The Ten Commandments

The Basics

The Creation
When He created the cosmos, He put laws in place to govern all its workings. When we work within these laws all goes well. When we ignore the laws and work against them, we suffer the consequences.
This applies equally to the 'laws' of physics, and the laws of morality.

Laws and Consequences
It is not that God wants to catch us out in order to punish us; rather He cares so much for our welfare that He teaches us the laws and warns us of the consequences of breaking them.

Gravity
The Law of Gravity has been in place since the foundation of the universe. Toddlers learn by trial and error, the consequences of ignoring that law. People grow up understanding what will happen if they ignore that law and walk off a cliff without a parachute. The most ignorant person living the most simple life understands the danger of ignoring the law of gravity, even if it took Sir Isaac Newton to elucidate it for us.

Science
It takes trial and error to learn about the laws of the physical universe. The patient works of men and women of science result in a slow but steady increase in that body of knowledge.

The Fifth Dimension
We understand that we live in a four dimensional space-time continuum. Through continuous and diligent effort, we are increasing our knowledge and understanding of that reality. We have begun the task of elucidating its laws. There is a fifth dimension, which is that of Good and Evil. God considers this fifth dimension to be of prime importance. So much so, that He didn't wait for us to learn about the laws pertaining to it, but gave us those laws in concise form. Those laws are the Ten Commandments.

Written on Stone
The Ten Commandments were not made up by Moses. Neither were they written down by Moses. They were written on tablets of stone by the finger of God. Ex.31:18. They are the work of God not man. Ex. 32:16. They are written in stone rather than on parchment because they are unchanging and permanent. Ex 34:1. God wrote the commandments on the stone tablets before He gave them to Moses. Ex 24:12.Written by God The second set of tablets were made by Moses, but written on by God. Ex 34:1. The tablets of stone on which God wrote the Ten Commandments were written on both sides - front and back. Ex. 32:15,16.

Written by God
The second set of tablets were made by Moses, but written on by God. Ex 34:1. The tablets of stone on which God wrote the Ten Commandments were written on both sides - front and back. Ex. 32:15,16.

No Room for Amendments
They were written on both sides to leave no room for amendments. They are unchanging laws.

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS Ex. 20: 2-17

God here identifies himself as the great I AM.
He tells us we must not look to any other being who might raise himself up as a god, e.g. Satan; or any myth such as the gods of Olympus.

The Second Commandment
"You shall make no graven image or any likeness of anything in heaven or earth, nor bow down to any such thing."

This is derived from the first commandment and leaves no doubt about what God thinks of false idols.

The Third Commandment
"You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain."

This too is derived from and is an extension of, the first commandment. It commands respect for God's name, and lets us know what peril a society is in which uses His name as a curse and as an expletive. It is to our great shame that the name Jesus Christ is so mocked in these latter days.

The Fourth Commandment
"Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labour and do all your work, but the seventh day is a day of rest."

This, and all the following commandments, is a part of the second primary commandment to love our neighbours as ourselves. Everyone is to have a day off at least once a week. The Sabbath is made for man and not man for the Sabbath. It is wrong to force our employees to work on the Sabbath.

The Fifth Commandment
"Honour your father and mother, that your days may be long in the land."

If each generation honours their parents and cares for them as for themselves, then each generation will be respected and cared for in their old age.

The Sixth Commandment
"You shall not murder."

Murder is not the same as killing and the distinction has in past times been clear to most people. Now, however, we have so perverted our language and our laws that the difference has been blurred to the extent that it has become legal to murder babies in the womb.
In terms of the primary commandment to love my neighbour as myself, I am guilty of murder if I do not stop a murderer from slaying innocents and the helpless. If society has to kill the murderer to stop him then that is lawfully killing him. It is not murder. A war of defence is not breaking the sixth commandment.

The Seventh Commandment
"You shall not commit adultery."

Adultery leads to such devastation of families, to such despair and pain for all, and especially for children, that it must rank as one of the worst crimes against our neighbour.And yet in these latter days it is the norm. It has become so commonplace that those who don't do this are thought rather strange.

The Eighth Commandment
"You shall not steal."

Theft is commonplace even among misguided Christians. Stealing from the boss is regarded as a perk of the job. Violating copyright is claimed as a right and not seen as stealing the property of another. Politicians selling off the assets of a nation do not see that they are stealing the birthright of its citizens. All theft degrades integrity.

The Ninth Commandment
"You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour."

A person's good name is a priceless asset. To bear false witness is therefore a grievous crime. Creating false evidence to convict a criminal is every bit as evil as his crime.

The Tenth Commandment
"You shall not covet anything which is your neighbours."

Coveting leads to envy, theft, adultery and murder.

PRINCIPLES AND APPLICATIONS

Golden Principle
God says, "Do unto others what you want them to do to you."
This is God's universal "Love principle".

World Peace
It is clear that if all people obeyed the Ten Commandments, we would live in a wonderful world.

Salvation
If anyone can live their whole life obeying all ten commandments they can earn their right to a place in Heaven. Unfortunately, none of us can do that. We all fall short and deserve the consequences. However, "God so loved the world He sent His only begotten son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." John 3:16 "For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved." John 3:17

If you are not yet saved, simply ask Jesus to come into your life to be your Lord and Saviour. If you do this in genuine repentance (you are actually sorry for the bad things you have done, and you are turning away from them), then God throws your sins into the sea of forgetfulness. (He refuses to remember your sins) then he adopts you as His child, and you are now alive in a spiritual sense. (born again);when your physical body dies your soul will not go to destruction, but will have Eternal Life in the Heavenly realm.

Your soul is made up of three components: mind, emotion, volition.It is housed in an eathereal or spiritual 'body'. When your soul is born-again, your spirit is indestructible. If you will take a good hard, honest, look at your life right now, you will acknowledge that you have made many blunders. You will see your failings, your shortcomings, your sins. The damage you have done to yourself, and others, through sin makes it certain that you will not long survive the death of your body, but will automaticly go to destruction. God does not want you to be destroyed; He made a way for you to gain Eternal Life.

If you are truely sorry you have sinned, Jesus is willing to save you.You must now pray 'The Sinner's Prayer'.:

" Lord Jesus, I believe You died for my sins and I ask for your forgiveness. I receive You now as my personal Saviour and invite you to manage my life from this day forward. Amen. "

The angels will celebrate the birth (spiritual) of a new baby child of God (if you mean what you say). Your re-birth is instant. Then you begin the lifelong process by which you are regenerated, changed, improved in every way. You can speed this growth by working with God, or you can slow this growth by fighting against it. If you just ignore God , and continue in a life of unrepentent sin, you can lose your salvation. God is not mocked.

Universal Law
The Ten Commandments are universal in time and space. In fact they transcend time and space for they also apply beyond this present creation. They hold true for all mankind everywhere and everywhen.

Customs
Customs and mores may come and go and vary from place to place and time to time. We judge customs and mores as being more or less enlightened; more or less, good or evil. We make that judgement based on our understanding of transcendent morality, which is universalizable. That is, it is always true everywhere and everywhen. The Ten Commandments are the distilled essence of that morality.

The Essence
When we study the Ten Commandments, we find that all are reducible to two. The first and most important of these primary commandments is:

"Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength." Mark 12:29,30

(Note: All humans who love and serve God become part of spiritual Israel.)
Commandments 1,2 and 3

The second primary commandment is:

"You shall love your neighbour as yourself."

Mark 12:31 Matt.19:19b; John 15:10-15;
Commandments 4 - 10

Civil Law
All civil law should be based on the Ten Commandments. This is so because, what is in agreement with the Ten Commandments leads to good consequences; what disagrees with the Ten Commandments leads inevitably to calamity and evil consequences.

Prov. 4:19; 7:27; 10:8; 12:15; 14:12; 16:2; 16:25; 17:23; 21:2

Man sets himself up as his own God when he thinks to make laws more to his liking; laws which are not in agreement with the Ten Commandments. This is so too when man raises up a false idol.

False Idols
A man is really only trying to justify his own wrong desires and actions by creating a god which agrees with him. It makes no difference if it is a carved image of a saint, a motorbike or a golden calf. If we have a false idol then we no longer accept God and His Word as the measure of what is good. We will instead rely on our own fickle emotions or limited intelligence to decide between right and wrong. We impute our own desires and thoughts to that idol and this necessarily results in bad consequences.

It is good, for instance, for a man to love his wife. But when he makes pleasing his wife more important than the word of God, then he has made his wife a false idol and there will be tragic consequences.

Just ask Adam.

Other Laws
God does make other specific commandments for a certain person, or people, or places, or times. Examples of this are: Adam and Eve in Eden, Noah and the Ark, Lot and his wife, Johah and Ninevah, Abraham and Isaac, Isaac and the famine, Moses and the Pharoah. Among Adam's children, and again among Noah's children, there was no law against incest.

Later, when the accumulated genetic damage resulting from 'The Fall' became too great, there became a need for such laws so that offspring would have a sufficiently complete genome. There is a whole body of ceremonial law specifically for the people Israel to set them apart from other peoples.

Much ceremonial law no longer applied after the coming of Messiah; such is not revelant under the new Covenant.

Other People
These specific commands and laws are for specific persons or people. They are not meant for all people in all times and places.Even so, they are in complete agreement with the Ten Commandments as all good law must be.

Leaders and Kings
When the leaders of a nation fear God, and make all their laws to be in agreement with the Ten Commandments, happy and prosperous is that nation.

Praise the Lord for His Ten Commandments.

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