I think this next passage is so unique and meaningful...
"The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst they said to him, 'Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?' This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, 'Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.' And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground. But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. Jesus stood up and said to her, 'Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?' She said, 'No one, Lord.' And Jesus said, 'Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.' " - John 8:3-11 ESV
You can just picture the religious taunts of the people seeking to bait Jesus as He serenely writes in the dust. Jesus wrote twice and it always makes me think of Moses and the two sets of tablets given to Israel.
"And he gave to Moses, when he had finished speaking with him on Mount Sinai, the two tablets of the testimony, tablets of stone, written with the finger of God." - Exodus 31:18 ESV
"But he said, 'It is not the sound of shouting for victory, or the sound of the cry of defeat, but the sound of singing that I hear.' And as soon as he came near the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, Moses' anger burned hot, and he threw the tablets out of his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain." - Exodus 32:18-19 ESV
"So Moses cut two tablets of stone like the first. And he rose early in the morning and went up on Mount Sinai, as the LORD had commanded him, and took in his hand two tablets of stone. The LORD descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD. The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, 'The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children, to the third and the fourth generation.' And Moses quickly bowed his head toward the earth and worshiped." - Exodus 34:4-8 ESV
"For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes." - Romans 10:3-4 ESV
Moses had a sense of outrage when he smashed the first set of tablets but we don't see that same outrage in Jesus. He has compassion and awareness.
Christ is the 'end of the law'. Wow. That road should bring us to a place where we see Jesus and want Him.
I like that Jesus didn't pound them with words. He just quietly wrote in the dust. He never directly addressed their accusations. He didn't react.
God, Please give us this heart and mind. Let this be what we express. Compassion without compromise. Love. Thank you for sending Your Son. He Is just what we need in every way.
--
Showing posts with label The Ten Commandments. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Ten Commandments. Show all posts
Thursday, July 12, 2018
Thursday, February 18, 2016
What Is Our Message?
I am not impressed by nice people talking about how nice we should be to one another. I am equally unimpressed by those who harp on how bad this group is to that group. Yes, These are real issues but they are not THE MESSAGE. They are distracting headlines that bury the real news and make it a foot note so that it is easily overlooked. If we move from a spiritual message to a moral message we lose the power to live because without spiritual quickening we become subject to our own depravity.
The first seventeen verses of Exodus chapter twenty lay out the perfect frame work of morality. We have ten fingers and God gave Israel ten principles that span the scope of morality but then in the verses afterwards things get interesting.
"Now when all the people saw the thunder and the flashes of lightning and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking, the people were afraid and trembled, and they stood far off and said to Moses, 'You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, lest we die.' Moses said to the people, 'Do not fear, for God has come to test you, that the fear of him may be before you, that you may not sin.' The people stood far off, while Moses drew near to the thick darkness where God was." - Exodus 20:18-21 ESV
Beware when people front-load the treatment of other people as the message. If they talk about the high respect we should have for one another but exclude Jesus and His cross you are hearing a smoking mountain message. If they harp on injustice without Jesus or talk of equality without a cross they are bringing you to a holy mountain that can not sustain life.
"Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more," - Romans 5:12-13, 20 ESV
"For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death." - Romans 7:5 ESV
"Then the disciples came and said to him, 'Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying?' He answered, 'Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up. Let them alone; they are blind guides. And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.' " - Matthew 15:12-14 ESV
Moral teachers are blind guides. They mean well but they just get other people killed and trap others in pits that they can't see themselves.
Depravity can not be educated out of us. Making people aware will only take them so far but it isn't ever going to be far enough. It isn't ignorance that brings people to Hell or creates Hell on Earth. It is that man is fallen and broken beyond repair.
THE MESSAGE brings hope. It is a lone beam of light that can enter a person and make them shine with light. The message is that Jesus died on a cross and rose again. The message is that God has made a free provision for everyone to have a new clean identity because of what Jesus did if we just believe in Him.
"And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil." - John 3:14-19 ESV
Spirituality produces a moral climate but morality alone can never produce one drop of spirituality. Without Jesus men only have a smoking mountain to look at and deep within their depraved little hearts they know they should die if they touch that mountain.
"Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted." - Hebrews 12:1-3 ESV
"Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint." - Isaiah 40:30-31 KJV
Don't be fooled by the moral messages out there. They don't save anyone from Hell.
I am looking at the cross this morning and marveling at an empty tomb. Jesus has washed my sin away. God above smiles on me in love and nothing I do can change that. Oh, That is good news. It makes me want to be kind and no one has to tell me I should. I am so rich that I can share what I have and never have any less no matter how much I give away. Thank You Jesus. You are my headline. May You forever be on the front page of my life and the reason I do anything.
--
The first seventeen verses of Exodus chapter twenty lay out the perfect frame work of morality. We have ten fingers and God gave Israel ten principles that span the scope of morality but then in the verses afterwards things get interesting.
"Now when all the people saw the thunder and the flashes of lightning and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking, the people were afraid and trembled, and they stood far off and said to Moses, 'You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, lest we die.' Moses said to the people, 'Do not fear, for God has come to test you, that the fear of him may be before you, that you may not sin.' The people stood far off, while Moses drew near to the thick darkness where God was." - Exodus 20:18-21 ESV
Beware when people front-load the treatment of other people as the message. If they talk about the high respect we should have for one another but exclude Jesus and His cross you are hearing a smoking mountain message. If they harp on injustice without Jesus or talk of equality without a cross they are bringing you to a holy mountain that can not sustain life.
"Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more," - Romans 5:12-13, 20 ESV
"For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death." - Romans 7:5 ESV
"Then the disciples came and said to him, 'Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying?' He answered, 'Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up. Let them alone; they are blind guides. And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.' " - Matthew 15:12-14 ESV
Moral teachers are blind guides. They mean well but they just get other people killed and trap others in pits that they can't see themselves.
Depravity can not be educated out of us. Making people aware will only take them so far but it isn't ever going to be far enough. It isn't ignorance that brings people to Hell or creates Hell on Earth. It is that man is fallen and broken beyond repair.
THE MESSAGE brings hope. It is a lone beam of light that can enter a person and make them shine with light. The message is that Jesus died on a cross and rose again. The message is that God has made a free provision for everyone to have a new clean identity because of what Jesus did if we just believe in Him.
"And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil." - John 3:14-19 ESV
Spirituality produces a moral climate but morality alone can never produce one drop of spirituality. Without Jesus men only have a smoking mountain to look at and deep within their depraved little hearts they know they should die if they touch that mountain.
"Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted." - Hebrews 12:1-3 ESV
"Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint." - Isaiah 40:30-31 KJV
Don't be fooled by the moral messages out there. They don't save anyone from Hell.
I am looking at the cross this morning and marveling at an empty tomb. Jesus has washed my sin away. God above smiles on me in love and nothing I do can change that. Oh, That is good news. It makes me want to be kind and no one has to tell me I should. I am so rich that I can share what I have and never have any less no matter how much I give away. Thank You Jesus. You are my headline. May You forever be on the front page of my life and the reason I do anything.
--
Monday, November 4, 2013
Five Principles In Ten Commandments
During a study on marking I started to explore the ten commandments. These commands can't produce life in anyone but they sure expose what a man isn't and what happens in a person who lives incomplete under the law.
The first five commands are mirrored in the second five. Habitual way of thinking or a mindset culminates in action if a person goes down that path. Let's look at them in five separate sets. (These commands are taken from Exodus 20:13-17 ESV)
--
FIRST COMMANDMENT
And God spoke all these words, saying, I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me.
SIXTH COMMANDMENT
You shall not murder.
If you look at these two the connection is clear. Ignoring, denying or replacing God is one way of removing Him from your thinking. Killing someone removes them from your life. A murderer first dehumanizes his victim in his mind then at some point says, 'My life would be better without this person.' or 'I can not exist if they exist.' Murder is hate brought to it's final conclusion. It starts from a lack of love. The atheist and the killer lie to themselves because neither God or this person is truly removed. People don't have that power.
--
SECOND COMMANDMENT
You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 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 the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.
SEVENTH COMMANDMENT
You shall not commit adultery.
Idolatry and adultery are the clearest of the parallels. Scripture makes this connection often.
"For long ago I broke your yoke and burst your bonds; but you said, 'I will not serve.' Yes, on every high hill and under every green tree you bowed down like a whore." Jeremiah 2:20 ESV
Idols were often set up in high places under trees.
This is a search for sanctification apart from God and true commitment. It fails... the nature that is separated from God is never satisfied.
--
THREE
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.
EIGHT
You shall not steal. (The word can also be translated kidnap)
This is an interesting one. It has to do with perception of value. Does God's name have value? Is His nature hidden or revealed? There is something about tossing God's name around in a casual way that acts as a theft from God. The ultimate theft, besides murder, would be to take a child or person away and claim them as your own. All theft is a trespass of some kind but the violation in theft leaves one party lacking and the other one with something that should not belong to them.
--
FOURTH COMMANDMENT
Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.
NINTH COMMANDMENT
You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
Rest. There is so much to say about faith rest. Israel rested because God rested after creation. We rest because Christ sits down on the right hand of the Father in Heaven. Our work is at it's heart a false witness. We lie about who God is and what He has done when we lack rest. Anxiety is a lie the atmosphere projects against the finished work.
---
FIFTH COMMANDMENT
Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.
TENTH COMMANDMENT
You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor's.
This one was a difficult one for me to digest. Notice the long list of what might be possible to covet. Relationships, authority and possessions are listed and then 'anything' is tacked onto the end of it.
What is it about an incomplete person that wants to have things in a nagging way? Is it the things themselves or is it something deeper? This suggests a deeper principle is involved. It goes down into our core identity. We sense we are lacking as people and it is a void that demands to be filled... somehow. We want to be someone else. A person with no void.
Often mother and father get the blame for who we are or conversely if we dishonor our parents later when we discovery how much we are naturally like them we begin to hate ourselves. They are linked.
--
Now that we have gotten our shoes good and dirty surveying That natural landscape let's have them cleaned off again with spiritual water.
"For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." John 1:17 KJV
"But that is not the way you learned Christ! - assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness." Ephesians 4:20-24 ESV
"But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator." Colossians 3:8-10 ESV
The Law exposes the old human nature but grace reveals the new nature.
The new man does not ignore God. The love of God is shed abroad in the heart of a new person. Christ becomes the only true image of God and all other false images are discarded as impostors. God character (name) becomes weightier and weightier we don't throw it around lightly or make false claims that bring glory to ourselves. The new man can rest. Not just cease from labor for a day but truly rest every day and every night. Things try to disturb rest but there is way back into it. A believer who rests in a storm gives a true testimony about who God is in the court room of life. Lastly we have honor. Not the honor of outward expression but the honor of intimate thinking. Honor for parents is beautiful to behold. Honor for God as our Father is the root of all satisfaction.
Grace is what makes this possible. The old person can cast a shadow over the new one but grace causes an eclipse where the old nature is hidden and the new one is revealed. The outline of a natural body still shows but the new hidden man of the heart is revealed in a person's thinking and the love they show.
"For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: You shall love your neighbor as yourself." Galatians 5:14 ESV
"Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law." Romans 13:8 ESV
"But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires." Romans 13:14 ESV
Yes! Putting on Jesus Christ a light shines into the world. One that is filled with people trapped in cycles they can not understand and gives them a person to speak to that has found the way home.
Jesus is the doorway to a new life.
The first five commands are mirrored in the second five. Habitual way of thinking or a mindset culminates in action if a person goes down that path. Let's look at them in five separate sets. (These commands are taken from Exodus 20:13-17 ESV)
--
FIRST COMMANDMENT
And God spoke all these words, saying, I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me.
SIXTH COMMANDMENT
You shall not murder.
If you look at these two the connection is clear. Ignoring, denying or replacing God is one way of removing Him from your thinking. Killing someone removes them from your life. A murderer first dehumanizes his victim in his mind then at some point says, 'My life would be better without this person.' or 'I can not exist if they exist.' Murder is hate brought to it's final conclusion. It starts from a lack of love. The atheist and the killer lie to themselves because neither God or this person is truly removed. People don't have that power.
--
SECOND COMMANDMENT
You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 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 the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.
SEVENTH COMMANDMENT
You shall not commit adultery.
Idolatry and adultery are the clearest of the parallels. Scripture makes this connection often.
"For long ago I broke your yoke and burst your bonds; but you said, 'I will not serve.' Yes, on every high hill and under every green tree you bowed down like a whore." Jeremiah 2:20 ESV
Idols were often set up in high places under trees.
This is a search for sanctification apart from God and true commitment. It fails... the nature that is separated from God is never satisfied.
--
THREE
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.
EIGHT
You shall not steal. (The word can also be translated kidnap)
This is an interesting one. It has to do with perception of value. Does God's name have value? Is His nature hidden or revealed? There is something about tossing God's name around in a casual way that acts as a theft from God. The ultimate theft, besides murder, would be to take a child or person away and claim them as your own. All theft is a trespass of some kind but the violation in theft leaves one party lacking and the other one with something that should not belong to them.
--
FOURTH COMMANDMENT
Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.
NINTH COMMANDMENT
You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
Rest. There is so much to say about faith rest. Israel rested because God rested after creation. We rest because Christ sits down on the right hand of the Father in Heaven. Our work is at it's heart a false witness. We lie about who God is and what He has done when we lack rest. Anxiety is a lie the atmosphere projects against the finished work.
---
FIFTH COMMANDMENT
Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.
TENTH COMMANDMENT
You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor's.
This one was a difficult one for me to digest. Notice the long list of what might be possible to covet. Relationships, authority and possessions are listed and then 'anything' is tacked onto the end of it.
What is it about an incomplete person that wants to have things in a nagging way? Is it the things themselves or is it something deeper? This suggests a deeper principle is involved. It goes down into our core identity. We sense we are lacking as people and it is a void that demands to be filled... somehow. We want to be someone else. A person with no void.
Often mother and father get the blame for who we are or conversely if we dishonor our parents later when we discovery how much we are naturally like them we begin to hate ourselves. They are linked.
--
Now that we have gotten our shoes good and dirty surveying That natural landscape let's have them cleaned off again with spiritual water.
"For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." John 1:17 KJV
"But that is not the way you learned Christ! - assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness." Ephesians 4:20-24 ESV
"But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator." Colossians 3:8-10 ESV
The Law exposes the old human nature but grace reveals the new nature.
The new man does not ignore God. The love of God is shed abroad in the heart of a new person. Christ becomes the only true image of God and all other false images are discarded as impostors. God character (name) becomes weightier and weightier we don't throw it around lightly or make false claims that bring glory to ourselves. The new man can rest. Not just cease from labor for a day but truly rest every day and every night. Things try to disturb rest but there is way back into it. A believer who rests in a storm gives a true testimony about who God is in the court room of life. Lastly we have honor. Not the honor of outward expression but the honor of intimate thinking. Honor for parents is beautiful to behold. Honor for God as our Father is the root of all satisfaction.
Grace is what makes this possible. The old person can cast a shadow over the new one but grace causes an eclipse where the old nature is hidden and the new one is revealed. The outline of a natural body still shows but the new hidden man of the heart is revealed in a person's thinking and the love they show.
"For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: You shall love your neighbor as yourself." Galatians 5:14 ESV
"Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law." Romans 13:8 ESV
"But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires." Romans 13:14 ESV
Yes! Putting on Jesus Christ a light shines into the world. One that is filled with people trapped in cycles they can not understand and gives them a person to speak to that has found the way home.
Jesus is the doorway to a new life.
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