Are you looking for ways to reach the lost in a non-threatening but
clear-cut way? This four-part Bible study is for you. The lessons build from
seeing the purpose of the Law in lesson one to repentance and faith in Christ
in lesson four.
Lesson 1 —The Bible is true. The purpose of the Law.
Lesson 2 —God’s view of mankind’s sin. Why good works are not enough.
Lesson 3 —Christ is the only one capable of taking away sin.
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Lesson 1
INSTRUCTIONS
You will need a King James Bible to fill in each blank. If at any
time you feel you would like someone from our church to guide you through these
lessons, or if you have a question, please contact us using the Contact Form provided in the sidebar of this blog. When you’re finished, ask us to evaluate your answers.
By the time you finish lesson 4, you will know how to be ready to meet
your Maker.
INTRODUCTION
We are going to be talking about the basics of the Bible. Often when
people pick up the Bible and try to read it, they can’t understand it. The
Bible tells us in First Corinthians chapter two that people who do not know
Christ as their Saviour will not be able to understand the Bible. Because they
do not know the Author, they cannot know the Book. The Bible just cannot make
sense to them.
I remember the first time I got interested in the Bible. It was before I
was a child of God. I had heard about the Bible, so I decided I would read it.
I picked it up and started to read it, but I did not understand what I was
reading. I didn’t even know where to start to read. Since there are sixty-six
books in the Bible, it is hard to know where to start.
In order for us to understand the Bible, we have to start off with some
very basic material. First, we need to understand the basic concepts of the
Bible. Let’s look at it this way. Suppose you went to visit in a foreign
country that was very uncivilized. You went way back in the jungle, where the
natives live who have never been out to see civilization before. They had never
seen an automobile in their lifetime. If you told them, “We have an automobile
at home that we drive around in”, do you think they would understand what you
were talking about? No, of course they
wouldn’t.
Imagine trying to describe something to someone who doesn’t understand
what you are talking about to begin with. How are you going to start? You are
certainly not going to deal with details, such as different models of cars, or
the options available like air conditioning, leather seats, automatic windows,
etc. Those things are going to make absolutely no sense to them. You are going
to get right down to the basics. You are going to have to talk to them about
wheels, seats, an engine, a steering wheel, brakes, etc. Those are the kind of
things you are going to start with, doing it in such a way that it makes sense.
There are two approaches you can make. One would be what we might term a
chronological
approach. You could tell them about how the automobile first was
invented, how it was designed, what the first car looked like and how it was
put together, what each part is and what it does, the different changes that
have been made through the years, and the kinds of cars available today. You
could chronologically explain the making of an automobile. But probably for a
native back in the jungle, that is not going to make a whole lot of sense.
The same is true with the Bible. If you sit down with someone and try to
explain the Bible chronologically from Genesis to Revelation, you can
eventually get the job done, but it is going to take a very long time. It will
be hard for them to be able to get a clear understanding of what you are trying
to tell them until you have covered most of the Bible.
The second way you could explain the automobile would be to organize
your thoughts according to content, giving an overall view. You could explain
that a car has a place for you to sit in and it has wheels on the outside that
turn. Next you could explain how an engine causes those wheels to be propelled,
and a steering mechanism allows a person to be able to turn in the direction
they want to go. Now all of that would
be designed to give them the basics. You wouldn’t need to explain the
difference between a Ford and a Holden. You would be interested in just giving
them the very basics.
That is what we are going to do in this Bible study. We are going to be
looking at some basic truths that will give us an overview of the Bible.
Obviously, we won’t be able to cover everything in 4 lessons. Neither are we
going to be able to understand everything about the Bible when we are finished.
In fact, there is no person in the world that understands everything about the
Bible. Some people like to act as if they know it all. But they don’t, because
God is the only One who does know it all.
LOOKING AT THINGS GOD’S WAY
In this study we are going to look at things the way God looks at them.
In First Samuel we have a story about Samuel, the prophet of God. God had told
him to go and anoint the next king of Israel. He was to go to the household of
Jesse and ask Jesse to call in all his boys. Samuel went as God commanded, and
Jesse called in his sons, but he only called seven of them. Samuel looked at
the oldest son named Eliab and thought that surely he was the one God wanted.
In First Samuel 16:7 it says, “But the LORD said unto Samuel, Look not on his
countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for
the LORD seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward a_____________,
but the LORD looketh on the h__________ ”.
God rejected Eliab because He could see his heart. God knew he would not
make a good king for Israel. Samuel went on down the line, looking at each of
the sons. Each of the young men looked like fine, strong, brilliant young men
on the outside but God rejected each one. Finally, Samuel asked Jesse if he had
another son, and there was another one. David was out taking care of the sheep.
He was called in, and the moment he walked in God spoke to Samuel and said,
“That’s the one. Anoint him”. God’s explanation of the whole thing is right
there in verse seven. God sees different than we do. God doesn’t look on the
outward appearance. He looks on the heart. He knows what a person is truly
like.
When you and I look at people, we make judgment calls. We make decisions
about those people, based on the way they look, the way they dress, outward
things we are able to observe about them or the things we hear them say. But we
don’t really know what goes on inside of another person’s heart. The Bible
tells us that when God looks at people, God doesn’t judge by outward
appearance. God judges by what is on the inside. God knows the truth of the
matter.
I don’t know why God rejected the first seven sons of Jesse. For some
reason, those men were unfit for the job of being a king. But God knew that
David was just the man. He was the one that God had chosen. David was just the
man to accomplish the job God wanted done.
As we go through this study, we will be looking at things from God’s
point of view. How does God see things? How does that affect our lives as
people? That will be the foundation of everything we will talk about.
FACING GOD
Eventually every one of us is going to have to face God. We will stand
before God and will answer to Him. One day you are going to die. That is a fact
of life, and anyone with any sense understands that. I don’t care if you are into
health foods, popping all the vitamins you can possibly take and you are taking
care of your body the best you can. Sooner or later, that body of yours is
going to give out. Death is sure to come. It may come slower to some than
others, but it is going to come to all of us.
The Bible teaches us that we will all stand before God someday. Notice
Romans 14:12 says, “So then every one of us shall give a____________ of himself
to God”. One day, you are going to stand before God. When you stand there
before God, He is going to have you give account for your life. He is going to
ask you some very important and serious questions, and you are going to have to
answer for your life and how you lived it.
I don’t know about you, but when I was in school, I didn’t like tests. I
always dreaded examination time. It definitely was not my favourite day. But I
knew the day was coming, and that fact caused me to listen for one purpose. I
didn’t want my grades to look too bad when I took my report card home.
Most people I know aren’t too interested in taking the test when their
life ends. They aren’t too interested in standing before God. In fact, most
people I know have so put God off in their life that they don’t even think
about death. But God says every person is going to stand before Him one day and
give an account for his life.
In Romans 2:2 the Bible says, “But we are sure that the judgment of God
is according to t_____________ against them which commit such things”. When we
stand before God, we will be judged according to truth. I don’t know what your
opinion might or might not be of our justice system. In many cases, there are
people who lie and get away, even though they are guilty. We may never know the
truth, but God knows what really happened. God’s judgment is according to
truth.
When you and I stand before God, we will give an account for our lives.
God will not judge us according to the outward appearance or the way things
look. He won’t judge us by popular public opinion. He won’t take a vote on the
matter, and there won’t be a jury to make the decision. We will be judged
according to truth. Now that is scary, because truth is so exacting, so
straight, and so narrow. When we are judged by truth, we are all going to be
found guilty. We are going to be found empty, without excuse.
John 17:17 tells us where truth is found. Jesus says there, “Sanctify
them through thy truth: thy w________________is truth”. So far we have seen
three facts. God tells us that we are one day going to stand before Him. When
we face Him, we are going to give an account for our lives, and we are going to
be judged according to the truth of the Word of God.
Some people might say, “Well preacher, I don’t really believe the Bible
is right. I don’t think it is truth”. Well, it certainly is your right to
decide you don’t agree with the Bible. But think about this. If you are wrong,
and God does judge people according to the Bible, what will you do then? You
see, your not believing it won’t change the fact.
You can believe whatever you want to believe and I can believe whatever
I want to believe. But ultimately it is not what you believe or what I believe
that matters. God says it is according to truth that He is going to judge us,
and God tells us that it is the Bible that is His truth. You can choose not to
believe that if you wish.
But suppose I was to tell you that you were going to be judged and your
whole life, whether you were going to live or die, was going to hinge upon a
particular test you were going to take in five minutes. Would you be interested
in knowing what the test was about? Would you be interested in knowing the
answers to the test? I would. I would want to listen to a fellow who said, “I
have the questions and I know what the answers are”. I would want to at least
check it out and see if it was true or not. So before you discard the Bible, I
think the wisest thing you could ever do is to sit down and at least check it
out. Listen and see what God says and then make your choice.
TRUTH = BIBLE
We read in John 17:17 that truth equals the Bible. According to God, the
Bible is the truth He has given to us. In Second Timothy 3:16?17 the Bible
says, “All scripture is given by i_______________of God, and is profitable for
doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That
the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works”. The
Bible claims that the Scriptures, another word for the Bible, were given by
inspiration of God. The word inspiration means God-breathed. The words I speak
are Doug?breathed words. I breathe them as I speak. The words of the Bible are
not man?breathed words. The Bible claims to be God-breathed words. The Bible
claims to be God speaking to you and me. Remember God said one day we are going
to be judged according to truth, and the truth is the Bible, and now He tells
us that the Bible is nothing less than Him speaking to us. We better pay
attention.
In Second Peter 1:21 the Bible says, “For the prophecy came not in old
time by the will of m__________: but holy men of God spake as they were
m_____________ by the Holy Ghost”. Some people say the Bible was just written
by men, but that is not what the Bible claims. Remember we are trying to
understand how God views things. God says the Bible didn’t come by the will of
men. A bunch of fellows didn’t one day sit down and decide to invent a new book
and start a religion. The Bible wasn’t created in the mind of some prophets who
wanted to have a book named after them. The Bible says these didn’t do this by
their own will, but they wrote these things by the will of God, as they were
moved, as the Holy Spirit of God carried them along.
Some people might say, “Anyone could write a book and say it is God’s
Word. Anyone could write a book and say it is true. How do we know it is true?”
Let’s look at some things that prove it is true. The Bible is made up of
sixty-six books, from Genesis to Revelation. Literally we could say that the
Bible is like a library of sixty-six books put together into one book. It has
sixty-six books and forty different authors. There were forty different men who
lived over a period of time of about sixteen hundred years who wrote down what
God told them to write. Most of these men never even met each other. Many of
the men never even read the writings of the other authors. Yet when you put all
sixty?six books together they perfectly agree with one another.
Think about that for a moment. There is not one contradiction from
Genesis to Revelation. I dare you to pick up any two books written about
science and see if they agree. Get two history books and see if two history
books agree. You don’t have to consider sixty-six books, just two. You are
going to have a hard time finding just two that would agree totally on every
point with each other. Yet the Bible is sixty-six books, written by forty
different authors who lived over a period of sixteen hundred years. These men
were widely apart in learning and background, yet they perfectly agreed with
one another. How could that be?
We could also look at the honesty of the writers. You know, if I was
writing a book and it was going to be a holy book with my name attached to it,
I would not write about all my problems. I wouldn’t tell you about my sins.
There would be things I would hide because you don’t need to know about them. God
was pretty honest about His heroes. Even the best had chinks in their armor and
God tells the truth about them. The men who wrote told the truth about their
lives and the lives of others.
Next, let’s consider the prophecies of the Scripture. In the Bible, a
prophet is someone who tells the truth to other people. Also, from time to
time, they actually foretell the future, or tell prophecies of things that are
going to happen. It might be a prophecy about the name of a king four hundred
years from now who is going to be born, and the country over which he is going
to reign when he grows up. Can you imagine making a prophecy like that and
having it come true? Or it could be a prophecy about a city being destroyed,
how it would be destroyed and then how it would be rebuilt. Yet there are
literally hundreds of prophecies like that in the Bible and they were all
fulfilled literally, just as they were prophesied.
In Second Peter 1:19 the Bible says, “We have also a more
s_____________word of prophecy”. Peter, who wrote the book of Second Peter, had
seen Jesus transfigured on the mount with Moses and Elijah. It was a
spectacular sight, quite a miracle. But he realised that the written Word of
God is more powerful, more sure, more steadfast than seeing a vision or seeing
a miracle. That is exactly how God views His Word: as truth. This truth, the
Bible, is what will judge you and judge me one day.
TEN LAWS — Exodus 20
In light of that, let’s ask ourselves, how does God judge us? What are
the things that God is concerned about? Turn to Exodus 20, and we are going to
see God’s law. The Bible teaches that God is holy. Because of His holiness, God
has given us in the Old Testament what is called His law. There are 613 laws in
all. The Old Testament law is divided into three kinds. There is the civil law
that deals with the nation of Israel and how the nation of Israel was to
operate. The civil law was the law that governed their society.
The second category is the ceremonial laws, the laws that talked about
the ceremonies that the Jewish people were to go through in offering animals
and different sacrifices, different consecrations and offerings to God. The
ceremonial law had to do with the daily rituals of the nation of Israel.
Then there were the moral laws. The moral laws talked about how God sees
man and how God believes man ought to live, the kind of activities man ought to
be involved in, the kind of life man ought to have.
God’s law has never been repealed. Jesus even said in the New Testament,
in Matthew 5:17, “Think not that I am come to d________ the law, or the
prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to f ____________”. The law is still in effect. It has never been
stopped or stamped out. The law is what God will use to judge your life and my
life by. The law still exists and one day, men and women will stand before God,
and if they do not know Jesus Christ, that law will judge them. Now God has
broken down those 613 laws into ten specific ones that are very important, and
those are the ones we are going to look at. These are called the Ten
Commandments and are found in Exodus chapter 20.
1. NO OTHER GODS
Look in Exodus 20:3, the first of the Ten Commandments. God says, “Thou
shalt have no other g__________before me”. God says we are not to have any
other gods before Him. What does God mean when He says no other gods? He means
that no one else, and nothing else is to take the place of God in your life. In
other words, God demands first place in your life and mine.
If you were married, would your spouse accept you having another
boyfriend or another girlfriend on the side? No, not normally anyway. There is
something wrong with them if they would accept that. You would be very jealous
if you found out your spouse had some other love, some other rival for your
affection. God says He demands our affection. He wants no other gods in our
life.
Now let me ask you this. On the basis of that, as you look back through
your life from the day you were a child, all the way up to today, can you say
you have always loved God with every fiber of your being? Have you loved God
with every part of your life, with all of your heart? Can you really say that?
I can’t. I don’t believe there is a person alive who can say, “I have always
loved God and wanted Him more than I have wanted anything or anyone else.” Most
people in our world have filled their life with chasing after things or chasing
after others. They are trying to find fulfilment in people and things that God
never said we should chase and things that never will satisfy.
2. NO IDOLS
Notice the second commandment in verse four. “Thou shalt not make unto
thee any g___________ i _____________,
or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth
beneath or that is in the water under the earth”.
Now God talks about idols. Most people would say they don’t have any
idols or statues in their house that they bow down to and worship, and I’m glad
that they don’t. But God isn’t just talking about idols you and I have made.
According to Romans 1:21?25, He is also talking about the imagination of our
heart with which we make the gods we want.
Now follow this thought with me for a moment. God says, “I don’t want
you to have any other gods before Me. I don’t want you to put your affection on
anything or anyone else besides Me. I don’t want you to invent your own god”. But people in our world have invented a lot of different gods.
Some people have a god that is a good god. He is so loving, kind and
wonderful he just lets anyone and everyone do whatever they want. So you can go
ahead and live however you want and when you die and stand before God, He is
going to say, “Forget it. Just come on in.” That is the idea most people in the
Western world have of what God is like.
Some people have made a god that is more like Santa Claus. They have a
need and they say, “God, I’m looking to you and I need this, and you better
give it to me”. Then when God doesn’t do what they commanded Him to do, they
get very angry. Maybe someone is sick in the family and they are telling God
what He is going to do about that sick person. But when God doesn’t do with
that sick person what they tell Him to do, they are mad at God.
Have you ever been there? You see, what you have done is made God in
your own image. You have made an idol of your own. God says He condemns this.
These are the commands of God.
Now tell me that in your life you have never had an image of God that
wasn’t right. Tell me that in your life you have always understood who God was.
Tell me that you have understood exactly what God was like and you have always
worshipped Him with all your heart. Tell me that and I will call you a liar. My
friend, you can’t say that and neither can I.
3. TAKING GOD’S NAME IN VAIN
Notice in verse seven a third command. “Thou shalt not take the name of
the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him g__________ that
taketh his name in vain”.
A lot of people understand that commandment to mean that you aren’t
allowed to curse. You can’t take God’s name or Jesus’ name and then link it
with the word “damn” or some other expletive and curse. They are right for this
commandment certainly forbids cursing. I would hope you have never cursed. But
if you have, do you know how God views that? You have broken His law.
But let’s look a little closer. He says not to take “the name of The
Lord thy God in vain”. The word vain means empty. It is not just talking about
blaspheming or taking God’s name and cursing. It is also talking about taking
God’s name lightly. It means lightly saying, “God said this,” or “God did
this,” or “God will do this”, or “God told me to do that”. It even includes
singing God’s name and not thinking about what you are singing. It includes
just talking about God, but the heart not being attached to what we are talking
about. It could be defined as a person mindlessly babbling about God. That is
taking God’s name in vain. Who is not guilty now?
The Jews were very careful about this. When a scribe got ready to write
God’s name, they had to wash their hands and then write with a special quill, and
then they would go wash their hands again. They were careful about God’s name
because it was important to them.
We use God’s name so lightly today. We joke about Him. We have comedies
on television about Him. We make light of Him. The Bible says we are guilty
because we have broken His law. We have taken His name in vain.
That is only the third commandment. How are things checking out in your
life? We are not doing too well, are we? When we stand before God, these are
the things God is going to examine us with. We are going to give an account for
these things. God is going to check out these areas and we are going to be
judged because we have broken God’s law.
4. SABBATH DAY
But there is a fourth commandment. He says in verse eight, “Remember the
sabbath day, to keep it h_____”. Under Jewish law the Sabbath day was on a
Saturday. But the purpose of the Sabbath was not a day of rest, a day to kick
back, take it easy, and enjoy yourself. The Sabbath day was meant to be a holy
day, a day in which they set aside the normal labours they would be involved
in, so that they could pursue the labour of praising God, worshipping God. That
was the purpose of the Sabbath.
Now today we worship on Sunday because Jesus rose from the grave on
Sunday. But we find in the New Testament, in Romans 14:5?8, that as a child of
God, whether we set one day aside for God or whether we choose to honour God on
every day, God wants our life to be committed to Him totally. All of our time
belongs to Him. Hebrews 10:25 tells us that we are not to forsake the
assembling together in church.
Have you ever heard anyone say, when they are invited to church, “Oh,
that’s my only day to rest”. What blasphemy! They are perverting God’s Word by
calling Sunday a day of rest. Rubbish! It is meant to be a day of setting aside
your work so you can pursue God with all your heart. Can you say you have
faithfully sought God at least one day a week all of your life? Do you give God
time every day in devotions? Does your time belong to God or do you use it the
way you want? Now remember, we are just trying on the law. These are the things
that we will give an account for one day. How are you doing so far?
5. HONOUR PARENTS
The fifth commandment is in verse twelve, “Honour thy f_____________ and
thy m________, that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God
giveth thee”.
The word “honour” means to give respect, to lift up. It means more than
just obey. Your parents say, “Empty the rubbish”, and you go empty the rubbish.
Well, you have obeyed, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you have honoured your
parents in that action. To honour them would be to empty the rubbish before you
are told. To honour them means you will pick up the rubbish and take it outside
and do it with a sweet spirit. It means you won’t be cantankerous about it, you
won’t mutter under your breath, and you won’t have any hard feelings in your
heart.
Tell me, as you sit there, that you have never muttered against your
parents. Tell me you have always honoured them from the day you were born until
this day. Tell me that you have always honoured your mother and father as they
ought to have been honoured according to God’s Word and I will say you are a
liar. Let’s call your parents, if they are still alive and tell them to give
testimony. God’s law says we are to always honour our parents in everything we
do. But we have dishonoured our parents, so we have broken God’s law.
6. DO NOT KILL
The sixth commandment is in verse thirteen, “Thou shalt not k________”. Now there is a powerful one. Most people would claim that they have never
murdered anyone. But Jesus reinterprets this commandment and gives us a new
perspective on it in Matthew 5:21-22. He says if you are angry with your
brother, you have committed murder.
Have you ever been angry with someone? Have you ever driven down the
road and had someone pull out in front of you and cut you off when they should
not have done it? Did you get angry with them? Jesus says it is murder in your
heart. Have you ever had someone do you wrong and you got angry in your heart
towards them? They could have done it to someone else and it wouldn’t have
bothered you nearly as much. That just proves there is a selfish nature inside
you, and God says you are a murderer.
You might be sitting there now thinking, “We’ve all done those things.
It is no big deal”. Yes, we sure have. We are definitely all guilty. But the
fact is, when we stand before God it will be a big deal. God is a holy God. We
are getting a glimpse now of how God looks at your heart and mine and what God
requires.
Religion today says let’s just forget all this. It is no big deal
because we are all like this, so surely God will forget and forgive. But let me remind you, God says you are not
to have any idols. When you have that attitude, you are making a god after your
own way instead of following the God of the Bible. You have just broken the
second commandment.
7. NO ADULTERY
The seventh commandment is in verse fourteen, “Thou shalt not commit a_________ ”. You might think you are OK
here since you have only ever been with your spouse. But let’s listen to what
Jesus says in Matthew 5:27. He said if you look upon a woman to lust after her
in your heart, you have committed adultery with her already.
Now tell me you have never looked upon someone of the opposite sex and
never had wrong thoughts. If you are of any age at all, you are guilty. Jesus
says you are an adulterer. That is a pretty serious charge. We don’t have to
dwell on these very long, I would hope, before you begin to see you are in
trouble when you stand before God.
8. DO NOT STEAL
The eighth commandment is in verse fifteen. “Thou shalt not steal”. You might not think of yourself as a thief, but have you ever taken a paper
clip without permission? Have you ever taken a rubber band or a pencil or a
pen? Who hasn’t? The Bible says, “Thou shalt not steal”.
The Bible doesn’t say, “Well, as long as it is under twenty?five cents
it really doesn’t count”. I remember being taught that in school. My teacher
said, “As long as it is under twenty?five cents, it doesn’t count”. That stuck
in my mind. According to her I can steal twenty?four cents here and twenty?four
cents there and get away with it. But God doesn’t look at it that way. You will
not find that in your Bible. Have you ever taken anything that wasn’t yours?
Then you have broken the 8th commandment and are guilty before God.
9. DO NOT LIE
The ninth commandment is in verse sixteen, “Thou shalt not bear f_________ w _______ against thy neighbour”. Bearing
false witness means lying. Have you ever told a lie? We are all guilty there.
Every person who has ever lived has told a lie at least one time in their life.
We have all broken this commandment.
A false witness isn’t just a blatant lie. A false witness is also a
misleading statement. Have you ever told half the truth because you knew the
whole truth might incriminate you? You thought that by telling half the truth
you could mislead them. We lie more often than we care to admit. Have you ever
told someone they looked good but didn’t mean it? Have you ever told someone
you liked what he or she was wearing but inside you were thinking just the
opposite?
We need to be careful about what we say. In fact, Jesus says in Matthew
chapter twelve that we are going to be judged for every idle word we speak.
There is not a person alive on earth that can get by this 9th commandment. We
are all guilty of breaking it.
10. DO NOT COVET
The tenth commandment is in verse seventeen. “Thou shalt not c________
thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not c________ thy neighbour’s wife, nor his
manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is
thy neighbour’s”.
To covet means to desire strongly. Have you ever desired something that
God had not provided for you? Have you
desired it so much that you sat there, really wishing it were yours? In fact,
you desired it so much that thinking about how you could get it and make it
yours captivated your mind and your heart. The Bible says that is coveting.
In Colossians 3:5, the Bible says covetousness is the same as idolatry.
Now we are right back to that second commandment again, and also the first
because what you have done is said, “I want this car more than I want God. I
want this money more than I want God. I’d do anything to get that job. I want
that job so much, I’ll give up church for it”. Wait a minute that is
covetousness so you have broken commandment #10. You are also breaking the 4th
commandment because you are not giving God the time He deserves. You have also
broken the 2nd commandment because you are putting things before God. Friend, you are in trouble.
SUMMATION
As we look through all ten of these commandments and think about them,
we see what we really are. We are liars, thieves, blasphemers, idolaters and
adulterers. This is serious business. Where do we stand? We are guilty before
God, condemned because we are guilty of breaking His law!
In Matthew 22:35-40 Jesus sums up the law in two verses. He says we should love God with all our
heart, soul, mind, and body, with every fiber of our being and we should love
our neighbour as we love ourselves. That sums up the Ten Commandments.
Can you say that every minute you have been consciously awake you have
loved God with every bit of strength that you have? Can you say that you have
pursued God, you have sought God, you have loved God, and you have wanted God
with every fiber of your being during ever waking moment? Can you say that? If
you can’t, you are guilty of breaking God’s law!
Can you say you love your neighbour like yourself? That means you care
more about your neighbour than you do about yourself. You are willing to put
yourself out for your neighbour. You are willing to meet the needs of your
neighbour, no matter what it costs you, even if it becomes a detriment to hurt
you, you would rather meet their needs and you would do that freely, willingly,
and joyfully. Can you say that you love your neighbour that way? If not, you
are guilty of breaking God’s law!
You still might think you are not so bad. But look at James 2:10, “For
whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in o__________ p_________,
be is g________ of all”. That means
that if you could perfectly keep all the law except one little point, you would
still be guilty of it all. You must keep the whole law perfectly to meet God’s
standard of righteousness.
Can you honestly say that you have always loved God with all your heart?
Can you say that you have never tried to fashion a god after your own thinking
and liking? Can you say that you have always given God the time He deserves?
Can you say that you have always honoured your parents? Can you say that
you have never been angry towards anyone in your entire life? Can you say that
you have never had a wrong thought about the opposite sex? Can you say that you
have never ever told a lie?
Can you say you have never stolen anything that didn’t belong to you,
even a piece of paper? Can you say that you have never desired anything that
God didn’t want you to have? Can you honestly say that you have never let anything
captivate your soul other than God?
Could you say on all Ten Commandments that you have never broken one,
not even just one time? There is no person alive in the world that can make
that claim. Since you can’t say, “I’ve never broken one not even just one time.
I’m perfect overall”, the Bible says you are guilty. God makes it clear that if
you break one, if you offend in one point of the law, as far as God is
concerned, when you stand before Him, you are guilty of it all.
One day you are going to stand before God. It really doesn’t matter what
I think, or what you think, or if all of us get together and vote and say, “We
don’t think it is ever going to happen,” God says it will happen. It is a sure
thing. When God judges you, He will judge according to truth, and the truth is
the Word of God. For once in your life, I hope you will allow the truth to
search your heart. You need to do it now before you die because then it will be
too late. You need to understand that you are a guilty sinner before God.
So far all we have talked about has been bad news. But the good news is
that it is possible to be right with God. In fact, the Bible says that when God
looks at the world, He sees two kinds of people. There are those who have no
relationship to Him. They have been judged by the law, and found guilty. That
is where the vast majority of the human race falls.
But there are some that enjoy the tremendous blessing of having a
relationship with God. They are related to Him. God has found a way of dealing
with their sin, so that when they stand in judgment before Him, their sin will
be taken care of. The answer is found in Jesus Christ. We will look at that
truth more as our study continues.
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