“God’s Top Ten (Deuteronomy 5:1-21)", Will DuVal | 2/15/26
Deuteronomy 5:1-21 | 2/15/26 | Will DuVal
I asked ChatGPT this week to “Give me a list of 10 commandments BETTER than the Bible’s”, and here’s what it came up with (“A Contemporary “Ten Commandments” for Today”, 2/13/2026): “
Protect human dignity in every person, without exception.
Seek truth and reject deception, even when it costs you.
Practice empathy — treat others as you would want to be treated.
Use power responsibly, and never exploit the vulnerable.
Honor commitments in marriage, family, work, and friendship.
Value rest and reflection, guarding space for mental and spiritual health.
Care for the earth, stewarding natural resources for future generations.
Pursue justice, correcting systems that harm others.
Practice contentment and gratitude, resisting envy and consumerism.
Cultivate humility, recognizing your limits and your need for others.”
Not a bad list. However, if you’re FAMILIAR with the Bible’s list, then they ought to sound familiar. Because I’d argue that NINE of ChatGPT’s commandments are derived at least indirectly from God’s Top 10. As a matter of fact, FIVE of them are almost “copy & pasted”. In other words, GOD’S Law cannot be improved upon. So rather than waste our time trying, we would do well to humble ourselves and, as Moses will exhort his fellow Israelites this morning in Deuteronomy ch5: “LISTEN to [God’s] statutes and rules… and learn them and be careful to do them.”
Listen. Learn. Live them out. May that be our prayer and our pursuit this morning.
Would you STAND… Deut 5:1-21; Hear the word of the Lord:
“5:1 And Moses summoned all Israel and said to them, “Hear, O Israel, the statutes and the rules that I speak in your hearing today, and you shall learn them and be careful to do them. 2 The Lord our God made a covenant with us in Horeb. 3 Not with our fathers did the Lord make this covenant, but with us, who are all of us here alive today. 4 The Lord spoke with you face to face at the mountain, out of the midst of the fire, 5 while I stood between the Lord and you at that time, to declare to you the word of the Lord. For you were afraid because of the fire, and you did not go up into the mountain. He said:
6 “‘I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
7 “‘You shall have no other gods before me.
8 “‘You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 9 You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, 10 but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.
11 “‘You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.
12 “‘Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, as the Lord your God 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, you or your son or your daughter or your male servant or your female servant, or your ox or your donkey or any of your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates, that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you. 15 You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.
16 “‘Honor your father and your mother, as the Lord your God commanded you, that your days may be long, and that it may go well with you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.
17 “‘You shall not murder.
18 “‘And you shall not commit adultery.
19 “‘And you shall not steal.
20 “‘And you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
21 “‘And you shall not covet your neighbor's wife. And you shall not desire your neighbor's house, his field, or his male servant, or his female servant, his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor's.’”
This is the word of God…
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I will warn you before we dive in that if you were with us back in 2023 for our study through the book of EXODUS, this message may sound familiar to you. Because God already DELIVERED these 10 commandments to Moses back in Exodus ch20; Moses is simply REMINDING Israel of them here in Deuteronomy ch5. And I believe there’s an important point to be made from that fact alone; TWO points, actually. First: these commandments are important enough that we SHOULD be reminded of them regularly. And second, just like the Israelites, you and I are FORGETFUL enough that we NEED to be reminded of them regularly.
So just as Moses reminds God’s people here, almost word for word, 38 years later, I’m going to be pulling HEAVILY this morning - often word for word - from my 2-part sermon 3 years ago now: “Thou Shalt Love GOD” and “Thou Shalt Love Thy NEIGHBOR”, and also from Philip Ryken’s excellent commentary on Exodus, that I used extensively in those sermons.
One other quick note: I pointed out LAST week in ch4 that God’s Law reveals to us His HEART, His CHARACTER. And we’re gonna see that in SPADES this morning: “God is LIFE, so he opposes murder. God is FAITHFUL, so he opposes adultery. God is TRUTH, so he opposes lying. And because God is eternal, so is His LAW… Ryken points out: “The Ten Commandments were written in stone because they would remain in effect for as long as time endured.” (Ryken, Exodus, 528).” (DuVal, “Thou Shalt Love God”, sermon 5/14/2023)
And that’s a good segue way to the first and most important point of the passage, before we even GET to the commandments, in the PREFACE, vv1-6: the WHY behind the WHAT. The WHAT is the commandments (“What are God’s rules?”); but the WHY - “Why do we OBEY them?” - is right up front in vv1-6: it is…
Because of who God IS… and what He has DONE… (vv1-6)
…that we obey. Because I AM “the Lord your God”, v6 - your covenant- MAKING God (v2), and your covenant- KEEPING God (v6) - the One who faithfully “brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery” to RESCUE you, REDEEM you, ADOPT you as my very own people - “I am the Lord YOUR God”; actually, “all the pronouns here in v6 are SINGULAR in Hebrew; God isn’t just reminding Israel, collectively, as a nation, or the CHURCH [today]; He’s saying, “It’s gotta be PERSONAL for you! I must be YOUR God; I must free you PERSONALLY from your bondage” - and it’s only out of that personal RELATIONSHIP with Him, that GOD has established for us, that we can now RESPOND in obedience.
If we MISS that, we’ll be tempted to think - like MOST people do - that it is our BEHAVIOR that results in God’s BLESSING - if I obey, then God will love me; that’s BACKWARDS. The beauty of the GOSPEL is that before God even gave Israel a Law TO follow, He LOVED them so much that He RESCUED and ADOPTED them. That “while we were YET sinners” - still STUCK in OUR slavery - God didn’t send us a list of RULES to follow (“Be GOOD boys and girls, and then maybe we’ll talk…) - No; He sent us a SAVIOR!: “CHRIST who died for us”, to RESCUE us. Such that any RULE-following by US is only ever a RESPONSE to that RESCUE we have already received from GOD.
“It is by [His] GRACE that we are saved… NOT by [our] works, otherwise we’d [be tempted to] BOAST” (Eph 2:8-9)
So, everything in vv7-21 now, all 10 Commandments, flow downstream from that: Because of who God IS… and what He’s DONE… we are compelled to respond, in TWO ways.
We honor GOD, vv7-15, and we honor OTHERS, made in His image, vv16-21. According to Jesus, ALL the Law can be boiled down to those two overarching commands: “Love GOD, and love NEIGHBOR” (Mt 22:36-40).
And now God’s gonna show us how to DO it:
#1- We love God by HONORING His PREEMINENCE. (v7)
“Preeminent” means “important above or before others; surpassing”.
God says, ““‘You shall have no other gods BEFORE (or even BESIDES) me”; the Hebrew meaning includes BOTH. “Before” means other so-called “gods” don’t come ABOVE Him, in our “pantheon”; “besides” means there’s NO PANTHEON!
Isaiah 42:8- “I am the LORD …I will not give my glory to another.
Hosea 13:4 - “You shall acknowledge no God but me; there is no Savior besides me”.”
“Now, we may think, “I guess the first commandment made sense for a bunch of POLYTHEISTS, but I’m not exactly tempted to worship Osiris or Baal or Asherah…” - No, but we ARE tempted to worship MAMMON, the god of MONEY.
We ARE tempted to worship Uncle Sam, the god of country.
Or Mother Earth, the god of environmentalism.
Or the god of STUFF... (Amazon)
The gods of Entertainment… (Netflix)
Popularity… (FB)
Sex… (bunny)
Politics… (elephant/donkey)
Family… (stock photo)
We worship all KINDS of false gods! What are YOUR “functional gods”? Ryken (564-5) proposes two tests for determining our gods: the “LOVE test” and the “TRUST test”; he asks, “What do you love… desire? When your mind is free to roam, what do you think about? How do you spend your money? What do you get excited about? A false god can be any good thing we focus on to the exclusion of God… Or the TRUST test: …Where do you turn in times of trouble? [When you’re AFRAID, anxious, overwhelmed?] Martin Luther said, “Whatever thy heart clings to and relies upon, that is properly thy God.” …Some people trust their addictions. When they’re lonely or discouraged, they count on drugs or alcohol or sex or shopping… to pull them through. Other people… trust their jobs, their insurance policies, their pension plans for their security. Some put their faith in the government or the economy. Some trust their families or their social position. Some trust in science and medicine… Behind all these lesser idols we serve is the god or goddess of SELF, the supreme deity of our postmodern times.
Ryken argues (565): “The only thing that can tear our hearts away from all our other affections is a true love for GOD. And the only thing that can replace all the other things we trust in is a total faith commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ.” That is what we most need, and what God most DESERVES: to be honored and treasured above EVERYTHING else in our lives.
Historian Umberto Cassuto points out that “All the other legal codes in antiquity governed outward sins (external behavior). But [this] commandment does not address an action but an affection… Only Israel’s God presumed to rule a person’s thoughts [as well as] actions” (in Ryken, 548).
1 Samuel 16:7- “Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” THAT is what God is REALLY after, friends, in ALL of these commandments; He wants our HEARTS! “Thou shalt LOVE me”!” (DuVal, 5/14/2023)
#2- Because of who God is and what He’s done… We honor His TRANSCENDENCE. (v8-10)
This is SIMILAR to #1, but “if the first commandment told us WHO to worship, the second one tells us HOW to worship. If the first commandment warned against the worship of false gods, the second one warns against false worship of the true God” (Skip Heitzig, “Exodus 20”, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cADruS2b2M ).
And what constitutes “false worship”? IDOLATRY; “mak[ing] for yourself a carved image”. What’s the big deal about making IDOLS? It confuses the CREATOR with His creation, and thereby DIS-honors God’s transcendence; His “other-ness”, His all-SURPASSING-ness. “Ryken explains (573-4): “Idolatry… creates a false image of God that is inadequate to his deity and unworthy of his majesty. God is infinite and invisible. He is omnipotent and omnipresent. He is a living spirit. Therefore, to carve him into a piece of wood or stone is to deny… the essential characteristics of his divine being. An idol makes the infinite God finite, the invisible God visible, the omnipotent God impotent, the all-present God local, the living God dead, and the spiritual God material. In short, it makes him the exact OPPOSITE of who he actually is.” We might THINK we’re just making God more “relatable”, but what we’re REALLY doing is stripping Him of His GOD-ness. Making Him more like US!
…“When people say, ‘I like to think of God as…’ they’re usually remaking God in THEIR image”, instead of the other way around; BEING made in His image so we can reflect HIS glory.” (Ryken, 575-6; in DuVal, 5/14/23)
V9: “You shall not bow down to them or serve [worship] them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God”; “not an insecure, possessive human jealousy”, Ryken notes, “Rather, an intensely caring devotion to the objects of His love, like a mother’s jealous protection of her children.””
God is protecting us against false worship… AND its consequences, namely, v5: His “visiting the iniquity… on the children to the third and the fourth generation”; Ryken points out (571): “God says he will punish [the] generations “of those who HATE me”... God never condemns the innocent, but only the guilty… These children hate God as much as their fathers did. And yet, “God’s BLESSING triumphs over His curse” (571); v6: “but [I will] show steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.””
I wonder: “Are WE guilty, today, of trying to re-make God in OUR image? …If your God never CONFRONTS you; if He is always confronting OTHERS while always AFFIRMING you, then you’re really just worshiping an idol of your own fashioning.
If your God abhors your LGBTQ neighbor, but He turns a blind eye to YOUR sexual sin, you’re worshiping an idol.
If your God condemns the other political party, but He endorses every single POINT of YOUR party’s platform, you’re worshiping an idol. You’ve made a god in YOUR image.
Brothers and sisters, let us put away our idols, and worship the Lord as He truly IS.” (DuVal, 5/14/23)
#3- We honor God’s CHARACTER. (v11)
Ryken explains: “YHWH is much more than a name. It is God’s identity… For us, a name is a label; it is something we have, not something we are. But for the Hebrews the name was inseparable from the person… When we use the name of God, therefore, we are referring to the [very] essence of his divine being.” (578)
“So we HONOR God by not taking His name “in vain”, not using it in a vain, empty, careless, thoughtless, or flippant manner. (579)
The scope is this commandment is far GREATER than just avoiding “swear words”, or swearing OATHS. As God’s children, we now BEAR His name - we represent the Lord - in everything we say, and DO… in ALL of life! In the same way that my son - Elijah - now bears MY name, our family name - DuVal - as a result of his adoption, all who have been adopted into God’s family by grace through faith now bear His name, publicly AND privately. When we call ourselves “Christians”, we are taking unto ourselves the very name of “Christ”, the name that is above EVERY name; we are literally self-identifying as “little Christs”. Do we feel the WEIGHT of that?! 2 Corinthians 5:20 calls us “ambassadors for Christ”... And the third commandment is a call to bear His name WELL, in ALL our words and actions, lest we be found guilty of telling the world a LIE about who GOD is, and bring DIS-honor upon the family name…
“We take God’s name lightly when we’re more SELF-focused than SPOUSE-focused; Ephesians 5 says marriage is supposed to point people to the GOSPEL, the relationship between CHRIST and His CHURCH. So when I care more for MYSELF than for POLLY, I am misrepresenting Christ, telling a LIE about the One who came not to BE served, but to SERVE, and lay down His LIFE as a RANSOM for many.
*We take God’s name lightly when we care more about what OTHERS think of us than what GOD thinks… looking somewhere ELSE for our identity, as if our identity in CHRIST isn’t an infinitely GREATER source of security and satisfaction…
Ultimately, ALL our sin misrepresents and dishonors God’s holy name.” (DuVal, 5/14/23)
And God clearly warns us here: I “will not hold him guiltless who takes [my] name in vain.”
We are ALL guilty, friends; the only question is: Do you have a guilt-BEARER? A SIN-bearer?
God’s word promises, “There is now no [GUILT, no] condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom 8:1). It declares the good news that “[Jesus] bore our sins in his body on the tree… By his wounds you have been healed” (1 Pet 2:24).
In CHRIST, we are FORGIVEN!
And now in response, we strive to LIVE like it, and bear His name well.
#4- And last of the VERTICAL commandments: We honor God’s SOVEREIGNTY. (vv12-15) That’s the main emphasis of this fourth commandment: God’s SOVEREIGNTY; His supreme authority.
Back in Exodus 20, God said, “Rest on the Sabbath because I rested on the 7th day of Creation”. Now in Deuteronomy, He says, “Observe the Sabbath”, v15, so you can “remember that you were slaves in the land of Egypt, and [I] brought you out ”. What’s the commonality in BOTH those reasons to rest? It is GOD’S WORK; we can REST, trusting that GOD is at WORK. We consider God’s POWER - He only needs 6 days to create EVERYTHING! - and we remember God’s FAITHFULNESS - that same powerful God, used His “mighty hand and outstretched arm” to DELIVER us from our bondage. He is sovereign over all of CREATION, and sovereign over every NATION.
So we REST, knowing that God DOESN’T. “Do we trust HIM to BE GOD - that if we take a day off, He won’t, and the world will keep spinning, cuz it’s in HIS hands, not mine? Do we have enough humility to recognize that our work, important though it may be, is only temporal and interruptible?” (DuVal, 5/14/23).
Brothers and sisters: we need NOT be SLAVES to our work; God brought us OUT of slavery. And RELATED: we need not be slaves to our WORKS anymore either; Christ delivered us from THAT as WELL. “For freedom Christ has set us free [from the Law]... do not submit again to a yoke of slavery” (Gal 5:1). Jesus offers us REST instead: “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest… For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matt 11:28-30). So Hebrews 4 rejoices, “there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works.” (vv9-10)
“Friends, that means resting from our SPIRITUAL “work”, trying to earn God’s favor – some of you have been trying to rest in the LAW this morning, and it’s no WONDER you are spiritually EXHAUSTED! The Law’s just a mirror, not a bed. God gave it to expose our SIN and thus our need for a SAVIOR. But we can rest from our religious striving this morning, and simply trust in CHRIST’S finished work on our BEHALF.
Do you TRUST Him? Are you RESTING in Him, this morning? You can.” He is sovereign to SAVE. (DuVal, 5/14/23)
Now we come to the HORIZONTAL commandments, loving and honoring OTHERS.
And we begin with #5- We honor PARENTS. (v16)
““Loving our neighbor” has gotta START with our CLOSEST neighbors of ALL. If you can’t LOVE and RESPECT your parents - the ones who gave you LIFE, who put CLOTHES on your back and FOOD on your table - if you can’t love them BACK, and HONOR them, then you’re gonna be hard pressed to love ANYONE…” (DuVal, sermon, “Thou Shalt Love Neighbor”, 5/21/2023).
I’ve been using the word “HONOR” a lot, but this is the first time it actually shows up in the TEXT. “The Hebrew word - “kaved” - literally means to be “heavy,” or “weighty”; it’s the OPPOSITE of the word used back in commandment #3, for taking God’s name “lightly”... Ryken explains (604): “[We] give due weight to [our parents’] position… we give them the recognition they deserve for their God-given authority… we respect, esteem, and value fathers and mothers as gifts from God.” (Ryken 604).
And God is DEADLY serious about this one; Leviticus 20, v9: “anyone who curses his father or mother shall surely be put to death” (cf Dt 21:18-21). But the FLIP side is God’s BLESSING for obeying this command… In the NT, the apostle Paul points out this is the first commandment “with a PROMISE” (Eph 6:2) - “that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.”” So, Paul reiterates in Ephesians 6:1, “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.”
Notice: there’s a LIMIT to our obedience; we “obey [them] IN THE LORD”. To the extent that your parents are leading you IN THE LORD, you FOLLOW them. But you don’t obey a parent whose instructions are AT ODDS with the Lord’s, an ABUSIVE parent, for instance.
One last important note here: there’s an underlying principle in this commandment that goes BEYOND just our parents and calls us to respect ALL those whom God has placed in authority over us. The Israelites actually used this word “father” outside the home as well… to refer to the king (1 Sam 24:11)... to the prophets (2 Kings 2:12)... to their elders (Acts 7:2)... So we can apply this commandment to ANYONE in authority over us… those in GOVERNMENT - 1 Peter 2: “honor the emperor”; your BOSS, at WORK - Ephesians 6 says “obey him”; leaders in the CHURCH - Hebrews 13: “obey your elders”.
We HONOR them not just for THEIR sake, but for GOD’S. HE is the one who put them in that position of authority, whether they seem to deserve it or NOT (Ryken 606)” (DuVal, 5/21/23).
#6- We honor LIFE. (v17) - “Thou shalt not MURDER.”
“Because God loves LIFE. He’s a God OF Life, a life-GIVING God. So we value - CHERISH - life as well.
Ryken explains (616): “The Hebrew language has at least 8 different words for killing, and the one used here… ratzach is never used in the legal system or in the military.” Later in His same Law, God actually prescribes the DEATH penalty for certain crimes. He also commands the Israelites to KILL the Canaanites. But God doesn’t contradict Himself. He’s not talking about capital punishment or just war theory here in [Dt.5]. “What the sixth commandment forbids is the unjust taking of a legally innocent human life… ‘murder in cold blood, manslaughter with passionate rage, [and] negligent homicide resulting from recklessness or carelessness’” (616).
And the reason God commands certain forms of killing is because He IS so pro-life! “Their goal isn’t the destruction of life but its preservation.” (Ryken 617) Lives are saved when a mass murderer is put to death, when an evil dictator is taken out.
“The sixth commandment… also preserves God’s sovereignty over life and death. Jesus is the LORD of life… It is HIS prerogative to take it, at his own time, in his own way.” (617)
A woman does NOT have the “right to choose” what to do with that human LIFE inside her womb, any more than I have the right to terminate my toddler’s life if he becomes too inconvenient to me… But we Christians need a much bigger vision of what it means to be “pro-life”; GOD is pro-life from the WOMB to the TOMB.
[You remember] what JESUS said about the 6th commandment? “You have heard that it was said… ‘You shall not murder… But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother… and says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.” (Matt 5:21-22) According to JESUS, you can “murder” people with your WORDS… [even] in your THOUGHTS, just by getting MAD at them! He calls us to be so “pro-life”, that we SPEAK life, we THINK life, we EXTEND life… to EVERYONE. “Love [even] your ENEMIES”, he says; I want you to be pro-THEIR lives!” (DuVal, 5/21/23)
#7- We honor SPOUSE. (v18) “No ADULTERY”.
Ryken explains (629): “Adultery is marital infidelity… The primary purpose of this commandment is to protect marriage. Adultery is the greatest sexual sin because it violates the trust between a husband and wife [and] it breaks the marriage covenant, a promise before God.”
“That’s why Jesus’ only EXCEPTION to the rule that Christians shouldn’t get divorced is… ADULTERY, “sexual immorality” (Matt 19:9).
…So Hebrews 13:4 exhorts us “Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.”
That means if you don’t HAVE a “marriage bed”... YET… then you don’t ACT like it. Most of you here who AREN’T married yet likely WILL be one day. Your spouse is somewhere out there right now; do you want HER “playing husband and wife” with some other guy, under the sheets? Or do you want her to HONOR your future marriage bed? Then you do the same.
But once again... here comes JESUS, reminding us of the HEART of the Law, GOD’S heart, behind this Law: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” (Matt 5:27-28)
…I heard a pastor explain it this way: think of the commandments as like the LAST stop on a train route; MOST of us will never reach the END of the line: murder… adultery… But there are PLENTY of stops BEFORE that - ANGER… LUST… - that are STILL sinful, and that Jesus wants to PROTECT us from; he doesn’t want us riding the train AT ALL!
So brother, sister: Get off the train!” (DuVal, 5/21/23)
#8- We honor PROPRIETY. (v19) “Don’t STEAL”.
Propriety means “rightness” or “justice”, but “I like the word because its ROOTS had to do with PROPERTY (ownership). Ryken (642) explains: “The Hebrew word for “steal” - ganaf - literally means to carry something away, as if by stealth… to appropriate someone else’s property unlawfully.”
But once again, God’s prohibition here refers to a whole category of what WE like to think of as “lesser” sins… Those days at work, where you just kinda take it easy, slack off, or you use time on the clock when you’re getting paid to work for PERSONAL purposes instead - that’s STEALING. Taking a “sick day” when you’re not actually sick is STEALING…
You steal someone’s JOKE, appropriate it as your own, so that people think YOU came up with it, and think you’re funnier than you actually are; plagiarism - failing to give credit where credit is due - is STEALING. You steal someone else’s idea at work, and take the credit.
But Ryken suggests that “Whenever we squander money that could be better spent on something else, we are guilty of a kind of theft.” John Chrysostom (cited in Ryken 647-8) - famous 4th c pastor - put it this way: “Not to share one’s possessions is theft… Just as an official in the imperial treasury, if he neglects to distribute where he is ordered, but spends instead for his own indolence… so also the rich man is a kind of steward of the money which is owed for distribution to the poor… If he spends more on himself than his needs require, he will pay the penalty thereafter. For his own goods are NOT his own [they are GOD’S, and]… we do not possess our own wealth [only] but theirs [also].”
Have you ever considered that perhaps the reason you have far more than YOU need is that God gave you someone ELSE’S wealth, to test you and see if you would SHARE it, like He commanded you to?
But WORST of all, we steal from GOD. When we give LESS than the 10% back that He asks for, from what He has so generously blessed US with. In Malachi 3, God asks: “Will man rob God? Yet you are robbing me… In your tithes and contributions… Bring the full tithe [the full TENTH] into my storehouse…”
And “EVERY violation of the 10 Commandments”, Ryken (645) points out, “involves some form of theft. Bowing down to idols steals God’s worship. Desecrating the Sabbath steals his holy day. Murder steals life; lying steals the truth…”
Still think you keep the 8th commandment? We are Law-BREAKERS, friends in desperate need of a Law-fulfilling SAVIOR!
#9- We honor THE TRUTH. (v20) Don’t “bear false witness against your neighbor.”
“Don’t LIE”. “Even though the immediate context here is a formal court of law… where false testimony could cost your neighbor his LIFE - the last stop on the train route - the underlying principle here is: don’t LIE.
Because God loves truth. God IS truth! Jesus said, “I am the Way, the TRUTH, and the Life” (Jn 14:6)...
By contrast, SATAN is “a liar and the father of lies” (Jn 8:44). Lies come straight from the pit of HELL.
We don’t think of it that way… When we’re telling that “fish story”… or letting our 13 year old still eat off the kids menu… or updating our RESUME… OR just telling half the TRUTH, conveniently leaving out the parts that don’t suit OUR purposes, work to OUR advantage.
The MEDIA, the POLITICIANS, the SALESMAN, the ADVERTISERS… we’ve just come to expect lying almost everywhere in society, haven’t we? So much so that Oxford Dictionary’s “word of the year” back in 2016 was “post-truth”... and THAT was 10 years ago! Just think how much FARTHER from the truth we have strayed SINCE then! We don’t know right from wrong, truth from fiction, crook from President, boy from girl… over HALF of Americans today believe that truth is subjective; ‘no such THING as “objective truth”’; “your truth is simply your truth, my truth is my truth” (https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/oct/20/most-americans-say-truth-subjective-no-absolute-ri/ ). I guess one of the perks is at least you don’t have to WORRY about “bearing false witness”, cuz there’s NO SUCH THING in a “postmodern” world!
But friends, our God is concerned with the TRUTH, HIS truth is THE truth. God’s word - the Bible - is truth!” Ps 119:160 “The sum of your word is truth”.
The HARDEST truths to tell are often the ones folks NEED to hear, but don’t necessarily WANT to hear. But “faithful are the wounds of a friend” (Pr 27:6). And REFUSING to tell them can just be another form of “false witness” - lying by OMISSION. Do we LOVE others enough to “speak the truth in love” (Eph 4:15)?” (DuVal, 5/21/23)
Finally, #10- We honor CONTENTMENT. (v21) You “shall not COVET”.
“To covet is to crave… something that belongs to someone else…. It’s not simply wanting something we don’t have; it’s wanting something that someone else has” (Ryken, 666).
We got a lot of young FAMILIES here at West Hills, who know all ABOUT this, cuz “nothing stimulates a child’s interest in a toy quite like ANOTHER child playing with it. My son BO has toys he hasn’t even bothered taking out of the BOX, for months, but the second his older brother decides to check it out, all of a sudden it is his favorite toy ever - the ONLY toy he wants to play with!
But friends, are we that different? You didn’t know you WANTED… that vacation til your friend took it, and posted all her pictures and made you jealous. We resent the co-worker who got the promotion we wanted, resent the roommate who found romance while you’re still single (Ryken 666)… We want what we don’t have, what OTHERS have instead…
But what’s the antidote to coveting? It’s CONTENTMENT. Learning to be happy - GRATEFUL! - with whatever God has given you, whether little or much. If you can’t be happy with what He’s given you today, you won’t be happy with what He gives you tomorrow, no matter HOW much it is, it’ll NEVER be enough. So Hebrews 13:5 exhorts us to “be content with whatever you have”.”
But consider with me how God ENDS His list here. Most of the horizontal commandments govern our external behavior - “don’t murder, don’t steal, don’t lie…” - but remember where God BEGAN the list: with our HEARTS… look where he CONCLUDES it now: “Don’t COVET”. He takes it back to the HEART again - our internal impulses; “don’t desire things you shouldn’t.” What does that mean?
It means if God judges us not just for what we do on the OUTSIDE, but for who we really are on the INSIDE, then you and I are far more sinful than we’d like to admit, more sinful than we even KNOW - “The heart is deceitful above all things, desperately sick, who can even understand it?” the Bible says! (Ryken 669)
Why does God END here? Because, “this [tenth] commandment - [perhaps] more than any other - convinces us we are sinners… for the gracious purpose of showing us that we need a Savior” (Ryken, 669). That’s what it did for PAUL; “Paul went through the first part of his life assuming that he could measure up to the perfect standard of God’s law… Then he came to the tenth commandment”, and he writes in Romans 7: “if it had not been for the law, I would not have known SIN. For I would not have known what it is to covet… But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness.” (vv7-8)
In other words, no matter HOW many of the commandments you THINK you’ve kept - “I’ve never MURDERED” (“No, but you have ANGER issues”), “I’ve never committed ADULTERY” (“No, but you LUST”) - and no matter how much we try and FOOL ourselves into thinking we can “measure up”, keep the Law, earn God’s favor on our OWN merit, we ALL know deep down that we fall short on #10. NO ONE is perfectly content!
Friends: that’s why we need a SAVIOR… we need JESUS!”
“Bearing shame and all my sin
There in my place He stood condemned
Here I stand now justified
My guilt is His, His grace is mine
Praise the Lord!
Now and forevermore my heart confess
Christ is all my righteousness” (“Run and Run”, Boswell & Papa)
Let’s pray…