Hello, teachers. Ben Jennings here. I am excited to go over session seven with you. We're
in a study in the book of Exodus chapter number 20, verses one through 17. This is
session seven, which talks about God's commands. And obviously, this particular lesson covers
the 10 commandments. And you might be wondering, like, wow, like the 10 commandments, we can
go through all 10 and just kind of explain each one. That's kind of one way to do this
particular lesson. Another way is to kind of look at them as a unit. And we'll talk
about what that looks like in this particular video. So obviously, you can think through
each one of those commands, and you probably will do that at some level. But there's a
way of looking at it as an overarching teaching, which I think is a good way to handle it.
So Exodus chapter 20, this may be some of the most famous verses in the book of Exodus,
because they cover, like I said, the 10 commandments. So here's the central theme. It's obviously
God's commands or God's standards. And so our objective statement here is that we can
understand God's standards for holy living by noting three observations about the order
of His revealing the 10 commandments. There's kind of an order here to the 10 commandments
and how He reveals them. And I think that's important to see and for us to emphasize. The
first thing that God did was He initiated His relationship with mankind, and specifically
we put mankind here, but He also initiated His relationship with the children of Israel,
His covenant people. And we see that in verses one and two in Exodus chapter 20. He says,
And God spoke all these words saying, I am the Lord, your Thy God, which have brought
thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. And then He says, Thou shalt
have no other gods before me. I think it's interesting that when God gives the law to
His people, He gives it to them. Literally, He says here, I am the Lord, your God, I'm
the Lord of Thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house
of bondage. And so I think what's interesting here is that He gives these commandments to
His people, but it's in the context of relationship with Him. He had already made promises to
them to Abraham and then to Isaac. Again, He reiterated them to Jacob, and He is keeping
His covenant promise to Israel. And then throughout this Exodus, I think raising up Moses, giving
the plagues, taking them through the Red Sea and into the wilderness over and over and
over again, God is telling them, I'm going to be your God and you are my people and I'm
going to, you're going to see that I am the Lord, your God. He's relating to them. He's
communicating to them who He is. And so we see that God gives these commands in the context
of relationship. They were still accountable for keeping His law regardless of the revelation
that He gave to them. We know in Romans chapter 1 that the Bible says that our consciences
and creation show us that there's a God. And that because of that and because we've
broken the law that we even have in our hearts that we find ourselves condemned before God.
But God here gives His commands to these people and He does it in the context of relationship
as He gets more specific with what His will is. He does it in this context of relationship.
There's an application here too. I think that God puts all of us into families, for instance.
And so the main people making sure that we understand what's right morally, helping
us discern right from wrong are our parents as we're going to see even in these commands.
And God puts us in that home cared for by our parents. They care for us. They love us.
They provide for us. They protect us. And then they give us right and wrong and they
teach us and they hold us accountable for that. Again, that's part of God's way. He
gives us a relationship and then He provides the commands within that. So we see that God
initiated His relationship with mankind. And then number two, then there's this next step
where He says, number two, God demands a right relationship with Himself. He gives us boundaries
in and around our relationship with Him. And that's what you see in the first four commands
of the Ten Commandments. I'm the Lord of God, which I brought the out of the land of Egypt
of the house of bondage. That shout have no other gods before me. So He says, don't put
anything ahead of me. You're not going to have any other gods. You'll have no other
gods. And before me is, I don't think it's not just a prioritization. It's also, I can
see everything you're doing. I know who you are. I see you and you have no, don't have
any other gods. There's no other God that you're allowed to have. I am your God. There
is no other. That's the idea. Number two, that shout, and I make it into any graven
image or any lightness of anything that is in heaven above or that is an earth beneath
or that is under the water, under the earth, that I should not bow down, down thyself to
them or serve them. For I, the Lord, thy God, and my jealous God, visiting the iniquity
of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation of them that hate me
and showing mercy on thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments. So here
he says, don't think, don't make anything that you worship, no idols. Don't try to make
anything that looks like me is another part of this command is inferred in this command.
So the idea is you don't make any graven image either trying to make it look like God or
trying to worship any other thing. The Lord God, Jehovah, the invisible God who's manifested
himself in the cloud and in the fire. This particular, there is no other God before him
and you won't worship anything like that. Then you have verse seven talking about his
name. That shout, not take thy name of the Lord, thy God in vain. For the Lord will not
hold him, get us to take his name in vain. So God's name is important to him when we
use God's name in such a way as to attribute to him something that he did not do to use
it frivolously, to, to, to use it to attribute it to something he's not a part of is to take
his name in vain. And so he says, you can think about like nothing before me, don't mess
with, don't make anything that looks like me. Don't worship anything other than me.
That shout, don't mess with my name. And then number four, remember the Sabbath day to keep
it holy. So don't mess with my day. You know, there's the, the Sabbath arrest. God worked
in creation six days and on the seventh day he rested. And so he's telling them, Hey,
remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Again, it's man's relationship to God. All
four of these relate about how man relates to God. Don't mess, nothing before him. No
graven image. No, don't take his name in vain and remember his day. God's relationship
to man. And then he says it connects that Sabbath day verse 10, seventh day is the Sabbath
of the Lord, that God that shall do not. And he worked out down nor thy son, nor thy daughter,
thy manservant, nor thy maid servant, nor that cattle, nor the stranger that's within
the gates for in six days, the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that in the midst
and rested the seventh day were for the Lord. Bless the Sabbath day and hallowed it. He,
he set it aside. He made it holy. And so this is our relationship to God. And this is what
God commands. Then we lead that leads us to this last, this last part of it, this last
observation about the order of his revealing. He established a relationship with him. He
gave him boundaries about his relationship with man and what man should, how man should
relate to him. Then he gives them this third observation that God demands a right relationship
with others. There's a vertical relationship between God and man. And then there's a horizontal
relationship between man and man, man and woman, man and neighbor. And so that really
is kind of the overview. The truth of the matter is, there's a right prioritization
in that God comes first, our relationship with him comes first, and our relationship
with God affects our relationship with others. I think it's interesting too that the first
command relates to our, our submission to the authority, the first God given authority
of the family, the parents that is given to every person. And so he says, verse 12, honor
thy father and the mother that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God
giveth thee. Later on, Paul says, honor thy father and mother, which is the first commandment
with promise. All the commandments that came before don't have a promise. This particular
commandment says honor your father and mother that that days may be long upon the land which
the Lord thy God giveth thee. There seems to be an indication that if you follow the
authority of your parents, that the tendency will be that you have a long life and that
God will bless you. And so, and I think that's interesting, the relationship, the first relationship
between father and mother, that first relationship is the human relationship that's most like
our relationship to God because God's our authority, our parents are our authority.
God calls himself father. We call our dad's father and our, and our mothers are part of
that authority. And so that's a foundational thing. The home is a foundational relationship,
and relationship. And then he goes on and says, thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not commit
adultery, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor,
thou shalt not cover thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not cover thy neighbor's wife, nor
his man servant, nor his maid servant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is
thy neighbor's. And so, I think there's interesting even in that, and within those commands, family,
and neighbor than others. Jesus said, when he was asked what's the greatest commandment,
love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind, love thy neighbor as I self
on this, hang all the law and the prophets. And so, you see that, you know, loving God,
having a right relationship with God, loving others, having a right relationship with others.
The second is like you do it, you should love your neighbor as yourself. These, this is,
this is the command. And I think there's a lot of substantiating evidence to say that
this is a right perspective on all of them. You can go into the details of thou shalt
not kill, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not steal, bear false witness.
Those are all things that you can apply to the people that you're teaching. But I think
the overarching thing to teach them is to ask how are your relationships? What's your relationship
with God like? And then what's your relationship like with others? The truth of the matter
is we cannot keep the law. If we've offended in one point, we have offended at all. And
so, Jesus had to come to keep the commandments himself and then to take the punishment for
breaking the commandments that we had done upon him. That's what the cross is. And so,
when we teach this law, that leads us to needing redemption. And so, as you think through your
class and think through teaching this lesson in your class, there may be people, we had
people this last week in our church who came and were in Sunday school, didn't know Christ,
who got saved this week. It's really cool. But just because they're in church and in
Sunday school doesn't mean that they know Christ. And so, make sure that as you teach
this lesson, you teach it in such a way that points to the law and points to God's will
and then points to the fact that the only way for us to be saved from our breaking the
laws through Jesus, and then he sends his Holy Spirit to help us keep the law that we couldn't
keep through our own sheer will. He kept it on our behalf and then he grows us to be
people who live for him by keeping these commandments. I hope this lesson overview helped you and
I hope that you do a great job Sunday as you teach it. Thanks.