Sermon Central
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Why Did God Give The Ten Commandments?
Contributed by James Drake on Apr 17, 2007 (message contributor)
Summary: We must understand God’s reasons for giving the Ten Commandments in order to gain the greatest benefit from them. A careful study of the present passage tells us why God gave the law.
WHY DID GOD GIVE THE TEN COMMANDMENTS?
INTRODUCTION
Scripture is clear: God gave the Ten Commandments as the basic law to govern all people. But why? Why exactly did God give the Ten Commandments to the world? What were His purposes? What did God have in mind? What were His reasons for instituting the Ten Commandments to be the basic law for all men to obey?
We must understand God’s reasons for giving the Ten Commandments in order to gain the greatest benefit from them. A careful study of the present passage tells us why God gave the law. Five very specific purposes can be gleaned from the experience of Israel right after receiving the Ten Commandments.
MAJOR POINTS OF THE TEXT
1. To give man the commandments of the Lord Himself, the commandments that point to a full, victorious life (v.22).
2. To reveal the majestic glory and holiness of God: showing that a great barrier—a great gulf—exists between man and God (v.23-25).
3. To reveal that man must have a mediator to represent him before God (v.26-27).
4. To reveal the very heart of God for man (v.28-33).
WHAT WAS THE PURPOSE OF THE LAW?
To give man the commandments of the Lord Himself, the commandments that point people to a full, victorious life. God loves His people and cares about their welfare, the problems and difficulties, the trials and temptations they face in life. God is deeply concerned about the terrible and appalling evil committed by people:
= dishonoring father and mother
= murdering
= committing adultery and other forms of immorality
= stealing
= lying and speaking falsely against people
= coveting the things of this world, including the wives and husbands of others
= cursing God’s name
= committing idolatry and false worship
= believing in false gods
God created man; therefore, He knows how man should live. God knows what it is that gives man a full, victorious life. This is what the Ten Commandments are for: they are the laws that tell man how to live—how to have purpose, meaning, and significance in life—how to have confidence, assurance, satisfaction, and fulfillment in life—how to live a victorious life, conquering all the enemies that stand opposed to life: disease, accident, death, broken relationships, and all the other trials and tribulations that confront us day by day as we walk throughout life. God wants His people conquering all of the difficulties and trials of life. He wants His people living full, victorious lives. This was the reason He gave the Ten Commandments to the people of Israel. He wanted His people to have the laws, the commandments that told them how to live, the commandments that would lead them to full, victorious lives.
The voice of God Himself spoke the commandments, proclaiming them out from the spectacular sight of His glory. God wanted no question about the source of the commandments, that they came from Him and Him alone. Therefore, He gave the commandments in the midst of a spectacular revelation of His majestic glory and holiness. By doing this, the commandments would be stamped and engraved upon the minds of the people forever. Remember, the presence of God had descended upon Mt. Sinai, symbolized in a cloud that Scripture describes as thick, deep darkness. The cloud was filled with thunder and lightning and the constant blast of a loud trumpet. When it descended upon the mountain, a flaming fire engulfed the mountain with flames shooting up into the deep, dark cloud. There was a violent quaking of the mountain and bellowing smoke that arose as though from a huge, volcanic eruption. By giving the law in such a spectacular, dramatic way, it was imprinted forever on the minds of the people. God did all He could to make sure they had the laws they needed to live full, victorious lives.
But this was not all God did. He Himself wrote the commandments on two stone tablets and gave the tablets to Moses to give to the people. Obviously, the people of that day could look at the tablets and tell that the wording had not been chiseled by man, but rather by the flaming finger of God’s holy hand. This means that the Ten Commandments were given to man in two dramatic ways:
= by the very voice of God Himself, proclaimed out from the awesome presence of His spectacular glory
= by the very finger of God Himself
There could never be any legitimate question, not by a thoughtful, honest person: the Ten Commandments have come from the Lord God Himself. They were given by God to the Israelites and to all other people to show them how to live full, victorious lives.
SCRIPTURES TO PONDER
"For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled" (Matthew 5:18).
