THE 10 COMMANDMENTS EXODUS 20 15 21 EXODUS

THE 10 COMMANDMENTS EXODUS 20: 15 -21

EXODUS 20: 15 -17 COMMANDMENTS 8 -10 15. YOU SHALL NOT STEAL 16. YOU SHALL NOT GIVE FALSE TESTIMONY AGAINST YOUR NEIGHBOUR 17. YOU SHALL NOT COVET YOUR NEIGHBOUR’S HOUSE. YOU SHALL NOT COVET YOUR NEIGHBOUR’S WIFE, OR HIS MALE OR FEMALE SERVANT, HIS OX OR DONKEY OR ANYTHING THAT BELONGS TO YOUR NEIGHBOUR.

WHAT IS THE CHRISTIAN’S (SAVED BY GRACE) RELATIONSHIP TO THE 10 COMMANDMENTS? FIRST: IT REVEALS THE SINFULNESS AND MORAL DEPRAVITY OF OUR HEARTS. SECOND: IT TEACHES US THE CHARACTER OF GOD – HIS UNCHANGING HOLINESS AND RIGHTEOUSNESS. THIRD: IT TEACHES US THE WAY NOT TO LIVE AND THE WAY TO LIVE.

THE 10 COMMANDMENTS ARE NOT THE WAY TO SALVATION. • A COMMON MISTAKE IN AND OUTSIDE THE CHURCH IS THAT WE GET TO HEAVEN BY DOING MORE GOOD THINGS THAN BAD THINGS. • “Men perish with whispering sins-nay, with silent sins, sins that never tell the conscience that they are sins, as often with crying sins; and in hell there shall meet as many men that never thought what was sin, as that spent all their thoughts in the compassing of sin. ”. (John Donne 16 th century Puritan) • ACTS 4: 12 SALVATION IS FOUND IN NO ONE ELSE, FOR THERE IS NO OTHER NAME UNDER HEAVEN GIVEN TO MANKIND BY WHICH WE MAY BE SAVED.

OUR HOPE IS IN CHRIST FOR SALVATION • Christ obeyed the law perfectly. • Christ’s perfect obedience is credited to believers who out their hope and trust in Christ. • Christ bore the wrath of sinners. • Christ drank the cup to the full. • Christ’s blood alone washes away our sin.

JUSTIFICATION AND SANCTIFICATION • A Christian is not saved by the 10 commandments. However, …………. • A Christian is a new creature. • A Christian has a new heart. • A Christian has the Holy Spirit dwelling within him empowering and moving him. • A Christian walks on the narrow road of holiness. • Ezekiel 36: 26 -27 - 26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws”.

PASTOR ARTHUR PINK (1886 -1952) • "Whom God legally saves, He experimentally saves; whom He justifies, them He also sanctifies. Where the righteousness of Christ is imputed to an individual, a principle of holiness is imparted to him; the former can only be ascertained by the latter. It is impossible to obtain a Scriptural knowledge that the merits of Christ's finished work are reckoned to my account, except by proving that the efficacy of the Holy Spirit's work is evident in my soul. "

PASTOR JOHN MURRAY (1898 -1975) & CHARLES SPURGEON • God’s working in us is not suspended because we work, nor our working suspended because God work……. God works in us and we also work. But the relation is that because God works we work. (Murray) • If the professed convert distinctly and deliberately declares that he knows the Lord’s will but does not mean to attend to it, you are not to pamper his presumption, but it is your duty to assure him that he is not saved. Do you imagine that the Gospel is magnified or God glorified by going to the worldlings and telling them that they may be saved at this moment by simply accepting Christ as their Saviour, while they are wedded to their idols and their hearts are still in love with sin? If I do so, I tell them a lie, pervert the Gospel, insult Christ, and turn the grace of God into lasciviousness. ” (Spurgeon)

COMMANDMENT EIGHT: ‘YOU SHALL NOT STEAL’ • The law forbids ……… • Direct stealing of someone elses goods. • Shoplifting • Pirating from the internet/not paying for films, music etc. • Counterfeiting • Deceiving in business practices. Dishonesty in wages. • Laziness at work and expecting to be paid. • Slavery (this is stealing…. . A terrible blight in history on many churches 1 Tim 1: 10) • Stealing God’s glory or anything that rightfully belongs to God.

ROBBING FROM GOD? • “I am the Lord, that is My name! I will not yield My glory to another nor my praise to idols” (Isaiah 42: 8) • 1 Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying, 2“Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel. Prophesy and tell them that this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘Woe to the shepherds of Israel, who only feed themselves! Should not the shepherds feed their flock? 3 You eat the fat, wear the wool, and butcher the fattened sheep, but you do not feed the flock (Ezekiel 34: 2). • Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me. But you ask, “How are we robbing you? ”. In tithes and offerings (Malachi 3: 8)

HELP BUILD GOD’S KINGDOM • Support missionaries if you can not go yourself. • Support the church so that they can employ more pastors, teachers etc. • Support Christian organisations such as translation or distribution of the Bible. • Support Christians in times of need. • Give generously to charities especially orphans; or in times of distress. • Haggai 1: 4

COMMANDMENT NINE: YOU SHALL NOT GIVE FALSE TESTIMONY AGAINST YOUR NEIGHBOUR • We live in a world saturated with lies! • Lies about gender; lies about how the creation came about; lies that marriage is not between one man and one woman; lies about Jesus Himself; lies in education; lies in the media; lies even sadly behind the pulpit.

EXODUS 23: 1 -3

WAYS CHRISTIANS LIE TO EACH OTHER • Direct fibbing. • Hyberbole and exaggeration. Tall tales. • Slander and gossipping/telling rumours. • Deceitful/pretending to be someone or doing something. • Revelation 21: 8 - “All liars”. God is a God of truth. Therefore, God’s children must be truthful.

LYING TO GOD? • We can lie to God in our prayers; in our repentance; and in our worship. • I surrender all, I surrender all; All to Thee, my blessed Savior, I surrender all. All to Jesus I surrender, Humbly at His feet I bow; Worldly pleasures all forsaken, Take me, Jesus, take me now • “Christians do not tell lies; they only sing them in their hymns”.

COMMANDMENT TEN: DO NOT COVET…ANYTHING • This command deals with our mind and our heart…because it deals with our mind; what it dreams about, what it plans, and what it sets out to do. • Above all else, guard your hearts because out of it come the issues of life. (Proverbs 4: 23) • Dedicate your thoughts and desires; your heart, your mind, your eyes to God. • “I have been before God, and have given myself, all that I am and have, to God; so that I am not, in any respect, my own. I can challenge no right in this understanding, this will, this affections, which are in me. Neither have I any right to this body, or any of its members–no right to this tongue, these hands, these feet; no right to these senses, these eyes, these ears, this smell, or this taste. I have given myself clear away, and have not retained any thing as my own. . “. (Edwards)

OUR SUFFICIENCY IN CHRIST

DO YOU HAVE HOLY BLOOD RUNNING THROUGH YOUR VEINS?

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS 1. What is sin? Why is sin serious to God? 2. How does the cross of Christ show us the love, justice and mercy of God as well as the sinfulness of man? 3. How can we lie in repentance and prayer? (Joel 2: 13) 4. Is lying and coveting always wrong? Consider Rahab and the midwives in Exodus 1: 19.