Sunday School | Catechism - Ten Commandments Part II

Introduction

Let's get cracking. Good morning. Good morning. Thanks for coming. Hello, Chad. Pleasure to see you. We're gonna get started as soon as you consent. All right. Good morning. Doug's being quiet. Good job, Doug. It's good. Alright. So what we're doing this morning, we're going to finish our little mini series we're doing on the 10 Commandments.

If you were here last week—how many of you were here last week? How many of you that were here last week could tell me the 10 Commandments using your fingers as a guide? Can you do it? You got it? Stephanie, you want to take a shot at it? You don't have to. Yeah, I can do it. Okay. So come on up front so people can see you really well. Okay? And you guys can review in your brains and your own minds here. So go slow so they can try to remember before you do it. Okay? Alright.

So and you can do it along with her, but try to remember, if you wanna memorize the 10 commandments, your 10 little fingers can be a memory guide for it. So first commandment:
One, there is only one god.
Very good.
Two, two is too many gods. That’s right. So there would be no idols. That's right.

They would have no idols.
Three is a window. Well, we use it a couple different ways. We use it the original way, it stands for word. We honor him with our words. Yes. So do not take the Lord's name in vain. But I suggested that that's not really what that means. Right. And it really is like more like we don't wear him. Don't bear him in vain. Yes. Right. We represent, don't misrepresent him. Very good.

Four. Yes, the thumb is resting to rest on the Sabbath. Right. Your sleepy sleepy thumb taking a nap. Sabbath. Good.

Five. Yes. Looks like this. Oh, yeah. Honor your father and mother. Honor your father and mother. Yes.

Six. Okay. Six. Yep. Do not murder. Do not treat somebody. You uncomfortable with this? I'm very comfortable murdering people. So you're—that's good. That it troubles you a little bit. It's good.

Seven is a man and wife. At So At the. So no adultery. No. Does that make sense? It's kinda lame. Something about being—so be Seventh Commandment is be married, apparently. Okay. I know. No adultery.

Eight is four and four—instead of the jail cell. Do not Steal. Do not steal. Very good.

Nine is these four are talking about these five. Yeah. This thumb is leaning into whisper lies. Right? To these guys. So what do we call that? Don't bear false witness against your neighbor. Yep.

And so I was doing 10 like this, but 10 is gimme, gimme gimme, do not covet. That's right. Your neighbor or neighbor's wife. Excellent. Well done, Stephanie.

Alright. Okay. Ro, you want to do it? Alright. Hey, Ro. Get the man a chair.

Alright. Ro is gonna nail hammer him out and say, can you yell them really loud when I put up a one? Remember? One. Can you go here? Hang on. Get you a little more rope. Sorry. Alright. Sorry. Here we go.

You got this. Only. Honor God.
Two. Put the two up.
Two is. Too many. Don't worship.

Three, remember that's the w. Honor God with? Your words. Your words. We changed some of the some of the things to make them a little easier to understand. The images? Yeah.

Four, remember? Keep the Sabbath rest. Sabbath rest.
Five is Honor God and your father. Honor your father. That's the most important one. Yeah. Remember, you like this one. Remember? Put these up. What? Don't Murder. Don't murder people. Good job.

Don't Adultery. Adultery.
Don't tell lies. The next one is don't steal. What about this one? Don't tell lies. And then what's this one? Remember? Don't be greedy. Don't be greedy. Woo. Good job. Well done, Roe. Good job, buddy.

Well done, friends.

Okay. So now you can remember them and teach them to everybody else.

Understanding the 10 Commandments

So what you need to know about the 10—a number of things we wanna know about the 10 commandments, but one of them is that they're really summary categories. It's not just 10 things that we're not supposed to do or must do, but they're really—each one of these 10 things is really representative of a broad field of things.

What we're ostensibly looking at is a new Anglican Catechism that's just come out in the last couple of years. But catechisms have a long, long history. And one of the oldest and richest and most enduring catechisms is the Westminster Catechism. Some of you may have been trained in that. And I think that thing is an absolute work of genius.

And it has at the beginning, as they're talking about the moral law, they give this overwhelming description of what the 10 Commandments is. The question they ask is question 99 in the Westminster Catechism. It says:

What rules are to be observed for the right understanding of the 10 Commandments?

So you've memorized these 10 things. Perhaps there's only one God. Two is too many gods. Four is the Sabbath. Seven is adultery. All your little thing.

Listen to this. This is overwhelming, I think. Absolutely overwhelming.

Just settle into this for a moment. Here's what they say:

What are the rules for a right understanding of the 10 Commandments? For a right understanding of the 10 Commandments, these rules are to be observed, that the law is perfect and binds everyone to full conformity in the whole man under the righteousness thereof and unto entire obedience forever.

We're not even getting started here. So as to require the utmost perfection of every duty and to forbid the least degree of every sin, that it is spiritual and so reaches the understanding, will, affections, and all other powers of the soul, as well as the words, works, and gestures that one and the same thing in diverse respects is required or forbidden in several commandments—that as where a duty is commanded, the contrary sin is forbidden and where a sin is forbidden, the contrary duty is commanded.

So where a promise is annexed, the contrary threatening is included. And where a threatening is annexed, the contrary promise is included.

That, what God forbids, is at no time to be done. What he commands is always our duty. And yet every particular duty is not to be done at all times.

That under one sin or duty all of the same kind are forbidden or commanded together with all the causes, means, occasions, and appearances thereof and provocations thereunto.

That what is forbidden or commanded to ourselves, we are bound, according to our places, to endeavor that it may be avoided or performed by others according to the duty of their places.

And that, in the end—we're almost done—what is commanded to others, we are bound, according to our places and callings, to be helpful to them and to take heed of partaking others in what is forbidden them.

Is that not overwhelming? My goodness. Right?

The law is perfect and binds everyone to full conformity in the whole man under the righteousness thereof and to entire obedience forever so as to require the utmost perfection of every duty and to forbid the least degree of every sin.

The 10 Commandments lay out as a summary of the nature and will of God. Any reasonable person who hears what I just said immediately should be thinking I surrender. I give up.

There has to be a plan B. If you heard that reading of what I just shared and you're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I got it, you are living in an unimaginable delusion. Right? We are a people, but by no means can we possibly do this.

Now, you might be able to maybe it would be impressive if you could memorize a list of 10 things. Most people have not accomplished that much to memorize the list. Right? Then if you were to memorize the list and then have in some vague general sense, oh, I've never murdered anybody, well, congratulations. Right? Okay?

But in fact, the concentric circles around each of these 10 things is enormous. Just absolutely enormous. When Jesus talks about these 10 commandments, he does not give us some little tiny pinpoint brick. You haven't done this. But he draws these big circles around it.

We are to think about all these things. How have I done it in my thoughts, my hearts, my emotions, my affections? How have I provoked others to do these things? Where have I not only—I'm not forbidden in others, but when have I induced others to do evil things on my behalf?

The whole list of the whole thing should completely overwhelm us. And that ultimately, ultimately, ultimately, that is the job of the 10 commandments. It is not to be the ladder by which you climb to heaven as you congratulate yourself on your self-righteousness. It is the standard of God into which you look and you realize, oh my goodness, there has to be a plan B.

For if there is no mercy for a person like me, then there is no hope—not for me and not for any one of us. Making sense? I think the 10 Commandments have often been taught through the ages as if it was simply a letter. Do these 10 things and we're golden. And it's just a vain thing. It's not the reality.

It does reflect his will. It does reflect his nature. But it does so in a way that should drive us to a sense of our need for a savior, that we would find life in him. And then in hearts that are flooded with gratitude, we would then begin to say, how can I demonstrate my appreciation for you? How manifest can a sense of gratefulness that you've been merciful to me who cannot possibly keep your rules?

To which the answer is: Hey, let's take a look at those again and see how can you begin over time to increasingly conform yourself to this list of things. Because this is what he loves. Because it's what he himself is like. That's how it's supposed to work. We see what he wants. We see his nature. We see his commands. We recognize our absolute inability to do it. We run to him. We find his grace and his mercy to forgive our many failings.

That mercy compels us to gratefulness. That gratefulness compels us to demonstrate it through obedience. Obedience to what? To this list of things that we really still can't do, but now we have the resource of love and gratitude to begin a closer and closer and closer approximation as long as we live our lives. That's how it's supposed to work. Make sense? Yeah. That's—that's the goal of the whole thing.

The Dividing Line of the Commandments

Catherine: I was just gonna say that about the grace because it's— I see how important it is to look at the impossibility of what we can do. And then it combines with that Rich Mullen song that said, when I fall, let me crawl on the grace, that first crawling.

Yes. Yeah. Rich Mullen says so many great lyrics. We do. We fall. We fall repeatedly throughout any given day. And so when we fall, if we fall into his grace with a sense of, like, even again, I can come to you and admit my failings, ask for forgiveness, and then be resourced to get up and maybe walk an extra minute longer this time before I fall into the same trap. That is the Christian life.

The Christian life is endlessly one of sin and repentance. Sin and repentance. Sin and repentance. And to whatever extent you've ever been taught the delusion that it's just like you just live in some state of perpetual obedience, the Bible knows nothing of that, and I certainly know nothing of that. We live in a sea of grace, and if we did not, we'd all be condemned forever. There'd be no hope.

Alright? So that's the 10 Commandments high level view. Now it breaks into two halves. What's the dividing line in the 10 commandments? Like topic wise, how does it go? Robin?

That's exactly right. The first four are vertical. The last six are horizontal. So you can run through them, right? There's only one God. Two gods is too many gods. Don't bear his name in vain. Rest on the Sabbath. Okay? Those four, those are all Godward. And those are the ones we looked at last week.

The last six are what we're going to look at today. And they're all about human interaction. They're all about how we engage with one another as we walk through the day.

Let's take a look and we'll just walk through those one at a time. Love to get some of your thoughts on them and see what they say with the understanding that even the human-based ones, well, I don't even know. Which are harder? First half, second half? That's not obvious to me.

You think they're both equally hard? I don't. Is there a general sense of this, Chris?

I would say the second half just because Jesus highlights them a little bit more extensively and makes, in my mind at least, the circle is bigger.

So you think Jesus talks? Jesus does explicitly like with the rich young ruler he just goes to the bottom of the second half. He talks about those.

So they're harder. They're certainly more obvious. Right? It's harder for you to see my failings in the first four, but it is more apparent in that second half. Robin?

You know, when Jesus says, love the Lord your God with all your heart, and then go to serve your neighbor as yourself, I think the second half goes with that.

That's exactly right. What Robin is saying, Jesus is giving—if 10 Commandments are a summary of God's moral expectations of us that we cannot meet, that drives us to our need for a savior, when Jesus says:

Love the Lord your God, that’s the first four
And Love your neighbor as yourself, that’s the last six.

So that's a summary of the summary.

Let's take a look. The first one here is Exodus 20, if you're following along in a Bible. You find the 10 Commandments by the way twice. They show up in Exodus 20 and also in Deuteronomy 5 because Deuteronomy is a recap. It means Deuteronomos: the second law. It's the second telling of all these things.

It's a speech that Moses gave and he basically quotes himself.

In Exodus 20 verse 12 it says this:

Honor your father and your mother so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you.

Do you guys know what's unique about this one that the New Testament specifically comments on? The promise. That's it. It comes with a promise, right?

In Ephesians 6 it says:

Children, obey your parents in the Lord for this is right. And then it quotes this, Honor your father and mother. And Paul adds this little note which is the first commandment with a promise, quote:
that it may go well with you and you may enjoy long life on the earth.

Okay. So what does it mean, honor your mother and father? Does it mean you have to obey your parents? What do you think?

Who's on? Does it? What is that? Part of it. It's part of it. Okay. You think it's more than it or less than that or sometimes more, sometimes less? More than.

Okay. So one function is obedience. Does anybody want to say you don't always have to obey your parents? Anybody on the team that?

Okay. When do you not have to obey your parents? What's that? It depends on what they want you to do. What if they want you to do something that you don't want to do?

Well, they don't want it to do. If they want it to work? Yeah, okay. So the question—there's a couple of lines on this that we should think about.

How many of you are, like, say, over the age 30? Let's say that. Okay. We'll just start. We'll make it nice and gentle. Do you need to obey your parents?

Yeah. Do you need to obey I said obey, not honor. Do you need to obey your parents? Do I need to obey my mom? They can. They're both dead.

Wait, say it again? They're both dead. Well, I'm sorry. Sorry, I'm being quiet. I still can't hear. What? Oh, Parents are your parents are dead. Okay. Alright. So you don't have to obey your dead parents.

Okay. This is true. A little painful, but true. So you guys, if you're an adult, you don't need to obey your parents. Is this controversial to you? Is this strange to you? Is this strange to those of—and that have adult children and you're mad that they don't come home for Thanksgiving? Because they don't have to obey you anymore.

Okay. So the Bible, this commandment is not children obey your parents. It's children honor your parents. And that means different things at different times in life.

Sadie needs to obey her mom because she still lives in my house. She's still our—she was a—not merely she will always be our daughter, but she is presently a child.

But only just for a little bit more, sweetie. You're just almost out. Right?

But Sadie's obligation to honor her mom and to a much greater extent to honor me is persistent. Is persistent. But very like my oldest son Benjamin, Benjamin owes me no obedience. He's an adult. He has a house. He's getting married. He's a grown up.

And he doesn't have to obey me. He does have an obligation to honor me even as I have an obligation to honor my mom. But this might be helpful for those of you whose children are about to become adults.

You guys, they don't have to obey you anymore. The whole point was to create an independent adult that didn't have to obey you anymore. They should honor you. They should be kind to you. But the obedience thing is to a limited extent. Some of you have noticed, and we'll not turn this into a marriage counseling session, but some of your marriages have floundered because your spouse still thinks they need to obey their parents. And they don't.

This is why the Bible says:

For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother,
and shall cleave to his wife.

That means I'm no longer under your authority. Right? So you're going to leave your mother and father.

Cleave to your wife. You have a new priority. Your mom is no longer your top priority. It's your wife. This is how this game is supposed to be played.

But the honor never expires. Never, never, never. You don't have to obey, but we are to speak well of, to serve, to love, to be beneficial to.

And then, when children are actually children, honoring does include obedience. Make sense?

Now, what's another—if we kind of clean that up a little bit and you understand honor and obedience are not the same thing—who else does this apply to? Because it's not just your mom and your dad. Do you know this?

It's a summary.
Right? D'Ryan?
The people in the Lord.

That's right. The call to be obedient to our authority is rooted in this commandment. So you honor your mother and your father, those that raised you and loved you. But when we fail, when we are failing to be submissive to authority, any legitimate—and not all authorities, not everyone who claims to be an authority is a legitimate authority—but when you are mouthy to your boss, disrespectful to your pastor, or outright disobedient to governing authorities, you're breaking this commandment.

There's a broader call to this. And in various ways and various times in life, have an obligation to be obedient but always to honor those above us. That's what this commandment is about.

Does that make sense? Controversy? Can you live with that? Okay. Tommy?

What about the nature of the society back then? Obedience was kind of—uh—to a decent degree.

Well, any given culture, rules are constantly changing in any given culture. And sometimes we can look back at the era that the Bible was written, certain things were culturally present. But unless the scripture kind of encapsulates them as normative, then it doesn't carry over for us.

So we could look and say any number of things at different moments in time that some culture is gonna say. But I think the Bible is pretty clear that adults don't need to obey their parents in as much as they have left and become that.

Even if there is time, even—we don't need to go back a thousand years. You can go—I’m sure you can go to, we'll just pick on the Italians for whatever reason. Right? Like, I'm sure there are Italian-American cultures where the assumption is that adult children obey their mom. And I am telling you, they are mistaken. It's not true. Even if the cultural pressure says so, that's not a transcendent reality.

And lots of cultures have lots of things that are bent or distorted, including our own, to be sure. For sure, for sure. Okay? So not everybody has to obey forever, but we must always honor.

Let's go to the next one because I'm taking too much time. How about 20:13? What's that one?

It's number six. You shall not murder. Why not?

Cain and Abel. That's the first instance of murder. But when the Bible says, you may not murder people, why can't you?

Image bearing. There we are. And we talked about image bearing the entire time last week. Once again it shows up. What's unpack the the image bearing a little?

God made us in his image. Us being in his image, we are represented as a—what? That's right.

You murdered a person sitting next to you. You're the image bearer of—That's right.

Listen to Genesis 9:6:

Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of God has God made man.

The reason you—you really can kill a cow. Like, you can. You're allowed to do that. But you really can't murder a human being.

The reason is they're an image bearer. Image bearing is such a massively important theme throughout the scriptures. It shows up in a million different ways. But one of these things here is the ground of why we're not allowed to murder other people.

Does murder mean kill? Is there ever an instance where you can kill a person even though they're image bearers?

Yes. Where would on what basis would you make that claim?

Three. Gary, what do you mean by this?

Wartime, self-defense or defense of your family, and if you're a government official and the person has been tried, found guilty of murder, and sentenced to die, you can be executed.

Okay. So Gary is saying—three instances in which killing is justified, that killing is not a violation of the prohibition on murder.

One, you said wartime. There's such a thing as war and the Bible clearly sees it. Now, is terrible. It's not permanent. The day will come when we'll beat our swords into plowshares. There will be a time where there is no more of this.

It may be just, but it's always awful. It's terrible, terrible. But there's a place for this. We see it clearly in the scriptures.

Self-defense, you're saying if your life is being threatened without another, you can protect—or your family. Very good. Children or your wife.

And then—what's the final? The government is legally allowed to kill people who are found guilty and the penalty is death. And the state grants to—or God grants to the state—the ability to take life.

Now, some of these things that you're saying—that is a very normal, very standard argument, and some would contest even that. There's a Christian, we talked about this a few weeks ago—Christian pacifism—that would say, even in that, Jesus says:

Do not resist an evil person.

That we suffer these things. We don't have time today to get into that whole thing. But generally speaking, there's been a broad assumption that, yes, that not all forms of killing are murder.

Murder is unauthorized, illegal, wrong sort of a killing. We can leave it there at the moment for that. Well, maybe we can't. I don't know. We'll see where we go.

One of my sources here says that the Hebrew word used here describes the unlawful taking of innocent life. That's right. So I think that clarifies the admission to me. Yes.

And so there is a difference between killing—I think the King James says, you shall not kill—and I think it's a poor translation. It really is a distinction to say murder.

And in fact, if you heard it, the Genesis 9:6 that I just read to you has both halves of this argument embedded in it. Genesis 9:6,

Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed.

That really is the basis of the idea that the state has the authority to carry out capital punishment.

However, one thing I want to say in a country that has had capital punishment as being one of our fundamental things forever, we can say that yes, when somebody kills somebody, not only is the state authorized—well, actually this. Not only when somebody murders somebody is the state authorized to carry out capital punishment, but they're obligated to.

Okay?

Can you guys rattle off the names of any people who committed murder in the Bible?

David.
Moses.
Paul.

There's another big one.

And not one of them was killed for having killed someone.

Okay? Now, you could say that David was the king, agent of the state, he was authorized to do that. Well, maybe, but he seemed pretty generous with the way he would wield that authority a hundred times. Right? And certainly, the killing of Bathsheba's husband was totally out of bounds.

So what we find is not only a prohibition against murder, but we find even in this, the unbelievable mercy of God. You yourself have received mercy in just a myriad of opportunities.

And there is a place—I do believe there's a place for self-defense. I do believe that there is a time where war is the least awful solution to a problem. And I do believe that the state is authorized to execute—well, shouldn't—that's an unfortunate word choice—to execute the power of execution.

But the Bible does not make the case that that must be the place we go to. It's really treated as a last resort in a world that is as dreadful as ours and where we need as much mercy. We should be thoughtful about the total Biblical picture of that.

So we don't murder. Jesus, of course, takes this and extends it famously.

What is the circle that Jesus draws around you shall not murder? Hate. Does that get a little dicier for you? Have you hated significantly more people than you've murdered? Is that a fair guess? Yeah.

Okay. So again, man, we cast ourselves at His mercy. We are guilty of so much.

The Seventh Commandment: Adultery

How about this one: Exodus 20:14, Seventh Commandment. What's that one?

You shall not commit adultery.

Okay, what is adultery?

Covenant breaking.

What is it? What's the most—just give me the be-as-dictionary-as-you-can.

Sex outside of marriage.

Yeah. Sex outside of marriage? What if it's two unmarried people? Is that adultery?

No. It’s a married one. Yeah.

Adultery kind of assumes—here’s from our catechism:

Adultery is any sexual intimacy between persons not married to each other, at least one of whom is married to another.

Does that feel good? I think that's right.

Those of you that are old enough to remember the Bill Clinton days, there was a debate of like what's really sex? What counts as sex? Right? Because maybe not all things do—except here's a hint: If you walk in and your wife is doing it with somebody else and it feels like adultery, it's probably adultery. Right?

Okay. Adultery is any sexual intimacy between persons not married to each other, at least one of whom is married to another.

But once again, Jesus says, oh, you're drawing too small of a circle around this. What does Jesus do with this? Lust.

Lust. Yes. What can anybody quote him directly? Go to Matthew 5 if you want to. What does he actually say?

Michael got it.

Anyone who looks at a woman lustfully commits adultery in his heart.

Okay. So there's two things you want to see here, I think. One, he's drawing—this is kind of like what he does. As murder is to hate, so adultery is to lust.

You feel that parallel he's setting up? So he's drawing a much bigger circle. You've hated more people than you have murdered. Yes?

Have you lusted after more people than you've committed adultery with? Probably by significant numbers. Right?

Okay. Jesus is drawing the circle. But sometimes we will draw a false equivalency. Michael quoted it accurately.

Oftentimes Jesus is quoted inaccurately on this. Jesus did not say that if you committed—if you look at a woman lustfully, you have committed adultery. Period.

He's not saying that. He's not drawing an equivalence here. What's the difference between saying: if you look at a woman lustfully, you've committed adultery in your heart, how is that different from: if you look at a woman lustfully, you've committed adultery?

How would those two statements be different?

Sam?

You can't get a divorce over looking lustfully at another woman because it's just in your heart. It's not like you're actually going to—

This is good. I doubt that you heard you in the back.

Sam said, You can't get a divorce because your spouse has looked at someone lustfully. Do you feel that?

If you could, then we would be living in a no-fault divorce at all times. And I mean that quite sincerely. If they're equivalents, if lust equals adultery and adultery is grounds for divorce, then lust is grounds for the divorce and we just live in a—all marriages are open to dissolution at a moment's notice.

He's not saying that. So what is he saying?

Ellen?

I think that if you have lust, it's basically a sin against yourself. When you actually commit adultery, there are other parties involved in the sin, whether it's the person you commit adultery with, or your spouse.

And so the sin is magnified in affecting your people.

This is this is completely true.

So what does it mean to commit adultery in your heart? What does that—it's what is he saying here? This is just worth taking, and then we're gonna jump into the rest. We won't stay here forever, but Michael?

It's like he's bringing it to a spiritual level because the greatest commandment to love God with all your heart, soul, and mind—and that Jesus translates—all of these physical actions into a spiritual parallel.

Yes. Adultery moving from the physical into the heart and the mind. So translating and showing the parallel between our spiritual thought and where we're to love God, our heart, soul, and mind.

It's that moving from the external to the internal. Because even though the prophets in the Old Testament to give a new heart, all of these things move to that internal peace.

Yes.

Parable to do right.

That's right. Okay. So what Michael is saying is what Jesus is doing here, and this applies certainly for murder and adultery, which Jesus makes explicit, but it's true for the whole list. Right?

There is this physical outward external manifestation of things. And we can congratulate ourselves that I haven't done that. So, you know, what a good boy am I. But Jesus is saying, well hang on. Hang on. Roll the tape back. Let's go back the inner part that's more hidden, that's more secret, and that eventually but inexorably leads to the external.

And your problem didn't start, your problem did not begin when you finally had an affair at the office. It didn't start there. It started way back here in this secret inner life.

Here's how James puts it. If you want to go to James, I think this kind of—I think James one kind of bridges the gap from Exodus 20 to Matthew 5.

When tempted, no one should say, God is tempting me. For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone. But each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed.

And then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin. And sin, when it is full grown, gives birth to death.

You feel that? That's how it works, right?

And so, your desire, James says, each person is tempted when they're dragged away by their own evil desire.

We have almost an axiom in our modern therapeutic culture that all of your emotions are valid. Right?

That all of your feelings are—like, that they're proper. We can't critique another person's feelings. That's the biggest load of garbage. Are you kidding me?

Like, my will is corrupted. I do bad things. My thoughts are corrupted. Sometimes my thinking is futile and I completely misunderstand the world around me.

But my emotions, man, those things are pristine. They are flawless.

I'm always precisely as happy. I mean, do you feel the absurdity of this?

Is it like your desires, your emotions, the things that bring you joy are very often out of keeping with the things that give God joy.

You're sad about things he's delighted in. You're a little bit angrier. He's a lot angrier. You're just a little angrier. He's just a little bit. That's not that big of a deal.

Our emotions are all over the place. And what James is saying is explicitly here, he says our own evil desires, not only are they evil, not only do they entice us, but they drag us away.

And suddenly, have you ever been a slave to your desires? Ever?

Can you think back that far? How long has it been? How long has it been?

Has it been less than twenty-four hours? Has it been since you got up this morning that you found yourself dragged away by your desires?

This is just our issue. And so sin always starts here. Of course it starts here. But then it goes and it gives birth and it gives birth and then it's death.

And Jesus is saying: don't just draw the lines out here right at the brink of death. Let's roll this thing back to see it all starts right here in our heart.

Make sense?

So they're not equivalent, but one leads to the other. And if we attack it in the cradle, it's going to grow up to a full-sized monster.

Robin and then Kathryn.

The scripture that says the heart is...

Jeremiah 17 or is it 17?

Jeremiah something.

Teen?

Am I wrong?

Whatever it is. Yes, the heart is deceptively wicked. Who can know it?

There's something wrong with us. Our hearts lie to ourselves as much as we lie to anybody else. Right?

For sure.

Kathryn, and then we'll go to.

That scenario made me think of Bundy. Do you all remember Bundy?

Ted Bundy.

In prison. Oh, Ted Bundy?

And when he got converted, he warned everybody. It started just in my neighborhood.

Yeah. And he said that's where it started.

That's right. And that is always the case with sin. It always starts small. And if we don't kind of nip it there, it just grows and it gets bigger.

You're not—I mean, none of us are smart enough, strong enough, better enough for that not to happen on us.

Dan?

This one, I mean, the adultery thing is also an image bearing issue, that if we are to be demonstrating God's perfect love and to have that be the hallmark of our relationships with and our thoughts about others, that must be—a corruption of that in inappropriate situations.

And, you know, my sense is that's one of the places Jesus says, hey, morning, he goes, look, you're supposed to be representing the father. That's right.

That we Paul says in First Timothy that we should that older men or men should treat other women as sisters, with absolute purity.

And that's not been abided by in billions of instances. Right?

For sure.

The Eighth Commandment: Stealing

Let's keep going. 20:15. What is eight?

The eighth commandment.

You shall not steal.

You're imprisoned behind the bars. You shall not steal.

I think that we might be able to say at an obvious level this rules out shoplifting. Right?

And my guess is that not many in this room are tempted to shoplift. But maybe you have had times when you were.

Right? And you could therefore say, I'm not a shoplifter check. But that would be an error because there's a million other ways to steal.

Right? How does this play out? What are the circles of this? Where are we tempted to rob, violate this commandment?

You shall not steal.

I'm not hearing any real words. Michael, loud.

New Testament.

Jesus kind of addressed it. The giving of tax evasion and...

For sure.

Points. Yes, absolutely.

So paying taxes—Jesus squarely places paying taxes in the same category, right?

It's things like not paying your debts would be stealing. Not paying if you owe taxes, pay taxes.

Paul says, let no debt remain outstanding except—do you know the only exception?

Let no debt remain outstanding except for continuing debt to love one another.

Plagiarizing a paper. Pirating software. Especially back in the day, like in the pre-Napster era, where everybody was constantly just stealing music or stealing Microsoft Word.

Not tithing is characterized as robbing God. Right? He has claimed ownership of this.

You want to make it more uncomfortable? Keep going.

What about when God says vengeance is mine and we—

When we take that.

That is a fascinating approach to that.

So you're saying that when we steal what only belongs to the Lord, only to Him belongs the right to enact vengeance.

That is, essentially, a violation of this.

I think you can make a very strong case for that.

Take things that are not mine. You could.

Paul will put not adultery but premarital sex in this category.

He's going say in 1 Thessalonians 4 that no one should defraud his brother. That is theft by deceit. That when you're having sex with somebody who is not your spouse, you're pretending to be their spouse and claiming what only belongs to their spouse or their future spouse.

That sexual immorality is defrauding someone. It is theft by deceit.

It's a violation of this commandment, for sure.

Jim?

You can steal an employer's time.

Oh, man, that's a great thing.

You're getting paid for forty hours of work. How many hours are you giving them?

Right? How much of your time are you spending chatting or not doing the job?

Catherine?

Fraud by deceit, like I was thinking.

If you lie about your coworker because you want the position that he's entitled to—that's right.

And that's stealing. That's exactly right.

Whether you are plagiarizing a paper to get a better grade so you're better positioned to get a better job than the person who actually did the work, you're lying about a coworker so you can steal their promotion from them, that you can get the raise they don't get.

That's theft. You're robbing.

You're stealing.

One thing you guys haven't mentioned that the Bible is pretty clear about is failing to serve the poor. And that can be troubling in a context when we feel like it's mine.

God's perspective on your wealth is that he gave it to you so that you can bless others with it. And this is tough in fiercely capitalistic—what's mine is mine, I'd earn this all by myself.

Never mind, you would not be anywhere near as wealthy as you are if you didn't live in a country that provided the resources and the infrastructure that you have.

There's a million ways that we violate this without even being thoughtful about it. Here's Isaiah 10:

Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees,
to deprive the poor of their rights, and withhold justice from