Introduction to the Ten Commandments

That we would begin a series on the Ten Commandments this morning. And as I began putting together this series and the first commandment, I was thinking about the Ten Commandments overall, and thinking about how controversial they are in our society, aren't they? We, you know, politically, if people want to post something in the government building with the Ten Commandments, even though it forms the basis of moral law, you hear about it on the news, there's lawsuits that get filed, and it's kind of amazing the controversy that can arise from just, you know, putting, you know, a list of the Ten Commandments someplace for people to see, to remind them of what, of what or how we should be behaving.

But even in the religions of this world, the Ten Commandments are a controversial type item. Some people believe that they are still in effect and in existence for us today. A lot of other religions believe that they were done away with when the time, when the time the Christ died. And as I was preparing this, I tooled around some the internet a little bit just to see what various churches believe and to see what they have to say about the Ten Commandments because, you know, I, I was just interested.

And I was, I was surprised, I'll have to say, by the variety of opinions that are out there. Some will come all the way to the conclusion that they're absolutely the moral basis by which everyone should live, but then they take the U-turn and say, but you don't have to pay attention to them anymore. Other, other churches will say, you know, they were, they were good for old times, but the country and the society has outgrown some of those commandments.

And so they're no longer applicable today, and rightly so, they say, because Christ did away with them. And, and then it's love that replaced the commandments and what's in our hearts. And it's an interesting array of what's out there. There's, even in their religions that call themselves Christian, there's just no common ground on what is one of the bases of the Bible. Christ, you know, well, we'll talk today about Christ and the commandments. And I thought today what we would do is an introduction to the Ten Commandments and prove again, for many of us that are in the room, and maybe the first time you've heard it, go back and prove what the Ten Commandments again, that they were in existence before Sinai, and that they were in existence and still apply to people today.

So, let's go back to the first place that the commandments are mentioned in the Bible. Where would you think that that is? I'll give you a minute to turn there, and I'm going to tell you where I'm going to turn. I'm going to turn back to Genesis.

Genesis 26. As so many things are in the Bible, the beginning of everything is in Genesis. And I think if we did a thorough study of everything we believe and everything, we would find everything in man's history and everything and all of our beliefs right here in Genesis.

But let's go back to Genesis 26 verse 5, because the first time the commandments are mentioned in the Bible, we find in this verse. God is talking to Isaac, and he's reminding him of the blessing that he had given to Abraham. And he says this in verse 5. And he says to Isaac, I've made this blessing because Abraham obeyed my voice, kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws. Now the Hebrew word for commandments there is the same as the word commandment that's translated in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5, where you find the commandments listed.

So God said, Abraham obeyed. Oh, Abraham obeyed all these things that I had him to do. And if you remember back from Genesis 12, Abraham had a history of obedience to God. When God told him to leave his home country and his father's land, he did it. It was unheard of in those days, but he moved to the land that God had told him to move to.

And while he was there, he obeyed God. Somewhere along the line, for God to make the statement in verse 5 here, he taught Abraham his commandments, his statutes, and his laws. And Abraham obeyed them. Now he doesn't list them all here, but we do see, as we read about Abraham, things that he did in his life that tells us that there were certain things that were in the so-called law of Moses that God reintroduced to Israel in Exodus and Leviticus that Abraham did.

We read about him sacrificing. Remember, it was Isaac that God said, you take Isaac and sacrifice him to me. It wasn't a brand new concept to Abraham. He was used to sacrificing to God. So somewhere along the line, God instructed him in what to do to worship him. We read about Abraham tithing in Genesis 14. It simply makes the comment that of the increase God gave him, Abraham tived. No explanation of it, but it was just something that Abraham typically did. So Abraham was one of the men, few men apparently on earth, who obeyed God's commandments, his statutes, and his laws.

And Abraham ruled his family with those laws as well. If you remember, Abraham's son, of course, was Isaac. Isaac obeyed God. Isaac had no problem when his father said that God had requested Isaac to be sacrificed.

Remember, he willingly said, he went along with him to have it happen. And Isaac walked with God as well. God blessed him. Isaac had two sons, Jacob and Esau. Undoubtedly, he taught both of those boys, as they grew up, the ways of God. One chose to live by those ways. Jacob, the other chose to reject those ways. Just as in our families today, some children will accept and walk by what they're taught, and others reject it.

And Jacob had 12 sons, and he taught those boys as well. And we can see the laws that some of them kept as we look at even Joseph's life. He was carried off to Egypt, a foreign land where no one believed what he did. Didn't know who his God was. And yet, when he was over in Egypt, he developed a name for himself wherever he went. In Potiphar's house, Potiphar came to understand that this young man wasn't going to steal.

This young man wasn't going to take what wasn't his, and Potiphar was able to entrust everything he had to Joseph. And when Joseph's wife, or not Joseph's wife, Potiphar's wife, determined that she would like more of Joseph, Joseph resisted. Even though to a young man, it might have been that he could have gotten away with it, and who would know.

But he obeyed. He learned well what his life should be, and even in a foreign country, in a foreign land that worshipped a foreign God and had obviously a different set of morals than he was raised with, he stuck with it. Over in Deuteronomy 6, after Moses recounts to the Israelites and reminds them of the commandments and the laws of God, he says this beginning in verse 1, says, This is the commandment of these the statutes and judgments with the eternal your God has commanded to teach you that you may observe them in the land where you're crossing over to possess, that you may fear the Lord your God to keep all his statutes and his commandments which I command you, you and your son and your grandson all the days of your life, and that your days may be prolonged.

Therefore, hero Israel, and be careful to observe it that it may be well with you and that you may multiply greatly as the Lord God of your fathers has promised you, a land flowing with milk and honey. Hero Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and with all your strength. And these words which I command you today, he says, shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children. You shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. Bind them as a sign on your hand, and they'll be as frontlets between your eyes. Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

Do you see the importance that God was putting on these 10 commandments that he gave to Israel?

His ultimate goal was that they would be written in our hearts and in our minds, but for that day and age he said, I want these principles, these commandments, this way of life in front of you always. Every time you come into the door of your house, see the law. Be reminded of how you're supposed to live. When you sit with your children, he said, talk of it. Teach it. Let them know how you're supposed to live. And God says in verse 29 of chapter 5 here, he says, oh that they had such a heart in them that they would hear me and always keep all my commandments that it might be well with them and with their children forever. God gave those commandments to Israel because he wanted it to be well with them forever. He wanted to bless them. He wanted to give them the good things of life. He wanted them to be happy. And he gave them the key to having that happen. And that was obeying his law. And he gave it to Israel. It was a gift to Israel. The other nations didn't know. They had gone by the wayside. We'll get to that in a little bit. They had rejected God and they had devised their own ways of doing things. But God gave Israel, his people, laws, commands, a way of life that would lead to everything good if they would just do it. And he said, perpetuate it. Teach it to your children. They'll teach it to their children. It will become part of the very fabric of your being. And we can see that Abraham did that. It became part of his life. It became him. It became Isaac. It became Jacob. It became Joseph. It defined them. And so often we talk about the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Because they followed him implicitly. And those laws were so very, very important. And along with that, when Israel obeyed God, he blessed them richly. Over in Psalm 1, David, who we know is a man after God's own heart, dedicated himself to God after some rough times in his early life. In Psalm 1, this is a song we're familiar with. We sing it quite a bit. Psalm 1, David writes this, Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful. Blessed is the man who rejects that way, the people who scorn, the people who don't follow God. His delight, he says in verse 2, the one who rejects, if we want to call it, the way of the world, his delight is in the law of God. And in his law, he meditates day and night. He thinks about it. It's not something that he thinks about when the sun sets on Friday and doesn't think about it again until the next week. He think meditates on it day and night. It becomes part of him. He'll be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall not wither, and whatever he does shall prosper. Whatever he does shall prosper.

If we obey the commands of God, if we inculcate them into our hearts and into our minds so that we're not just mechanically obeying, but that they become part of the fabric of who we are, which can happen and does happen when we have God's Holy Spirit. David, we know, was blessed as he was in Israel. Israel was blessed under his kingdom and under the kingdom or under the reigns of the kings who obeyed God. When they departed from God's laws, when they looked around and thought that the ways of the other nations made more sense to them or what that's what they wanted to do, you can see in the history of Israel what happened.

Later in the Psalms, in Psalm 119, Psalm 119 is the longest chapter in the Bible, and in it David again and again and again recounts the beauty, the perfection, the appeal of God's law. In verse 172 of Psalm 119, he says this, My tongue shall speak of your word for your commandments our righteousness. So the Bible gives us the definition of righteousness. Your commandments are righteousness.

So we know and I hope everyone can see that Abraham kept God's commandments, statutes, and laws. And we all know that Abraham was obeying those things before those were given to... keep my hands tied... before those commands were given to Israel at Sinai. They were in place then and there were blessings that were given to Israel or to Abraham and God's people that followed those. But was Abraham the first person that kept those commandments? Well, if we look at the definition the Bible gives us of righteousness, your commandments are righteousness. Let's go back to the first place in the Bible that righteousness is mentioned, and that's back in Genesis as well, and even earlier than Abraham. In Genesis 7...

and by the way you can write your notes if you want it. In Genesis 15 verse 6, God calls Abraham a righteous man. But in Genesis 7 verse 1, we find the first time that righteousness is mentioned in the Bible, and righteousness is the commandments of God, as the Bible defines it. It says in chapter 7 verse 1, the eternal said to Noah, Come to the ark, you and all your household, because I've seen that you are righteous before me in this generation.

Well, if Noah was righteous, what does the Bible tell us that Noah was doing? Noah, for God to call him righteous, was keeping God's commandments, living by those laws, living by those statutes, living by the moral code that God had to set for him. And Noah apparently was the only one in the world that was doing that at that time.

Someone taught him, God taught him, and Noah made a choice, I'm going to live by this law. I'm going to live by this God, and I'm going to follow him. You know it wasn't an easy choice for Noah to make. He lived in a world that had totally rejected God, had totally gone another way. Now, what was the state of the world that had rejected God, so that Noah was the only one in the world living by God's laws? Well, God looked down on the world at that time, and it was wicked, it was corrupt, there was misery, suffering, all sorts of things going on in the world. It was such a bad place that God was repented that he had even created man, and decided he was going to bury it in a flood. The result of not living by God's way was all the wicked and awful and miserable things that the world had experienced at that time so bad that God wiped all the men of the earth off the face of the earth, except for Noah. Now, again, we don't have recounted for us here at Noah that God specifically told him the Ten Commandments, and it's not listed here, but it says Noah was righteous. And as we look at the story of Noah, we can see the same pattern that we can see in Abraham, the same pattern that we see in the kings that God calls good. Noah had a habit of obedience to God. When God told him, build an ark, he didn't look around and ask, why? Why here? He did it, and he spent 120 years building that ark. We also can see in that ark that God had marched into it clean and unclean animals.

Many people think that the first time clean and unclean animals and meats are mentioned as in the law of Moses back in Exodus and Leviticus. But here in Genesis, Noah, apparently God had instructed him, and apparently he knew what some of those physical laws were, as well as the spiritual laws at that time. And we see Noah living by some of those principles that the rest of the world apparently just threw out the window. So Noah was there, and Noah was living his way of life. And as Noah came through the flood, he and his wife and their three sons and their three wives, undoubtedly Noah was teaching God's way as well. A few of those sons rejected him. Chem, apparently, lived or chose to live by the way of God. And we can see in Genesis, I believe it's Genesis 11, you can follow the line of Shem that follows all the way through to Abraham, who then follows through to David and eventually Jesus Christ. But the other sons rejected God. You read after the flood, and you read about Nimrod and the Tower of Babel. You read about how people had departed from God so quickly, even when their ancestors or when their immediate family, who were alive for hundreds of years, even after the flood and through all their births, could sit there and recount the very the very, you know, circumstance of the flood. That they built the ark, and God literally did flood the earth, and yet they rejected God. So soon after, the flood waters receded. So Noah kept the commandments of God. He was called righteous. Abraham kept the commandments. He was called righteous. Did it start with Noah? Well, let's turn back and look at another definition that the Bible gives us back in 1 John 3. 1 John 3.

And in verse 4, I'm going to read it from the New King James that I have up here with me, but I like the way the Old King James says it better. New King James says, whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness. Sin is lawlessness, or having not obeying the law. The Old King James says sin is the transgression of the law.

Sin is the transgression of the law.

So if we look at another Bible definition that talks about the law of God, sin is the transgression of the law. Let's go back and find the first time that sin is mentioned in the Bible. And we find that even earlier than Noah. Back in Genesis 4.

Now, while you're turning there, I'm going to read to you a verse I overlooked here in Romans 6.23, where Paul talks about sin as well, and he says, the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life and Jesus Christ our Lord.

So Paul tells us, or the Bible tells us, the wages of sin is death.

Sin is the transgression of the law. And in Genesis 4, verse 7, we have God speaking to Cain.

Cain, of course, firstborn of Adam and Eve.

And he says to Cain, after he had rejected Cain's offering, Cain and Abel brought an offering. Apparently God had instructed them on what they could do to honor him.

One came with the offering with the right attitude. The other did not.

And Cain sensed God's rejection of his offering. And God says to him in verse 7, If you do well, won't you be accepted?

And if you don't do well, sin lies at the door. If you don't do well, Cain, if you don't pay attention to these things that I tell you, if you don't develop the habit of obedience to God, to his laws, to the things that he asks us to do for our own good, if you don't do well, Cain, sin lies at the door.

And its desire is for you.

It wants you. It wants you. It wants you to be apart from God.

And we know that without going into the stories of Adam and Eve and the serpent in the earlier chapters here.

What Satan wants is people to reject God.

God wants to give us eternal life.

We just read that, or I just read it to you in Romans 6, verse 23. Satan wants the opposite.

God says its desire is you.

It wants you, but it doesn't want you alive.

And he's told, Cain, a principle, we need to, we live by as well. You should rule over it.

You should resist that temptation to sin. You should resist that temptation to reject God. You should resist that temptation to do something other than what he tells you to do.

Not so easy to do. And the Old Testament is an example of how without God's Holy Spirit, our minds, we are just powerless to resist sin.

So here in verse 7, we find sin.

So if God was telling Cain about sin, God had instructed Cain and Adam and Eve, as we'll see in a minute, what his law was.

Back in chapter 3 of Genesis, and in verse 3, we find the first time that death is mentioned.

Well, actually, the first time is in chapter 2, verse 17, but we'll pick it up in chapter 3 here. When God put Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, he told them about the two trees, the tree of life.

And he said, freely eat of that.

It's going to lead to everything good.

It'll lead to where you want to be.

But he said, of this tree over here, if you take of that tree, if you choose to live from that tree, you'll die.

The wages of sin is death.

They knew what sin was.

They knew what God's will was. They knew God had instructed them, just like he instructs us, and he instructs us to teach our children.

They knew the law of God was there from the very beginning.

But in chapter 3, verse 3, oh, this is God saying exactly what I just said, the fruits of the tree, which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, you shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.

He told them that would happen.

And then in the ensuing verses, the serpent, Satan, comes in, and he tells them, oh, no, you won't.

Oh, no, you won't.

Your life will be much better if you just choose to follow me instead of God.

But we look at the history of mankind, and we don't see lives that have been so good, do we?

We see a history of wars. We see a history of turmoil interspersed with times of, I guess, peace, intertwined with times of happiness.

But the overall history of man has not been one of peace and everything that's been good has been just the opposite. So we have the law now, and sin, and righteousness traced far, far, far before Sinai was ever heard of or thought of by any man.

We see that God's way and God's law and God's commands were in existence all the way from the beginning of mankind.

And through the years, as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and his people kept those laws, the rest of the world rejected those laws. Cain rejected God's law. Even in the last in Jude, it talks about the way of Cain apart from God.

But there were people, and there was a line of people that kept God's law all the way up through the Old Testament.

And you know who those are. As you read through the book of Kings and see the good kings and the bad kings, and God calls the good kings the ones who kept his law.

If we go back to Abraham, we know that Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph in Egypt kept his law.

And as Joseph, or as Israel's family, marched into Egypt, there were 70 of them who marched in at the time of the famine, and they were there for 400 years.

And in that time, they grew from 70, who marched in to more than 2 million, 400 years later.

And in that time, they became slaves. They were living in a land where they weren't free to make their own choices.

And over the course of that 400 years, they lost what God had taught them.

They didn't know. They didn't know, anymore, what his commandments were.

They didn't know what the Sabbath day was.

They had become part of Egypt, and they knew they were separate, but somewhere along the line, they lost it.

Just as any of us would have been if 400 years we were in slavery, without making choices on our own, but a manner of government making those choices and imposing them on us.

So when we come to Exodus, in Exodus 20, God has the people that he's brought out, the people that are large in number.

Two million strong, a nation that he has rescued from Egypt, a nation that he says in Deuteronomy were his own special people.

Just as we and those who follow him today are his own special people.

And he wants them to have the blessings of life.

He wants them to ride on the high hills of earth.

He wants them to not have the diseases, the physical ailments of Egypt.

And so he recounts for them and teaches them again what they had forgotten, or what they had lost during those 400 years. And this time, he lists the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20.

I'm not going to take the time to read the Ten Commandments today. You know them and you can read them, but we will go through them one by one on one Sabbath a month over the next 10 months so that we understand them and their application into our lives today and the benefits that come from living by those laws of God.

But as we approach chapter 20, notice the importance that God puts on this giving of the Ten Commandments.

In chapter 19, the people are prepared.

He brings them before Mount Sinai. And he tells them, don't even touch the mountain.

And they see all these marvelous things going and they hear God's voice and they tremble at this time.

Something monumental is going to happen. God is getting their attention.

What he's about to tell them in chapter 20 are words he wants them to remember and words that he wants them to tremble when they hear.

And they do.

And in chapter 20, it says, God spoke all these words saying, and you go down through verse 17, where he lists the Ten Commandments, the Ten Principles by which we live. And in verse 18, it says this, All the people witnessed the thunderings, the lightning flashes, the sound of the trumpet, the mountain smoking. And when the people saw it, they trembled and they stood afar off.

You don't think they remembered those words in that day? They saw the power of God. And he let them see his power in a physical sense, because those words as he was speaking to them were monumentally important. He wanted that memory and that they etched in their minds, because what he was telling them was supremely important.

In verse 19, they were trembling, so they said, The Moses, you speak with us and we'll hear. But don't let God speak with us, lest we die.

And Moses said to the people, don't fear.

God has come to test you, and that his fear may be before you, so that you may not sin.

Understand the power of God, Moses is saying. You've seen only a small part of the power of God.

He's let you see that. And you know what? Remember that power. When you're tempted to sin and depart from these principles, you remember that power.

You remember the power he has to do good in your life, but you also remember that if you depart from those, that death will be the result.

And he's telling Israel, you worship a God that can make either happen.

But you also worship a God that's giving you principles that will send you well all the days of your life, if you live by them, if you learn them, if you follow them, perhaps mechanically at first, but as you live them, you let them become part of you.

And you remember the fear so that you don't sin. In chapter 31 of Exodus, verse 18, you remember that Moses was up on the mountain for 40 days. He came back. Israel had already turned from God and forgotten the commandments that he had given.

Moses, in his anger through the tablets God had given him. Moses went back up, verse 18, it says, when he had made an end of speaking with him, when God had made an end of speaking with Moses on Mount Sinai, he gave Moses two tablets of the testimony, tablets of stone, written with the finger of God.

Only two places in the Bible that says something was written by the finger of God.

One was the Ten Commandments. The other was the writing on the wall at the time of Daniel and when the kingdoms were switching from the Babylonians to the Medes.

How important must it have been for God to write those commandments with his own finger? He didn't have Moses copy him down, like some of the other laws. He wrote those with his own finger.

And he didn't put them on papyrus. Didn't put them on whatever the other writing tablets of the day would be. He wrote them on stone, indicating their permanence. They would last, written by him for mankind, written by him in a way that will last.

When God instructed Moses on how the tabernacle would be built, remember that he instructed him on an ark that was going to be built. Specifically, how the ark should be. These tablets were put in that ark for safekeeping.

Back in Revelation 11, I guess people have long wondered what has happened to that ark that contained these historic but monumentally important things. In Revelation 11, verse 19, there's just an interesting verse. It says, the temple of God. This, of course, is in the midst of the trumpet sounding. The temple of God was opened in heaven, and the ark of his covenant was seen in his temple. And look what has accompanied it. There were lightnings, noises, thunderings, and earthquake, and great hail.

The ark and what was contained in it was something very, very important to God. His laws that would govern not just Israel, because they were given to all mankind, but most of mankind has rejected it. Most of mankind has taken of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and said, we can choose our own way to go. And falsely believing that as they choose their own way, it will still end up with the blessings, the happiness, the joy, love, peace, long suffering, all the fruits of the spirit, and the fruits of keeping God's law. It hasn't worked that way. It only works that way for the people that God calls and that follow him.

Over in Matthew, Christ comes on the scene. He's born. He's the Messiah. And people listen to him. And we have his words. And even though, throughout the Old Testament, the laws of God are intact, in place, and no one would argue that they were in existence for everyone, people use some of the words of Christ to say, look, he did away with them. Now that he's been on earth, now that he's lived a perfect life, we no longer have to obey those commandments. We just have to love. Let's look at verse 17 of chapter 5 of Matthew.

It says, don't think, this is Christ speaking, don't think I came to destroy the law or the prophets. I didn't come to destroy, but to fulfill. Verse 18, for assuredly I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law, till all is fulfilled.

Now those words seem crystal clear to me that he wasn't doing away with the law, but when you read some of the things on the internet from other churches, those words fulfilled, they believe means that Christ fulfilled the law, thereby along with the sacrificial system when he died, and the other rituals of the tabernacle that did, the Bible clearly say, pass when he died, that that law, part of what was given to Israel at Sinai, passed away as well. He fulfilled it, he perfectly lived it, and therefore we don't have to do it anymore.

It's kind of a strange thing in our language that we have two verses here in 17 and 18 that both use the word fulfill, and it's part of an English language today that looks at the word fulfill and sees something that's maybe not there in the original intent. Let's take just a few minutes and look at these words fulfilled from the original Greek. Let's start with verse 18. Surely I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law, till all is fulfilled. The Greek word translated fulfilled in Genesis or in Matthew 518 is ginomeo. G-I-N, let me find and make sure I'm giving you the right word, G-I-N-O-M-A-I, Gino-mae-I. The Greek word means to be brought to pass.

82 times in the New Testament, ginomei is translated brought to pass or accomplished. When these things are brought to pass, then it will be... well, that's what the verse would mean. Only three times in the New Testament is that Greek word translated fulfilled. One of the times is right here in Matthew 5 verse 18. If we look at a translation that takes it from the original Greek, here's what the first or chapter 5 verse 18 would say. G-I-N-O-M-I, truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the law until all is accomplished.

Until what is accomplished? Until heaven and earth pass away. The end of the physical creation, the end of God's plan for mankind, when all that is accomplished, then we'll talk about the law. But at that time, everyone that's in God's kingdom is living that law, is become part of them. But until heaven and earth pass away, nothing passes from the law, not even one jot or one tittle. Let me read how the Mapplified Bible translates that verse. Truly I tell you, until the sky and earth pass away and perish, not one smallest letter nor one little hook identifying certain Hebrew letters will pass from the law until all things are accomplished.

Makes it pretty clear what Christ is saying, isn't it? The law is there until there is no more heaven and earth. As long as we're on a physical heaven and earth, the law exists. Now let's go back to verse 17. Don't think that I came to destroy the law or the prophets. I didn't come to destroy.

But to fulfill, Christ said.

Now I was going through some commentaries just to see what they had to say about these verses, and Adam Clark, the Adam Clark commentary, had this to say on verse 17. He says it's worthy of observation that the word fulfill here among the rabbis signifies not only to fulfill but also to teach. And consequently we may infer that our Lord intimated that the law and prophets were still to be taught and inculcated by him and his disciples. And this he and they have done in the most pointed manner. So even as he looked at the verse, he agreed. Christ didn't fulfill it as in I'm going to fulfill it and no longer necessary to keep, but it still needs to be kept.

Now the Greek word translated fulfill there is a totally different word from a totally different word root than the word that we just saw in verse 18. In verse 17 the Greek word is player oo. It's P L E R O O. It means fully preached, perfect, or complete.

Now put your finger there in Matthew 5. Turn with me to Romans 5.

Verse 19.

Oh, Romans 15. I'm sorry. Romans 15. I was going to say that's not the verse I'm looking for.

Romans 15 verse 19.

Okay. I'll pick it up in verse 18 just to have the entire sentence of what Paul is saying here. It says, I will not dare to speak of any of those things which Christ has not accomplished through me in word and deed to make the Gentiles obedient in many signs and wonders by the power of the Spirit of God so that from Jerusalem and round about to Elipriem, I have fully preached the gospel of Christ. What's translated there fully preached is that same word player oo. That's in chapter 5.17 of Matthew. Wouldn't make sense if Paul had said, I have fulfilled the gospel of Christ. And there's other occasions that you can see where it's been translated fully preached, which is the sense of the word from the Greek. So again, if we read from a translation of the Bible, this is the contemporary English version where they went back and re- re-did the New Testament and Old Testament from the original Hebrew and Greek manuscripts, using words that today they understand are more closely to the Greek meanings, because you understand that in a lot of these translations we don't have exact words to match what the meaning of the Greek was. This is how they translate chapter 5 verse 17. Don't suppose that I came to do away with the law and the prophets. I didn't come to do away with them, but to give them their full meaning. If we take exactly what the Strong's Concordance says, I didn't come to do away with the law and the prophets. The law and the prophets is the Old Testament, right? I didn't come away, didn't come to do away with the Old Testament. I came to fully preach it. I came to give it its full meaning. I came to expound on it so that you, he might be saying, could understand it. Now let me read verses 5 or 17 and 18 from the translation of the Bible that uses the meanings that would be more closely associated with the Greek words. You must not think I've come to abolish the law or the prophets. I haven't come to abolish them, but to complete them.

Indeed, I assure you that while heaven and earth at last, the law will not lose a single dot or comma until its purpose is complete.

I don't know how some churches that call themselves Christian would be able to look at those verses and still say, there's parts of that law that we can keep, but other parts just don't apply to us today. We've outgrown them, and the two that you will almost often see that they cite, that we've outgrown and don't apply today, are, we know one, the fourth, right? The Sabbath day, and the other one is the seventh. Thou shalt not commit adultery. We don't need that, and society and man has outgrown that command, many of them say. And so they do away with all of it.

Well, as you read what Christ said, or read what the original meanings here in verse 17 and 18, as he begins his sermon on the Mount, you can see it's a perfect introduction to what he's about to do in the rest of chapters 5, 6, and 7 that we read. He's come not to abolish the Old Testament. He came to more fully preach it. He came so that people could understand that it was not enough to just physically keep these Ten Commandments, but so much more was required of Christians. Let's go down in verse 21, for instance. With that introduction that he came to more fully preach it. To make it more complete, he says, you've heard that it was said, of those of old, you shall not murder, and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment. But I say to you, he says, that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment. And whoever says to his brother, Raka, shall be in danger of the counsel. But whoever says, you fool, will be in danger of hellfire.

He says, it's not enough to just say, I never killed anyone. You can't even kill him in your heart. You can't hate someone so much that you would wish them dead. He begins to give the spiritual application of the commandments. And one by one, he goes through them.

In verse 27, you've heard that it was said to those of old, you shall not commit adultery. But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

It's good and right that you don't commit the physical act, but he's saying there's a spiritual application as well. Don't even lust in your heart. So you can see how he introduced the Sermon on the Mount and though what he did with the commandments one by one. And he more fully preached them, didn't he? He more fully completed what God wanted us to live and how he wanted us to live by those commandments. Not just the physical obedience to them, extremely important than we must, but also what's in our heart that even the attitudes that would lead to physical disobedience of them, we would weed out. He didn't come to abolish the commandments. He came to enhance them. He came to explain them. He came to give them a fuller meaning. Many people say, but he only talked about commandments from six through ten. He didn't talk about the first four commandments, therefore he didn't mean that those should be in existence anymore. Not so. Not so. And over the coming months, we'll see one by one as we go through those commandments that he preached those as well and enhanced their meaning and they are just as binding and just as much a part of God's law today as five or six through ten that he talked about. Every single one of the commandments, Christ more fully preached and he certainly set by his example that they were to be lived.

Over in Matthew 22 and verse 36, we have a question being put to Christ. It says, teacher, what is the great commandment in the law? And Jesus said to him, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.

This is the first and great commandment and the second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. And he concludes by saying on these two commandments, hang all the law and the prophets. On these two commandments, hang the Old Testament.

So many will say, see by these words, Christ did away with the ten and said, all you need to do is love God and love your fellow man.

If we just love, that's all we need to do.

Turn with me back to 1 John.

1 John 2 3 Here we have the Apostle John, who walked with Christ, was taught by Christ, saw how he lived his life, was taught what Christ wanted him to learn and to teach others about the way of life that led to everlasting life, the way of life that would lead to the blessings, the eternal life, the goodness that God wanted all mankind to experience. Here's what John says about the commandments and love. 1 John 2, verse 3. By this we know that we know him, Christ. Now, remember John wrote this years, years after Christ was crucified.

By this we know that we know him if we keep his commandments. He who says I know him and doesn't keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps his word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we're in him.

How does the love of God get perfected in us?

By keeping those commandments, by keeping them ever before our eyes, by letting God write them on our hearts, write them on our minds, because they define how to love God, how to love fellow man, when we keep them physically and spiritually and they become part of who we are.

Verse 6. He who says he abides in him, ought himself also to walk, just as Christ walked.

How did Christ walk? In his life, did he give the example that the Sabbath day wasn't important?

Absolutely not. In his life, did he say that it wasn't important? Adultery? Absolutely not.

He walked and he perfectly kept every one of those commandments, and he kept it perfectly, physically and spiritually. It can only be done with his Holy Spirit.

That's how he walked. And John says, he who says he abides in Christ, ought himself also to walk, just as he walked.

Pretty plain language. Over in chapter 4 of 1 John, verse 21.

John writes, this commandment we have from him, from Christ, he who loves God must love his brother also. Chapter 5, verse 1, John says how to demonstrate it?

And his commandments are not burdensome. It's not too tough to keep the Sabbath day.

Not too tough to not commit adultery.

Well, let me say that. It may be tough, but with God's Spirit, we can do it.

They're not burdensome. The law was never given to put a lid on mankind. The law was given so that everyone could experience life and experience it more fully. So that all the potentials of the universe and of God were open to them. Now, lest anyone misunderstand, eternal life doesn't come by keeping the commandments. Eternal life is a gift of Jesus Christ. But he gives eternal life to those who follow him and walk as he walked.

Back in Jeremiah 31.

And verse 31.

And through Jeremiah, God says, Jeremiah 31 verse 31, Behold, the days are coming, says the Eternal, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, with the house of Judah, not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to leave them out of the land of Egypt. My covenant, which they broke, though I was husband to them, says the Lord. But this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days. I will put my law in their minds, write it on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. That didn't happen in the Old Testament.

Some of the men had the Holy Spirit, and they kept the law of God. But the lesson of Israel, of the people of Israel, who saw all those miracles, who had those commandments, who should have burned into their memory, into their minds, the power of God and the importance of what He had given them, they didn't keep them. Christ came so that we would have access to the Holy Spirit.

And with the Holy Spirit, those laws that God wrote on stone can now become part of our permanence for eternity as we allow Him to write His laws and His way of life on our minds, on our hearts, living by every word that He says. Because the people that will reign, that will rule with God and His kingdom, will be people who have those commandments and His way of life written on their minds and their hearts. Turn with me back to Revelation 14.

Revelation 14 verse 1.

Again, speaking of the end time, the ways of this world have caught up to it.

The desire of Satan is about to be realized if God doesn't intervene that all mankind would die.

Chapter 14 verse 1. I looked and behold the Lamb standing on Mount Zion, and with Him 144,000, having His Father's name written on their foreheads. And I heard a voice from heaven, like the voice of many waters, and like the voice of loud thunder. And I heard the sound of harpists playing their harps. They sang as it were a new song before the throne, before the four living creatures and the elders, and no one could learn that song, except the 144,000 who were redeemed from the earth. These are the ones who were not defiled with women. They are virgins, pure from the world, made blameless as they walked with Christ and came out of the squalor and filth that they used to live in. These are the ones who follow the Lamb wherever He goes. These were redeemed from among men, being first fruits to God and to the Lamb. And in their mouth was found no deceit, for they are without fault before the throne of God. Their sins have been washed away. They've been living their life and walking with God in line with His Spirit, led by His Spirit, as it says in Romans 8, 14, and they're becoming or have become sons of God as they're led by Him. Verse 12, chapter 14, here's the patience of the saints. Here are those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. They have the way of life that God commanded, and they understand and have faith in Christ and believe in Him and walk as He walked as well. Those are the ones redeemed from the earth, not the ones who say the commandments have been done away with, but the ones who embrace them, live them, let them permeate their lives and become part of them. Over in Revelation 22.

At the end of the book of Revelation, the end of the history of physical man, just as we saw at the beginning of the history of man back in Genesis, says these, says this, blessed are those who do His commandments, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may enter through the gates into the city. Isn't that what every single one of us here are looking to? Would we even be here if that wasn't part of where we wanted to be with God, with Christ, for eternity? And it says in verse 14, blessed are those who do His commandments.

They have the right to the tree of life, and they may enter the gates of that city.

Verse 15 says, outside are dogs, sorcerers, sexually immoral, murderers, idolaters, and whoever loves and practices a lie, who enters in those who keep His commandment, who does not enter in those who reject God's law, to have other idols, things more important to them than God, people who love a lie, people who are sexually immoral and don't understand what God intended for us to live. Are the commandments important to God? Absolutely. Do they apply to us today just like they did to the people sitting at the base of Mount Sinai? Absolutely. Does God look at them as the way that we live, not just to keep them physically, but letting Him write those laws into our way of life so that they become us in everything we do? Absolutely. They're there, they're binding, they are what He is looking for us to build into our lives if we want what He has to offer.

So over the next several months we will look at each one of those commandments. Next week we'll look at the first one.