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Man, Exodus chapter 20. This is one of the most famous chapters in the whole Bible, where we have the 10 commandments listed here. And before I go through each of the commandments here and talk a little bit about some of them as time permits, I want to talk about the 10 commandments in general. And if you would just flip over to Deuteronomy chapter 4 verse 13. We'll come back to Exodus 20, but go over to Deuteronomy chapter 4, 13. I want to make some really important points doctrinally about the 10 commandments before we get too far into this. So we're going to look at Deuteronomy 4, then we're going to go to the New Testament to 2 Corinthians chapter 3. But the Bible says in Deuteronomy chapter 4 verse 13, And he declared unto you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, even 10 commandments. And he wrote them upon two tables of stone. Now this is an important verse because it shows that the 10 commandments are the covenant. All right, the old covenant equals the 10 commandments. He said he wrote his covenant, even 10 commandments, on the two tables of stone. Now go to 2 Corinthians chapter 3, where this is explained more. Now what is the old covenant? Well covenant simply means agreement or contract. And we talk about the Old Testament and the New Testament. That is the exact same thing as old covenant, new covenant. Testament and covenant are used interchangeably, synonymously. So when we talk about the New Testament, sometimes we're just referring to the collection of books, right? The 27 books of the New Testament or the 39 books of the Old Testament. But there actually also is an Old Testament and a New Testament as far as an old covenant and a new covenant. Okay, so the old covenant, God made this agreement with Israel. We talked about it last week in chapter 19. He made a covenant with them that if they would keep his statutes and his ordinances, if they would basically follow his laws, he would be their God. They would be his people. So he's calling out this group of people. He chose Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And then he calls them out of Egypt. And they're going to be the chosen priesthood. They're going to be the royal priesthood. They're going to be the chosen generation, the chosen people. They are going to be God's chosen people, right? And they're to be a light to the Gentiles. They're to be a pattern nation. So that was an old covenant that God made with Israel and Judah. Now the reason it's called the old covenant is because there's a new covenant. And the new covenant replaces the old covenant. The new covenant does not make a contract or an agreement with a specific nation or a specific group of people. Instead of having a physical nation be the chosen people, basically in the New Testament to be one of the chosen people, you just have to be in Christ, whether you're Jew or Gentile. So the middle wall of partition has been broken down between us. Those that were before strangers and far off have been brought nigh by the blood of Christ. The veil has been rent. And now we're all one in Christ Jesus. And Jesus predicted this in his earthly ministry. He said that his house would be called a house of prayer for all nations. And he said there shall be one fold and one shepherd. He said I have other sheep which are not of this fold. Them also I must bring and there shall be one fold and one shepherd. Now in the New Testament there are some differences with the Old Testament. We do not follow the Levitical laws of the priesthood and the washings and the meats and drinks and carnal ordinances. Many of those things are done away in Christ. Now look if you would at 2 Corinthians where the apostle Paul is talking about the difference between Old and New Covenant and he addresses this. The Bible says in verse number 6, who also hath made us able ministers of the New Testament or New Covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit, for the letter killeth but the Spirit giveth life. But if the ministration of death written and engraven in stones was glorious, now stop right there. When the Bible says here the ministration of death written and engraven in stones, what are we talking about? What actually was written and engraven in stone? The Ten Commandments. God did not give the entire book of Genesis on stone tablets. He did not give the entire book of Exodus or Deuteronomy on stone tablets. The thing that was given on stone tablets was the Ten Commandments. Everybody got this? It's very important. What was on the stone tablets? The Ten Commandments. So when it says here the ministration of death written and engraven in stones, we know we're talking about the Ten Commandments because according to Deuteronomy 4.13 that is the covenant and that is what was written in stone. So that the children of Israel could not steadfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance which glory was to be done away. How shall not the ministration of the spirit be rather glorious? For if the ministration of condemnation be glory, that's the Ten Commandments, the ministration of condemnation, the ministration of death, much more does the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory. For even that which was made glorious had no glory in this respect by reason of the glory that excels. Now that's some pretty fancy language. What is he saying there? He's saying look the glory of the New Testament is so much greater than the glory of the Old Testament that the Old Testament's glory would pale in comparison. Okay, because did you see what he said there? For even that which was made glorious, old covenant, had no glory in this respect by reason of the glory that excelled. Saying hey yeah the old covenant was glorious. It was so glorious that Moses' face shone when he went up on the mountain. But he's saying that the New Testament's glory excels so much in glory that in comparison it has no glory because it pales in comparison is how we would say it in our modern vernacular. Verse 11, watch this, for if that which is done away was glorious, much more that which remaineth is glorious. Now do you notice there how the old covenant is done away? Folks, the Bible couldn't be any clearer. But there are people today that still think that the old covenant is in force. These people that are like Hebrew roots type people, Seventh-day Adventists, other people who don't understand the fact that the old covenant is done away in Christ and we're in the new covenant. The Bible even clearly says in Hebrews 8 13 in that he sayeth a new covenant he has made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away. And here he calls the old covenant that which is done away. Now you say Pastor Anderson, how can you equate the Ten Commandments with the covenant? I mean isn't the covenant a much bigger thing? Sure, the covenant is a much bigger thing because the covenant is described in great detail throughout Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. But here's the thing, there are three levels of specificity here when it comes to God's law in the Old Testament. You've got the specific just hundreds and hundreds of laws where God's telling you exactly how to build the altar, exactly how to deal with murder charges, how to deal with adultery, how to deal with stealing, you know, every detail about having no other gods before him, enlisting all the gods that they're not supposed to have, and how they're supposed to break their idols and destroy their graven images. You know there's all this detail given, but the Ten Commandments is a summing up of man's responsibility under the old covenant, okay? So in the old covenant there's man's responsibility and there's God's responsibility. God's part is to be a God unto them, they're going to be his people, he's going to bring them into the promised land. So God has his end of the bargain, I'm going to be your God, you're going to be my people, I'm going to bring you into the promised land, I'm going to bless you, I'm going to multiply you, and then man has his part. And man's part is all of these hundreds of laws, but they're summed up in sort of the cliff's notes version, the Ten Commandments. So the Ten Commandments is a summary of the entire man's obligation under the old covenant. Does everybody understand that? So you have all the specific blow by blow, but you can also just sum it up into the Ten Commandments and graven in stone, basically do this stuff, and you're keeping the covenant. If you do these ten things, and then everything else is basically an elaboration on those ten things, or more details. And then the Bible says that you can sum it up even further than the Ten Commandments, you could just sum it up as love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. And that sums up the whole thing, right? So you could have hundreds of laws, or you could have Ten Commandments, or you could just boil it down to just love the Lord your God with all your heart, and love your neighbor as yourself, and it's all summed up in that. Okay, now here's what a lot of people will get wrong on this. They'll say this, they'll say, well, I realize we're not under the old covenant. I realize we're not living in the old testament, but the Ten Commandments, I mean, that's permanent. That's a graven in stone, for crying out loud. And what they're getting at here is they want us to observe the Sabbath. Okay, because obviously the rest of the commandments are all reiterated in the New Testament. Okay, the thing that is done away in the New Testament specifically, it's mentioned specifically in Colossians, it's mentioned specifically in Romans, it's mentioned specifically that in Hebrews that we don't have to do these feast days. Galatians tells us we don't have to observe Sabbaths, and feasts, and these different things, and not to observe times, and days, and months, and years, and all that. You know, even though there are specific things in the New Testament telling us that we don't need to observe the Sabbath, they say, well, but it says the Ten Commandments, though. Okay, but here's the thing, the Ten Commandments are not some big exalted thing in the New Testament that are somehow separate from the old covenant. In fact, show me the words Ten Commandments in the New Testament. The Old Testament talks about Ten Commandments in Deuteronomy 4-13, in Deuteronomy 10-4, talks about the Ten Commandments. You know, I could show you some New Testament scripture on the Ten Commandments, I can show you 2 Corinthians 3 saying that it's done away. Right, that's where you see specific mention of the stone tablets and the Ten Commandments, and it's saying, hey, this is the ministration of death, the ministration of condemnation is done away. Okay. Now, obviously, the other Nine Commandments, we're supposed to be doing those things anyway because those things just have to do with basic morality and things that obviously are still enforced under the New Testament. For example, you know, obviously, the Bible clearly tells in the New Testament that we're not to murder, that we're not to steal, that we're not to commit adultery, these things are all repeated. Obviously, we're still supposed to have no other gods before him. Obviously, we're still supposed to flee idolatry and not take his name in vain. But to sit there and say, well, even though the New Testament has these verses telling us not to worry about the Sabbath, but we got to do it because it's in the Ten Commandments, folks, you don't understand the Ten Commandments because the Ten Commandments are a summary of the Old Covenant. That's what Deuteronomy 4-13 says, that's what 2 Corinthians 3 says. And, you know, we could go into a lot more scripture on that, I'm just giving you a basic idea because I want to get into the rest of the commandments here, but I want to make sure you understand that. Now, there are two ways of looking at the difference as far as our moral obligation in the New Testament versus Old Testament. There are two different ways of looking at this, okay? I'm going to try and make this real simple. There's two different ways to look at the change from Old to New Testament. One way that you could look at it, and here's the thing, either way you look at it, a lot of people still kind of arrive at the same point, so either way you look at it, as long as you end up arriving at the same point, it's not really a big deal. But I'm going to tell you what I believe to be the right way of looking at it, okay? But there are a couple different ways that Christians will look at this, that Baptists will look at this, that your typical evangelical Christians will look at this. They're either going to say, hey, we only follow things that are reiterated in the New Testament, you know, whatever's reiterated in the New Testament, that's what we're going to follow. And since 9 out of 10 are reiterated in the New Testament, have fun finding a New Testament command after the resurrection of Christ that says, hey, keep the Sabbath. You know, you'll find tons of commands like that in the Old Testament, but if it's such a big deal, like the Seventh-day Adventists want to convince us, isn't it funny how they don't have any clear New Testament scriptures telling us after the resurrection of Christ, hey, be sure to keep the Sabbath. You don't have anything like that. Everything else is reiterated. So some people's attitude is, hey, the Old Covenant's not in force, so only that which is repeated in the New Testament is what we're going to follow, okay? Another way of looking at it is this, and here's what I believe is the right way to look at it. The right way to look at it is we're going to follow everything in the Old Testament that has to do with morality, that has to do with right and wrong. We're going to follow everything in the Old Testament except that which has specifically changed in the New Testament. Now let me tell you why that is a superior way of looking at it and why it's more biblical. Because of the fact that the Old Testament has so many detailed laws about morality and rules about right and wrong that are not repeated in the New Testament that we need, that we need, okay? You say, what are you talking about? You know, for example, there's no New Testament command not to marry your sister, but wouldn't we all agree that God still doesn't want us to marry our sister? He still doesn't want us to marry our auntie. He still doesn't want us to uncover the nakedness of grandma or whatever. You know, there's all these lists in Leviticus chapter 18. Don't uncover this person's nakedness. Not your grandma, not your uncle, not your aunt. He goes through all these different things. I mean, it would be ludicrous to say, well, that's not reiterated in the New Testament. But folks, you'll run into some silly people who actually think that way. You'll show them a verse in the Old Testament that says a man should not put on a woman's garment. A woman should not put on that which was prepared to a man. Oh, that's Old Testament. Really? So we're going to get rid of that now? So in the New Testament, cross-dressing's fine. Marrying your sister's fine. I mean, that's ludicrous. Now, I'm not saying that everybody who looks at it the first way is ludicrous like that, because remember how I said sometimes people, either way they look at it, kind of end up at the same place? Some of the people that look at it according to model A, this is what they would say to that. They'd say, well, when the Bible says things like uncleanness, lasciviousness, concupiscence, it's encompassing all that. You know, a word like concupiscence, lasciviousness, uncleanness. Hey, obviously, that's going to encompass things like incest, cross-dressing, you know, all the things that are specifically given us. So they would still look to the Old Testament as a general guideline for how to live our lives, to figure out what God thinks is right and wrong. I mean, how do we know what God says is right or wrong? We get it from the Bible. And we don't just get it from the New Testament, we get it from the Old Testament, because the Bible says that all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine. But not only doctrine, correction, reproof, and watch this, instruction in righteousness. So any scripture can instruct us in how to be righteous. But that doesn't mean we're going to keep the Sabbath, because guess what? That is specifically changed in the New Testament. I could point to specific scriptures in Romans, Galatians, Colossians, telling you no about the Sabbath, about the feast days, about the Hebrew calendar. And again, it's outside the scope of this sermon to go into all those details. But the point is that the Old Covenant is not in effect. The Ten Commandments don't have some special exalted, like, well, you know, other stuff went away, but these ten are in stone. Yeah, they're in stone that was shattered. Where are those stone tablets anyway? Oh yeah, Moses broke them. Moses shattered them. Then he made another set. He had to make a second set, because he shattered the first set. Okay, okay, where's the second set? Oh, well, it's in the Ark of the Covenant. The Ark of the Covenant is gone. And by the way, the Bible says in Jeremiah 3 16, talking about the millennium, that the Ark of the Covenant is not even going to be a thing when Christ returns. I'm sure the Antichrist will pull out some bogus Ark of the Covenant, but you know what? The Ark of the Covenant is done because it's the Ark of the Old Covenant. That's why it's not even a thing in the New Testament. That's why Jeremiah 3 16 already prophesied that it would go away. So, what are the Ten Commandments? Go back to Exodus chapter 20. Look, yes, this is a general guideline for morality and righteousness. These things are all reiterated in the New Testament, and not only that, but these things are not done away in the New Testament, with the exception of the Sabbath day. The Sabbath day is not something that we observe in the New Testament. Now, there are some Christians that are not cult members of the Seventh-day Adventist cult, LNG white cult, that actually do believe in observing the Sabbath, and they're what's called Sunday Sabbatarians, where you'll have people say, well, we're still going to observe the Sabbath, but we're going to do it on the Lord's day. We're going to do it on Sunday, on the day of Christ's resurrection, because the apostles had church on Sunday and everything. I don't subscribe to that belief. I believe that it is okay to do work on Sunday. I believe that it is okay to do work seven days a week. Now, obviously, there's a biblical principle of resting every seven days, just for your health, and it's a smart thing to do, but not in a slavish obedience to the letter, because that is done away in Christ. That particular law is not a thing. So, for example, when I used to run my fire alarm business while I was pastoring, I would sometimes go and work between the services. I'd preach on Sunday morning, and I'd have to go do some service calls or something, and then I'd come back. I do believe that we need to be in church, but I don't believe it's wrong to work on Sunday, because sometimes you can work around church and still get some work done. For me, Sunday is a pretty busy work day, actually, as a pastor. That's why pastors take Monday off, but I don't even take Monday off, because I like to work every day. So, obviously, yeah, our body needs periods of rest, and I get that, but it's sundown on Friday night. Time to shut her all down. That's not a thing anymore, friend. And again, I don't want to go on and on about that, because I want to talk about a few other commandments. If you have questions about that, I did a sermon, what, a few months ago called the Sabbath day. Is that what it is? The Old Testament Sabbath was the title of that sermon. So you could check out that sermon, and brother Matt Powell's got a documentary coming up that's going to include some stuff from that about the Hebrew roots movement and what a fraud it is, and so forth. All right, so let's get into this a little bit here. Verse number one, and God spake all these words saying, I'm the Lord thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Now, obviously, verse two is not a commandment, but because the first commandment is, thou shalt have no other gods before me, he starts out by stating who he is. You know, this is the language of a contract or a covenant, and so he's saying, look, I am a specific God. I'm not just a supreme being that you're worshiping here. It's not like, well, you just kind of look up to the sky and worship a supreme being. No, he's giving his actual name, the Lord there in all capital letters, the four letter name of God, capital L-O-R-D is a proper name. So he's saying, I am specifically Jehovah God, right? I am the Lord thy God. And just to make sure we know who we're talking about here, which brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, right? So he's a very specific God that did a specific thing. Am I right? The Lord God. Okay, well then explain this to me. Why is it that so many Jews don't even believe that they were ever even in slavery in Egypt? Yeah. You talk to today's Jews and look, we questioned them when we did our movie. You could talk to today's Jews and they don't even believe that the stories in Exodus, many of them don't even believe that they even happened. They don't believe in a literal 400 years of bondage in Egypt and coming out of Egypt with Moses and the Exodus. They believe that it's all like myth or just, you know, a legend or an epic story or something like that. Well, then here's the thing. They've already failed and we haven't even got to the first commandment yet. Because many of them today, and I'm not saying all of them, but I'm saying the majority of so-called Jews today don't believe in a literal slavery in Egypt for hundreds of years. They don't believe it actually happened. Talk to them. So they've already failed and we haven't even got into the first commandment because they don't even believe that he's the Lord God that brought them out of Egypt. Okay. All right. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. This is the first commandment. Okay. The second commandment. Thou shall not make unto thee any graven image. Now, folks, this is a separate commandment from having no other gods before him. How do I know that? Because there are 10 commandments. The Bible says in Deuteronomy 4-13 and Deuteronomy 10-4, 10 commandments. Now, what the Roman Catholics do, they combine the first two. They roll them into one commandment. The graven images and the no other gods, they roll it into one. So now they only have nine. That's a problem. Then here's what they do. They cut the commandment thou shalt not covet. They get two out of that. That's ridiculous because the New Testament just quotes it as one commandment. Thou shalt not covet. Romans 13 and elsewhere. So thou shalt not covet is one commandment. No other gods before me and no graven image. Guess what? Those are two different commandments. Because one is telling you, you only worship God, only the Lord God. And then the other commandment is telling you don't carve images of people or animals. Okay. Because this is gone into in more detail in Deuteronomy 4 exactly what we're not supposed to be doing, which is carving figures of animals and people. You know, if you had like a statue of a shape of a plant or something, that's not a graven image. Somebody said that an artificial tree was a graven image or that a Christmas tree was a graven image. First of all, it's not even graven. It's just a tree. But then not only that, it's not an animal or a person. We're not supposed to make statues of people and we're not supposed to make statues of animals. That's what this is talking about when it talks about a graven image or a molten image. Deuteronomy 4 goes into the specifics on that. Now what does it mean thou shalt have no other gods before me? A lot of people could be thrown off by that phrase before me. You know, what does that mean before me? Because some people could think of this as, well, it's okay to have other gods as long as you don't put them before him. Now obviously, you know, we can only have one God is what this is saying. Before me often means in my presence. Okay, like if someone appeared before me, it means that they're in my presence. So what the Bible is saying is that basically we don't have other gods before him. This also, this doesn't just only mean before as in preeminence, it's also saying not to have any other gods at all. Okay, because in the presence of God, there's no other God that's also there. Okay, we're only to worship one God or to have one God, no other gods before him. So you could look at that either way, but don't walk away saying, hey, we can worship another lesser deity. Just make sure that the Lord is like our main God. No, the Bible is real clear because here's what we have to understand about the 10 commandments. The 10 commandments are an abbreviated, like I said, kind of a cliff's notes or a synopsis of the whole law. So in order to fully understand the 10 commandments, you can't just read Exodus 20. You have to read the entire book of Deuteronomy because in the book of Deuteronomy, he's going to expand on each of these and he's going to spend chapters, entire chapters about having no other gods before him. He has entire chapters in the book of Deuteronomy about graven images and about how these are the exact graven images not to have. And here's how you're going to deal with it when you go and conquer these countries. You're to break their images. You're to shatter them, destroy them, burn them. So there's a lot more detail given than just what you see here. So you don't want to just read Exodus 20 and just think, oh, got it. That's it. I mean, look, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not kill. Those are elaborated on elsewhere. What that means, what the punishment is, and so forth. So he says, thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven 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. Of course, context of the rest of the mosaic law tells us this is talking about creatures, animals, and people, male or female, the Bible tells us. Now, what does that mean? In the heaven above, we're talking about birds flying in the air. Okay. And if you keep your finger, just go to Deuteronomy four, just for a quick sample of this. I can't do this with every commandment, but just to show you what I mean by the fact that Deuteronomy is going to expand on all this, go to Deuteronomy chapter number four, and I'll show you a little bit of an expansion on this where he gives detail about what he means by this. Give me a second to find it. It's not in my notes. Look at verse 16. It says, lest you corrupt yourselves and make you a graven image, and then he explains what a graven image is, the similitude of any figure, the likeness of male or female, the likeness of any beast that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged fowl that flyeth in the air, the likeness of anything that creepeth on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the waters beneath the earth. So, you know, in case there's any wondering about what does he mean by the waters beneath the earth? What's down there? Fish. All right. Now, how are the waters beneath the earth? I believe this is just a reference to the fact that, first of all, when the Bible used the word earth, it's talking about the dry land. Typically, it's talking about the dry land. In Genesis 1, he says he called the dry land earth and the gathering together of the waters called the seas. Now, sometimes it could be referring to the whole planet when you're reading scripture, but most of the time it's only referring to the land, the dry land. Like I said, some places it does refer to the whole thing, but there are the majority of places where it's referring to the dry land. So here's the thing. The dry land is typically sea level or above. Rarely does the dry land ever go below sea level, like at the Dead Sea or in Death Valley or something like that. The vast majority of the earth's surface is all above sea level, and the low places of the earth are the seas. So when it says the waters which are under the earth, it's not saying like, hey, below our feet right now, there's another body of water that's just filled with fish. Now, I know that there are obviously springs of water under us, and there's the groundwater and the water that's beneath our feet, but that's not a fish thing as much as the ocean, right, which is filled with fish. So the waters under the earth is just referring to like you have the sky as the highest thing here, and the birds are flying in the sky. One step down is the earth, right, and then lower would be to go down into the depths of the sea. You're going lower than the earth when you deal with sea creatures and things in the ocean. So we're not to make a molten image of a bird. We're not to make a molten image of a land animal, and we're not to make a molten image of a fish, and obviously we should also not make molten images of human beings, male or female, either, okay. You say, what's wrong with it? You know, I'm not worshiping it. Don't even make it, okay, because the Bible even says don't make it lest you be tempted, lest you begin to worship the whole host of heaven, he says, if you make these things. Now, you say, what's wrong with making a statue of a man? Well, that's exalting a man too highly. You know, oh, this is a great man. Let's make a statue unto him. Well, that's too much glory for man, okay, and we certainly should not make images of God or the Lord Jesus Christ because of the fact that, first of all, no man has seen God at any time, and then when it comes to the Lord Jesus Christ, we have no idea what he looked like. So, oh, man, the Orthodox Church, they got that picture. Yeah, their picture's from 500 A.D. 500 A.D. So the oldest picture that the Orthodox Church points to is some random white dude from 500 A.D. How is that accurate? God purposely did not allow any sketches or artwork or drawings of Jesus to survive because he doesn't want us to worship a picture or an image or get fixated on, oh, is he white, you know, is he brown, is he black, you know. You know, people are carnal when they think about that. We know Jesus through his word. This is how he wants us to know him. That's why he tells them in Deuteronomy 4, hey, you didn't see any image. You heard the voice of God speaking the Ten Commandments out of Mount Sinai. Don't make an image. It's the word, right? So the focus on the word of God. How do we know God through his word, not through a picture, not through an image, okay? And notice how different denominations have a different looking Jesus. You got a Mormon looking Jesus, Jehovah's Witness looking Jesus. You got Catholic Jesus, Orthodox Jesus. And, you know, typically it's a guy that's just as white as snow. But then, you know, you can find the Black Jesus, the Chinese Jesus, you know, Korean Jesus. I mean, you can find all kinds of these images. But, folks, we don't need an image to pray to or to look at. You want to see God? Read your Bible. You will see God. Read the Bible. You will see Jesus Christ. And, look, don't you think it's interesting that Jesus is the most important person who has ever walked the face of the earth? God in the flesh. Our whole calendar is based on him. I mean, 2019 what? 2019 years after the birth of Christ. Even an atheist who will say, well, you know, it's the current era. You know, 2019 CE. No, it's 2019 AD, Anno Domini in the year of our Lord. In the year of our Lord. And, look, you can get rid of the Anno Domini and replace it with CE, current era. But, guess what? You're still counting 2019 years since what? Since Jesus was born. Every atheist every day acknowledges Christ by accident just by using every time he writes a check or writes the date on something, he's acknowledging the birth of Christ. 2019, the most significant event in the history of mankind. And not only that, but did you know that more people have written books about Jesus than any other person who's ever looked? More people are talking about Jesus. You know, more people go to a Christian church every Sunday than the amount of people who've gone to see the greatest movie of all time. Whatever was the biggest selling movie that had the most tickets sold, you know, I don't know what it is, it used to be Gone with the Wind or something, right? But whatever it is now, whatever's the best selling movie, however many millions and millions of people went and watched it, there are more people going to church every Sunday hearing about Jesus than have watched that movie. Folks, Jesus Christ is the most significant individual, but isn't it interesting that even though Jesus Christ, from a religious or secular perspective, is the most influential person that has ever lived, yet there's no historical account of Jesus from his lifetime. There's no contemporary writer, oh wait, except for Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Isn't that interesting? Because you don't have other historians saying, hey, there was this teacher in Judea and he's got, you know, thousands of people following him, he's doing miracles, this and that. Folks, where is it? It doesn't, you know what you have, now you have a ton of that from once you get into the second century, once you get after Christ, once you maybe even get, you could argue for the late first century and so forth, but look, there are no contemporary accounts of Jesus and no drawings or artwork or paintings of Jesus. I mean, wouldn't you think such a significant person, there'd be paintings and pictures, look, God did not want there to be any pictures of him and God did not want there to be some secular carnal historical account, he wanted there to be four accounts, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and that's the way it happened. And if you look at the early opponents of Christianity, none of them are saying, oh, Jesus never existed, none of them are even arguing that these things didn't happen, they're just like, hey, we don't like it and we're trying to stop it or whatever. The point is, it's not by accident that there's no account of the life of Jesus from his lifetime, he wants us to use Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, he's going to tell his own story. And so whenever you see these articles floating around the internet or Facebook that say, oh, hey, we found, you know, a historical account of Jesus from a contemporary, it's every time it's a hoax, click on it, fact check it, it's 100% of the time a hoax, the only account is in scripture, okay? Isn't that amazing? And that's the way it should be. All I want to know, everything I learned about Jesus, you know, everything I want to know about Jesus, I get from the Bible, I don't need to get it from some secular historian, some Roman is going to tell me about it, I'm not interested. So anyway, don't make it, go back to Exodus 20, if you're not there, but you know, don't have any other gods before him. And of course, we would expand that to just, you know, no other god period, okay? Understanding the nuance of the word before him, it has a double meaning, okay? The double meaning of don't put another god before him, and also no other god could even stand in his presence, because before me means both. Chronological, preeminence, or just presence, right? All three of those meanings are in the word before. And so the Ten Commandments are designed to be expanded upon. And isn't this what Jesus did on the Sermon on the Mount? Didn't he expand on commandments? Hey, well you've heard that it was said thou should not kill, but I say unto you, you know, and then he expands. Deuteronomy expands, Exodus expands. This is a stripped down, Cliffs Notes, just the basic, no other gods before him, don't make a graven image, thou shalt not take the name, verse 7, of the Lord thy God in vain. This is the third commandment. Don't take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. What does it mean to take his name in vain? Vain means no purpose. If I said my life was vain, it means my life had no point, no purpose. So the word Jesus, or God, or Lord, or Jehovah, or God Almighty, any of these names should never come out of our mouth without a purpose. What does that mean? Every time we use the name of God, or any of the names of God, we should either be talking to God or about God. That's the, that's the test. If you want to know whether you're taking God's name in vain, ask yourself those, am I talking to God right now, or am I talking about God right now? Because if not, don't let those words flow out of your mouth. See, when somebody hits their hammer on the job site and just says God or Jesus, they're not talking to God, and they're not talking about God. So we need to be careful that we don't make flippant use of God, Lord, Jesus, any of those terms. Those should only be used with respect. Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. So we need to keep it hallowed, keep it holy. Be, be reverent with our use of God's name. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. We talked about that. That is old covenant, not new covenant. In the new covenant, Jesus is our rest. He is our Sabbath. But then we get to the fifth commandment, verse 12, honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long upon the land, which the Lord thy God giveth thee. Of course, this is strongly reiterated in the new Testament. Children, obey your parents in the Lord for this is right. Honor thy father and mother, which is the first commandment with promise that, that it may be well with thee and that thy days may be long on the earth. So what he's saying is so far as we're reading the 10 commandments, that's the first commandment that has a specific promise associated with it. It's the first commandment with promise, because he says, Hey, if you do this, your days will be long on the earth. It's funny. My dad was trying to get a hold of me this week and he called me. I didn't get the message. Sometimes I don't get every text or voicemail that comes through or whatever. He left me a voicemail a couple of days ago. He said, Hey, if you want your days to be long on the earth, call me back. All right. And so, you know, and I called him back immediately, you know, and he just wanted to talk. He was, it wasn't anything big. We were just chatting and I love talking to my dad. And you know what? I believe that though, that if I want my days to be long on the earth, if I want to be well with me, I need to honor my father and mother. I need to honor them. Okay. And so I want to make them proud. I want to do right by them. I want to treat them well and be sure to respect them and reverence them because you know what? That right has a lot to do with how I feel about God. You know, you, especially with children that are actually living at home under their parents' authority, you know, the one who's disrespectful to their parents, the one who's disobedient to their parents is the same one that's going to be disobedient and disrespectful to their father, which is in heaven. You know, you got your father on this earth. That's your practice for how you're going to be toward the Lord. And you know what, to you fathers, be a good representative, be a good representation, be a good model of the Lord, be Christ-like so that when they look to you, then they will have a good picture of what it means to have an authority figure because they have a greater authority, don't they? The Lord in heaven. So you children had better honor your parents if you don't want to die young. And you know, how many of these rap artists do you hear about dying in their thirties? How many of these actors are dying in their forties and fifties? Why? Because the wicked should not live out half their days. And so you see, and look, obviously good people die young too. But let me tell you something, an inordinate number of the wicked die young. More of them die young. And I guarantee you that they didn't honor their parents. And when you see people that are 90 and 100 years old, I'd be willing to bet that they were pretty respectful of their parents. You know, my grandma lived to be like, what, 96, 97? I forget the exact number, but I said to her, you know, what's your secret? She brought up, you know, eating oatmeal and different things. But I said, well, you must have honored your father and mother. And she said, oh yeah, I certainly did that. You know, she was like, I for sure did that. And you know, I've heard her talk about her parents fondly and lovingly. You know, we need to respect and honor our parents if we want our days to be long on the earth and if we want things to go well for us, which we all want. Verse 13, thou shalt not kill. Okay, this is obviously pretty clear. This is, again, expanded upon and explained exactly what constitutes murder. And Jesus quotes this as thou shalt do no murder. And there is more explanation explaining, obviously it's not saying not to kill a plant or an animal or something, but we're not to kill in the sense of murder. Self-defense, the Bible makes allowance for self-defense. And so again, you go to Deuteronomy to get the expansion on this, to get the full picture. But in general, he's basically just telling us not to commit murder. And most of us are already pretty familiar with what murder constitutes. Obviously defending yourself or executing a criminal by the proper means of the courts and so forth is not murder or the kind of killing that's being talked about. Verse 14, thou shalt not commit adultery. Jesus expanded this and said, hey, don't look on a woman to lust after her because then you're committing adultery in your heart. You know, don't divorce your wife and marry someone else because then you're causing her to commit adultery, right? So again, these get expanded upon elsewhere in scripture. Thou shalt not steal. That's clear. Verse 16, I want to spend a little bit of time talking about verse 16 here in our closing moments here. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor. Now I did a sermon on this maybe a year and a half ago, an entire sermon on thou shalt not bear false witness. But there was a point that I think I failed to make in that sermon. So I want to make that point now because I think this is so important because I think this is one of the most misunderstood subjects, this thing of bearing false witness. So I really want to make sure we understand what this is, okay? What does it mean to bear false witness or to bear false witness against your neighbor? So let me just grab a couple volunteers to kind of make this point. Come on up here and let me do this. And then brother Powell, you want to come up here? I just need a few volunteers to kind of make this point, okay? So let's envision for a moment that we're in a courtroom, okay? So let's say this guy's on trial right here, okay? So this guy is the one who's on trial, okay? You're the judge, okay? So this is the judge and this guy is a witness, okay? So he's a witness and this is the guy that's on trial, this is the judge. Stand behind the pulpit so you could be like looking a little more judgmental there, all right? So he's a, you know, let me approach the bench here. So anyway, so he's the judge, you know, he's on trial, this guy's the witness. Now what does it mean to bear false witness, okay? Here's what's going to happen and we're going to exclude a jury trial for now and we're going to say this is a trial where you didn't get the jury. Hey, welcome to America 2019, right? Where the sixth amendment doesn't matter. But anyway, you know, so the judge is just going to make a judgment here. He's just going to decide guilt or innocence in this particular case, okay? So, you know, this guy is on trial, okay? Let's just say he's, let's just go big and just say he's on trial for murder, okay? Which is unrealistic because then you get a jury, but all right, never mind. So here we go. What does it mean to bear false witness? To bear false witness would be if this witness says, I saw, and then he tells somebody he didn't actually see. You know, what kind of car do you drive? Yeah, so basically what if he says, hey, I saw a Nissan, you know, matching that description, leaving the scene of the crime like, you know, 20 minutes after it supposedly happened. You know, 7 30 p.m. I saw a Nissan, you know. Oh, did it look like this Nissan? Yes, you're on, you know, and it's just like, I saw, and guess what? He didn't see any Nissan, okay? So basically what does that mean? He's bearing false witness. He's lying. Does everybody understand what I'm saying? So that's pretty simple, right? Now what if this guy gets up and gives his testimony, and then let's say five other witnesses give their testimony, everybody's in here testifying, and then the judge decides that Matt's guilty. So the judge, he gets all the evidence, all the evidence is presented, and he looks at all the evidence, and he says, you know, beyond a reasonable doubt, Matt Powell's guilty. Okay, now what if Matt Powell didn't do it, but yet he's declared guilty because all the evidence is pointing to him, you know, and he's going to take the fall for this, but he didn't really do it. Let me ask you this. Did this guy bear false witness? No. Is it even possible for this guy to bear false witness? He's not even testifying. Does everybody understand what I'm saying? Who can bear false witness? This guy could bear, this guy could bear false witness. It's impossible for him. He's not, he's not a witness. He's not testifying. What's he doing? He's making a judgment. Does everybody understand what I'm saying? Now look, if he wrongly condemns someone, did he bear false witness? No. Okay, now what if he gives evidence that would seem to point toward the guilt of Brother Powell, but Brother Powell's innocent, but he comes in and says, yeah, I saw that Nissan leaving and the Nissan really did leave. Is he bearing false witness? No. Okay, go ahead and have a seat. Now that might seem so basic and, and you're like, Pastor Anderson, you know, don't waste our time telling us things that we already know, but you know, I wish everybody did already know this because I constantly hear people saying, you're bearing false witness when they basically are doing what this guy did, which is making a judgment on facts. Or they'll say, you're bearing false witness when somebody says, I saw this piece of evidence that they really saw, but then, well, I don't think he did it. So that means you're bearing false witness. Whether he did it does not change the fact that this guy's telling the truth. If he actually saw the Nissan, right? If he says he saw the Nissan and he saw the Nissan, he's not bearing false witness, regardless of that guy's. And even if he says, Hey, you know, I'm looking at the evidence and I think he did it. Hey, whether or not he did it, that's not bearing false witness. Bearing false witness is saying that you witnessed something or heard something, or that someone said something that they didn't really say, Hey, I heard him say this. I saw this. And you're lying. That's bearing false witness. Everybody see the difference. If the police think, Oh, this guy's for sure guilty, but I'm afraid we don't have enough evidence. Let's plant some evidence just to kind of seal the deal. We know he did it. We don't want some slick lawyer getting them off the hook. Let's plant evidence. That's bearing false witness. That's evil. Even if you know the person's guilty, you don't bear false witness. The ends doesn't justify the means. Now here's why I'm going through this whole song and dance here to make you get this. Okay. Is because for example, I heard a preacher get up and say, you know, Oh, you know, accusing someone of not being saved. That's bearing false witness. Cause I think they're saved. No, because if someone says, Hey, here's what this person said out of their own mouth. And they, they appear to be teaching work salvation and they read a quote, here's a quote from this guy. Here's what he's saying. Here's what he wrote in his book. Here's what you know. And I don't think this guy saved based on what he's saying. And then it's like, Oh, you're buried. No, no, no. They're making a judgment. They're presented with facts. And now someone else might be presented with the same facts and have a different opinion. A different judge might've seen all the same evidence and said, not guilty, but either way, it's not bearing false witness to have an opinion. It's not bearing false witness to pass judgment. Now here's what would be bearing false witness. Well, here's what that preacher said. And then basically to give a line quote and say, Oh, this preacher said something and he didn't really say that. You know, people said that I slandered Jeff dirt bin or Jeff bourbon, if you will. People, people think that I, people said that I slandered pastor Jeff bourbon. Really? Everything I said was true. I read his own words, his own testimony. And then I made a judgment on that and said, he's demon possessed according to his own words. Here's where he describes himself being demon possessed. Now that's not me bearing false witness because I'm looking at the facts. I'm looking at the evidence. I'm looking at the thumb ring on his right hand. And then I Googled it and said that homos were a thumb ring on their right hand. When they're looking for somebody, when they're available for trolling, for anonymous, whatever with, with whatever, you know, Hey, it would have been false witness if he didn't have the thumb ring on his hand. Hey, I got up and said that he told his drill instructor in the military that he was a homo. That is what happened. I'm not buried false witness because I'm simply stating the fact that he told his drill instructor that he was a homosexual. Look, you can draw whatever conclusions on that you want, but these things are facts. I'm reporting facts. And if I say, Hey, based on this fact, this fact, this fact, and this fact, I think he's a sodomite and that he's demon possessed based on all these. I don't have time to go over all the facts because how much time you got, but it's, you know, I covered a lot of it in my sermon. That's called demon possessed preachers. There's a sermon called demon possessed preachers. You want to look it up. And I went through all those facts, but look folks, if someone wants to look at all those same facts and walk away saying, Hey, I don't think that pastor bourbon is a homo. And I don't think pastor bourbon was demon possessed. Hey, that's your judgment. That's your opinion, but there's no way I'm bearing false witness unless, unless he didn't have the thumb ring on. If he didn't tell his drill instructor that he was a homo, then yeah, then it would be a false witness. But since he did tell his drill instructor that he was a homo and since he did have a thumb ring on his right hand, and since he did make perverted jokes about sodomy, about sodomy, like it's something fun because he, and I'm not, again, I'm not going to go through all of it, the sorted details about dirt bin, but the bottom line is that's not bearing false witness. And if somebody gets up and says, Oh, you know, sorry, but your favorite preacher, Billy Graham or whatever, you know, here's what he said. And you know, Oh, it was very false witness. Really? To, to make a judgment call. No, look, if there's a bunch of evidence, sometimes you have to make a decision. You know, you're presented with a bunch of evidence and you're like, Hey, I'm going to make a judgment here. I'm going to make a decision. No matter which way you decide you're not bearing false witness, unless you fabricated something in order to bear false witness, hear me now, you must fabricate something. You must fabricate. I saw this. I heard this. This was sad. This, you know, witnesses that don't exist or something. Look, that is bearing false witness. Lying is what is involved with bearing false witness, telling a lie. Do you understand what I'm saying? And you can't just stretch that to, well, he said this guy wasn't saved and the guy really is safe. So he lied wrong. He has a different opinion about interpreting facts. Okay. So do you see how the colossal difference between these two things? So don't go around saying you're bearing false witness, unless someone has fabricated something. If someone says that they saw something that they didn't see, or if someone exaggerates what they saw to the point where now it's no longer true to the original event and somebody, you know, embellishes or exaggerates something, then yeah. Okay. Then you have a case for bearing false witness because they're not accurately reporting the facts. They fabricated things. But if someone accurately reports what they saw, even if it's something bad about someone that turns out to be innocent, look, they have not borne false witness. They might have made, exercised bad judgment or just, you know, made a bad judgment call, which I did not in the example I just gave. But anyway, you know, but it's like, oh, but you know what? To accuse me of being a slanderer makes you a slanderer because I didn't slander anyone. I'm just reporting facts. Okay. I'm reporting facts. And then it's like, oh, you slandered. Really? That you just accused me of something I didn't do. That makes you a slanderer. You know, so look in the mirror, buddy. You can't just sit there and say, oh, you know, you need to repent of your wickedness because you accuse. I'm not the one going around looking like a fag and telling my drill instructor that I was a fag. I didn't have a drill instructor because I was never in the military. But the point is, don't get mad if somebody then thinks that. You know, if I walk, if somebody walks in here, like just happened, what, a month ago, some guy walked in here looking like a complete homo. And I said, get out of here. You can't come here looking like that. I said, come back when you're ready to look like a man. Well, hey, I'm just here to worship. Get out. Well, you fool. If I said, hey, I think that guy is a homo because of the way he looked, that's not bearing false witness if the guy turns out to be straight as an arrow. Look, maybe that guy was as straight as any man on the planet. That doesn't change the fact that he came in here looking like a homo. And I asked him, are you a homo? And he went, huh, are you a homo? Are you a homosexual? What are you a home? Look, when somebody asks you that question, it only takes once. And it's like, no, any normal person who's asked that question doesn't answer it on the fourth try. This is not a hard question. You know, speak English. Hey, I made I made a judgment call. And whether the guy was or wasn't, it doesn't change the fact that, you know what, that's the judgment call that I made. And it wasn't, I didn't fabricate anything. Everybody saw him. Who saw that fruitcake? Who thinks he was a homo? All right. So there you go. So apparently people agree with my judgment. But the point is, even if he was straight, that doesn't change anything. Okay. And calling him a homo based on the evidence is not falsely accusing him. Because we're not saying, hey, we know that that guy's a homo, or we know that he's done something homo. We're basically saying, hey, he looked like such a homo. That's what we think is going on. That's our opinion. Having an opinion is never false witness. As long as you explain, this is my opinion based on these facts. And as long as the facts exist, okay, you can have an opinion, you can express that opinion. But what you can't say is, well, I know for a fact, x, y, and z, and then you have no facts. Okay. Anyway, I just wanted to stop and park it on that because it's important that we understand that because you have, what's going on is, there's an agenda out there to try to stop preachers from saying certain things. So to try to chill the preachers into not saying these things, it's like, oh, everything's slander. Guess what? It's not slander if it's true. Okay. And by the way, in the United States, in any courtroom, if what you said is true, that's a defense against slander. You will be acquitted every time. But in Canada, it's not a defense. In Canada, you speak hard against the, the, the LGB, whatever, and basically, you know, you could get in trouble for slandering them, even if what you're saying is true. But in the United States, slander has to be false. Okay. I mean, that should be obvious, right? So anyway. All right. And then the last commandment is thou shalt not covet. Okay. And then the last commandment is thou shalt not covet. And I, I've talked a lot about this in other sermons. I'll just briefly touch it. Covet is used interchangeably in the Bible with the word desire. In fact, in the list of the 10 commandments in Deuteronomy 5, it calls it thou shalt not desire thy neighbor's wife. Here, it says thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife. Covetousness is desiring that which does not belong to you or desiring that which is out of bounds for you or out of reach for you. Okay. It belongs to someone else or it's out of your league or whatever. So for example, if I desire a new vehicle and I have the money, I have the wherewithal, I have the job where I can get that new vehicle, setting the goal to get that vehicle is not covetousness. If I say, Hey, you know, here's what I want to buy. I've got my job. I've got my money or whatever. Here's how I'm going to get to that destination. That's not covetousness. Hey, look, if you're a young single and you want to get married, that's not covetousness, right? Because you're single, you know, that's an option that's available to you. It's normal for you to desire to be married. Okay. That's not coveting something. But what is coveting something is, Hey, I want this car that I can't afford. You say, well, I'm not, you know, I just want it. I'm not going to take it or I just want. Wanting it is a sin. Desiring things that are out of your league are sin. That's what covetousness is. Covetousness takes place in the heart. So if I just go and just look at houses and just lost out, man, I wish I lived in that house and I'm not being content with my house, that's covetousness. If I am already married and then I were to look at other women and desire them and say, well, you know, not this wife, but I'd rather have, or in addition to or whatever, that's covetousness. But if I'm single and saying, Hey, I would like to get married. Hey, there's a person I would like to actually marry or something. And I have a pathway to getting there. That's not covetousness. Hey, I want to get this phone and you know, it's affordable to me. Okay. Or Hey, I can get this job and I can earn this money and get, that's not covetousness. Does everybody see the difference? Coveting is when you want something that's not yours. It's not rightfully yours. And it's out of your reach. It's not something that God has given you or is going to give you. It's something that's out of bounds for you. Okay. And so remember the love of money is the root of all evil. So just sitting around and lusting after things that aren't yours, you know, when we think of lust, we typically think of obviously looking on a woman to lust after her. But what about all the other things that people lust after? You know, they lust after the possessions as well. And so we ought not to lust because, you know, men are typically the ones who are doing the most of the former kind of lusting of, you know, looking upon the opposite gender and thinking those thoughts. But what about the lusting that women do when they're lusting after all the kitchen gadgets and they're lusting after, you know, the vans and the minivans and they're lusting after a bigger house or garden or they're lusting after the fancy purse and the sunglasses and the wallets and, you know, they're lusting after the wardrobe and the shoes and the dresses, you know. So basically anybody can be guilty of this all day long. What's the antidote? Contentment with what you have. Just being thankful and saying, hey, God's been good to me. I like the stuff that I have. I like where I live, right? I'm happy. I'm content. I love my wife. I love my kids. I love my church. I've got what I need. I've got food. I've got clothing. That's the antidote for covetousness. As far as I have word of prayer, Father, we thank you so much for your word and this important passage, Lord. Help us to realize that, Lord, even though we're not under the old covenant, that the Ten Commandments here express a lot of moral teachings and moral codes that are expanded on elsewhere in the Bible, whether it's in the Old Testament in Exodus and Deuteronomy or whether it's in the New Testament in Romans or 1 Corinthians or wherever, Lord, help us to follow these things so that we can be righteous, Lord. Help us to take these things as instructions in righteousness. Help us to follow these commandments, Lord, to keep you as our soul God that we worship and know that we have the right God and not to make any idols or pictures of God or Jesus or anything. Help us not to take your name in vain. Help us not to disrespect our parents or kill, steal, commit adultery, bear false witness. Lord, help us not to covet. Help us to be godly people in the New Testament. And in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.