Tenth Commandment

Exodus 20:17 “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”

The key word in this commandment is the word “covet,” and then we get a list of things that we should not covet: everything that belongs to our neighbor.

Coveting “signifies an earnest and strong desire after a matter of which all the affections are concentrated and fixed.” The word covet also brings in the emotional aspect that deals with the sin of intention. In other words, this law deals with not only the action of man but also the heart of man.

There are some good things that we should covet, for example, Scripture tells us that we are to “covet earnestly the best gifts.” (1 Corinthians 12:31) In other words, we should earnestly desire or covet the things of God. Jesus brings out the same thought in the Sermon on the Mount where He makes clear the thoughts and actions of men addressed in God’s law.

The question that could be asked is: When is it wrong to covet? There are several things that we could think of:

1. We could be moving towards covetousness when our thoughts are wholly taken up with the world. A simple test that we can take is where does our mind go when it is free from the task at hand; to the world or to the things of God?
2. We can be moving towards covetousness when we take more pains getting what is of this world rather than what is of heaven.
3. Our conversation can reveal the spirit of covetousness within us. John 3:31 “One who is from the earth belongs to the earth, and speaks as one from the earth.”

It would seem that the root of covetousness is distrust in God’s providence. So it would seem that faith in God and His Word is the victory that will overcome and 1 John 5:4 states: “This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith.”

What is happening today is that since we have moved on from a Christian consensus to a humanistic one, this is now affecting our law laid down in our Constitution as well as God’s law.

With a Christian consensus there were absolutes and that gave us the base for making laws, but now law is becoming arbitrary. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said: “Truth is the majority vote of that nation that could lick all others.” In other words, what he was saying is that law is only what most people think at that moment of history and there is no higher law.

What this means in our society, especially here in the Western world is that law can be changed at any given moment of time to reflect the mood of the people. In other words, there are no absolutes, the standards are what the majority thinks. With this thought in mind we can now understand why the 10 Commandments are being removed from our public places because they stand for absolutes.

What is happening is that law becomes what a few people in government think it should be or what they think promotes the sociological and economic good of the people. In other words, God is out and man is in.

So we find that the moral judgments of the majority are now influenced by, or even overruled by the opinions of a small group of men and women. Values can be altered overnight at an almost unbelievable speed.

John Locke wrote an essay stating that knowledge and understanding come from sensory experience which gained wide acceptance among the so-called “Enlightenment Thinkers” as having some validity. This idea led to another idea that by being able to control the intake of sensory experience the contents of our minds could be manipulated, which in turn led to the belief that by controlling the impressions that we receive by legislation we can control what people learn and know. So this led to the belief that people can be improved, not by religion, but by legislation, and education became the prime factor in all of this. This is what led to the re-education camps of the 20^th century as well as a social experiment by the Soviet Union. The new task of politics was to make man virtuous.

We can now look back at the dust-bin of history and what do we see?  Soviet Union collapsed and that legislation failed.  All of this is an attempt to gain what the Lord Jesus Christ gives us freely when we come to Him.  We can become a new creature, but this life is found in Christ not in what man can do.

“And God spoke all these words.” These Commandments did not come from the inspiration of man, but by revelation from God. Yet we see how they have been downplayed in our societies worldwide. We are not saved by the law, but through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the law is given to protect our unalienable rights that come from God and not from the state.

Ninth Commandment

Exodus 20:16 “You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.”

Proverbs 6:16–19 “There are six things the Lord hates, seven that are detestable to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that are quick to rush into evil, a false witness who pours out lies and a person who stirs up conflict in the community.”

In the sixth chapter of Daniel we find that Darius was going to appoint Daniel over the whole kingdom because Daniel so distinguished himself above the other administrators in character. The other administrators tried to find fault with Daniel but could not because there was no corruption in him, he was trustworthy and not negligent. The reason I bring this out regarding Daniel is that he was a man of truth and influence. This is what we need today in our societies: men and women of influence who surround men and women of power – like David and Darius.

The bottom line is that King Darius wrote to all the peoples, nations and men of every language throughout the land issuing a decree that people must fear and reverence the God of Daniel.

We should we at all times and under all circumstances tell the truth to all men who ask anything of you? I do not believe so. We can be silent.

Rahab lied to protect the lives of two spies, but Rahab’s faith that James singled her out for as an example of vital faith, was not in that she lied to protect them, but that she received them as God’s messengers and sent them out another way than they came in. (James 2:24-25)

Abraham and then later his son Isaac lied about their wives to the kings in order to avoid murder and rape, and Scripture does not condemn them for lying, although they were shamed by God for lying.

It was Churchill who said during the time of war that the truth is so important it must be guarded by a bodyguard of lies. Interesting…

This Commandment is against two things: First, slandering our neighbor. Like someone once said, “The scorpion carries his poison in his tail, the slanderer carries his poison on his tongue.” Perhaps the best definition of slandering would be to unjustly report things about others in order to do them harm. Holiness will not keep us from being slander as we see with the apostle Paul as well as Jesus Himself, but we can learn from them how to respond.

This commandment forbids the giving of false testimony and it is especially appropriate in the testimony given by witnesses in courts of law. This commandment not only forbids straightforward lying and slander, but also telling the truth in order to do harm or get revenge.

Another question that does arise with this commandment is: What should be our response to those that do slander and falsely accuse us? First, we labor to make a sanctified use of it. For example, Shimei cursed David and when Abishai wanted to put him to death David forbade him to do so, and said “If he is cursing because the Lord said to him, ‘Curse David,’ who can ask, ‘Why you do you do this?’ In other words, if we are falsely accused we first need to see if there is any unrepentant sin that we need to deal with. If there is then we need to deal with it, but if we are falsely accused God will take care of it.

Psalm 37:6 “Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him; do not fret when men succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes.” It is God who can bring forth our righteousness as the light.

This commandment also brings out that because we should not slander or falsely accuse others, we should be a favorable witness for the innocent and stand up in their defense. How true it is that a man may wrong another by silence as by slander; when he knows him to be wrongfully accused, yet does not speak in his behalf.

We see Peter standing up for the other apostles when they were slandered. They were accused of being drunk after being filled with the Holy Spirit. Acts 2:15 “These men are not drunk, as you suppose.”

Jonathan knowing David to be a worthy man knew that all the things that his father Saul said of David were slanderous and so Jonathan vindicated David by being a truthful witness for David. 1 Samuel 19:4-5 “Jonathan spoke well of David to Saul his father and said to him, ‘Let not the King do wrong to his servant David; he has not wronged you, and what he has done has benefited you greatly.’”

We are here to extend the kingdom of God and the kingdom of God consists of that which is just, right and true.

Eighth Commandment

Exodus 20:15 “You shall not steal.”

John 7:24 “Stop judging by mere appearances, but instead judge correctly.”

So often our judgment is done through colored glasses. We bring our own prejudices, dislikes, likes, favoritism, etc. into our judgment. We often have our own agenda in what we believe. This is why it is so important to make sure that we have the mind of Christ that we see things from God’s perspective. What is God’s perspective?  It is the Holy Scriptures, and specifically the Lord’s Ten Commandments that we are to live by. This should be the basis of our judgment.

With our judges, when they pass judgment on any and all cases that come before them, their united judgment should be based upon our biblical Constitution which rules our land, but so often the judges bring into their judgment their own human perspective and agenda which is not true justice.

The right understanding of this commandment: “Do not steal” has behind it that it is a God given right for man to own and keep property. In one sense this commandment speaks to us about the restoration of our fallen world. In other words, we are to take back what Satan has stolen from us and to take our proper responsibility to what God gave us in Genesis 1:26–28 as in the Cultural Mandate. God has given to man and his family the right to own property, and not to the state the right to own property.

Many today believe that the state has sovereign rights on property. This is what we find in the French revolution. Thomas Paine in his article, “Rights of Man” in writing for the national assembly said: “The nation is essentially the source of all sovereignty; nor can any individual, or any body of man, be entitled of all sovereignty; nor can any individual, or any body of man, be entitled to any authority which is not expressively derived from it.” So we find today that man will take dominion, either under God’s law which will produce life, or the law of man which will produce tyranny and death. This to me is the lesson of the French revolution.

Civil lawyers defined theft as: “The laying hands unjustly on that which belongs to another.” What are some of the causes of theft?

Unbelief: The unbeliever will ask, “Can God prepare a table in the wilderness?” Because he believes that God cannot they then try to prepare their own table and often that results in man coveting more than what he owns or actually needs.

We know that an external source of theft is Satan’s activity. Satan is a thief and he will produce thieves of all kinds. We read in John 12:6 that Judas was a thief and it would seem that the reason he became a thief was that Satan entered into him. (John 13:27)

There are also different kinds of theft mentioned in Scripture. For example, we can steal from God by not giving Him our best. King David said that he would not offer to God anything that did not cost him. Another example, we can steal from others by holding back the truth that they deserve to have. We can steal like the robber, who goes into the house to take away another man’s possessions. We can steal from our employer the time to do something other than the work we were hired to do. We also find that the state has passed laws that take from one group of people that have, to benefit another group of people that do not have.

Other examples with the state are their inflationary economic policies.

History is filled with examples of tyranny reigning.

In Scriptures we see that the right for personal ownership of property comes from God. He owns everything and gives it to man as a gift. He gave it to Adam and Eve and later we find that He gave it to Israel.

America’s Founding Fathers did not want to go the way of the feudal system which was predominant in Europe but instead accepted God’s definition of property belonging to man and not the government. In the beginning of the founding of our country the government owned no large tracts of land on a permanent basis. If any lands were acquired they were made available to the public. Stephen McDowell brings out that the government owns little land east of the Mississippi which is in great contrast to the Western United States where large portions of many states are owned by the government.

Also under biblical law there was no “property tax.” The reason for this is because the earth belongs to the Lord and He has given it to men and their families, not to the state. This means that man cannot be dispossessed from his own land. Every man has a basic security in his property.

There are many other points that we could bring out regarding this commandment, but we do see that America is at war with God’s Law and we can understand why the Ten Commandments are being removed from public offices.

When I speak about America being at war with God’s laws we need to keep in mind what David Kupelian says in his book, Snapping of the American Mind: “In politics and culture we speak casually of ‘the left’ and ‘the right,’ as though these were two morally equivalent camps or worldviews. In reality the socialist/Marxist ideology that has captivated today’s Democrat Party is at war with reason, human nature, common sense, history and truth – indeed, at war with God and His laws.”

Seventh Commandment

Exodus 20:14 “You shall not commit adultery.”

Psalms 119:137-138 “You are righteous, Lord, and your laws are right. The statutes you have laid down are righteous; they are fully trustworthy.”

God’s laws fit human nature. Laws that our legislative branch makes should fit human nature and since human nature is fallen this should be kept in mind regarding the laws legislature makes. If the laws do not fit human nature then I would say that those laws are unjust.

A question that then comes up is: What laws are unjust? To answer this we need to have a basis for judging that which is unjust. Right now we have two systems for doing this. The first system is God’s standard which is laid down in the Holy Scripture: The Ten Commandments.

Our Founding Fathers followed God’s standard and for a number of years our society was based on the Ten Commandments, but we are now turning away from it. What are we turning to?

The past number of years we have begun to accept another method of obtaining knowledge and that is through human reasoning based on human experience instead of the revelation from God. So what we have today is fallen man making laws for fallen man. Talk about the fox in the hen house! So what has this resulted in today? We have laws that protect abortion on demand (taking of innocent life), redefine marriage, tax laws that are unreasonable, etc. The result of this is the making of laws based on human reasoning instead of divine revelation.

It was Noah Webster who said: “All carnal intercourse between the sexes, except in lawful marriage is forbidden.” He goes on to say that the consequence of breaking this law is unspeakably great. “The injuries to health, the dissipation of property, the ruin of female character, the destruction of family happiness, and the abandonment of all moral and religious principle, with the final loss of the soul, are among the woeful consequences of this wickedness.” In our society today we see the result of this: fatherless homes, divorce, latchkey children, etc. In other words, the result is the disintegration of the basic building block for a stable society: the family.

The stable family will produce a stable nation. Ephesians 5:21–23 lays out the principles that will produce stable relationships to produce a stable family. A question often debated today is whether a woman can compete with men in public life and the answer is that of course they can. But it is also true what Stephen McDowell brings out: “No one can compete with the mother in the home – no one can fill her place.”

Hebrews 2:1 says: “We must pay the most careful attention therefore, to what we’ve heard, so that we do not drift away.” In 1 Corinthians 7:2 God told us: “Let every man have his own wife, and that every woman have her own husband.” In Hebrews 13:4 God reminds us that, “Marriage is honorable and the bed undefiled.”

In Genesis 2:22 God instituted marriage in paradise; He brought the woman to the man and He gave them to each other in marriage. In John 2:2 we see that Jesus Christ honored a marriage ceremony with His presence. From teaching in Scripture we learn that the special duties belonging to marriage are love and purity.

However, we find today that because we have not “paid close attention to what has been said” we have not only drifted away, but today we find many families, marriages, and homes shipwrecked resulting in heavy cost upon our Western social fabric.

It would seem from this seventh Commandment that the most important thing for the church today is to help establish godly families according to biblical principles.

We know that lust is the very foundation of the sin of adultery. Since the fall of man holy love has degenerated into lust. Scripture brings out that adultery is twofold: It begins in the mind: mentally. Matthew 5:28 states: “Anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”  Then the physical act that is forbidden by God’s law: “You shall not commit adultery.”

Job, whom God called a righteous man,  calls adultery a heinous crime. Every failing is not a crime, but adultery is a heinous crime. Jeremiah, speaking for God says that adultery is outrageous: “They have done outrageous things in Israel; they have committed adultery with their neighbors’ wives.” Adultery is outrageous because it is a breach of the marriage oath that man and woman made in the presence of God to be faithful to each other. And it is a great dishonor to God because the adulterer sets his will above God’s law.