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Sermons on the
Ten Commandments Summer, 2000 The First Commandment, June 25, 2000 Thou shalt have no other
gods before me. And God spoke all these words, saying: “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before Me. You shall not make for yourself any carved 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; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the LORD you God, and a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.” (Exodus 20:1-6) “And God spoke all these words.” God did. This means that they are important. God’s words are more important than our words. If you want to know what to do to please God, listen to what God says. Surely, God knows what he wants you to do. Why listen to anyone else? In the Large Catechism, Luther comments on what he calls the “devilish presumption” of folks who think that they can find a better and higher way of life than what God teaches us in the Ten Commandments. There is good reason to memorize the Ten Commandments. We commit them to memory because they stand as God’s will for our behavior. They govern every single aspect of human conduct. Nothing pertaining to the lives we live in this world is left out. If we want to know our duty to God and to our neighbor, we simply must know the Ten Commandments. If we want to know what it means to fear God, to love God, to trust in God, we must know the Ten Commandments. If we want to know what it means to follow the Golden Rule, loving our neighbor as ourselves, we must know the Ten Commandments. These words are from God. Everything that our Epistle Lesson for today says about love is already taught in the Ten Commandments. These words from God teach us everything we need to know about our duty to love God above all things and to love our neighbor as ourselves. They
are words. The word
“commandment” is not used here in the Bible to describe these words. They are not written in the imperative, “you must,” but
in the future indicative, “you shall.”
They describe the life of the one who belongs to God. “I am the LORD your God.”
So if the LORD, Jahweh, is your God, then these words describe
you. “You shall have no
other gods” than the LORD God who has set you free. Do
these words describe you? If
not, they stand opposed to you. If
you are not described by the description of God’s child given in the
Ten Words from God, why then you have a problem.
Because, you see, these words most certainly do describe the life
of God’s child. You
shall. You shall not.
Future indicative. This
is the way it shall be if you belong to God. God
spoke these words to Moses and they were intended for the children of
Israel whom God had just rescued from a cruel slavery in Egypt.
You remember how God saved many people from famine through his
servant, Joseph, who became a great leader in Egypt.
Later, a king who did not remember or appreciate the service that
the LORD God had provided through Joseph, the son of Israel, took power.
So he enslaved the Israelites and made life miserable for them. They were made slaves for over four hundred years.
They thought that God had forgotten them and most of them forgot
God. But God did not
forget. He sent his prophet
– a man named Moses – to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob. Through Moses, God
freed his people from slavery. They
were led through water out of slavery into freedom. The
Ten Commandments were given to that nation of that time and that region.
While the Ten Commandments correspond to the same law that God
has put into the conscience of everyone, the Ten Commandments were
written specifically for that particular nation. They were forbidden to made statues for use in worship
because God knew that they would worship the statues because that’s
what their neighbors did. They
were forbidden to work on Saturday because the LORD God was their
Creator who rested on Saturday from creating the world, and this was how
they would confess to the heathen nations their faith in the one true
God. Today, for us
Christians, God no longer forbids making statues for use in worship (he
obviously still forbids worshipping them!) or working on Saturdays.
God tailor made the Ten Commandments for the Israelites of the
fifteenth century before Christ. God
did not give the Ten Commandments to the Germans or the Swedes or the
Tasmanians. He gave them to
the ancient nation of Israel whom he formed in the Sinai wilderness to
be his people. First
he set them free. Then he
gave them his law. First he
saved them. Then he called
on them to serve him. First
God saves us. Only then can
we serve him. Paul Speratus
says it correctly in the words of the hymn, It
was a false, misleading dream that God his law had given The
law is not the means of salvation.
God saves us without our help or cooperation.
The law is not the means of obtaining spiritual freedom.
God sets us free by his grace alone.
It was not ancient Israel that won God’s favor by their
obedience. No, they earned
God’s anger for their disobedience.
When Israel’s father Isaac was laid on the altar by Abraham to
be offered up to God as the sacrifice, he wasn’t sacrificed because
God intervened and provided a ram in the place of Isaac.
That ram was a symbol of Abraham’s divine seed, Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ alone has won God’s favor for Israel and for us
all. Those who teach the
law of God as the way to heaven teach a lie. Those who teach that we win over God’s heart by our
obedience to God’s law teach a lie.
The fact is that the doctrine of works-righteousness – that we
become righteous before God by our obedience to God’s law – is a
flat rejection of the First Commandment.
“Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” When
the Masonic Lodge teaches that one may be a faithful Mason and a
faithful Christian at the same time, it teaches a lie.
It is not possible to have the LORD God as your God if you
believe that you are going to heaven by obeying God’s law.
Indeed, only those who admit that they are lost forever unless
delivered by Jesus Christ and by him alone are those who know the God
who revealed himself to Moses and who gave the Ten Commandments to
ancient Israel. Every
religion of human works is idolatry.
Indeed, it is the oldest form of idolatry.
Cain was a disciple of works-righteousness, while Abel was a
Christian. This is why God rejected Cain and his offerings, while he
accepted both Abel and his offerings. During
times of increasing godlessness, we who still believe in the permanent
standards of God’s law must be very careful not to make ungodly
alliances with those who teach a false religion while still adhering
outwardly to the Ten Commandments.
In the Large Catechism, Luther writes: “There has never been a
people so wicked that it did not establish and maintain some sort of
worship.” He’s right.
Even those who deify and worship sensual pleasure do have a sort
of religion. So called
conservative “people of faith” who reject the merits of Jesus and
who promote some kind of save yourself by your deeds religion are
idolaters. They may make
better citizens than the openly godless hedonists who reign supreme in
the popular culture, but they are no closer to God, despite their
outward adherence to God’s standards of right and wrong. Idolatry
is not primarily a matter of outward worship.
It is a matter of the heart.
What do you fear? What
do you love? What do you
trust? Whatever it is, it
is your god. The
Psalmist says, “The LORD takes pleasure in those who fear Him, in
those who hope in His mercy.” (Psalm 147:11)
Now to fear or to hope or to love are not things anyone can
actually see though they may be expressed by outward acts.
It is perfectly possible for folks to go through motions that are
simply expected by social pressure and not to fear, love, or trust in
God at all. What
do you fear? Do you feel
secure when your bills are paid and you get the raise or the price you
think you need? Do you know
that your life is in good hands after the sick child is feeling better,
but not before? Do you know
that God loves you only when you experience the love of people whom you
admire? Do you want
approval from the crowd so much that you are willing to offend the
majesty of almighty God to get it?
What do you fear? Him
who can destroy the body but not the soul, or him who can destroy both
body and soul in hell? What
do you love? The stuff that
God gives or the God who gives it?
What do you trust? What
you can understand? What
you can control? What you
can see? What you can feel? Idolatry
is in the heart, and it must be uprooted from the heart, and that hurts.
The longer it stays in there without being challenged, the more
it hurts. We are far better
at creating idols than we are at tearing them down.
We make idols out of our money, our health, our children, our
spouse, our farm, our job, and our home on the lake.
We make idols out of our habits, our congregation, our synod, our
pastors and leaders. We make idols because the God whom we cannot see seems not to
care for what we really need. What
he wants seems to be so unpleasant.
What seems to us to be right just seems, well, so right. But
what seems to us is not what is. We
are but a mist over the lake to be dispelled by the rising sun.
We are the grass of the field that is scorched and dried out in
no time at all. The God who
calls on us to serve him only, to worship him only, to trust in him
only, this God in whose name we have been baptized, is the God who also
defines reality for us. “You
shall have no other gods,” he says.
And we shall not. He
will keep on coming to us and make sure of that.
He will keep on tearing out of our hearts the idols we enthrone
in ourselves. He will smash
them to pieces and that will hurt.
Then he will show himself to be our God as he points us to the
cross where he – our true brother and our eternal God – suffered for
us. From that blessed
death, our God shows himself to us as he really and truly is.
And from that wonderful revelation of his grace, we learn how to
worship him as our only God, we learn to fear him, love him, and trust
in him above all things. Amen. The Second Commandment, July 2, 2000 Thou
shalt not take the name of the Lord, thy God, in vain. “You shall not take the name
of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless
who takes His name in vain.” Exodus 20:7 Last week we saw how God gave
the Ten Commandments to a specific nation at a specific time of history.
He gave them through Moses to ancient Israel about 1,400 years
before the birth of Christ. Sometimes
we use the term “moral law” to explain the Ten Commandments.
By “moral” we mean that they are a standard for all human
conduct. The Ten
Commandments aren’t time bound. They
teach permanent truths about what is right and what is wrong.
Right and wrong don’t change. The Ten Commandments served as
civil law for ancient Israel. To
a large extent they still serve as civil law today. For example, the Second Commandment, “Thou shalt not take
the name of the Lord, thy God, in vain,” forbids perjury. That’s still against the law in Minnesota and in every
other state in the Union. Of
course it forbids more than that. Any
misuse of God’s name is a sin, even when it isn’t a crime.
To use God’s name as an expletive, as if it is a four-letter
word, is a sin. When
Christians say “Christ” and “God” as expressions of surprise,
disgust, annoyance, or anger, they dishonor the one whose name they bear
in Holy Baptism. The Second
Commandment forbids every misuse of God’s name.
To curse your neighbor, calling God’s anger down on him, is a
sin. To use God’s name in
service to any kind of lie is a sin.
To say that God said it when God didn’t say it is a sin.
To use God’s name to cover up any kind of wrongdoing is a sin.
And God takes this sin against the Second Commandment seriously:
“The LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.”
The ancient Israelites were
quite legalistic in the way they applied the Second Commandment.
The name of God in the Hebrew of the Old Testament is Jahweh.
Our English language Bibles simply render this as L-O-R-D in all
capital letters. The Hebrew
word, Jahweh, comes from the Hebrew for I AM.
It is the name that God gave to Moses at the burning bush.
The Israelites were so concerned about the guilt they would bring
upon themselves by taking Jahweh’s name in vain that they came up with
a simple solution that would prevent them from ever breaking this
commandment. They never
used the name Jahweh at all. Whenever
they spoke of Jahweh, they called him by name title, “Lord,” instead
of by his personal name, Jahweh. They
figured that they could hardly misuse God’s name if they never used it
at all. But they were wrong.
As with all of the commandments, it is not just a matter of what
we must not do, it is also a matter of must we must do.
And so Luther’s explanation is quite right when it explains
that we must not “curse, swear, use witchcraft, lie, or deceive by
God’s name” and then goes on to say that we must “call upon it in
every trouble, pray, praise, and give thanks.”
To use God’s name in service to a lie or a sin is a sin of
commission. To ignore
God’s name altogether is a sin of omission.
God says, “Call upon me in the day of trouble, I will deliver
you, and you will glorify me.” (Psalm 50:15)
Obviously, using or misusing the
name of God goes much deeper than the mere use or non use of such words
as Lord, God, Christ, Jesus, and so forth.
God’s name is not a magical sound.
God’s name is everything the Word of God says to describe God.
His name is his reputation.
His name has to do with his honor.
The most serious violation of the Second Commandment is not using
God’s name as a cuss word, it is rather attributing to God a teaching
or message that is not from God. In this way God’s reputation suffers among those folks who
believe the teaching comes from God. Luther makes this point in the
Large Catechism on the Second Commandment:
The reason people don’t care
about false doctrine is because they don’t care about God.
They don’t care to honor his name.
The Second Commandment is simply putting into practice the First
Commandment. The First
Commandment deals with the heart. Who you do fear, love, and trust in the most?
To whom do you look for all help in your every need?
On whom do you rely? Your
faith is either in the true God or an idol.
The First Commandment deals with who our God is.
The Second Commandment deals with what we say about him.
Do we talk of him in such a way that his reputation is honored
and magnified and that his name is hallowed, as we pray in the Lord’s
Prayer? Certainly this
requires, first and foremost, that we speak the truth about him.
And surely we cannot speak the truth about God if we don’t know
what the truth is. There are some things about God
that he chooses not to reveal to us.
That’s his business, not ours.
St. Paul puts it this way in today’s Epistle Lesson:
But people aren’t satisfied to
leave the unsearchable judgments of God up to God and so they seek out
information that God forbids them to have.
They consult mediums, astrologers, witches, psychics, and others
who make a living out of defying the Second Commandment. Imagine spending dollars per minute to talk to a psychic who
defies God when you could listen to the pure gospel of Jesus Christ
instead. Sorcery of every
kind and description is sin, and it is no joking matter. The devil and his angels are real enough.
Since the holy angels obey God and surely wouldn’t speak to
people who seek divine guidance in defiance of God, the only possible
source of information through sorcery, fortune telling, seances, and the
like is the devil and his evil angels.
The name of God and the word of
God are tightly joined together. Listen
to how St. Paul connects God’s name with God’s word in his Epistle
to the Romans. For whoever calls upon
the name of the LORD shall be saved.
How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed?
And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard?
And how shall they hear without a preacher?
And how shall they preach unless they are sent? . . . So then
faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. (Romans
10:13-17) Calling on God’s name is
nothing more than an expression of faith.
Faith comes from hearing the gospel that is preached.
So to use God’s name faithfully is to pray, praise, and give
thanks to the one who speaks his word of the gospel to us. The greatest worship outwardly
is the preaching of the gospel. The
greatest worship inwardly is the believing of the gospel.
The way we use God’s name simply reflects what we believe about
God. Today in the Northern Circuit of
the ELS it will be our privilege to witness the installation of a vicar
and the ordination of a pastor. Folks
have so many opinions about the ministry that one could talk all day
about them. But the Bible
is quite clear about this office and why Christ instituted it. He wants God’s name hallowed, blessed, praised, and adored
by God’s holy people. And
there is only one way that will happen.
The pure, wholesome, saving gospel of Jesus Christ must be
preached. The law of God shows us a
goodness and justice and majesty of God that mustn’t ever be
compromised. God’s law
reflects the perfection of God’s holy nature, and any compromise of
God’s law is to take his name in vain.
No preacher has the right to amend God’s commandments to make
them more popular. That is
taking God’s name in vain. When
the law hurts those whom the preacher doesn’t want to hurt, he had
better remember who put him in the Pulpit and follow his orders.
The law does hurt, but that’s not the fault of God’s holy law
of God’s perfection. It’s
the fault of sinful men, women, and children. But it is the faithless preacher
who relies on the law of God for spiritual growth.
It is the hireling who avoids the scandal of the cross.
True Christian preaching that honors God’s name and extols
God’s goodness is the preaching of the crucifixion of Jesus.
There alone is God’s goodness really seen it its true and
eternal purity. Our God is
full of mercy and compassion. Folks
just talk about feeling your pain.
They don’t really feel it and they couldn’t if they wanted
to. But God joined himself
to our own flesh and blood and became one of us.
He joined us as a man and he suffered.
He felt our pain. He faced the curses of the whole world against the holy God.
He, the pure, innocent, God-man, bore the curse of Almighty God
against sinners. This is
what the Bible says:
So he faced not only the curses
of men, but also the curse of God against sinners.
He faced it and he bore it and he took it away from us.
The Second Commandment meets its goal when we with unclean lips
and corrupt hearts lay before our gracious God all of our sins of
thought, word, and deed, and we listen in humble faith to his words of
forgiveness. To preach and
to believe that gospel is the goal of the Second Commandment.
Believing that for Christ’s sake all our sins are forgiven, we
have peace with God, and we have a home in heaven forever, is the
foundation and strength of all our prayers, praise and thanksgiving to
God. Amen. The
Third Commandment, July 9, 2000 Remember
the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. “Remember the Sabbath day, to
keep it holy. Six days you
shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of
the LORD your God. In it
you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your
manservant, nor your maidservant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who
is within your gates. For in six days the LORD made the heaven and the earth, the
sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed
it.” Exodus 20:8-11 These words forbid working on
Saturday. When God gave
this commandment to the children of Israel, he wanted them to take a day
off of work so that they would have the time and opportunity to hear
God’s word and to worship God together as his people.
God explained to them why they
could not work on Saturday. God
himself rested on Saturday from his work in creating the world.
When God’s people rested on that same day they were confessing
their faith in their Creator who had called them out of slavery in Egypt
into the freedom that belongs to the children of God.
They were confessing their faith in the one true God and they
were rejecting the gods of the Gentiles as idols.
They were also receiving spiritual rest and peace.
When they rested from physical labor, this served the higher
purpose of finding rest for their souls in the gracious promises of God. God chose the day of rest for
Israel. It was to be
Saturday, not Wednesday or Sunday, but Saturday.
God said it and that settled it. Some folks, such as the Seventh
Day Adventists, insist that God intended that Christians should also
obey the Sabbath Law given by God to Moses and to set aside Saturday as
the day of worship. They
insist that the seventh day Sabbath is a part of God’s moral law. But they are wrong. The
moral law is that law of God that is not time bound in any way but
applies to all people of all times equally.
The command not to work on Saturday and to set this day aside as
the day of worship is not a part of God’s moral law.
The Bible says: “Therefore let no one judge you in food or in
drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, which are
shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ.” (Colossians
2:16-17) There was good reason for those
preparing for the coming of the Savior to rest on the day that God
created the world. They
were not only confessing that God had made them, but they were
confessing as well that they had sinned and fallen from the perfection
in which God made them. They
gathered together to confess their sins.
And they confessed their faith that Shiloh, the Prince of Peace,
the Messiah and Savior of the world would come to bring them true
spiritual rest and peace. They did not work on Saturday as a confession of the pure
doctrine of salvation by grace alone.
Just as they did no physical labor on Saturday, we cannot gain
heaven by any amount of spiritual labor, striving, or struggling.
We are saved by God’s grace alone.
Jesus does the work. We
don’t. The Bible says,
“But to him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the
ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness.” (Romans 4:5)
There can be no true spiritual rest or peace except that which
Jesus Christ provides. He
is our true Sabbath rest. So
we sing, “In Jesus I find rest and peace.”
Jesus seeks us out a finds us when we are lost – like the sheep
and the coin – and when he finds us and takes us home the angels in
heaven rejoice. We need Jesus to find rest and
peace. Jesus has chosen to
be present with us whenever and wherever his holy gospel is purely
proclaimed and his sacraments are rightly administered.
Jesus said “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden,
and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28)
Jesus stood before his disciples on the first Easter Sunday and
displayed the wounds of his crucifixion on the cross. He said, “Peace to you!
As the Father has sent Me, I also send you.” Jesus gave to his disciples this ministry of the gospel.
He said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.
If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you
retain the sins of any, they are retained.”
Jesus has joined himself to the preaching of his gospel.
Jesus still gives rest and peace wherever his gracious words of
life are proclaimed. We honor the Sabbath Day today,
not by resting from all our labors on Saturday, but by holding the
preaching of God’s word as a precious thing, the most precious thing
we could receive from God in this life.
Obeying the Third Commandment deals with much more than where you
happen to be on a Sunday morning, it deals with how you regard God’s
word. Do you despise it and
think it is quite an ordinary or even a boring or useless thing?
Do you think that you can live without hearing the voice of your
Shepherd? Or do you love
God’s words as the voice that gives your soul true peace?
Do you know that if you don’t hear the pure gospel of Jesus
Christ – and not just once in a while, but regularly and often – you
will stray and get lost? The
gospel is the power of God to save everyone who believes because the
gospel reveals Christ’s doing and Christ’s dying for us.
The gospel gives Christ to you.
Jesus finds you in your sin and he covers you with the spotless
robe of his own righteousness. He
covers your shame, your failure, and your guilt.
We need this gospel. This
is why God gave us the Third Commandment.
That we may receive what Jesus wants to give us. There was a time in America when
folks honored Sunday as a day of rest for the sake of those folks who
went to church on Sundays. God
never told the church to worship on Sunday, and the church certainly has
no authority to require anything that God’s word doesn’t require,
but God does require us to hear his holy word.
Since the First Century the church has gathered together on the
first day of the week for divine services.
Church was on Sunday because Jesus rose on Sunday and first
appeared to his disciples on Sunday.
Christ’s church gathers together to hear the gospel and to
receive Christ’s body and blood in the Lord’s Supper and thereby to
see Jesus. Every Sunday
service is another appearance of the risen Savior to his people.
Jesus told Mary Magdalene not to cling to him after he had risen
from the dead. When the
disciples on the road to Emmaus finally recognized the risen Jesus at
the breaking of the bread he immediately disappeared from their sight.
He was teaching them and us that we should not expect to see him
as he was seen during his earthly ministry so many years ago.
Today we see him under the humble form of simple water used by
his command and joined to his saving word.
Today we see him in the preaching of the minister who teaches the
words of the Holy Scriptures in Jesus’ name and by Jesus’ divine
authority. Today we see him
under the forms of bread and wine that are indeed without any doubt the
body that was nailed to Calvary and the blood that flowed from his
wounds to save us. Wherever
these precious means of grace are given to us, it is Jesus who is giving
himself to us. We come to
church to find Jesus. And
here he is. Years ago Sunday morning
belonged to the Church. Times
have changed. Everything
under the sun competes with church, even on a Sunday morning. Buying, selling, hockey, basketball, farming, driving to the
lake, or just sleeping in because it’s the only day it can be done,
all come before going to church to hear God’s word and to sing praises
to him. The service isn’t
supposed to last too long. The
sermon is supposed to make the worshipper feel good about himself.
The preacher isn’t supposed to make folks feel bad about
themselves, as if they have sins for which they must repent!
Since the historic liturgy of the church focuses so much on
things like begging for mercy, praising the Holy Trinity, and asking God
for forgiveness, why that, too, must be tossed out in favor of
“contemporary” services that are supposedly more “positive.”
Folks today are looking for something to enhance their
self-esteem so they can feel good about being spiritual.
The market demands that the Sunday service change to meet the
so-called needs of religious seekers.
But what if the seekers aren’t seeking Jesus?!
Woe to the church that doesn’t offer them Jesus!
Better to stay at home and watch the Sunday news or go out and
contribute something of benefit to the economy than to attend a church
that doesn’t proclaim the crucifixion of Jesus Christ for sinners.
It is only in the wounds of Jesus that we find any peace or rest
for our souls. David Chytraeus, one of the
Lutheran fathers of the 16th Century, lists six good works
that are required of us in the Third Commandment.
First, the preservation of the ministry of the Gospel.
We are commanded to call pastors who will preach the gospel and
administer the sacraments faithfully.
Second, the faithfulness of those who preach the gospel.
We read in 1 Corinthians 4:1-2, “Let a man so consider us, as
ministers of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God.
Moreover it is require in stewards that one be found faithful.” Faithful, not successful – we let God worry about the
success of his word. Third,
those who hear the word are to hear it with care and diligence, taking
it to heart. Fourth, those
who hear the word are to honor and obey their ministers when they speak
God’s word, for it is God who speaks through his faithful ministers.
Fifth, Christians are commanded to give generously of their
income to support the preaching and teaching of God’s word.
Sixth, we are to follow the ceremonies that we, in Christian
freedom, establish for the purpose of giving and receiving the word of
God. This is done according
to St. Paul’s command that everything in the church be done decently
and in good order. This is a good summary of what
this commandment requires us of. But
a better summary might simply be the words of Jesus, “My sheep hear my
voice, and I know them, and they follow me, and I give them eternal
life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any man snatch them out
of my hand.” We come to
church to find Jesus, our Shepherd.
We come to listen to him and to sing his praises.
In contemplating the suffering of Jesus, the Christian poet spoke
for us all: Here
might I stay and sing, No story so divine, The
Fourth Commandment, July 16, 2000 Honor
thy father and thy mother that it may be well “Honor your father and your
mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the LORD your God
is giving you.” Exodus 20:12 The first three commandments
teach us how we should love God. These
commandments are called the first table of the law, because they show us
our first duty, which is to God. The
next seven commandments teach us how we should love our neighbor.
They are called the second table of the law, because they show us
our second duty, which is to our neighbor.
We don’t decide for ourselves what it means to love God.
God tells us what it means.
It means that we have no other gods before him.
It means that we do not misuse his name.
It means that we gladly hear and learn preaching and his word.
That’s what it means to love God. And we don’t decide for
ourselves what it means to love our neighbor.
God tells us what it means.
It means we honor our father and mother.
It means we don’t murder, commit adultery, steal, tell lies
about our neighbor, or try to deprive him of what is his. Love is a verb. It
is an active verb. And our
neighbor is not the fellow down the street and around the corner. He’s the one living in the same house with us, the one who
works next to us, the one we deal with every day.
To love your neighbor is the most concrete expression of your
love for God. And,
as they say, charity (which means love) begins at home with Mom and Dad. There is a reason why God gave
the Fourth Commandment as the first commandment in the second table of
the law. It is the
foundation for what follows. It
is at home that we learn who neighbor is and how God wants us to love
our neighbor. It is by
learning to honor our father and our mother that we learn to love our
neighbor. And this is how
we learn to fear and love God. All government is God’s
servant. The most basic
government that God has established in this world is the rule of fathers
and mothers over their children. This
relationship is more than a biological one.
God himself wants us to honor him, our Creator, by honoring those
whom he used to bring us into this world.
He wants us to see his own majesty, glory, honor, and beauty in
the parents he has given to us. He
wants us to see beyond their sins, their mistakes, their frailties,
their faults, and anything else in them that would distract us from our
duty to honor them. He
wants us to see him in our fathers and mothers.
Look to your father and your mother and consider that they speak
and act for God himself. Yes, even when they make
mistakes. Even when they
don’t understand or know what is best for you, they nevertheless hold
a sacred office that God Almighty has given to them, and if we are to
honor God we must honor our father and our mother.
God rules this world. But
he doesn’t do so through angels, he does so through human beings. First and foremost among those whom God has chosen to govern
this world are fathers and mothers. The Fourth Commandment does not
say, “Honor your parents.” It
says, “Honor your father and your mother.”
Fathers and mothers are not interchangeable. Have you noticed how, in the last few years, the word
“parent” has become a verb that applies to fathers and mothers in
the same way? But there is
a difference between a father and a mother.
The father is the head of the home, not by human evolution, but
by divine decree. The
Fourth Commandment places a heavy responsibility on fathers.
God expects you fathers to provide for your children.
He expects you to work so that your family will be cared for.
He expects you to feed your family also with his holy word,
because that is the means by which the Holy Spirit creates new and
eternal life in them. The
father is to be the pastor of his own home and family.
This is the real measure of a man.
It is not how well he holds his own in the presence of his peers
as the guys get together and talk about what guys do.
No, it is how well he serves his wife and children by caring for
their needs of body and soul. This
means that the Christian father must take care to set a good example for
his wife and his children by faithfully attending the services of
God’s house and leading his family in worship at home.
This is how children learn to honor their fathers. The Bible teaches us to honor
our mothers. This requires
fathers to treat their wives with respect so that their children learn
from them how to treat a lady. I
will never forget the words I heard years ago spoken to me by an old man
from a hospital bed. He
said: “The best gift a father can give to his children is to love
their mother.” He was right. It
is the father who teaches the children – by his own example – how to
honor their mother. This commandment also requires
mothers to submit with grace and humility to the leadership of their
husbands because, as the Bible says, the husband is the head of the wife
even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is also
the Savior. Christian
mothers aren’t required by God to make money.
I’ve never found that in the Bible, though the father surely is
required to provide for his family.
If he won’t, the Bible says he’s denied the faith.
But the Christian mother is praised when she manages the home,
provides an example for the children, and teaches the word of God to her
little ones. Lois and
Eunice received apostolic recognition, not for any great social or
political contributions they made, but for their faith that they passed
on to their grandson and son, Timothy. If children had perfect parents,
they would gladly honor them. They
don’t. And they don’t
gladly honor them either. This
is why we need this commandment. We
need it, not because we are willing to obey it, but precisely because we
don’t want to. Yet today
parents think their duty is to provide their children with the proper
amount of “self-esteem”
instead of to exercise loving but firm discipline.
Parents throw up their hands is helpless resignation to their
parental failure, as they hire other people to raise their own children.
Meanwhile, children are often set against their own parents, as
what their parents teach them at home is deliberately undermined by
institutions of education controlled by the State.
But the education of children is the duty of the parents. God himself said so after giving the law a second time in the
book of Deuteronomy, God said: “And
these words which I command you today shall be in your heart; you shall
teach them diligently to your children.” (Deuteronomy 6:6) Our children do not belong to
the State. They belong to
God. And God hasn’t given
us the right to hand our children over to the tender mercies of an
imposed State religion of secular humanism, socialism, moral relativism,
evolutionism, or any other “ism” that contradicts the teaching of
God’s word. Our children
will never learn to honor us as the representatives of Almighty God
unless and until we act as if we really are representatives of God.
The best teacher of the Fourth Commandment is not the pastor.
It is the fathers and the mothers of the children. The Fourth Commandment requires
us to obey the rules whether of State, the school, or the place of
employment. We don’t obey
the rules for the sake of the rules (which could be and often are
foolish and unreasonable) but for the sake of the Fourth Commandment,
that is, for the sake of honoring God.
The Fourth Commandment has a
promise attached to it: “That it may be well with thee and thou mayest
live long on the earth.” What
is the average life expectancy of those who grow up fatherless without
any clear parental authority? It’s
shorter than the average. But
God is not just making a sociological observation.
He is giving us a promise. If
you honor those whom God has given to you to provide you with the needs
of this life, God will honor you with the blessings of this life.
Anarchy, or mob rule, cheapens life.
Government is a blessing from God, and he wants those in
authority to be honored by his children.
This is why we remember our leaders in the General Prayer of the
church. We pray for them
even if we didn’t vote for them. When my family lived in Racine,
we lived in an old city neighborhood that was rather poor.
Most of the children did not have fathers living with them.
It was heartbreaking to see so many young boys growing up without
any clear direction from a father.
I don’t need to listen to the experts tell me why crime, drugs,
sexual promiscuity, violence, theft, and blasphemous talk are so common
in neighborhoods across America. I
know why. The Fourth
Commandment is ignored and denied. The promise God attached to the Fourth Commandment is very
earnest and sincere. If
everyone, including the government, the schools, and other institutions
would support the Fourth Commandment, respecting as primary and
fundamental the God-ordained relationship between fathers, mothers, and
their children, God’s promise would be fulfilled. But only for this life.
And a long life on this earth isn’t good enough.
There comes the time when we must look at the casket.
There we will see Dad. There
we will see Mom. And while
we may thank God for them, they will still be gone.
Buried. Remembered,
but not by most folks. Our
children may remember them, but our grandchildren probably won’t.
As the Psalmist wrote:
Only God’s word endures.
Only the promises guaranteed by Jesus Christ can guide you to
heaven and to eternal life. Your
obedience is a rotten foundation upon which to stand if you hope to find
your way to heaven on the last day.
But Christ’s obedience has passed the test of God’s law.
He honored his Father in heaven, obeying his holy will.
He willingly submitted to the death of the cross in obedience to
his Father. He did it
willingly out of his pure, eternal, perfect, holy love for his Father.
And Christ also obeyed his dear mother, submitting himself to
her, serving her, caring for her needs, even as he was bearing the sin
of the whole world on the cross. He
entrusted to St. John the care of his mother.
As he was suffering for our disobedience to the Fourth
Commandment, he was obeying it to the spirit and to the letter.
He offered to his Father his obedience to replace our
disobedience and this is how he has gained for us the promise of the
Fourth Commandment. Specifically
“that your days may be long upon the land which the LORD your God is
giving you.” But this land is not a small piece of real estate in the
Middle East. It is heaven.
It is a place of pure and holy joy.
It is where we honor our God with our whole hearts all the time
and always find perfect joy in doing so.
It is where love forever blots out any memory of hatred,
bitterness, guilt, or regret. It is that home purchased for us by the obedience of Jesus. It is yours, dear Christian.
It is your true home. Remember
that when your home life is not what it ought to be.
Remember that God himself covers the sins you commit against one
another in the family. And
he calls you here on Sunday to take his word for it that you are indeed
forgiven. He wants you to
know that he has a home prepared for you where your sins cannot enter,
but you can, through faith in the One who purchased this home for you:
Jesus Christ, the obedient One. He
is the One who will take us there.
He prepared that place as he took away our sin on Calvary.
He will return to take us there some day.
And for that day we, God’s family, pray, Come, Lord Jesus, come
quickly! Amen! The
Fifth Commandment, July 30, 2000 Thou
shalt not kill. “You shall not murder.”
Exodus 20:13 Human life is valuable because
God himself places value on it. It
is not valuable because human beings place value on it.
If my neighbor does not value my life, my life is no less
valuable. Some folks think
that people of a different race, social standing, language, or culture
are not as valuable as they are. But
the God who created us is the one who decides our value.
With all the talk these days about “values” the first
question we should ask when we hear that familiar word is “whose
values?” God’s values?
Or the values of a godless culture?
There was a time in our country
when the civil law reflected God’s value of human life.
And the law is a teacher. Even
when the law cannot be enforced, it stands as a teacher of what is right
and wrong. That is, if the law is in agreement with what is right and
what is wrong. The damage
done by the abortion laws in America has been even deeper than the
slaughter of millions of unborn children.
The killing of those babies has had the full sanction of the law.
Indeed, the Supreme Court of the United States presumes to forbid
any state from passing laws to protect the unborn, most recently
striking down a law that forbade “partial-birth abortion” which is
just another form of infanticide. Legal
abortion has killed more than babies.
It has killed America’s soul.
A nation that will not even try to protect its weakest members
from such criminal destruction doesn’t deserve to survive as a nation. You shall not murder.
You shall not murder because God made us in his image and to
murder a human being is therefore a direct attack on our Creator.
Murder is a denial of the First Commandment in which God says,
“I am the LORD your God, you shall have no other gods before me.”
Legal abortion reflects America’s rejection of the Christian
faith. America has rejected the God of the living, the God who
created us in his own image, the God of the prophets and apostles, the
God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Legal abortion is a direct attack on the Christian faith and the
Christian Church. Don’t
be misled by double-talking politicians and hypocritical religious
leaders who with a pious air mouth their “personal” opposition to
abortion while insisting that a woman has the “right to choose”.
No woman has the right to kill the fruit of her womb.
The only rights we have are those rights given to us by God, and
God never gave a woman the right to kill her baby.
God says in Deuteronomy 32:39,
Yes, the law of the state is a
teacher and this teacher is a false teacher.
Every Christian must oppose legal abortion. Not that this makes one a Christian. Orthodox Jews, Muslims, Mormons, and Jehovah’s Witnesses
are not Christians, yet they all oppose abortion.
Even a religion invented by men will oppose abortion, as long as
those men have a conscience. But
no Christian may favor the right of anyone to kill an unborn baby who is
no threat to anyone. We are not animals.
Jesus Christ, our God and our brother, did not become an animal
when he came into this world sharing our flesh and blood.
He became a man. And
he redeemed men, women, and children by his holy live and innocent
death. Those who favor the
so-called “right” to kill those made in God’s image display to all
the world that they have fallen away from the teaching of Christ. Jesus commanded his disciples to
let the little ones come to him. Jesus
invites them into his holy church by means of the washing of holy
baptism. What a crime that
these little ones should be slaughtered in the name of freedom. It is no freedom at all that permits the killing of the
living but unborn. It is
slavery to the culture of death. But it is easy to love the
unborn baby of someone we have never met and for whom we will never bear
any responsibility. And it
is easy to stand in judgment against the sins that we don’t commit. If only the law always pointed its figure at the other guy!
But this law against murder accuses, indicts, tries, and condemns
us all. It requires that we
love our enemies. It
requires that we earnestly seek out what it good for the one who is out
to hurt us. The Fifth
Commandment does not apply only to those whose violence needs to be
checked by external restraints. It
applies to us who keep our hatred well hidden from view and simply
harbor evil against our neighbor within.
It applies to us who don’t really care what happens to our
neighbor as long as it doesn’t affect us. Love does no harm to the
neighbor. That’s what the
Apostle writes in Romans 13. This
sums up the law. We do no
harm. We help the fellow
who needs our help. We help
him without asking for payment, reward, praise, or anything in return.
We help because this is what we would want him to do.
In everything, we ask what we would want our neighbor to do for
us. This is what we do for
him. It has been called the
Golden Rule. It is really
nothing else than the second table of God’s law: Love your neighbor as
yourself. Slapping, hitting, punching,
shoving, threatening, bullying, and saying words designed in evoke fear
in another are all sins against the Fifth Commandment. Sometimes fathers hide behind their authority under the
Fourth Commandment to break the Fifth Commandment.
Sometimes men think they can abuse their wives with impunity, as
if their apologies can undo the harm they’ve done. Sometimes drug or alcohol abuse leads to violent behavior.
Cursing, yelling, screaming, and destroying property in an angry
rage will often lead to physical violence.
All of this is forbidden by the Fifth Commandment. The Fifth Commandment forbids
private revenge. Listen to
the words of St. Paul. Repay no one evil for
evil. Have regard for good
things in the sight of all men. If
it is possible, as much as depends on your, live peaceable with all men.
Beloved do no avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath;
for it is written, Vengeance is Mine, I will repay, says the Lord.
Therefore if your enemy hungers, feed him; if he thirsts, give
him a drink, for in so doing you will heap coals of fire on his head.
Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. (Romans
12:17-21) God forbids private revenge.
He has given the government the authority to punish those who do
wrong as St. Paul says clearly in Romans chapter 13.
The government carries the sword as God’s servant to punish
those who commit crimes. So we entrust justice to the governing authorities because
God forbids private revenge. The government also has the
right to inflict the death penalty.
This has always been the case, from the very beginning.
Many hundreds of years before God gave the Ten Commandments to
Moses he gave human government the authority to put murderers to death.
He spoke these words to Noah. Whoever sheds man’s
blood, by man his blood shall be shed; for in the image of God he made
man. (Genesis 9:6) The death penalty, when applied
rightly by the government to those who are guilty of murder, is based on
respect for the value of human life.
Since we are made in God’s image, our lives cannot be taken
away from us. Those who
kill another must pay for the crime with their own lives. The old King James Version of
the Bible renders the Fifth Commandment, “Thou shalt not kill.”
Most recent translations render it, “You shall not murder.”
The word for “kill” here means murder.
It doesn’t mean killing animals, for example.
And it doesn’t refer to the legal killing of someone in
self-defense, in a just war, or as an agent of the government when the
government is taking a life in a lawful manner.
There are many social and political issues involved in the Fifth
Commandment that we could discuss at length: What is a just war? When
should we fight to defend ourselves and when should we not?
When is the death penalty the wrong penalty?
The Bible isn’t written to be an answer book for every legal
and political and social issue. In fact, the law the Bible
teaches isn’t the primary purpose for the Bible, either.
The written word of God was written primarily that we might come
to know and trust the incarnate Word, Jesus Christ.
He faced death, you know. He
faced the death penalty. He
faced it though he was innocent. But
he faced it because he chose to. He
chose to face it for two reasons. First
because he loved his Father who wanted him to die.
Second because he loved us who deserved to die. The Father wanted him to die
because in this way he would remove from us our death.
The soul that sins, it shall die.
We sinned. We faced
death. There was no way
around it. We had to die.
The law had spoken and the law is divine, and cannot be set
aside. So the Father wanted
his dearly beloved Son to die in our place, as our substitute.
But he did not force him to do so against his will.
He did not demand anything from his Son that his Son was
unwilling to give. Rather, in a mysterious and wonderful manner, the Father’s
love and the Son’s love, the Father’s purpose and the Son’s
purpose, the Father’s will and the Son’s will, blended perfectly
from all eternity into the choice, God’s choice, God’s freedom of
choice, for us, for life, forever. What a wonder!
The world cannot understand it.
The various religions of the world are scandalized by it.
The self-righteous heart despises it.
But the soul that is burdened by sins and guilt adores it, kneels
before it, and takes it all in. I
am talking about the time and the place when Jesus Christ was killed.
Man killed him. God
killed him. But while
mankind killed him in hatred and from a murderous heart, God killed him
out of a love so deep that it had to plunge right into the very depths
of our sin to destroy our sin at its root and heart.
God was killed. The
God who cannot die died. The
God who cannot suffer suffered. The
God who cannot sin bore all sin and he bore it in the only way possible,
as the offering for sin. Modern theology hates this holy
truth, but old-fashioned sinners who know their need for forgiveness
love it. The truth is that
there can be only one solution for our sins and that is the crucifixion
of the Son of God. And it
is the solution. His death
has destroyed our death. So we go to him and bow our
heads before him. We kneel
at his Altar, confessing that we have not loved our neighbor, that our
hearts are stained with the same sin as that which has so soiled and
callused the conscience of our nation.
But we come in humble faith that God will not let this sin
destroy our souls. He will
give us to eat and to drink of the crucified and risen body and blood of
Jesus which has secured for us life in the face of death and forgiveness
of all our sins. We come to receive life.
And God gives us life. He
gives us eternal life. Amen. The
Sixth Commandment, August 13, 2000 Thou
shalt not commit adultery. “You shall not commit
adultery.” Exodus 20:14 The reason it is called adultery
is because it adulterates something that is pure.
Marriage is pure because God is pure and God made marriage.
If we evolved from the animals, then marriage must have evolved,
too. In that case, marriage
would not be an institution of God.
It isn’t surprising to see that as folks are so thoroughly
taught that they descended from animals they should act like animals,
especially when it comes to sexual behavior. There is certainly nothing wrong with a tomcat acting like a
tomcat. He isn’t made in
God’s image, after all, and is not capable of sin.
We don’t insist that cats or dogs or rabbits get married or
remain faithful to their mates. They
are animals. But we are not.
And for us whom God has made, the Sixth Commandment applies.
“You shall not commit adultery.” God gave the Sixth Commandment
for the purpose of defending, supporting, and encouraging marriage.
Several years ago, the famous movie star, Elisabeth Taylor, was
asked why she had been married so many times.
“Because I believe in marriage,” was her reply.
Well she’s just a little confused.
Marriage is a life-long union of one man and one woman.
The two shall become one flesh, God said.
Jesus gave strict instructions against divorce precisely because
it is God who joins the husband and the wife together to make them one
flesh. While marriage is a legal contract that obligates each party
of the contract, it isn’t like buying a car that you might want to
test drive beforehand and then sell when it no longer pleases you.
God marries the woman to the man and the man to the woman and God
thereby makes something that did not exist before. Marriage is not a sacrament.
A sacrament is a sacred act, instituted by God, given to
Christ’s church here on earth, through which God gives us his grace
and eternal life. You will
search in vain through the New Testament to see where Jesus gave to his
church the authority to marry people. God gave this authority to the state, not to the church.
Furthermore, while marriage certainly requires God’s grace, it
doesn’t give it. Marriage
is one of those blessings for which we pray when we pray for our daily
bread. Included under this
petition, the Catechism lists “a pious spouse.” It was my privilege a couple of weeks ago to officiate at the
wedding of Jamie and Denise DeLorme here at River Heights Lutheran
Church. The authority to
preach God’s word at that wedding was given to me by God through River
Heights Lutheran Church. The
authority to marry Jamie and Denise was given to me by God through the
State of Minnesota. The government is a gift from
God and the government has a divinely given duty to regulate marriage.
Now obviously, no government can change a divine institution.
Just as the church has no authority to change the elements of the
Lord’s Supper and still retain the Lord’s Supper, likewise the state
had no right to say, for example, that a man can marry a man or a woman
can marry a woman. If the
state said so, it wouldn’t make it so.
It’s like when churches presume to put women in the pulpit to
preach. That doesn’t make
them pastors, because God instituted the office of the ministry and he
excludes women from this office. The institution of God
determines what it is. Whether
we are talking about an institution within the church, like the
sacraments or the ministry, or an institution within the state, like
marriage, if it is a divine institution it is God who determines what it
is, how it is to be used, and what benefits it gives.
God determines this. We
don’t. If we could learn
that simple lesson, life would be so much easier and happier. God has determined when and
where sexual relations are to be enjoyed: only within the marriage bond.
The issue of whether or not the couple is “in love” is beside
the point. The Bible
doesn’t tell a man to love a woman and then marry the woman he loves.
It tells him to love the woman he has already married: his wife. In the New Testament Greek,
there is a word for the romantic or sexual love and there is a word for
brotherly or familial love. Neither
of these words is used in St. Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians where he
tells husbands to love their wives.
Rather, he uses the word that describes Christ’s unconditional,
self-sacrificing love for his church.
This is a love that does. It
doesn’t just feel. It is
a love that puts the needs of the beloved above any other consideration. One of my favorite love songs is
“When a Man Loves a Woman,” by Percy Sledge. It so perfectly describes the true nature of romantic love.
It is unreasonable. It
is blind. It brings euphoric joy that has no rhyme or reason to it.
It is without a doubt the most irrational of all human emotions,
though it parades itself as “true” and “faithful”.
In fact it is as transient as youth.
It is here one day and it is gone the next. And it’s not something that
you can command anyone to have or do.
You either have it or you don’t.
Mom says to her daughter, “Why don’t you go out with so and
so, he’s from a very nice family.”
But her daughter simply has no interest in so and so.
There’s no spark at all. That
spark or romance is often called “love” and this is what confuses so
many people, including Christians.
They think that this kind of love is what will make their
marriage a success. But
this kind of love is not and cannot be the foundation for a happy
marriage. This kind of love
asks what the lover can give me. That
is the wrong question. Christian
love, the love commanded in God’s word, asks what I can give for the
one I love. That is the
right question. Willful and stubborn people
presume to change God’s definition of love.
They want love to serve them.
God defines love to serve the neighbor, not the self.
The popular view of love defines love precisely in the opposite
way. We want what we want
when we want it and so we will rebel against anyone who says no to us.
That, of course, is idolatry, because God alone is the One to
whom we must never say no. The
new morality or the old immorality rejects the authority of God.
The disciples of this religion see something and they want it so
they take it. They deny the
obvious fact that they are simply using someone else to pleasure
themselves. They cover up their selfishness by redefining it as a
meaningful relationship. But it is meaningless.
When the pleasure is gone there is nothing to show for it but a
vague sense of bitterness that it is gone.
Those addicted to the sins of the flesh are constantly looking
for what they cannot have. God knew what he was doing when
he joined the intimacy of marriage to the conceiving and bearing of
children. Marriage is the
foundation for the family and the family is the foundation for all civil
authority, peace, and wellbeing. God
knew what he was doing when he invented marriage for us.
He gave us something uniquely beautiful. In fact, only a Christian who has been ushered into the holy
mysteries of the faith by the Holy Ghost can really understand the full
beauty of marriage. Christ Jesus gave his life for
his church. She was homely,
ugly, in fact and a faithless woman without any virtue at all.
But his love covered all of her sin.
Not just emotionally, not just somewhere in the hidden recesses
of his heart, but openly, there in public, before the whole world.
There as he was extended up for public shame and ridicule as a
criminal nailed to the cross, there it was that his bride’s shame,
guilt, and sin was borne, fully and finally.
There it was that he gave his life for his church. And in Holy Baptism, he
sprinkled that holy, precious blood upon her.
He, who gave himself for her, now gives himself to her.
There in that washing, the church, the bride of Christ, is born.
She is born anew, and she is so very beautiful.
She has no sin. Her
unfaithfulness is forgotten. Her
ugliness is no more, replaced by a beauty that far transcends the beauty
of the most beautiful women in the world. And so he cherishes her and
serves her in love. And she
submits to him by trusting him, explicitly, implicitly, and completely.
She trusts in the one who gave her her identity.
She receives the one who gave her his name.
She is the Holy Christian Church!
She is the bride of Christ!
She lives to serve the one who gave his life for her and to her. And this beautiful mystery is
the very pattern that our God has established for the Christian
marriage. Can you imagine
Jesus divorcing his wife that he purchased with his own blood?
Impossible! Can you
imagine the church leaving Jesus for another man?
Impossible! No, this
union of Christ with the church he loves is the union that now
sanctifies every single Christian in the world. And it most surely sanctifies our marriages. Your husband will not love
you as Jesus does, but you submit to him because you have Jesus and it
is for Jesus’ sake that you receive your husband as your head.
He may not deserve it, but Christ surely does.
Your wife will not be in your eyes nearly so precious as she is
in God’s eyes, so you must see her as God sees her.
She is holy, blameless, lovely. Only one thing will make us what
we must be. That is the
gospel of the forgiveness of sins.
This is why we treasure it so.
It tells us that our sins are forgiven because Jesus bore them.
It empowers us to forgive one another.
And that is power, dear friends in Christ, that is real power.
To forgive your spouse is to claim him or her for yourself, just
as Jesus has done for us. It is a power that you have only when you have first received
it from God. So we come
here to receive the forgiveness purchased by Christ’s blood.
They we can give it away to one another in our homes where we so
sorely need it. Amen. The
Seventh Commandment, August 27, 2000 Thou
shalt not steal. “You shall not steal.”
Exodus 20:15 God owns everything.
He says through the psalmist, “For every beast of the forest is
mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills.
I know all the birds of the mountains, and the wild beasts of the
field are mine. If I were
hungry, I would not tell you; for the world is mine, and all its
fullness.” (Psalm 50:10-12) We
will not understand what the Seventh Commandment means until we know
that everything we have and everything our neighbor has belongs to God. God teaches the sanctity of
private property by giving us this commandment. If there were no such thing as private property there would
be no such thing as stealing. You
can hardly steal from your neighbor what doesn’t belong to him. But private property is not absolute. Everything we have is God’s.
In Genesis chapter one we see how God blessed Adam and Eve and
gave them dominion over the creation.
It is under our care. We
are stewards of what actually belongs to God. The Seventh Commandment
teaches us certain virtues, such as contentment, industry, generosity,
frugality, and hospitality. It
teaches contentment. “But
godliness with contentment is great gain.
For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain that we
can carry nothing out. And
having food and clothing, with these we shall be content.” (1 Timothy
6:6-8) It teaches industry,
or the willingness to work to get what we want.
“If anyone will not work, neither shall he eat.” (2
Thessalonians 3:10) It
teaches generosity. We are
not merely to pay what we owe and meet our legal obligations, but we are
to give more than legally required.
Jesus says, “Give, and it will be given to you: good measure,
pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your
bosom.” (Luke 6:38) It
teaches frugality; not wasting what God has given.
It teaches hospitality. In
Hebrews 13:2 we read, “Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so
doing some have unwittingly entertained angels.” Above all, the Seventh
Commandment requires us to love our neighbor. To gain materially at the
expense of our neighbor is to steal from him.
But why would we want to take advantage of our neighbor, to gain
at his loss, to benefit at his expense?
Because we don’t love our neighbor as ourselves.
Because we love what our neighbor has more than we love the One
who gave it to him, that is, we love the creation more than the Creator.
That is idolatry. A
greedy person is an idolater, St. Paul says. The Seventh Commandment is the
foundation for any number of laws that the State enforces.
God has established the civil authorities to protect life and
property. The details of
what these laws should be aren’t set down in the Bible, but when the
government arrests, prosecutes, convicts, and punishes thieves it does
God’s work. Property
represents time and labor. To
steal someone’s property is to steal his time and labor.
It is to rob him of part of his life.
It is to oppose God Himself who gives us life and everything that
supports life. The Bible teaches that the rich
should help the poor. The
Seventh Commandment requires charity, almsgiving, and hospitality toward
those who are less fortunate. St.
James, as he argues that faith without works is dead, points
specifically to providing food and clothing for the poor as the kind of
works that true Christian faith produces.
The government can help or hurt the poor, depending on the laws
it passes and enforces. When
Jesus told Pontius Pilate that his kingdom was not of this world, it
serves also as a warning to us not to identify Jesus and his church with
any government or political party or philosophy.
This is why we don’t preach politics here at River Heights
Lutheran Church. The Bible
doesn’t set down for us a blue print on what kind of governments
programs we ought to have. The Bible defends private property and the
Bible warns against the rich oppressing and mistreating the poor.
Nowhere does the Bible give any government the authority to take
from the rich by force and redistribute their money to the poor.
Socialism is not biblical. The Marxist idea that man can create a
society that takes from each according to his ability and gives to each
according to his need is an anti-Christian delusion. It denies the doctrine of sin.
It claims that evil is in the social arrangements when we know
that the evil is in the human heart.
And of course Marxism was the creed of the greatest thieves of
the twentieth century: the Communists who, in the name of the poor,
stole everything they wanted in the nations they ruined, impoverishing
everyone in the process. In
the former Soviet Union today the economy is in a shambles largely
because the government itself fought tooth and nail against the Seventh
Commandment for most of the Twentieth Century.
Perhaps one can imagine “all the people sharing all the
world,” but this will not happen, and so we must continue to support
and defend the Seventh Commandment.
This is the best way to protect the poor. State sponsored lotteries are
not the way to help the poor, and Christians ought to have nothing to do
with them. How can we help
our neighbor to improve and protect his property and business while at
the same time supporting schemes of gambling designed to get something
for nothing at the expense of our neighbor?
Poor and irresponsible people in search of the dream of instant
wealth are the most likely to waste their money on lottery tickets. Governments that promote such ways of making money exploit
ignorant people in direct violation of the Seventh Commandment.
The lottery may be voluntary, but it hurts poor people and it can
only succeed when folks try to get something that belongs to their
neighbor without giving anything in return.
That is wrong. When we condemn gambling, folks will often reply by saying that operating a business or farming is also a gamble. After all, you don’t know how you will do. But ignorance of the future is not what makes gambling wrong. It is that one person gains materially only when another person loses materially. That is the very essence of gambling, and that’s not the way an honest business or farm operates. An honest business offers a fair exchange in which both the buyer and the seller can benefit. Gambling requires a loser. It appeals to greed, laziness, covetousness, and every other vice that is condemned by the Seventh Commandment. Just because no one is f |