Dr. Rodney Plunket

This morning we continue our sermon series on the Ten Commandments, and we will focus today on the sixth, seventh, and eighth of those commandments.  Those three commandments read as follows:  “You shall not murder.  You shall not commit adultery.  You shall not steal.”  I want to begin this lesson with a reading from the Old Testament Book of Jeremiah.  If you have your Bible please turn to Jeremiah 7:1-15 and follow along as I read.

The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord:  Stand in the gate of the Lord’s house, and proclaim there this word, and say, Hear the word of the Lord, all you people of Judah, you that enter these gates to worship the Lord.  Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel:  Amend your ways and your doings, and let me dwell with you in this place.  Do not trust in these deceptive words: “This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.”

For if you truly amend your ways and your doings, if you truly act justly one with another, if you do not oppress the alien, the orphan, and the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own hurt, then I will dwell with you in this place, in the land that I gave of old to your ancestors forever and ever.

Here you are, trusting in deceptive words to no avail.  Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to Baal, and go after other gods that you have not known, and then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, “We are safe!”––
only to go on doing all these abominations?  Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your sight?  You know, I too am watching, says the Lord.  Go now to my place that was in Shiloh, where I made my name dwell at first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people Israel.  And now, because you have done all these things, says the Lord, and when I spoke to you persistently, you did not listen, and when I called you, you did not answer, therefore I will do to the house that is called by my name, in which you trust, and to the place that I gave to you and to your ancestors, just what I did to Shiloh.  And I will cast you out of my sight, just as I cast out all your kinsfolk, all the offspring of Ephraim.

One of the reasons that I am beginning this lesson with a look at Jeremiah 7 is because it mentions five of the Ten Commandments including all three of the ones that we are focusing upon today.  A second reason for beginning here is the application to contemporary life which is generated by Jeremiah’s words.  Let me expose that application.

Jeremiah addressed a people who were ignoring the Ten Commandments and felt no danger in doing that.  They did not think God would punish them because they lived in the holy city of Jerusalem.  They thought that living near “the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord” meant that God would keep them safe and secure.  They did not think it mattered how they lived.  They could murder with boldness, commit adultery with impunity, and steal without fear of divine retribution.  The temple’s presence, they thought, neutralized any moral culpability.

On Tuesday and Wednesday of this past week I was in Washington, DC at a Congregational Engagement Conference conducted by the Gallup Organization.  We have heard of “Gallup Polls” all of our lives.  The Gallup Organization is the group that creates those polls and communicates their results.  George Gallup, Jr.’s father began the Gallup Organization.  George Gallup, Jr. has been involved in this business of polling for fifty years.  He spoke to us for about an hour on Tuesday morning.  One of the things he pointed out is that only about 5% of Americans are real unbelievers, profoundly non-religious.  The remaining 90-95% of Americans believe in God, and the vast majority of that 90-95% claim to be Christians.  The problem is, as Gallup pointed out, that so many of those who claim to be Christians do not live out Christianity in any meaningful way.  Their connection to the life-changing force of Christian faith is non-existent.

Another George who is also a pollster, George Barna, released his newest poll on January the 29^th.  His study identifies five discernible religious segments within the American population.  Three of those five segments are associated with the Christian faith.  Barna labels those three segments as “evangelicals,” “non-evangelical born again Christians,” and “notional Christians.”  “Evangelicals” make up only 8% of the population and have the strongest commitment to biblical morals.  “Non-evangelical born again Christians” make up 33% of the US population.  Listen to what Barna discovered about that group’s moral attitudes.

On moral issues, this group is most likely to take its cues from sources other than the Bible or religious teaching.  The primary influences on their moral decisions are personal feelings about what is right, the values taught to them by their parents, and whatever choices produce the best personal outcomes.

“Notional Christians” comprise 44% of the American population and are the larg­est of any of Barna’s five segments.  Notional Christians are people who describe themselves as Christians, but do not believe that they will have eternal life because of their reliance upon the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and the grace extended to people through a relationship with Christ. (A large majority of these individuals believe they will have eternal life, but not because of a grace-based relationship with Jesus Christ.)

Barna reports that “only a minority [within this group] regularly attends” a Christian church.  Listen to that group’s moral views,

“Only one out of every ten notional Christians bases moral choices on the Bible or religious teaching, and just one out of every six believes in absolute moral truth . . . . .  A majority of the people in this segment contends that morally acceptable lifestyles include homosexuality, cohabitation, viewing pornography, and entertaining sexual fantasies” (click here for Barna Results 1/29/2002).

I believe that these findings expose the reality that in America today there is an attitude not that dissimilar to the attitude Jeremiah attacks.  The Jews of Jeremiah’s day put their confidence in being near the temple.  As a result, they lived pretty much as they pleased with little or no regard to the moral command­ments of God.  I think many Americans today put their confidence in the fact that they believe in God and call themselves Christians.  As a result, they live pretty much as they please with little or no regard to the moral commandments of God.

Jeremiah made clear that the temple was at risk because of the immoral life­styles of the people.  In time the temple was destroyed and the Jews were forcibly removed from the land of Judea by the Babylonians who were directed to do that by the express will and purpose of God.  For God to be unwilling to allow flagrantly immoral people to live on his chosen land but to be willing to allow flagrantly immoral people to enter heaven and to receive eternal life makes no sense.  If God would not let such people live in Judea, why would God let such people live in the holiest place there is?  Jesus came to forgive sin and to transform sinners.  Jesus did not come to sanitize sin and to turn a blind eye to superficial Christians who are controlled by sin.  The commandments of God are to shape and guide our lives.

But a significant chunk of the American population believe that the moral commandments of God do not matter that much.  They believe they will have eternal life in spite of the fact that they do not base their moral decisions on the word and will of God.  They do not base their moral choices on the Bible, but that’s okay, they think, because they believe in God in some worldly sort of way exactly like the Jews of Jeremiah’s day did.  Those Jews had a rude awakening when the Babylonian army showed up, destroyed the city of Jerusalem, leveled the temple, and took the people off into Babylonian exile.  I believe the superficial Christians of our day are in for the same rude awakening when Christ returns.

Listen to the words of Jesus in Matthew (Mt) 7:21-27.

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.  On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?’  Then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers.’

“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock.  The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock.  And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand.  The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell—and great was its fall!”

And we should note that these words come at the end of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, and earlier in that sermon Jesus quotes the sixth and seventh commandments and stiffens them.  He extends the divine prohibition against murder so that it also condemns hatred.  He extends the divine prohibition against adultery so that it also condemns sexual lust.  So when Jesus says, “everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand,” included in those “words of [Jesus]” are words supporting and strengthening the sixth and seventh of the Ten Commandments.

People, Jesus makes clear that these commandments are serious business.  The sixth commandment against killing or murder calls us to a high respect of human life.  We must respect human life so much that we do not even dishonor it in our hearts by hating someone.  The seventh commandment against adultery calls us to such a high view of sexuality that we do not even dishonor it in our hearts by lusting after someone to whom we are not married.

Jesus did not mention the seventh commandment in the Sermon on the Mount, but He supports it in Mt 19:18; 27:64; Mark 10:19; & Luke 18:20.  And the apostle Paul in Ephesians 4:28 writes, “Thieves must give up stealing; rather let them labor and work honestly with their own hands, so as to have something to share with the needy.”  Paul wants to see thieves transformed because of their new lives in Jesus.  He wants them to change from unlawful takers to generous givers, givers of the fruit of their own honest labor.

In Mt 22:37-40 we read a great statement from Jesus.  A lawyer tried to trip Jesus up with this question, “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” (Mt 22:36).  The question did not cause Jesus’ the slightest stumble.  Listen to His answer,

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.”  This is the greatest and first commandment.  And a second is like it:  ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’  On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

All the law and the prophets hang on the commandments to love God with one’s entire being and to love others as one loves herself or himself.  That means the Ten Commandments “hang on”/are tightly connected to the commandments to love God and to love others.

That makes perfect sense.  If I love God and love others, I will not murder, I will not commit adultery, and I will not steal.  If I love God and others, I will order my life by the moral commandments found in Scripture.

I believe that everything I have said up to this point has been true.  But it is not the whole truth.  The whole truth is that moral transformation takes place within a person and that moral transformation is generated by God.  Christians are broken and flawed like everyone else.  We have a fallen nature like everyone else.  We do not change because of the human will to do so.  We are transformed morally by the Holy Spirit of God working within us.  The apostle Paul in Romans 12:2 well describes our moral transformation when he refers to being “transformed by the renewing of [our] minds, so that [we] may know and approve what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.”  The change agent is within.  The change agent is God, the Spirit of God.  It renews out inner being.  As a result we know and approve the will of God for our lives.  And God’s will includes moral purity, ethical living, conformity to the commandments that naturally flow out of loving God and loving your neighbor.  Moral transformation comes from God.  It comes because the Spirit of God enters the humble and lowly heart and renews it.  It comes because humans that are like fragile jar of clay take the lids off and allow God to pour the Holy Spirit within.  We must be compliant.  We must be willing to be transformed.  We must be hungry for the life of God that only God can give.

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