Keep the Ten Commandments
Contents
Title: Keep the Ten Commandments Text: Exodus 20:1-6
People have a fundamental instinct to seek God. Ecclesiastes 3:11 There is an incurable and incurable religious spirit in the hearts of people. This religion shows us our thirst for God. So, no matter how hard people try to get their heart out of seeking God, they cannot get it out. However, many people need to seek God rightly, but with a heart to seek God, they are searching for the wrong things. What is an idol? An idol is something made by man to think, serve, and worship instead of God. When Moses went to Mount Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments, Aaron and the people made a calf out of gold and worshiped it as a god who brought them out of Egypt. Humans are immersed in idolatry. God has given us the Ten Commandments and is teaching God and people how to live. The Ten Commandments are commandments about God from the 1st to the 4th commandment. And the 5th through 10th commandments are the commandments for man.
1. Why do we need to keep the Ten Commandments?
In the text of Exodus 20:1-2, God is telling who He is. He says, “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.” This is the reason why we must keep God's commandments. Who is God? He is the one who brought us out of slavery in the land of Egypt. Egypt refers to the world, and slavery refers to the slave of sin, the slave of death, and the slave of Satan. To be led out means to be saved. The word “church” means “the one called out”. It is God who has called us from the seat of sin, from the place of death, and from the seat of Satan's servants, set us apart and made us His people. In other words, the reason we have to keep God's commandments is because God has delivered us from sin, death, and the hand of Satan, gave us eternal life, granted salvation, and allowed us to enter the kingdom of heaven. Psalm 68:20 “For God is our God of salvation; the deliverance from death is through the Sovereign Lord.”
2. This God tells you not to have any other gods besides God.
Exodus 20:3 This verse means that there should be no other gods besides God. This verse means not to serve a vain god who does not need to be served because it has no value of existence. All gods that exist in the world are gods created and worshiped by humans. Psalm 115:4 “Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands.” In other words, humans are worshiping things that cannot be called gods and are not worth serving. So that's not really God. God is not created by anyone. God is a self-existing God. Exodus 3:14 God said to Moses, "I am who I am." And he said, "Thus you say to the children of Israel, 'I AM has sent me to you.'" This means that only God is the true God. God does not exist by anyone. That is why he is saying that all the gods worshiped as gods in this world are not true gods and are not worthy of human worship.
1) Do not make idols for yourself. Exodus 20:4 People make and serve gods for their own benefit. People make and serve gods according to their needs. The word ‘carved idol’ here means ‘carved image’. It refers to something made by sculpting by humans with their own hands. God is not a God who was created out of need. God is a self-existing god, not a dead god who only has a name, but a creator God who created the universe, a God who rules all things, and a God who works in us even now. God is the one we can meet, the one we can feel, and the one who is present among us. Therefore, God is the only true God, and He is omnipotent and omnipotent who can hear us all. This is the difference between idolatry and God.
2) You must not make images of anything in the world and you must not serve it.
The word 'sky' here means 'high' and means not only the visible sky but also outer space. In the drawing, what is in the sky means everything in outer space, from birds to the sun, moon and stars. Also, the word ‘earth’ refers to ‘land, soil’, which means the whole world. ‘Water’ means ‘sea’, which means everything under the earth.
3. What are the consequences for those who worship idols?
It is said that worshiping idols is a sin. The greatest sin among sins is not serving God. To worship idols without serving God is to commit a sin. In particular, it is a sin to act toward an idol by your actions, but to think in your heart is also a sin. The word ‘sin’ in the text refers to thinking and planning with the heart. Here, the word 'repay' means 'to punish' or 'to take revenge'. It means that God will take revenge on us. It is said that the sin extends to the third and fourth generations, but this means that the effects of the parents' sins by serving idols will affect their children.
4. Blessings to those who keep them?
Exodus 20:6 This verse is telling us to move away from the passive obedience that simply does not have to worship idols, and move on to active obedience to love God and keep His commandments. The word ‘guard’ in the text means ‘to build a fence’ or ‘to pay attention’. This is not just keeping the commandments of God, but keeping them with meticulous care and preservation. In particular, the word 'thousand generations' does not necessarily refer to thousands of generations, but has the meaning of 'innumerable descendants' or 'unbroken forever'. If a person keeps and obeys God's commandments, he will receive God's blessings to thousands of his descendants.