Most people try to keep the laws of man, but the Bible teaches that none of us can keep the laws of God. What is the purpose of God's law? Join Charles Morris in this study of The Ten Commandments.

Do We Need The Ten Commandments

Monday, April 11, 2011



Imperfect people cannot make perfect laws. Fallen people have imperfect hearts. Political or personal motives push to gain the day. Just look at Washington the past few days as a government shutdown loomed. But a perfect God has given us perfect laws for His good end. Welcome to HAVEN Today.



Vocal Up (Hear O Israel – Kristyn Getty)



HAVEN Today. I’m Charles Morris and as we start a new week together with a series on The Ten Commandments, this program is called “Do We Need the Ten Commandments”. We are airing this series as the newly re-mastered Cecil B. DeMille biblical epic of 1956 is re-released with Charlton Heston playing the role of Moses.



Ten Commandments clip



One of those few times when I wish we weren’t just radio, but also visual. You can watch that clip and others from the movie, The Ten Commandments, on our website at haventoday.org. That’s where you can also get the remastered movie on DVD as our thanks for your gift to HAVEN Today. You can also call us after the program at 1-800-654-2836. The giving of the Ten Commandments to Moses by the Living God. One piece of Hollywood trivia you might not know. Charlton Heston not only played Moses in the academy award winning G-rated movie. He also played the voice of God. Do we need the 10 commandments? Why did God send the Decalogue? Why did he etch these ten “words” as the Hebrew says on two tablets of stone? Remember Jesus said he came not to replace the law but to fulfill this law of Moses. And as you know if you listen to this program often that’s all about Jesus, by New Testament times, the Jewish community and in particular the political party known as the Pharisees, had taken the Law of Moses and added to it more rules and regulations than could ever be humanly kept. Through reinterpretation, the law had become a sticky wicket for achieving righteousness.



Now would you picture with me an ornate room in a Grecian style building? The room contains an engraved Moses, clutching the 10 commandments. Picture a meeting in that room opening with prayer to the God who gave Moses the stone tablets containing the Decalogue. The room I described is in Washington DC. It’s a United States Government building and it’s the meeting place of the US Supreme Court. A few years back, dark-robed justices heard oral arguments from two cases, one is coming from TX and the other from KY, both on the legality of public displaying the Ten Commandments. The court has a job, after voluminous testimony from both sides and careful scrutiny of precedent, to rule whether the display is a violation of the establishment clause. That’s the one that says Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion. In the TX case, this concerned a monument that has stood on the capitol grounds, in Austin, since 1961. It was placed there because of the influence of moviemaker Cecil B DeMille who in his lifetime made both the black and white and Technicolor versions of the 10 commandments. What are the 10 Commandments all about? Why did God give these laws to Moses in the first place? Do they have any relevance to us today? Well, First, a few public thoughts. Societies need law, without law, there is anarchy and we live in a world today where more and more people care less and less about Law and the need for order. The average person wants it but are we willing to fight for it? If you go just by public polling, most Americans think those exhibits of the 10 commandments should stay up. The US is a country where the 10 commandments was part of a basis for civil law making.



Imperfect people cannot make perfect laws. Fallen people have imperfect hearts. Political or personal motives push to gain the day. Just look at Washington the past few days as a government shutdown loomed. But a perfect God has given us perfect laws for His good end. Do you know the 10 Commandments. Here they are as in Deuteronomy 5:



1 Moses summoned all Israel and said:

Hear, Israel, the decrees and laws I declare in your hearing today. Learn them and be sure to follow them. 2 The LORD our God made a covenant with us at Horeb. 3 It was not with our ancestors[a] that the LORD made this covenant, but with us, with all of us who are alive here today. 4 The LORD spoke to you face to face out of the fire on the mountain. 5 (At that time I stood between the LORD and you to declare to you the word of the LORD, because you were afraid of the fire and did not go up the mountain.) And he said:

6 “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.

7 “You shall have no other gods before[b] me.

8 “You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. 9 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 parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, 10 but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.

11 “You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.

12 “Observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy, as the LORD your God has commanded you. 13 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 14 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 male or female servant, nor your ox, your donkey or any of your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns, so that your male and female servants may rest, as you do. 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.

16 “Honor your father and your mother, as the LORD your God has commanded you, so that you may live long and that it may go well with you in the land the LORD your God is giving you.

17 “You shall not murder.

18 “You shall not commit adultery.

19 “You shall not steal.

20 “You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.

21 “You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife. You shall not set your desire on your neighbor’s house or land, his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”

22 These are the commandments the LORD proclaimed in a loud voice to your whole assembly there on the mountain from out of the fire, the cloud and the deep darkness; and he added nothing more. Then he wrote them on two stone tablets and gave them to me.

23 When you heard the voice out of the darkness, while the mountain was ablaze with fire, all the leaders of your tribes and your elders came to me. 24 And you said, “The LORD our God has shown us his glory and his majesty, and we have heard his voice from the fire. Today we have seen that a person can live even if God speaks with them. 25 But now, why should we die? This great fire will consume us, and we will die if we hear the voice of the LORD our God any longer. 26 For what mortal has ever heard the voice of the living God speaking out of fire, as we have, and survived? 27 Go near and listen to all that the LORD our God says. Then tell us whatever the LORD our God tells you. We will listen and obey.”

28 The LORD heard you when you spoke to me, and the LORD said to me, “I have heard what this people said to you. Everything they said was good. 29 Oh, that their hearts would be inclined to fear me and keep all my commands always, so that it might go well with them and their children forever!

30 “Go, tell them to return to their tents. 31 But you stay here with me so that I may give you all the commands, decrees and laws you are to teach them to follow in the land I am giving them to possess.”

32 So be careful to do what the LORD your God has commanded you; do not turn aside to the right or to the left. 33 Walk in obedience to all that the LORD your God has commanded you, so that you may live and prosper and prolong your days in the land that you will possess.





SONG - Ancient Words- Michael W Smith- From the album "Worship Again" Reunion Records





Besides, thou shall not murder, thou shall not steal, thou shall not lie are just plain common sense. Moral law that’s enforced with fairness keeps a lid on any society. It keeps it from falling apart. Look at Rome, a mighty empire that held together for centuries, but in the end it collapsed more from the inside than from outside invaders. From the inside out, law had become a sham. Now that’s the public side, but what about the personal side of the ten commandments?



In our personal relationship with God, a lot of people have argued this issue and so we need to look at God’s Word. The very first Psalm starts out by saying a person is blessed who does not walk in the council of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. But his delight is in the law of the Lord and on His law he meditates day and night. Now, “law” there or “Torah” is singular. It means more than just the 10 commandments, a lot more. But there’s a lot of confusion about that today. Which laws of the Old Testament do we keep? Do we extend law-keeping today to the point of stoning? Which is the prescribed punishment for some skins listed in the Old Testament. It was Jesus who when asked about the meaning of the Law, reduced it to the simple “Love God with all your heart, and with your soul and with all your mind. This is the first, greatest commandment, that’s Matthew 22:36-38. It was Jesus who said he came to fulfill, not to get rid of the law, but this is where it gets dicey. If you start reading the Old Testament, or the New for that matter, you discover that no one has kept the law 100%. Only one did, and that of course was Jesus Christ. The rich young ruler came to Jesus in the middle of the night and said he was a good man and had kept that law from birth, but he went away disappointed when Jesus showed him he hadn’t kept it all. Like so many of us, he might have appeared on the outside to be a good person, but Jesus could see into his heart and saw that his assets, his stuff, was more important to him than following Christ. The Apostle Paul, certainly, a born again Christian, said in the present tense in Romans 7 “For I have the desire to do what is good, but I can’t carry it out.” And a few lines later, he says “When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law, but I see another law at work, waging war against the Law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the Law of sin at work within my body. It was the theologian Paul who said the law is good. Yet as a former, famous Pharisee trained in the Torah by the most famous Rabbi of the day, he couldn’t keep it! And if he couldn’t, why do we think we can?



Last weekend, I was with a close relative and we’ve talked about the Gospel and Grace and what it means and I’ve opened the Scriptures in the past and this person I love never misses Church, but to this day, when asked “how do you get to heaven?” Will answer that you live a good life and you keep god’s Laws. Yet, God’s word says we can’t do it, we need help. As Paul said at the end of Romans 7 leading into the triumphant Romans 8 “what a wretched man I am. Who will rescue me from this body of death?” and then he shouts the answers out to us “Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord.”



Jesus gets things personal with us. He pointed out that committing a sin was wrong, but if you committed the sin even in your mind, it was just as wrong. And that’s why we need Grace. It’s by grace alone that we’re saved, not by any laws we keep because we can’t keep them 100% A little while ago I was thinking and praying about these few minutes we have together and I remembered my childhood. My parents read a children’s bible story book to me and I especially remember the OT stories. They would end with a great man like david, killing Goliath and it was later that I learned how human David really was. Yes, he was a sinner. He was God’s king over Israel, yet he knew sin first hand. Or there was the story with the story with the moral lesson, you obey God and you don’t have to go through a flood. At the same time, the NT stories I read back then, like the one about the rich young ruler, taught me that I couldn’t keep God’s law. I was getting mixed signals, even as a child growing up in the church. And then I though about raising my own children, sure I went out and found a bigger bible story book. We read it every night and that book was much more theologically correct. Yet as I think back, the mixed signals were there with my children.



I taught them that they were saved by grace alone and it was by Christ living in us that we could have living in us what Paul calls the mind of Christ. And that we could serve what he called the law of Christ, but at the same time, I was reading stories that ended with moral conclusions that asked my children to keep laws they couldn’t keep. Yes the laws show us our sin, but we can never keep those laws. Do I try to keep the law? Not apart from Christ living in me. If you’re a parent and in this dilemma, what do you do? Two things.





First, you can’t teach to keep the law. Hold on there you say. What about the 10 commandments? What about keeping society intact? We need strong laws to survive. If you’re theologically trained, you might say I’m going anti-nomian on you. Listen to my heart and listen to the Word. If we’re to be anything beyond the wretched person Paul said that he was and by implication we are, we’d better get another approach. And that approach is living by grace through faith because of what Jesus accomplished for us on the Cross.



Second point, here’s what we can teach. We cannot keep the law and that’s why we need Jesus. He kept it for us. That’s what our children need to hear every day. That’s what we need to hear, every day. And when we find this new covenant that he ushered in, then we can live by faith. Sure we don’t murder, we don’t steal, we don’t lie and if we continually do these things, we’d better examine our hearts and find out if we’ve really met the Son of the living God. If you have a moment today, read the last half of 2nd Corinthians 3 and then after that I would encourage you to read all six chapters of Galatians. Read it for yourself. Let God’s Word fill you. In 2nd Corinthians, you’ll see the contrast of two glories. First the glory at the giving of the law to Moses. It was so bright Moses had to wear a veil over his face to keep the people from seeing the brightness but Paul says that glory faded away. But now, the new covenant, a covenant built on Jesus Christ and His righteousness is more glorious than the law and doesn’t lose it’s brilliance. And if what was fading away came with glory, how much greater is the glory that of that which lasts. And then starting in verse 15 of 2nd Corinthians 3, Yes even today when they read Moses’ writings their hearts are covered with that veil. And they don’t understand but when anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And all of us have had that veil removed so that we can be mirrors that brightly reflect the glory of the Lord and as the Spirit of the Lord works within us, we become more and more like Him, we reflect His glory even more.



As God is with us, may the love and peace and joy of our Lord Jesus fill you and may you have the faith that he gives to you to live the Christian life and then you won’t murder and you won’t steal and you’ll be doing His business and you’ll be in His will. That’s the way to teach the 10 Commandments, that you can’t keep them but we need Jesus who paid the price and did fulfill the Law on our behalf. This is HT. The program was called “Do we need the 10 commanments.”



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El Shaddai- Michael Card - I thought I'd suggest a classic to go along with the classic Ten Commandments DVD. This song also makes the connection from the Great God of the old testament to the God of Grace in the new. From the album "Joy In The Journey" Sparrow Records.