Exodus 20:1-17
Exodus 20:1 through Exodus 20:17 (KJV)
1And God spake all these words, saying, 2I am the LORD thy God, which have
brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. 3Thou
shalt have no other gods before me. 4Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven
image, 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: 5Thou shalt not bow
down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God,
visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and
fourth generation of them that hate me; 6And showing mercy unto thousands of
them that love me, and keep my commandments. 7Thou shalt not take the name of
the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh
his name in vain. 8Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9Six days shalt
thou labour, and do all thy work: 10But the seventh day is the sabbath of the
LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy
daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy
stranger that is within thy gates: 11For in six days the LORD made heaven and
earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore
the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.
12Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land
which the LORD thy God giveth thee. 13Thou shalt not kill. 14Thou shalt not
commit adultery. 15Thou shalt not steal. 16Thou shalt not bear false witness
against thy neighbour. 17Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou
shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant,
nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s.
Let me tell you what we are going to talk about today. We are going to talk
about a war. You've probably heard on the news that we are a nation at war,
you've probably seen the results of our mighty military action in Europe. You,
like me have prayed daily for the safe return of our three soldiers held
captive, and PRAISE THE LORD, it appears as if they will be on their way out of
Yugoslavia today. Yet this war, the war over Kosovo is not the war we are
concerned with this morning.
We are concerned with a war that is destroying our nation, killing our children,
and causing us to lose our way. It is a war that is being waged from within and
is laying waste to our cities, decimating families, and causing heartache for
tens of thousands each day. This war is the war upon morality. The casualties
are to be found in our integrity, our honesty, and the respect we hold for all
of God's creation. This war is going to destroy our country. If we as God's
children do not win this war we will preside over the destruction of our nation.
Today we shall talk about the "DeMORALization" of America. (Thanks to Pastor
David Zimmerman who used this as the title to his sermon dealing with this
passage. Parts of this message are taken from Pastor Zimmerman's outline)
We just read a passage of scripture that is considered by many today to be
archaic, out of touch with reality, and in desperate need of an update. The old
fashioned values shown to us in the ten commandments don't apply to today's man
or woman. They are not politically correct, and are not inclusive of other
belief system. They don't take into account the changes that society has
undergone over the passage of time.
There is a very good reason that God tells us right at the beginning of the Ten
Commandments that HE is God, and that we are to have no other gods except for
him. For when a nation rejects God that is the day that its morality begins to
decline. The day a nation rejects God we see crime become rampant. When a nation
rejects God we see social unrest. When we take God out of our homes, out of our
schools, out of our government, and out of our lives it is inevitable that our
morality will begin to fail.
Last Wednesday in our discussion of Revival we talked about the ills in our
society. We talked about disobedience, about disrespect, about parental
responsibility, and about families falling apart. We talked about neighbors not
knowing each other, and the lack of values among our young people.
These values that have disappeared in our nation are directly related to our
relationship with God. This is why the first commandment is so important to our
discussion today. In the 1960's our government in all of it's wisdom decided
that the Ten Commandments were no longer a reasonable guide for determining
moral values. No, they didn't directly attack this foundation of God's law for
us, what they did do however is attack the first commandment. It says that we
shall have no other gods before HIM. Our government decided that God has no
place in education. Our children should not learn about God in school.
Recent events at schools across our land, beginning with the horrible tragedy in
Littleton, CO, and spilling over even to DeLand High School, and schools in
Orange County show the fallacy of this idea. Our kids need some sense of
direction, and they aren't getting it. Children in today's schools are being
taught a humanistic philosophy that denies God! It was not enough to simply
remove Him from the curriculum, He has been denied in our school system. Today's
moral decay is a direct result of trying to raise a generation of children to
believe that we can be good without God.
No longer are our children taught absolutes. Everything is a shade of gray and
we must be tolerant of all other lifestyles and philosophies. We pride personal
choice over and above personal responsibility. We pride popularity over
reliability, we pride the freedom to do as we choose over the obligation to do
as we should.
Our sign out front says for Parents to train up a child in the way he should
go…the remainder of that scripture promises that when he is old he will not
depart from it.
Tragedies like the one in Colorado are occurring today because yesterday we
decided to remove God from our schools and our homes. If we allow the world to
teach our children that alternative lifestyles are acceptable, or that adultery
is no big deal, or that lying is ok if you have a good reason we have failed in
our responsibility to be the salt of the earth. If we are not holding our selves
and our families accountable to God then we are contributing to the downfall of
our great nation.
How do we reverse this trend? What can we do to bring morality back to our
nation?
We must put God First (Exodus 20:1-3)
We must make God our priority. All of the jobs, groups, schemes, and
opportunities that have drawn us away from God must be given a secondary
consideration. If we expect for our nation to return to God we must first return
to Him ourselves. When we fall away from God, sin enters our lives. When we
break the first commandment it is but one short step away to begin to break all
of the others. When our relationship with God suffers, so does our relationship
with those around us.
When we turn away from God we become a lawless society. Mankind cannot function
without laws. We, in and of ourselves, are not able to control ourselves without
boundaries being laid down before us. God's law and morality are the foundation
of our system of government and even our system of justice. When we tossed God
aside to pursue worldly satisfaction, we began a descent into lawlessness.
For days we have been scratching our heads, wondering how in the world two young
men, who seemed to have everything they could have ever wanted, could even think
about murdering 13 innocent victims in a deadly rampage. What could they have
been thinking as they made over 70 bombs and placed them around the school? What
could they have been thinking when they viciously gunned down innocent children?
Well, I can't tell you what they were thinking, but I can tell you how it
happened. We have scoffed at God's word, and made a mockery of His teachings,
and now we are reaping the seeds of iniquity that we have sown.
As we turn away from God our heart hardens and we forget how to love. When we
turn away from God we forget how important the other person is, how much value
their life has. When we turn away from God, mothers murder their unborn children
and we accept it. When we turn away from God promiscuity becomes common place
and we allow it. When we turn away from God deceit becomes a way of life and we
expect it. Sexual deviants are given special rights and privileges and if we
stand against it we are labeled bigots and narrow-minded. Where does it all end?
It ends with making God a priority in our life again.
Make our families preeminent (Exodus 20:12)
Exodus 20:12 is the forgotten commandment.
Exodus 20:12 (KJV)
12Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land
which the LORD thy God giveth thee.
In our hurry to climb up the ladder to that nebulous rung we call success we
have let our families disintegrate. In today's two wage earner society we have
allowed the pursuit of our material happiness to destroy our families. Two boys
built over 70 bombs, sawed off shotguns, and maintained an arsenal big enough to
outfit a squad of Marines, and their parents never knew it??? Our families have
taken a mortal blow in our society and if we are going to change the tide we
must bind up the wounds inflicted upon our family life.
Parents, it is time for you to be parents. It is time for the parents in our
land to once again accept the responsibility of parenting. We have shoved off
that responsibility to the state, and look at the results. It is time we as
parents expect obedience from our children. Not ask for it, not suggest it, but
rather to demand it. It's time we took to heart the biblical admonition that to
spare the rod spoils the child.
Children, both young and old, it is time we took seriously the commandment in
verse 12. We must honor our parents. We must respect the family. If those two
boys in Littleton, CO had been raised to honor their father and mother, this
event could not have taken place. There is no way we can imagine that this even
honored their parents. If those two sets of parents had taken the responsibility
of parenting seriously they would have known their children were doing the
things they were.
We cannot continue to allow our families to decline. The family unit is the most
important part of a young person's development. We must provide stable families
for the next generations of children.
We Must Love One Another (Exodus 20:13-17)
When Jesus was asked which commandment was the most important, he said the first
was to love God, but He said the second was to love one another. There is no
respect for each other in our society today. We have traveled so far down the ME
highway that it's difficult to turn back. We do all that we can to build
ourselves up, even if it means tearing someone else down. Life becomes less
special, especially if it is someone else's life.
When we neglect to love each other we don't care as much. We aren't as close as
in times past. We become immune to the sadness that sin wreaks upon a community.
It takes much, much more to shock us even to the point that nothing surprises us
anymore. How many more Littleton type tragedies must we endure before we realize
that the status quo isn't making the grade? How many more must die before we
realize that all life is precious before God? How many more men must be drug
behind a truck before we realize that every man is our neighbor? How many more
are to be left to starve in the streets before we give our ourselves and of our
wealth and help a fellow man?
The scriptures tell us that they will know we are Christians by our love. BY OUR
LOVE! Do we truly love one another today? If we cannot bring an atmosphere of
Love back into our society we can never hope to foster change.
2 Peter 2:5 through 2 Peter 2:8 (KJV)
5And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of
righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly; 6And
turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes condemned them with an
overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly;
7And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked:
8(For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his
righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds;)
Peter mentions two men, Noah and Lot. Noah lived in a day when the thoughts
of men were "only evil continually." Lot lived in a city in which men
"burned in their lust one toward another." Both men are called righteous. We
would call them "Christians." They were righteous because they were rightly
related to God. Noah is called a "preacher of righteousness." He cried out
against the lawlessness of his age. Lot, on the other hand, merely "vexed
his righteous soul." He was grieved over the unlawful, wicked deeds of the
men of Sodom. But he took no stand against it. He never separated himself
from it. He put his comfort and prestige before God.
One man took a stand, the other merely wrung his hands and lamented the
deplorable conditions of the society around him. Noah "saved" his family.
Lot watched his family be broken and destroyed. Having accommodated
lawlessness, he saw his family divided in their love and overcome by the
sins of Sodom.
Every Christian has a choice to make. We can be like Lot, in-different to
the rebellion, tolerance, and delusion which is contributing to the collapse
of our nation. Or, we can be like Noah - taking a stand against the
unrighteousness of our day.
--Pastor David Zimmerman
Our world is awash in unrighteiousness, what will you do about it? Will you
place God first, make your family preeminent, and finally begin to love one
another? This is what we must do to stop this out of control deMORALizing of
America.
