(August 15, 2023) Dr Jim McClure challenges readers… 

Around 3500 years ago something occurred that still impacts our lives today – God gave Moses the Ten Commandments. 

Let me give you a brief background here. After the people of Israel had spent 400 years in Egypt God raised up Moses to lead them out of Egypt. Early in their journey to the Promised Land God gave them the Ten Commandments which are a brief summarise the basic life values which are just as relevant today as they were when God first revealed them to Moses on Mount Sinai (Exodus 20:1-21).    

While those commandments have repeatedly been broken throughout history, today we are witnessing a deliberate and defiant disregard of them!

As I was reflecting on this and considering how they tell us much about the fallibility of human nature, I was aware that they also reveal something about the breathtaking character of Almighty God.

1. Acknowledgement of God’s uniqueness
The first and foremost affirmation in the Ten Commandments is the uniqueness of God. ‘You shall have no other gods before me’ (v3).  For 400 years the people of Israel had been exposed to many gods worshipped by the Egyptians and eventually, when they entered the Promised Land, they would be exposed to the many gods worshipped by the people living there.

So firstly on Mount Sinai that day, God established His uniqueness, saying that there was no one to compete with Him.  There was no one and nothing to compare with Him. He was (and is) unique.

The gods of Egypt were powerless but the God of Israel was the one who had created the heavens and the earth. Regardless of the worship and the sacrifices made to other gods, they were not only powerless – they were non-existent!  He was the one who had led Israel from their captivity in Egypt and would lead them into Canaan.

In emphasising His uniqueness God emphatically forbade His people replacing Him with any man-made idol.  He said, ‘You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them’ (4-5). God is unique!

While Moses was up Mount Sinai to engage with God a second time (Exodus 32), the people began to get impatient for his return.  Verse 1 tells, ‘When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, “Come, make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him.”’ Under pressure Aaron sadly submitted to the pressure and made a golden calf and the people declared, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt’ (v4b).

How quickly people can dismiss God from their lives and how quickly He can be replaced by idols!  We don’t need to go to Africa or Asia to find people worshipping idols.  Whatever we  put before God is an idol! Indeed, Australia is full of people engaged in idolatry today. Anything that captures our desire and commitment and comes before God can become (is) an idol and idolatry is rebellion against God!

It may be –

• The love of riches.
• Love of possessions.
• Control of others.
• Self-promotion.
• Pornography.
• Greed. 

God is unique and tolerates no rivals.  In Isaiah 42:8 God makes this declaration, ‘I am the Lord; that is my name! I will not give my glory to another or my praise to idols.’

2. Abundance of God’s compassion  
In Exodus 20:5-6 we read that God is more willing to show compassion than condemnation – ‘I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.’

Firstly, God is involved in our lives whether we like it nor not.  The creator did not just make the world and all that is in it, and then step aside from it.  God wants us to relate to Him! The atheist may protest ‘I don’t believe God exists.’ But no one can hide from God and no one can avoid His judgment. While He won’t force Himself on us, He wants us to choose to have a relationship with Him.

Of course, many people reject any involvement with their creator.  And there are those who take it a step further and actually hate God and oppose Him, as verse 5 states, and, as it were, they shake their fists in defiance against God.  We have seen such people on television mock and scorn, detest and despise and even boast about their hostility towards God. Sadly that can continue in some families for generations. And God clearly says that divine punishment is the inevitable consequence of such hatred.

Secondly, God’s desire to bless is greater by far than His decision to punish. Note that His punishment reaches into the ‘third and fourth generationsof those who hate’ Him but His love (the Hebrew word used here is chesed and it refers to kindness and mercy) to a thousand generations who love Him and live according to His instructions.

Paul made the same point about the abundance of God’s kindness and mercy to the Ephesian Christians. In Ephesians 3:17-19 he wrote, ‘I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge – that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.’

The measure of God’s compassion and love for humanity was vividly demonstrated at Calvary.  Jesus expressed it in this way, ‘God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.’

3. Acceptance of God’s values
The Ten Commandments were not the agreed outcome of a discussion between God and Moses. Note this well – the values that God spelt out were not open to debate.  And to emphasise that fact God set them in stone! Literally!

In Exodus 31:18NKJV we read, ‘When the Lord finished speaking to Moses on Mount Sinai, He gave him the two tablets of the Testimony, the tablets of stone inscribed by the finger of God.’

The fact that the Ten Commandments were so inscribed on stone by God emphasises that those values were uniquely given by God Himself.

For Jews and Christians alike they have been a spiritual and moral bedrock and for over 2000 years. Indeed, they have been the core values of Western civilisation.  That is not to say that Western nations have faithfully adhered to them, far from it, but the Ten Commandments have nevertheless been the essential and nonnegotiable spiritual and moral principles that have provided the measure by which to live.

But, in the opinion of many people today,  not any longer! In recent years particularly we have seen an aggressive denial of God’s authority and a rejection of His values and consequently we are witnessing a moral disintegration such as I have never witnessed in my lifetime. As God’s values are ignored and blatantly rejected and reversed, we are seeing a rapid collapse of societies around the world. 

We read in Genesis 6:11-12 that in the days of Noah ‘the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence. God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways.’

This could be a description of the world today. Sadly we see that many Christian leaders are capitulating to the pressures and perverted values of a God-rejecting world. Daily in the news we see that  the world is becoming morally more decadent and politically more unstable and violent, and that acts and threats of social violence, both locally and internationally, are increasing daily –

• Unborn children are being aborted by the thousands.
• Euthanasia is being recommended as a wise choice.
• An increasing number of Christian churches are performing so-called gay marriages.
• The so-called Pride movement promotes increasingly vile sexual perversions.
• Many churches have abandoned their commitment to God and His Word. Recently at a Lutheran church conference in Germany a pastor addressing the conference said, ‘God is queer’ and the people responded with applause!
• A pastor in America has introduced a new creed called the ‘Sparkle Creed’ which includes the statement, ‘I believe in the non-binary God whose pronouns are plural. I believe in Jesus Christ their child who wore a fabulous tunic and had two dads and saw everyone as a sibling child of God. I believe in the rainbow spirit who shatters our image of one white light and refracts it into a rainbow of gorgeous diversity.’
• Schoolchildren are often being indoctrinated by corrupt propaganda that tells them that they can choose to be either a boy or a girl.
• And political leaders proudly march in support of immoral festivities. 
• Biblical accounts of the corruption in Sodom and Gomorrah are not as extreme as we once may have thought.

It is plainly evident that as God and His values are increasingly being rejected, lies and deception are replacing truth and reality and consequently the world is becoming ever more crazy and unstable.

What should be our response as Christians? Should we just quietly accept the inevitable or should we be more resolved to stand up for Jesus and for the basic life-values that He has spelt out for us?  Jesus answered that question for us in Matthew 5:14 where He said, ‘You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden.’ God’s values cannot be compromised and His children must  choose to firmly uphold them.

4. Awareness of God’s awesome power
In Exodus 20 the Ten Commandments conclude at verse 17 but the following verses are very significant.  To reinforce the profound significance of the Ten Commandments, God manifested His presence in an extraordinary way.

In verse 18 we read. ‘When the people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke, they trembled with fear. They stayed at a distance.’ 

The unique revelation of God’s life-values given by was accompanied and reinforced by a truly awesome display of sound and light accompanied by the sound of a trumpet.

But this was not like the firework displays put on in Melbourne or Sydney for New Year celebrations when people cheer and applaud the spectacular presentations.  No, on Sinai that day the display of God’s power was so extraordinary and so extravagant that it caused the people to be terrified.  They ‘trembled with fear.’ 

God’s power-display emphasised how critical were the commandments. They were His mandate for humanity. But how frequently we try to adjust them for our own convenience.

All too often we are flippant in our attitude to God. But on the mountain that day there was no flippancy but fear.  The powerful display of power made the people realise that God is not to be disregarded as irrelevant! Instead they ‘trembled with fear.’ And rightly so because, despite their recent experiences of God’s blessings in so many ways, they had largely ignored Him, dismissing Him as irrelevant in their day-to-day lives. But on the mountain that day, when God demonstrated just a portion of His incomparable power, they were made terrifyingly aware of the awesome character of God.

In today’s very secular world, in which Almighty God is considered irrelevant or even non-existent, there is little fear of Him, little sense of awe or awareness of His matchless might. How much we need a manifestation of His powerful presence today! God said to Isaiah, ‘The Lord Almighty is the one you are to regard as holy, He is the one you are to fear, He is the one you are to dread’  (Isaiah 8:13).  

Failure to acknowledge the reality that the greatest power in the universe is God’s awesome power, results in spiritual disdain, personal dissatisfaction and social disintegration as is plainly evident today. To fear God does not mean that we live in panic. It means that we acknowledge that our human power can never usurp God’s power. An assurance in the awesome power of a God, who dramatically demonstrated His love for us in Jesus’ death of on the cross, brings a sense of peace and reassurance to us.  

The late A W Tozer commented, ‘In God is complete safety. Whoever fears God enough never needs to fear anyone or anything else.’ Tozer was referring to ‘Godly fear’ that comes from a sense of awe and amazement as we get glimpses of God’s might, majesty and mercy.

John wrote, ‘There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear because fear has to do with punishment’ (1 John 4:18).  The Greek word John used here for ‘fear’ is phobos – being in fright and in dread. However, such terror is driven out because we know that we are secure in His love.

Jesus affirmed the eternal security of believers when He said: ‘I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand’ (John 10:28-29). 

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Dr Jim McClure, author of several books and Bible studies, offers them free in electronic version in EPUB, Kindle and PDF formats.

 Looking for Answers in a Confusing World is particularly recommended. Questions seeking enlightenment on biblical perspectives are welcomed. Link: OnlinerConnect@gmail.com
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