The Ten Commandments

The Ten Commandments were given for all men throughout the ages. They set God's standard. 

Exodus 20:

³ “You shall have no other gods before Me.

Pop 'stars', footballers, film 'stars' are worshipped today as if they are gods

⁴ “You shall not make for yourself a carved image

Cars, posters of favourite film stars etc, shrines to them, shrines to relatives - same thing as graven images

⁷ “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, 

OMG (I hate it - in your face, on billboards, on the internet, in films, on Facebook profiles), people saying the name of Jesus as a cuss.

⁸ “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 

Shops opening on a Sunday (do they really need to open? Not really they have 6 (SIX) other days to make money.)

¹² “Honor your father and your mother, 

So often we hear about children murdering their parents (and vice versa). Being cheeky isn't honouring them, disrespecting them

¹³ “You shall not murder.

Murder comes in a variety of forms - to take someone's life by stabbing (etc) them. Murder can also include character - how many times have we seen in newspapers, the murder of someone's reputation only to see them commiting suicide because they have lost everything in life! Abortion, Euthanasia! Murder is taking the life of someone who is created in God's image.

¹⁴ “You shall not commit adultery.

You only have to look at someone in lust and that is committing adultery. There are many dating sites which advocate no strings sex for married people etc

¹⁵ “You shall not steal.

Stealing, like murder isn't necessarily something tangible - stealing could be coming back from your break deliberately late, but getting paid for it. Getting paid for something you havne't done. Stealing is taking anything which doesn't belong to you. Envelopes from work, that pen you haven't [deliberately] returned

¹⁶ “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

Gossip is bearing false witness - this is so prevalent in our society, with the magazines spouting a load of dramatic sensationalisation rubbish about people! Don't like someone? Keep it to yourself because if you diss someone to others, you are tainting their judgement on the person and it more than likely isn't true what you think anyway - it's only YOUR perception!

¹⁷ “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house 

Coveting leads to stealing, it leads to murder, it leads to adultery, it leads to gossip. Be happy with who you are and what you have! 


Looking at the ten commandments and how we break them every minute of every day - is it a surprise that God is angry with the world?

Why should He get involved when He has given us consciences which have these written in them? If God intervened in our lives we would soon get fed up of Him. He doesn't intervene in cases of wars, famine etc because they are the by-product of our disobedience and we have to live with the consequences. He HAS given us a way of peace, love, joy through Jesus Christ but so many reject Him - so God lets us do what we want as society falls into ruin because of our disobedience towards Him!
 

Jesus enduring the curse pronounced upon fallen Adam

The ground was cursed (Genesis 3:17)
The Son of God was made a curse for us (Galatians 3:13)

Man was cursed to eat his bread in sorrow (Genesis 3:17)
The Lord of Glory was so thoroughly acquainted with grief that He became the 'man of sorrows' (Isaiah 53:3)

The earth brought forth thorns and thistles (Genesis 3:18)
The Lord Jesus Christ came forth from the judgement hall, wearing a crown of thorns (John 19:5)

Man was required to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow (Genesis 3:19)
The First Adam got His bread by the sweat of His face; but Christ, the Last Adam, got His bread, His soul's satisfaction, by the sweat of His heart (Luke 22:44)

Man must return to the dust of the earth (Genesis 3:19)
As Adam returned to the dust, so the dying Christ cried, "You have brought Me to the dust of death." (Psalm 22:15c)

A flaming sword barred the way to the Tree of Life (Genesis 3:24)
That sword of justice buried itself and was swallowed up in the Son of God (Zechariah 13:7)

Adam was separated from God in death (Genesis 2:16,17)
Christ the Last Adam was separated from God in death (Matthew 27:46)

In the film Mulan - Ping (Mulan) saved the young Captain's life, when he found out 'Ping' was really the young girl Mulan - her penalty would have been death, but because she had saved him he said - "Your debt has been repaid!"

This is the same with Christ - our debt has been paid by Him! We owe God our lives - the wages of sin is death. But through Christ's death we have eternal life. He gave what wasn't really meant to be given, to give us something which doesn't really belong to us (eternal life).  A debt can only be repaid by a debtor, but Christ became our Surety; He became our Debtor - He was rich enough to pay our debt for us!   

In the film Mulan - the debt could only be repaid by the Captain, no one else, whereas Christ has paid, with His life, the debt of those who come to believe and trust in Him. This is how Christians can say Christ is our Substitute, because He died (paid the price) we should have paid, but we couldn't afford it. Because every minute of every day our debt (sin) mounts up - it's impossible to clear it!

As humans we only see things in one dimensional terms - ie, what we can see now, what's in the physical realm, but being a Christian means we see things in 2D - we see the spiritual as well as the physical (and by spiritual, I don't mean some wishy washy emotional thing). 

The Garden vs The Gospel

I am reading a book called Discovering Christ in Genesis by Don Fortner and this morning was just mind blowing. Below are some of thing things gleaned from the book.

In the Garden of Eden there was one tree - the eating of the fruit brought death upon all men
In the Gospel there is one tree - the cross of Christ. All who eat of the fruit of that tree will live forever

In the Garden there was one man, Adam, he represented the human race before God, he fell therefore we have all fallen
In the Gospel there is one Man, Christ, the Second Adam, the Last Adam - He represents an elect race before God. By Him and in Him all God's elect live forever.

Adam brought destruction and death upon his race
Jesus Christ has brought redemption and life to His race, God's elect

I began to ponder what I had read and this is what I can see more clearly now:

Man has failed to do what he was created to do (to have perfect communion with God) and only Christ can put that right (He restores the broken relationship we have with God)

Man was created to tend the garden not to till the ground, but because of the Fall, we all have to work by the sweat of our brows to live - I think that's why we resent doing work - we weren't created to slog our guts out!

Man was created to have communion with God, not with Satan.