This summer at College Avenue Baptist church, our pastor Carlton Harris is doing a series on the Ten Commandments and I think it important enough to share what I have learned here.

 

The Ten Commandments can be found in the book of Exodus chapter 20.   This was right after Moses had taken the Israelites out of Egypt.  They had been wondering around for days and their spirits were beginning to wane.  Then God called for Moses to come to him, but before he could reach the top of the mountain, god verbalized the commandments to them and wrote them down on tablets of stone.

 

The pastor equated this with an anxious groom on his wedding day.  As the groom which is to say God waited for his bride (the Israelites) to come to him at the altar, he lost his patients and shouted his covenant, his promise to his bride.

 

A covenant is not only a promise it is completely binding.  It is not a contract, because that can be broken.  Covenants are like marriage not to be taken lightly.  Most marriages now are treated more like contracts, which can be broken by any whim of the participants.  When marriage when made before God; you are not just making this promise before people, but you are asking God to bind you for life.

 

In Genesis 2:23 when the lord created the woman, it states:

 

The man said,

 

“This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman for she was taken out of man.”

 

It is this where a concept of family becomes real, and the covenant begins to form.  Chapter 2 continues to say:

 

For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become ONE FLESH.  (Gen 2:24)

 

The one flesh does not only refer to sex.  It refers to the covenant of family that was made before God.  It is the same covenant God has made with us (his bride) in the Ten Commandments.  He is telling us what he expects from us as his bride.  This is not to say that that he would love us any less if we break any of these rules.  He just wants us by his side, and doing what pleases him, so that he may be able to please us too.

 

Pastor Harris named the Ten Commandments the Ten Words of Love.  So just to review for this week, The Ten Words of Love are: Exodus 20:1-17

 

1.      You shall have no other gods before me.

2.      You shall not make for yourself an Idol in the form of anything in heaven above or o n the earth beneath or in the waters below.  You shall not bow down to them or worship them.

3.      You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God for the LORD will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name

4.      Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.  Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God.

5.      Honor your father and your mother.

6.      You shall not murder.

7.      You shall not commit adultery.

8.      You shall not steal.

9.      You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.

10.  You shall not covet your neighbor’s house.  You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.

 

It is fairly simple, but we are all guilty of braking one or more of these commandments on a regular basis.  This series will continue weekly as I relate to you what I learned from my church from each of these commandments.