Introduction--Part 1
Introduction--Part 2
Arrival at Sinai
"You shall have no other gods before Me"
"You shall not make a graven image to bow down to it"
"I am a jealous God"
The myth of the "Generational Curse"
"You shall not take My name in vain"
Jesus as the "I AM"
Taking God's name in vain (Part 3)
Making oaths in God's name
"Remember the Sabbath" (Part 1)
"Remember the Sabbath" (Part 2)
"Honor your father and mother"
"You shall not murder"
"You shall not commit adultery"
"You shall not steal" (Part 1)
"You shall not steal" (Part 2)
"You shall not bear false witness"
"You shall not covet anything that is your neighbor's"
"God has come to test you, that you may fear Him"
Treatment of slaves
Statutes concerning murder
Statutes concerning fornication, sorcery, bestiality, and usury
Treatment of Widows and Orphans
Statutes concerning idolatry, obeying authority, perjury
"You shall keep the feast of Passover" (part 1)
"You Shall Keep the Passover" (Part 2)
"You Shall Keep the Passover" (Part 3)
Bear your neighbor's burdens; let your land lay fallow; I send My Angel before you
The First Covenant (part 1)
The First Covenant (part 2)
The First Covenant (part 3)
The Tabernacle, The Priestly Garments
Replicas of the Tabernacle and the Priestly Garments
Consecrating Aaron and His Sons (part 1)
Consecrating Aaron and His Sons (part 2)
Consecrating Aaron and His Sons (part 3)
Ransom Money, Incense, Anointing Oil
The Calling of Bezalel and Aholiab
Picturing the Tabernacle
The Sign of the Sabbath
Aaron's Golden Calf
The Golden Calf (epilogue)
Two New Stones, The Sins of the High Priest
Finishing Exodus
Last week we talked about lying. We talked about the fact that every single human being tells lies. But there was another point I wanted to make that I didn’t have time to get to. We lie. That’s all there is to it. Not excusing it by any stretch of the imagination, just making my point. We lie—but God doesn’t. And even more to the point than saying God does not lie, it is closer to the truth—the whole truth—to say that God cannot lie. We see this in several places in Scripture. Numbers 23:19—God is not a man, that He should lie. Titus 1:2—God, who cannot lie… Hebrews 6:18—It is impossible for God to lie. 1st Peter 2:21-22—21 Christ…22 who committed no sin, nor was deceit found in His mouth. We lie for one of two reasons: 1) if we don’t we will get in trouble; or 2) things didn’t work out the way we planned and we have to come up with some excuse as to why we screwed up. But God is never in trouble, and God never screws up. So God never has a reason to lie.
But the main reason it is impossible for God to lie is quite simple: He is perfectly righteous. He possesses neither the desire nor the ability to lie. Lying is a sin; it is a product of our fallen nature. God does not have any desire to sin because He does not possess a human nature. He is God; He is perfect in every way. In fact, He hates sin, and many times the Scriptures call Him the God of truth. For instance Deuteronomy 32:3-4—3 For I proclaim the name of the LORD: ascribe greatness to our God. 4 He is the Rock, His work is perfect; for all His ways are justice, a God of truth and without injustice; righteous and upright is He. Psalm 31:5—Into Your hand I commit my spirit; You have redeemed me, O LORD God of truth. Isaiah 65:16—He who blesses himself in the earth shall bless himself in the God of truth; and he who swears in the earth shall swear by the God of truth. Everything that is true is true because God says it is true. Because He is the source of all truth. Everything that is a lie is a lie because it comes from Satan, who is the father of lies. But in God, as James says, there is neither variation nor shadow of turning (James 1:17).
So now we come to the last of the Ten Commandments. Let’s read it first, and then we’ll discuss a little. Exodus 20:17—“You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor's.” To understand what God is saying here, let’s define what it means to ‘covet’. There are, actually, two ways one can covet something. We can covet in a good way. Webster’s dictionary has this definition: “To desire or wish for, with eagerness; to desire earnestly to obtain or possess; in a good sense.” One example from the NT is 1st Corinthians 6:10 (KJV)—But covet earnestly the best gifts: and yet shew I unto you a more excellent way. Other places this same Greek word is translated “be zealous for” or “earnestly desire.” But the prohibition in the Ten Commandments is against coveting in the negative sense. Webster’s: “To desire [in an excessive manner]; to desire that which it is unlawful to obtain or possess; in a bad sense.” Hebrews 13:5—Let your conduct be without covetousness; be content with such things as you have. 1st Corinthians 6:10—Neither…thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. When God says “Thou shalt no covet” He’s forbidding us from setting our mind on what our neighbor has and desiring it so badly that we will do whatever we have to in order to obtain it—no matter how unethical, illegal, immoral or hurtful it may be.
A good example of this is King Ahab. 1st Kings 21:1-3—1 And it came to pass after these things that Naboth the Jezreelite had a vineyard which was in Jezreel, next to the palace of Ahab king of Samaria. 2 So Ahab spoke to Naboth, saying, "Give me your vineyard, that I may have it for a vegetable garden, because it is near, next to my house; and for it I will give you a vineyard better than it. Or, if it seems good to you, I will give you its worth in money." 3 But Naboth said to Ahab, "The LORD forbid that I should give the inheritance of my fathers to you!" Naboth was not being stubborn or hateful in saying this. The reason he would not sell this was actually rooted in the OT Law. He inherited this particular land from his father. And according to the Law, in Numbers 36:7—The inheritance of the children of Israel shall not change hands from tribe to tribe, for every one of the children of Israel shall keep the inheritance of the tribe of his fathers. Keil and Delitzsch—
“Naboth refused to part with the vineyard, because it was the inheritance of his fathers, that is to say, on religious grounds (חָלִילָה כִּי מֵיהֹוָה), because the sale of a paternal inheritance was forbidden in the law (Leviticus 25:23-28; Numbers 36:7). He was therefore not merely at liberty as a personal right to refuse the king's proposal, but bound by the commandment of God.”
So King Ahab went away sad, and said to himself, “Well, I guess that’s that.” Well, no, not really. Queen Jezebel got involved, and made sure Ahab got that piece of land. Skip down to 1st Kings 21:11-13—11 So the men of his city, the elders and nobles who were inhabitants of his city, did as Jezebel had sent to them, as it was written in the letters which she had sent to them. 12 They proclaimed a fast, and seated Naboth with high honor among the people. 13 And two men, scoundrels, came in and sat before him; and the scoundrels witnessed against him, against Naboth, in the presence of the people, saying, "Naboth has blasphemed God and the king!" Then they took him outside the city and stoned him with stones, so that he died. This is the covetousness that is forbidden in this 10th Commandment. The kind of desire, or lust, or craving, or call it what you will, that leads a person to go above and beyond acceptable means of obtaining something. A desire/longing/craving that leads a man to take sinful actions to get that thing he wants.
So if that’s what coveting is, what is coveting not? Is it wrong to drive by a house and say “Wow, what a pretty house, and a nice location! I’d like to buy that some day!” Or, in my case, “Ooh, a ’78 Cutlass! That’s purty!” Is it wrong to hope that that person sells that piece of property, or that ’78 Cutlass someday? No. That’s not coveting. Let’s think about this for a moment. If, by wanting to buy something that belongs to someone else, I am coveting, then I'm guilty every time I go to the store to buy a loaf of bread. Because the loaf of bread on that shelf belongs to the grocery store, and I want to buy it. It’s when the desire for that thing leads to sinful thoughts and/or actions that it becomes coveting. Adam Clarke—
“He breaks this command who by any means [attempts] to deprive a man of his house or farm by taking them over his head, as it is expressed in some countries; who lusts after his neighbor’s wife, and [attempts] to ingratiate himself into her affections, and to lessen her husband in her esteem; and who [attempts] to possess himself of the servants, cattle, etc., of another in any clandestine or unjustifiable manner.”
So there’s the difference. Just like we saw last week that the difference between lying and being mistaken is a matter of willfulness and intent, so too here the difference between wanting and coveting is the stirring up of sinful thoughts about gaining that thing. And of course, when it comes to the neighbor’s wife, even wanting her in any way is sinful. Matthew 5:27-28—“27 You have heard that it was said to those of old, 'You shall not commit adultery.' 28 But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”
The next thing I want to point out is this: If we look at the Ten Commandments, and if we think about it, we notice that the 10th commandment addresses something different than the first nine. What is it? Well, the first nine commandments deal with actions. The 10th commandment deals with what John Gill calls “The inward motions of the mind.” This is a commandment that deals with our thoughts. This was what the Pharisees didn’t realize—they didn’t get it. They were so busy trying to change people’s actions that they didn’t understand that they were sinning in their own thoughts. And this was the real purpose of the Law—not simply to make people righteous based on what they did and did not do. Fact of the matter is, using the Law to change people’s actions could never make any of them righteous. Galatians 3:21—Is the law then against the promises of God? Certainly not! For if there had been a law given which could have given life, truly righteousness would have been by the law. What he’s saying here is kinda the flipside of “There is no law which can give life; therefore, righteousness does not come by the Law.” He told Peter, in Galatians 2:16—“Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law; for by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified.”
As we saw when we started this journey many months ago, the purpose of the Law is not to show us how “good” we can be—the purpose of the Law is to show us how sinful we really are. And not only are our actions sinful, our thoughts can be equally sinful. Romans 7:7—I would not have known sin except through the law. For I would not have known covetousness unless the law had said, "You shall not covet." We don’t realize that just because we don’t do things to wrong our neighbor doesn’t mean we don’t offend God. Even the thoughts we have and keep to ourselves can be counted as wrongs against God. And even having this Law cannot stop someone from coveting. Just like it can't stop a murderer from murdering or stop a thief from stealing, the commandments in the Law cannot stop a sinner from sinning. Even the apostle Paul realized, after he was delivered from bondage to this Law, that as strong as this Law seems, it is actually rather weak.
OK, you don’t believe me. Think of it this way—you can go out and buy a door that is 2” solid steel. The strongest steel on the planet. But if you mount that door on a frame made of Swiss cheese, then it won’t be any problem to knock that door down because it is mounted on a weak frame. Well, you could think of this Law in much the same way. Yes, the commandments are strong, but trying to pin your hopes of keeping this Law on the ability of your weak human flesh is just as silly as mounting that steel door on a Swiss cheese frame. Romans 8:1-4—1 There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. 3 For what the law could not do—what could the Law not do? It could not make us righteous—what the Law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh—the Law cannot save us because we cannot keep it. Every time we try to keep that Law we fail and we fail miserably. We don’t even come close—what the Law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh—The Law does not save us—the Law condemns us. But God condemned sin in Christ. He punished our sins by sending His Son to bear the penalty of our sins in His body on the cross—what the Law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh, 4 that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit—because, as Christ hung on the cross, He took the penalty we deserved, we are now counted as having fulfilled every single commandment of the Law if we accept Christ’s payment for our sins. Not just our outward actions; not just the times we steal and lie. But also every time we break this Law by our thoughts—every time we murder by hatred, and every time we commit adultery with our thoughts.
When you get home today, see if you can do this: go back through your life and count up every single sin you have ever committed, going all the way back to when you were an infant. Who thinks they can do it? YOU CAN'T! But God can! Psalm 90:8—You have set our iniquities before You, our secret sins in the light of Your countenance. Hebrews 4:13—And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account. Every single time we ever had even an impure thought, God knows it. And every single person who dies apart from Christ will have every one of those thoughts used against them when they stand before what is called the Great White Throne Judgment, where God will judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ (Romans 2:16). Think about it. If God counted even one of our sins against us—just one—we would be worthy of eternal Hell. So if He counts every single one, altogether, against us, as the Psalmist said, Psalm 130:3—If You, LORD, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? BUT—for those of us who do know Christ, Psalm 32:1-2—1 Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. 2 Blessed is the man to whom the LORD does not impute iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit. Psalm 103:11-13—11 For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is His mercy toward those who fear Him; 12 as far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us. 13 As a father pities his children, so the LORD pities those who fear Him. Jeremiah 31:34 (also Hebrews 8:12)—“No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”
Before we wrap this all up I want to point out something. If you look at the first commandment, “You shall have no other gods besides Me”, and the last commandment, “You shall not covet anything that is your neighbor’s”, if you think about it you realize that all of the other 8 commandments are rooted in these two. Every sin we commit is because either (A) we want to serve a god other than God (and that god we want to serve is usually ourselves), or (B) someone else has something we want and we will do whatever we have to do to get it. The root of sin is that just like our old master Lucifer, we want to be God. Isaiah 14:13-14—"13 I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation on the farthest sides of the north; 14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High." We make graven images to worship, we treat God’s name flippantly, we profane His Sabbaths, we disrespect our parents, and we take others’ lives because we think we have that right—we think we are God.
We covet what other people have, so we lie in order to get it, we kill in order to get it, we commit adultery with the woman we want, or we just flat-out steal it. James 4:1-2—1 Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? 2 You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask. We don’t ask God for what we want because He may not give it to us. Or, we do ask Him and He says “No.” So we say, “Well, I know better than God does, so I'm gonna get it some other way.” For some people, that means calling out to Mary or some other dead saint or an angel. But listen to this promise from Christ Himself, in Matthew 7:7-11—“7 Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. 9 Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent? 11 If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!” He will give us what we need, even if we don’t know we need it! Like, for instance, one to save us from our sins!
Jesus Christ is Lord. Amen.
To finish up what we were talking about last week, here are Keil and Delitzsch, who have a tendency to say things a whole lot better than I do and in a much smaller amount of words:
“If, therefore, the first three commandments in this table refer primarily to deeds [murder, adultery, theft]; the subsequent advance to the prohibition of desire is a proof that the deed is not to be separated from the [mindset], and that “the fulfillment of the law is only complete when the heart itself is sanctified” (Oehler). Accordingly, in the command, “Thou shalt not kill,” not only is the accomplished fact of murder condemned, whether it proceeds from open violence or stratagem, but every act that endangers human life, whether it arise from carelessness or depravity, or from hatred, anger, and revenge. Life is placed at the head of these commandments, not as being the highest earthly possession, but because it is the basis of human existence, and in the life the personality is attacked, and in that [attack,] the image of God [is attacked].”
In other words we could go through our entire life, never shooting or stabbing anyone, never physically ending someone’s life. But that does not mean we have never committed murder. Because, as Jesus said, and as the apostle John said, if we hate someone we are already committing murder—in the heart. It’s not just actions that t God wants to change—it is the heart and the mind.
Which brings us to another commandment that Jesus said is broken long before any action is taken. We are making our way through the Ten Commandments, we are number 7. Many times when the Ten Commandments are taught, they are broken up into what are called the “Two Tables” of the Law. The “First Table” contains the first four commandments, found in Exodus 20:3-11—“You shall have no other gods before Me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image…You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain…Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.” These are commandments that show us how we should view our God, and our relationship with Him. The “Second Table” contains the last six commandments, found in Exodus 20:12-17—“Honor your father and your mother…You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor's.” These commandments show us how we are to deal with one another. Today we are looking at the third commandment of what is called the “Second Table.” And as I said last week, we may be tempted to say “Do we really need a commandment telling us this is wrong?” Well, yes we do. Because if we human beings do not have something chiseled in stone, then we are not likely to think much about it.
We saw that last week in the story of the Virginia woman who killed the child she gave birth to. She couldn’t be charged with murder because, basically, Virginia law said it wasn’t murder. Today we have another commandment that shouldn’t really need to be a commandment, it should be common sense. Exodus 20:14—“You shall not commit adultery.” It’s simple: if you're married, you are commanded to not sleep with anyone but your spouse. Also, you are commanded to not sleep with someone who is married to someone else. And again, as we saw last week, God considers the act of adultery to be so heinous that the penalty for adultery, in the OT, was death. Leviticus 20:10—“The man who commits adultery with another man's wife, he who commits adultery with his neighbor's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress, shall surely be put to death.” And, just as murder does not begin with the actual taking of another man’s life, adultery does not begin with the taking of another man’s wife. Adultery begins when the unmarried sees someone who is married or the married sees someone other than their spouse, and says in their heart “I would like to have that person.” The married person is not satisfied with the spouse they have made a covenant to be faithful to. The unmarried is jealous for someone that has made a covenant to be faithful to someone else.
Augustine wrote the following:
“Passion is the evil in adultery. If a man has no opportunity of living with another man's wife, but if it is obvious for some reason that he would like to do so, and would do so if he could, he is no less guilty than if he was caught in the act.”
He is of course paraphrasing what Jesus said in Matthew 5:27-28—“You have heard that it was said to those of old, 'You shall not commit adultery.' But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”
Now, let me take this opportunity to mention this: In the Gospel of John, we read the story of a woman who was caught in the act of adultery, and brought to Jesus to judge her. John 8:2-11—Now early in the morning He came again into the temple, and all the people came to Him; and He sat down and taught them. Then the scribes and Pharisees brought to Him a woman caught in adultery. And when they had set her in the midst, they said to Him, "Teacher, this woman was caught in adultery, in the very act. Now Moses, in the law, commanded us that such should be stoned. But what do You say?" This they said, testing Him, that they might have something of which to accuse Him. But Jesus stooped down and wrote on the ground with His finger, as though He did not hear. So when they continued asking Him, He raised Himself up and said to them, "He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first." And again He stooped down and wrote on the ground. Then those who heard it, being convicted by their conscience, went out one by one, beginning with the oldest even to the last. And Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst. When Jesus had raised Himself up and saw no one but the woman, He said to her, "Woman, where are those accusers of yours? Has no one condemned you?" She said, "No one, Lord." And Jesus said to her, "Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more." Jesus is not letting her off the hook here. The main thrust of the story is the Pharisees being guilty of doing the same thing they were accusing the woman of doing. BUT—after Jesus says He does not condemn the woman, what are His last words to her? “Go forth and—” what? “Sin no more.” He was still calling what she did a sin. Let’s not forget that. He does not say that He didn’t find fault with her. He was still calling her a sinner. When He said “I do not condemn you,” He was basically saying, “I am not passing a final judgment on you at this point. Now, go forth and sin no more.”
If He said He did not find fault with her, He would be destroying the Law. What He was saying is that even someone who has committed a sin worthy of death under the OT Law could still be given the opportunity to be saved. And that is the heart of the gospel—that even though we are all worthy of eternal damnation, God sent His Son to take our sins upon Himself, to bear the penalty we deserved, that He does not simply destroy us as soon as we sin. Listen to what God said through the prophet Isaiah, in Isaiah 1:16-20—“Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; put away the evil of your doings from before My eyes. Cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, rebuke the oppressor; defend the fatherless, plead for the widow. Come now, and let us reason together, says the LORD, “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool. If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land; but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured by the sword.” So, why does God take adultery so seriously? Why does God decree that the person committing adultery is worthy of the same punishment as the murderer?
Well, we find the reason if we go all the way back to Genesis. In Genesis 2, God sees that The LORD God said, "It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him" (Genesis 2:18). And to do this, of course, I think we all know that God took one of Adam’s ribs and formed the first woman, Eve. Woman was created from man, and we see in Genesis 2:24—Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. Now, Jesus expands on this statement in Matthew 19:3-6—The Pharisees also came to Him, testing Him, and saying to Him, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for just any reason?" And He answered and said to them, "Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning 'made them male and female,' and said, 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh' ? So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate." Now, you'll hear people say “Well, yeah but God didn’t join us together. We didn’t make a covenant with God when we got married.” Yes they did. Whether two people are Christian, non-Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Shinto—doesn’t matter. When a man declares that he is taking a woman to be his wife he is, by default, making a covenant with God. When they say “I do”, God makes those two into one flesh. And if you don’t believe me, listen to the apostle Paul in 1st Corinthians 6:15-18—Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot? Certainly not! Or do you not know that he who is joined to a harlot is one body with her? For "the two," He says, "shall become one flesh."…Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body. Basically, he’s saying that when two people have sexual relations, and/or commit to marriage, they have been joined one to the other. It is even more imperative for a Christian to not be joined to a heathen because once we have been joined to Christ--once we have confessed that He is Lord, and we surrender our lives to Him, and we are united with Him--our body belongs to Him. This is where we get the principle that the church is the “Bride of Christ.”
And because we are the “Bride of Christ,” we are not to use our bodies for immoral purposes. Paul is echoing what Solomon wrote in many places in the Proverbs. Listen to Proverbs 6:32—Whoever commits adultery with a woman lacks understanding; he who does so destroys his own soul. In fact, in Proverbs 5, Solomon gives us a perfect illustration of the perils of adultery. There are people in the church—even elders and pastors—who are married, yet they will have an affair with another woman in the church. And they almost always have the same excuse—“This is the woman God wants me to be with.” Ummm…no. God does not endorse adultery. Listen to this from Proverbs 5:1-14—My son, pay attention to my wisdom; lend your ear to my understanding, that you may preserve discretion, and your lips may keep knowledge. For the lips of an immoral woman drip honey, and her mouth is smoother than oil; but in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. Her feet go down to death, her steps lay hold of hell. Lest you ponder her path of life—her ways are unstable; you do not know them. Therefore hear me now, my children, and do not depart from the words of my mouth. Remove your way far from her, and do not go near the door of her house, lest you give your honor to others, and your years to the cruel one; lest aliens be filled with your wealth, and your labors go to the house of a foreigner; and you mourn at last, when your flesh and your body are consumed, and say: “How I have hated instruction, and my heart despised correction! I have not obeyed the voice of my teachers, nor inclined my ear to those who instructed me! I was on the verge of total ruin, in the midst of the assembly and congregation.”
The culture we live in kinda gives a wink and a pass to adultery. We recently had a president who admitted to committing adultery in the White House, and most of the country just kinda passed it off as “sowing wild oats” or even “One of the perks of the job.” No, it is sin. It is just as much sin as murder. Listen to James 2:10-11—For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all. For He who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.” In fact, many states still have laws against adultery, and one can be tried and convicted of it. It doesn’t really happen much anymore because you won’t hardly find 12 people who think adultery is a crime. But God does. And here’s why. I mentioned last week, in finishing up the verse about honoring father and mother, that the family is the building block of any society. It is the most basic training ground for submission to authority. And under the OT Law, any child who would not submit to the authority of their parents was not fit to dwell among God’s people, and the penalty for striking—or even cursing mother or father—was death.
Likewise, the union of husband and wife is the most basic unit of the family. And if one of the two members of that union does something to disrupt that union, then the family falls apart and, in the long run, the nation falls apart. The same is true of the church. When two people, who claim to be Christians, make a covenant with God to be faithful to one another, and the one says “I don’t want you anymore, I want someone else,” they are turning their back on not only their spouse, but on God as well. And God will deal with that person. Now, God does indeed hate divorce. He said that through the prophet Malachi. But, He has given us liberty, in the NT, to put away the unbelieving spouse who departs. 1st Corinthians 7:12-15—If any brother has a wife who does not believe, and she is willing to live with him, let him not divorce her. And a woman who has a husband who does not believe, if he is willing to live with her, let her not divorce him. For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband; otherwise your children would be unclean, but now they are holy. But if the unbeliever departs, let him depart; a brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases.
God takes adultery very seriously, and it is not something that should be trifled with or taken lightly. Thus this command to avoid that which society treats as something that's no big deal.
Jesus Christ is Lord. Amen.
Before we get into today's passage, I want to add a little bit to what we talked about last time, and that is how we are to honor our father and mother. Today we see all kinds of TV show where the kids act disrespectfully toward their parents, being very smart-alecky and acting like their parents are the biggest dorks on the planet. Yet we know from Proverbs that Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child (Proverbs 22:15) and A child left to himself brings shame to his mother (Proverbs 29:15). And as if to reinforce this principle, and to show what a shamefully disgraceful display of hatred toward God it is to disrespect one’s parents, listen to these directions God gives Moses in Exodus 21:15—“And he who strikes his father or his mother shall surely be put to death.” That is how seriously God considers the authority of parents over their children, and how seriously He considers children’s duty to honor and obey their parents. A couple of fellows way back when said the following:
“In a modern court of justice, the smiting of a parent might perhaps receive the highest penalty incurred for the commission of an assault; but it would never be exalted to a special offence. But God in His government of Israel makes an offence against a parent to be one of the first magnitude. The severe penalty specified here corresponds with the position occupied in the Decalogue by the commandment to honor parents. God we see is ever saying and doing things to set great honour on the family, and indicate great expectations from it.” (from The Pulpit Commentary)
In other words, God has established the family as the pre-eminent model of authority and submission. It is by learning how to obey and respect our parents that we learn to respect and obey all types of authority. And God considers this structure to be so crucial, that if a child could not learn to respect and obey his own parents, he was to be cut off—not only cut off from the camp, or from the nation of Israel, but that child was to be cut off from the land of the living. Period, paragraph. Unfortunately, in our current culture, that model has been turned upside-down, and we now live in a culture that bows to the whims and wishes of the very children who should be looking to their parents for guidance. And all this because parents have neglected their duties to the ultimate authority, which is God.
Well, that said, we are going to begin studying the next three commandments that, when you think about it, should really make us say “Do we really need a commandment to tell us that is wrong?” The answer is, “Yes.” And these are the commandments, Exodus 20:13-15—“You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal.” Do we really need to be told that it’s wrong to kill someone, or to sleep with another man’s wife, or to steal from our neighbor? Well, the answer to that question is yes…and no. While we may see these things as being wrong because they infringe on other’s rights, we don’t realize, in our sinful condition, that these actions are sins against God, so yes, we do need these commandments. I mean, think about it this way: Should texting while driving be against the law? Absolutely. But until somebody got it through their head that texting while driving should be illegal, there was no law against it. Until finally, when someone was killed by a driver who was working his phone’s keypad, the smart apples who make laws decided, “Hey, we ought to have some kind of law making this illegal.” DUH. So today we’re going to look at these commandments against actions that we should know are hated by God.
And think about this, too. Notice how short they are. Four or five words in English. Two each in Hebrew. Sometimes, the most forceful statements are short and to the point. What I'm about to say has nothing to do with the text, but please allow me a little folly here. During the Battle of the Bulge in WWII, the German commander sent this proposal to American general Anthony McAuliffe, short version: “There is only one possibility to save the encircled U.S.A. troops from total annihilation: that is the honorable surrender of the encircled town…If this proposal should be rejected one German Artillery Corps and six heavy A. A. Battalions are ready to annihilate the U.S.A. troops in and near Bastogne.” General McAuliffe gave the following response: “Nuts!” Not a lot of discussion. Just a simple declaration that said it all.
Just like these commands from God. Exodus20:13--“You shall not murder.” Quite simply, God tells us not to kill people. Is that so hard to understand? There’s not a lot of wiggle room there. “You shall not murder.” And just for the record, when I mention murder, I'm talking about murdering someone in cold blood, what we would call “premeditated” murder. I'm not talking about self-defense, or a soldier in war, or carrying out the death penalty. I'm not talking about anything similar to what we call “vehicular manslaughter”, where we run the red light and t-bone another car and kill the driver. I'm talking about murder that is thought about beforehand, the “I'm going to go over to Yitzhak’s house and put my mattock through his head” kind of murder.
The very first murder took place, as we all know, in Genesis 4:8—And it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him. Now, God had not revealed His law to mankind yet. Did that let Cain off the hook? No. In fact, God told Cain in Genesis 4:10-11—“The voice of your brother's blood cries out to Me from the ground. So now you are cursed from the earth, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand.” God has always considered the taking of another person’s life in cold blood to be a very grave matter. And in fact, any time a person takes another’s life, it should be a grave thing, whether it is murder or in times of war or the death penalty. But these days, if you have some kind of excuse for killing someone, or you “show remorse”, or if your parents just didn’t love you enough when you were a kid, they’ll let you get off with a lighter sentence. God doesn’t. Under the Law of God, if one person murdered another, that person was put to death. Leviticus 24:17—“Whoever kills any man shall surely be put to death.”
This was what happened in the first hundred or so years in this country. You kill someone in cold blood, you were put to death. Things have changed over the years, however. Now that we have laws in this country that are based on people’s personal feelings, laws have come to be shaped by emotion rather than by a sense of justice and law and order. In fact, in some places, murder isn't even called murder anymore. If you don’t believe me, consider the following story. And these were actual events that took place in Campbell County, Virginia:
Deputies were called to a home in the 1200 block of Lone Jack Road…When deputies arrived, they discovered a baby had actually been born around 1:00a.m., about ten hours earlier. Investigators say the baby was already dead when deputies got there…They say the baby was under bedding and had been suffocated by her mother. Investigators say because the mother and baby were still connected by the umbilical cord and placenta, state law does not consider the baby to be a separate life. Therefore, the mother cannot be charged. Investigator Tracy Emerson says "In the state of Virginia as long as the umbilical cord is attached and the placenta is still in the mother, if the baby comes out alive the mother can do whatever she wants to with that baby to kill it…As long as it's still attached to her in some form by umbilical cord or something it's no crime in the state of Virginia." The Campbell County Sheriff's Office and Commonwealth's Attorney's office worked unsuccessfully to get the law changed after another baby died in the [same] county in a similar case. Emerson says they asked two delegates and one state senator to take the issue up in the General Assembly. He says the three lawmakers refused because they felt the issue was too close to the abortion issue. Emerson tells us there's a double standard with the law. (from WSLS-TV10, 12/15/2009, see full story here)
If someone other than the mother harms a baby still attached to the mother, that person can be charged. You see now why I say it’s not that crazy to think that we need this commandment against murder. This twisted, convoluted story and everything surrounding it is a far cry from “Thou shalt not murder.” What do you think was going on in God’s mind when He saw this story happening? Does anybody really think that God said, “Well, gee, I guess I never thought of something like this happening. And ya know, I wasn’t really very specific with that command. I guess there’s nothing I can do about it now.”
“You shall not murder.”
In fact, God DID foresee the day when people would consider an unborn child to be less than a human. Fact of the matter is, God does not see that unborn baby as being anything less than another human being. Listen to Exodus 21:22-25—“If men fight, and hurt a woman with child, so that she gives birth prematurely, yet no harm follows, he shall surely be punished accordingly as the woman's husband imposes on him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. But if any harm follows, then you shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.” Without going real deep into the Hebrew, what God is saying is that if two men fight and strike a woman who is with child—not “with fetus”—and if the child dies, then that is murder. Does this mean that there are no prohibitions against a man killing that child with the mother’s consent? Uh, no. God doesn’t do loopholes.
Now, with all that being said, is the definition of murder confined to the actual taking of a person’s physical life? Well, in the eyes of man it may be true. But what does God say about it? In Matthew 5:21-22, God tells us exactly what He includes under the umbrella term “murder.” Matthew 5:21-22—“You have heard that it was said to those of old, 'You shall not murder, and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment.' But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment. And whoever says to his brother, 'Raca!' shall be in danger of the council. But whoever says, 'You fool!' shall be in danger of hell fire.” So, we see from Jesus’ statement that murder does not begin when one picks up a gun or a knife and shoots or stabs someone. Murder begins in the heart.
He repeats this principle in Matthew 15:19—“Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies.” The hand simply does what the heart tells it to do. You can't commit premeditated murder unless you premeditate it. So what Jesus was doing was not so much relaxing the OT Law, He was taking it and laying it not only on the people’s actions, but also their thoughts. Much like what God said He would do in Jeremiah 31:33—“But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts.” God wants to correct not only our actions, but our hearts and our minds and our thoughts as well. That is why salvation is not by works. Anybody can do “good works.” There is an entire unbelieving world out there that pats itself on the back for doing “good works.” And in much the same way, it’s not simply our actions that condemn us—it’s our hearts. Because the heart is the root of all that we do. It is the breeding ground for sin. James 1:14-15—But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death. Any time we commit a sin it is because something—or someone—has presented us with something that we desire. If we commit fornication, it is because the opportunity to sleep with that person was presented to us, and we followed that desire. If we steal, it is because we saw something we wanted, and it was there, and we wanted it so badly that we didn’t want to pay for it. Murder is no exception. If we commit murder, it is because, for some reason, whatever it may have been, we saw that person as an obstacle that stood between us and something we wanted. And if that person were allowed to live, they would ruin our comfort or our reputation or our social or financial standing. So that person must be eliminated so that we can have what we want.
I'll finish by talking about one fellow that is the perfect illustration of that principle. King David. Turn to 2nd Samuel 11. Let me set the scene for you. King David has led the armies of Israel on one successful military campaign after another. Every time he takes them out, he goes out in the strength of the LORD. And with success comes a little complacency. He takes for granted everything God has given him. And in 2nd Samuel 11:1--It happened in the spring of the year, at the time when kings go out to battle, that David sent Joab and his servants with him, and all Israel; and they destroyed the people of Ammon and besieged Rabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem. He should have been out there with his troops, but he had perhaps gotten a bit too prideful, too lazy, and he stayed home. You’ve heard the saying “The devil makes work for idle hands?” 2nd Samuel 11:2-3--2 Then it happened one evening that David arose from his bed and walked on the roof of the king’s house. And from the roof he saw a woman bathing, and the woman was very beautiful to behold. 3 So David sent and inquired about the woman. And someone said, “Is this not Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?” Uriah was one of David’s finest and most loyal generals. But that didn’t matter. He had set his heart on what he saw in front of him; he was drawn away and enticed. Then desire conceived and gave birth to sin, 2nd Samuel 11:4--Then David sent messengers, and took her; and she came to him, and he lay with her, for she was cleansed from her impurity; and she returned to her house. BUT. 2nd Samuel 11:5--She sent and told David, and said, “I am with child.” He was drawn away and enticed. Then desire conceived and gave birth to sin. Now here is where sin, being full-grown, brings forth death. David knows that if his sin is found out, he will lose the love and admiration of the people. He isn't thinking about his relationship to God. He isn't thinking about confessing his sin to God—he’s only focused on what it will mean for his popularity. So listen to what he does to cover up his mess, long story short, in 2nd Samuel 11:14-17--14 In the morning it happened that David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it by the hand of Uriah. 15 And he wrote in the letter, saying, “Set Uriah in the forefront of the hottest battle, and retreat from him, that he may be struck down and die.” 16 So it was, while Joab besieged the city, that he assigned Uriah to a place where he knew there were valiant men. 17 Then the men of the city came out and fought with Joab. And some of the people of the servants of David fell; and Uriah the Hittite died also.
Murder begins in the heart. It ends with the physical act. The fact that someone would purpose and plan to kill someone is a sign that the person’s heart is not quite right. And unless that person seeks the mercy of God and the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, they will die with a murderer’s heart, and will not see eternal life. 1st John 3:14-15—We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love his brother abides in death. Whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. So if you know someone who is walking around with hatred in their heart for anyone, then that person is a walking murderer and they are, as Jesus said, in danger of Hell.
Jesus Christ is Lord. Amen.
