nature and the laws of God. Law does
not save, but there is no way to live a life pleasing to God, and one that
leads to happiness, apart from obedience to law. The very angels of God, who never sinned, live in obedience to
God's law. In Psalm 103:20 we read,
"Bless the Lord ye His angels that excel in strength, that do His
commandments, harkening unto the voice of His Word."
The
Christian sees the Old Testament law as a means of fulfilling the New Testament
law of Christ, which is the law of love.
It is not a way of being saved, but a way by which we express our love
to God for being saved by grace. Our
freedom in Christ, limited by our obedience to the Ten Commandments, will lead
us to live a life worthy of our Lord.
The greatest freedom in life is the freedom to please God. Thus, in studying the Ten Commandments, we
are studying the Foundations For Freedom.
An angry group
of citizens shouted at their small town mayor‑"Every city car that
passes through here breaks the law by breaking the speed limit. You've got to
do something about it, and do it fast." "Don't you worry," said
the mayor with confidence. "I'll raise the speed limit to 150. Let's see
them beat that!"
This
mayor had an easy solution, which would effectively element lawlessness. All you have to do is change the law, or redefine
lawlessness. You can just change the definition of lawlessness and get rid of
it. This is a process that goes on all the time in our culture. What was once a
bad thing is no longer a bad thing because it has been defined as no longer
bad, but acceptable. Relativity is real, but when it enters into the realm of
morality it becomes very dangerous. Men use it to change what is evil in God's
eyes into what is acceptable to men. Or, on the other hand, they change what
was once a virtue into a vice. For example, the young girl who brought her
Bible to school was sent home, as if it were a crime.
It is no
wonder that there is confusion about the law, for it is no longer stable as it
once was. It is full of loopholes, so that not all are treated equal, and it
can be changed any day, so that what was wrong yesterday can be right tomorrow.
The average American is skeptical about the law, for he knows it is often just
an arbitrary will of the majority imposed on the minority. Much of the
lawlessness of our day is due to the laws protection of injustice. The law can
protect and defend evil as well as good. It can be an instrument of oppression
and slavery, as well as a force for freedom. Every dictator and tyrant controls
his people through law. Abuse of the law is as common as its legitimate use.
Even in
the church the law of God was abused. The Puritans in Salem, for example, were
determined to legislate the Kingdom of God into reality, and they were going to
make the New Jerusalem on earth. These were some of the Sabbath laws they made‑
No one shall run on the Sabbath or walk in his
garden.
No one shall make beds, cut hair, or shave.
No woman shall kiss her child on the Sabbath.
No food or lodging shall be given to any Quaker or
other heretic.
And they were not just kidding either. Disobedience
was not tolerated, but met with heavy penalties.
Roger
Williams, one of the heroes of freedom, was a minister in Salem. He objected to
the use of law in regulating matters of conscience. He said this is contrary to
the doctrine of Jesus Christ. This was an attack on their system of law, and
they pronounced the sentence of banishment on him, for the audacity to question
their law. He was able to escape and by the help of friendly Indians get to
what became known as Rhode Island. It was there that Roger Williams established
the first place on earth with total religious liberty. He also established the
first Baptist church in America there.
He
became a hero of freedom, and he is studied in all the secular history books.
Yet, he became this hero by being lawless. He rebelled against the laws he felt
were unjust both in the church and the state. He started the long hard battle
to get the laws of the state and the church to leave men free in the realm of
their religious beliefs. You cannot make believers by means of the law. This is
a personal act of choice and faith, and not a matter you can legislate. Many
Christians through the centuries have ended up in prison, just like Peter in
the New Testament, because they refused to obey laws that interfered with their
obedience to God. They were seen as lawless, but in reality they were being
loyal to the highest law, the law of God.
Christians have recognized what observant men of all ages have noticed,
and that is, that law that is a respecter of persons is an instrument of evil,
whereas, law that treats all men equally is an instrument for justice. Benjamin Franklin said, "Laws like to
cobwebs, catch small flies, Great ones break them before your eyes." An 18th century saying of similar thought
goes like this‑
"The law doth punish
man or woman
That steals the goose from
off the common,
But let's the greater felon
loose
That steals the common from
the goose."
In other words, there is a duel standard in which
the weak and poor must suffer the full penalty of the law, but the rich and
powerful can escape it and even become heroes in doing so. Pope said, "All look up with
reverential awe, At crimes that 'scape, or triumph o'er the law."
The
Christian must respond when asked about his view of the law, that it is a realm
where every situation must be evaluated by itself. If the law is just and consistent with the absolute law of God's
revelation, the Christian is bound to defend it. If the law is unjust and is itself a violation of the law of God,
the Christian is equally bound to be lawless, and defy that law for the sake of
freedom and loyalty to God. The heroes
of freedom in church and state have been those who defied unjust laws.
All of
this means that there is nothing more relevant to our day than a depth
knowledge of God's law. It becomes the
absolute guide and standard by which the Christian must decide where to stand
to be a true defender of freedom. We
dare not decide on the basis of the world's standard, for it is completely
relative to the values of the world.
The Christian is not lawful or lawless by his relationship to any of
man's standards, but by his relationship to God's standards, which are
summarized in the Ten Commandments. You might be thought of as a perfectly law
abiding American citizen, and yet be a lawless rebel in relationship to the law
of God. You may never murder or steal, but be filled with hate and covetousness,
which the law of God forbids. On the other hand, you may end up in prison
because you do not obey the law of the land that demands prejudice and hate.
Lawful
and lawless are terms that must be seen in relationship to the revealed Word of
God to have any significance for the Christian. The Church has always
recognized this and that is why Orthodoxy has never even suggested that the New
Testament has eliminated the Ten Commandments. They are still vital guides for
the Christian life.
Luther
said, "He who destroys the doctrine of the law destroys at the same time
political and social order...." Calvin wrote, "We must not imagine
that the coming of Christ has freed us from the authority of the law; for it is
the eternal rule of a devout and holy life, and must, therefore, be as
unchangeable as the justice of God." John Wesley wrote, " The moral
law, contained in the Ten Commandments and enforced by the Prophets, he
(Christ) did not take away. It was not the design of his coming to revoke any
part of this...The moral law stands on an entirely different foundation from
the ceremonial and ritual law... Every part of this law must remain in force
upon all mankind, and in all ages."
These
convictions have been stated by the great Christian leaders of this century as
well. Spurgeon said, "First, the law of God must be perpetual. There is no
abrogation of it, nor amendment of it. It is not to be toned down or adjusted
to our fallen condition; but every one of the Lord's righteous judgements
abideth forever." And D. L. Moody said, "Jesus never condemned the
law and the prophets, but He did condemn those who did not obey them. Because
He gave new commandments it does not follow that He abolished the old. Christ's
explanation of them made them all the more searching."
These
quotes from outstanding representatives of the Christian Church make it clear
that Orthodoxy has always considered the Ten Commandments to be an absolute
revelation perpetually binding as long as earth shall last. Those who criticize
them as being old and obsolete for our day fail to see their depth and
perpetual relevance to all ages. They say the old morality is stagnant like a
puddle that has set until it stinks. In Christian Reflections, C. S. Lewis
refutes this fallacy in a way worthy of being quoted, even though it is a
lengthy paragraph.
"Space does not stink because it has preserved
its three dimensions from the beginning. The square on the hypotenuse has not
gone moldy by continuing to equal the sum of the squares on the other two
sides. Love in not dishonored by constancy, and when we wash our hands we
are seeking stagnation and putting the clock back,
artificially restoring our hands to the status quo in which they began the day
and resisting the natural trend of events which would increase their dirtiness
steadily from our birth to our death. For the emotive term 'stagnant' let us
substitute the descriptive term 'permanent.' Does a permanent moral standard
preclude progress? On the contrary, except on the supposition of a change‑less
standard, progress is impossible. If good is a fixed point, it is at least
possible that we should get nearer and nearer to it; but if the terminus is as
mobile as the train, how can the train progress toward it? Our ideas of the good may change, but they
cannot change either for the better or the worst if there is no absolute and
immutable good to which they can approximate or from which they can recede. We can go on getting a sum more and more nearly
right only if the one perfectly right answer is 'stagnant'"
This is
the Christian attitude toward the law of God.
It is permanent, absolute, and it is the standard by which we test the
validity of all other laws. If they are
unjust and are a hindrance to man's legitimate freedom the Christian is to
oppose them as Jesus did the laws of the Pharisees. Law is good and vital to man's happiness and welfare, but law is
only absolute when it is God's law. The
Ten Commandments are God's law for all men in all ages.
If an
atheist says the Sea of Galilee is North of the Dead Sea, it is just as true as
if a Christian says it. If a thing is
true it makes no difference who says it.
If an evil man says two plus two equals four, it is not less true
because he is evil. A godly man cannot
make it more true, for it is an objective truth evident to all.
The Ten
Commandments in some form are seen all over the world in every culture. You can find laws from ancient Egypt to modern
India, which are just different versions of the Ten Commandments. They are the universal top ten, for they
deal with issues that are relevant to all men.
Civilized men the world over, though fallen and lovers of sin, know that
there are some things that need to be forbidden to make life tolerable.
The
Mohammedans consider them just as sacred as do the Jews and Christians. There is nothing on which so many of the
people of the world agree. They are no
less true and valuable when quoted by a pagan.
They cannot save man, but the fact is they help control man and his evil
nature. It is obedience to these top
ten that keeps the world going. Every
culture that rises above the barbaric does so because people are regulated by
these laws. Millions of pagans have a
life with some degree of meaning and peace because they live in the midst of
neighbors who do not kill, steal, or
violate their mates.
The
problem is, it is only the second half of the ten that man obeys. The first half deals with God and loyalty to
Him. Here man is weak and this leads to
humanism. Humanism is faith in man
without faith in God. It is the result
of a split in the Ten Commandments. Man
has developed a split‑level world where he has cut himself off from the
top of the top ten. Until he gets the
two halves of these ten united he will be divided in his inner being and be a
civil war. Humanism fails, not because
it is not full of what is true, but because it deals with only half of reality
and leaves the greatest half out of the picture, which is God.
EXODUS 20:1‑3 And God spoke all these words: I
am the Lord your God, who brought you out of
Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before
me.
In the
book, The Doctor Of Crows Nest, and old doctor Ferguson fell in love with the
hands of young Barney Boyle. "You
must be a surgeon, Barney," he said.
"You've got the fingers and the nerves!" Barney was hesitant, but the doctor pointed
out all the advantages and the help he could be to others. He concluded, "Ah, boy, God knows I'd
give my life to be a great surgeon. But
He didn't give me the fingers. I
haven't the touch. But you have! You have the nerve and the fingers and the
mechanical ingenuity; you can be a great surgeon. You shall have all my time and all my books and all my money;
I'll put you through! You must think,
dream, sleep, eat, drink bones and muscles and sinews and nerves! Push everything else aside! He cried waving his great hands
excitedly. And remember!.... here his
voice took a solemn tone...let nothing share your heart with your knife."
Here is
an earthly example of the motivation behind the first commandment. God had great ambitions for Israel. He wanted a people who would be an
instrument of His grace and love to all the world. Though them He would bring into the world the Great Physician,
who alone would succeed as an effective surgeon against sin. God had great plans, just as the doctor did
for young Barney, but both God and doctor Ferguson had the same obstacle to
overcome, and that was the free will of man that can choose, not only less than
the best, but even the worst. Barney
could choose to be a bum and waste his gifts, and Israel could choose to go a
whoring after other gods and bring disgrace upon the name of Jehovah. As a matter of fact, that is exactly what
happened, and it proves the point that free will is the basic problem in the
God‑man relationship. Until the will is submissive there is no way that
man can be successful in fulfilling the plan of God.
God must
win our obedience to the first commandment or the rest of them become
meaningless. If we are not absolutely loyal to Him and Him alone, we will not
be concerned about being loyal to His standard of morality. Dr. Ferguson said
"if you want to be a successful surgeon you must let nothing share your
heart with your knife." God is saying in this first commandment, "if
you want to be successful in living a life pleasing to me, let nothing share
your heart with you love for me." In other words, make me your first
priority in all of life. All other loves, such as family, friends, and
neighbors must be subordinate to your love for me. Love for God must be first
and foremost, always.
Thoreau
said, "Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or
a thousand‑simplify, simplify."
God will not settle even for two or three, however, but demands we
simplify down to one ultimate loyalty.
This is what the first commandment is all about. Let's look at the implication of this first
commandment.
The
first implication of this commandment is that God has made man free to defy His
sovereignty. God does not impose the
benefits of His acts of grace upon man without their consent. By shear power God brought Israel out of
Egypt, but He did not by shear power compel them to acknowledge Him as their
God. For their good He commands that
they do so, but the very existence of the command implies that they have the
freedom to do otherwise. Tbey
demonstrated their freedom time and time again by defying this first
commandment. The whole history of the
sufferings of Israel is the history of their disobedience to the first
commandment. Yet, God did not by shear
force ever compel them to obey it as he compelled the water of the Red Sea to
separate. Taking Israel out of Egypt
was simple compared to the task of taking Egypt out of Israel. The first was a matter of power, but the
second called for the cooperation of man's will.
God's
sovereignty does not play the same role in the moral and spiritual realm as it
does in the physical. He does not force
men into submission. The poet wrote‑
And He that looketh wide and
high,
Nor pauses in His plan,
Will take the sun out of the
sky,
Ere freedom out of man.
In the
very giving of the law God respects man's freedom, but He gives them the law as
another act of sovereign grace, knowing that if they use their freedom to
choose His will they will find what is best in life for themselves. Israel will become degraded, like all the
surrounding nations, if she does not freely choose to obey the law of God. When the Jews chose not to follow the law
they entered into the bondage of fear and foolish superstition. They became idolatrous and immoral, and only
after the wrath of God sent them into captivity did they finally learn how to
use their freedom to choose loyalty to God.
Freedom,
which is man's greatest asset, is also his greatest
problem, until he learns to yield it up to God. Obedience to the first commandment is not
forced on us, but for those who are looking for a shortcut to Gods best this is
the commandment to obey. We are free to
be fools, but God gave us the history of His people's response to this
commandment to help us avoid the folly of trying to find happiness apart from
obedience to it.
God
honored man as the only creature on earth that has the ability to choose to
obey or defy His commandments. God in
His sovereignty has determined that He will not force you to do His will, but
He will require you to pay the price of choosing wrong. The chemist can do as he pleases with his
chemicals, but if he does not respect the laws of chemistry he may suddenly
find himself leaving his lab by the way of the roof. We are equally free to defy the moral laws of God, but we are not
free to escape the judgement that will result from our bad choice. All of life revolves around the choices that
we make. We are not responsible for the
outcome, but we are responsible for the choices we make. Bonaro Overstreet's oft‑quoted words
speak to this issue.
You say the little efforts that I make
Will do no good: They never will prevail
To tip the hovering scale
Where justice hangs in the balance.
I I don't think
I ever thought they would.
But I am prejudiced beyond debate
In favor of my right to choose which side
Shall feel the stubborn ounces of my weight.
The first commandment is God's calling to man to
choose Him and His will as the first priority in their lives. This choice is the key to their own
happiness.
The
second implication we want to consider is that this first commandment implies
that there are other gods. That sounds
shocking when you hear it for the first time, but it becomes a commonplace
piece of information as you read the commentaries. This first commandment clearly forbids other gods being
worshipped, but it does not state that there are no other gods to be
worshipped. It only states that for
Israel there is to be only one God. He
was the only God, but the existence of other gods is not denied. If there were no other gods, what would be
the point of forbidding anyone to worship them?
When we
consider the polytheism all around Israel, we know the many gods who were
worshipped were not objectively real, but they were very definitely
subjectively real. They captured the
loyalties of men, and did so with Israel as well. In other words, non‑existent gods are still very real and God
has to compete with them for man's loyalty.
If the false gods of the pagans were not a real threat to Israel's right
relationship to God, He never would have bothered to make their exclusion a
part of the first commandment.
God is
actually the author of a gods are dead movement. He seeks to get them excluded from the consciousness of His
people so that they die from neglect.
God is all for any movement that kills off and eliminates some of the
millions of false gods men have created.
It sounds strange, but as monotheists, who believe in only one God, we
must constantly be on guard against all kinds of real non‑existent
gods. What is all amounts to is that
there is only one capital God, but a multitude of small gods which run all the
way from figments of the imagination to objectively existent fallen creatures
such as Satan, the god of this world.
The
problem of non‑existent gods hit the early church and though Paul knew
they did not exist, he also recognized that some Christians believed in them
because of their former lives of idolatry.
For the sake of these Christians the stronger Christians were not to eat
meat offered to a non‑existent god, because the god was real to the
weaker Christian. In other words, it is
possible for a Christian to believe in the actual reality of other gods. Paul says in I Cor. 8:4‑7, "So
then, about eating food sacrificed to idols: We know that an idol is nothing at
all in the world and that there is no God but one. For even if there are so‑called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as indeed
there are many "gods" and many "lords"), yet for us there
is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and
there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through
whom we live. But not everyone knows
this. Some people are still so
accustomed to idols that when they eat such food they think of it as having been
sacrificed to an idol, and since their conscience is weak, it is defiled."
We see
then, that both in the Old Testament and the New Testament there is a process
of education necessary to bring men to the point of recognizing one, and only
one, God. God did not start by saying
there are no other gods, but rather, do not put other gods before me. If you are talking with someone and they
inquire about Allah and the gods of other people, do not waste your time trying
to disprove the existence of these gods.
Even as non‑existent gods they have great influence. Your primary task is to point them to the
God of revelation and urge them to put their trust in Him. The issue is not whether there are other
gods or not, but whether or not they have surrendered to the God who has
provided their Savior in Jesus Christ.
The Bible
does not try to prove God's existence, but urges men to put their faith in Him
and obey His revealed will. Clovis
Chappel says you could be out on the desert dying of thirst and find evidence
that water is somewhere nearby, but the evidence will not save you without a
drink of the actual water. No one can
live on proof of the existence of water.
They need to experience the life giving qualities of actual water. So it is with God. Proofs of His existence are no more satisfying than proofs of the
existence of water. Men must respond to
God's revelation in faith to experience the reality of God. Thomas Hardy sat in a church service and
felt so lonely because he had not responded in faith to the God of the
worshippers. He wrote‑
Heart of mine knows not that
ease
Which they know, since it be
That he who breathes
"all's well" to these
Breathes no "all's
well" to me.