The Ten Commandments: Reasonable Rules for Life
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Original Title: Weighed and Wanting. New, updated edition.
The ten commandments are not popular today. Atheists want them nowhere in sight. Many Christians say they are outdated. But Dwight L. Moody challenges us to take a closer look. Which of the ten commandments can we honestly say are not good? Which of the ten commandments can we break and not suffer the consequences, both here and in eternity?
This book will challenge you to examine God's rules for life. God doesn't ask anything of us that is difficult or unreasonable, and this is certainly true with Jesus Christ as our strength and the Holy Spirit to guide us. This book is a challenging yet refreshing look at some of the oldest, most well-known words of God.
Dwight L. Moody
Dwight L. Moody, determined to make a fortune, arrived in Chicago and started selling shoes. But Christ found him and his energies were redirected into full-time ministry. And what a ministry it was. Today, Moody's name still graces a church, a mission, a college, and more. Moody loved God and men, and the power of a love like that impacts generations.
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- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Legalism is a curse. "I by the law, died to the law"~ Apostle Paul.
Book preview
The Ten Commandments - Dwight L. Moody
The Ten Commandments
Reasonable Rules for Life
Original Title: Weighed and Wanting
Dwight L. Moody
Contents
Introduction
The First Commandment
The Second Commandment
The Third Commandment
The Fourth Commandment
The Fifth Commandment
The Sixth Commandment
The Seventh Commandment
The Eighth Commandment
The Ninth Commandment
The Tenth Commandment
One Law, Not Ten
Dwight L. Moody – A Brief Biography
If you love Me, you will keep My commandments. (John 14:15)
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Introduction
The Ten Commandments
Exodus 20:3-17
I. You shall have no other gods before Me.
II. You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.
III. You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not leave him unpunished who takes His name in vain.
IV. Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath of the LORD your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you. For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day and made it holy.
V. Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be prolonged in the land which the LORD your God gives you.
VI. You shall not murder.
VII. You shall not commit adultery.
VIII. You shall not steal.
IX. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
X. You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife or his male servant or his female servant or his ox or his donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor.
Weighed in the Balances
In the fifth chapter of Daniel we read the history of King Belshazzar. One chapter tells us all we know about him. One short picture of his career is all we have. He bursts in upon the scene and then disappears.
We are told that Belshazzar made a great feast for a thousand of his lords and drank wine with them. In those days, a feast would sometimes last for six months in Eastern countries. How long this feast had been going on we are not told, but in the midst of it, he gave orders to bring the gold and silver vessels which Nebuchadnezzar his father had taken out of the temple which was in Jerusalem, so that the king and his nobles, his wives and his concubines might drink from them. Then they brought the gold vessels that had been taken out of the temple, the house of God which was in Jerusalem; and the king and his nobles, his wives and his concubines drank from them. They drank the wine and praised the gods of gold and silver, of bronze, iron, wood and stone (Daniel 5:2-4).
While this impious act was being committed, suddenly the fingers of a man’s hand emerged and began writing opposite the lampstand on the plaster of the wall of the king’s palace, and the king saw the back of the hand that did the writing (Daniel 5:5). We are not told at what hour of the day or the night it happened. Perhaps it was midnight. Perhaps nearly all the guests were more or less under the influence of drink, but they were not so drunk that they couldn’t suddenly become sober, as they saw something that was supernatural – a hand writing on the wall, right over the golden candlestick.
Every face turned deathly pale. Then the king’s face grew pale and his thoughts alarmed him, and his hip joints went slack and his knees began knocking together (Daniel 5:6). In haste, he sent for his wisest men to come and read that handwriting on the wall. They came in one after another and tried to make it out, but they could not interpret it. The king promised that whoever could read it would be made the third ruler in the kingdom and he would have gifts, and a gold chain would be put round his neck. But the wise men tried in vain. The king was greatly troubled.
At last, in the midst of his consternation, the queen came in, and she told the monarch that if he would send for one who used to interpret the dreams of Nebuchadnezzar, he could read the writing and tell him the interpretation thereof. So Daniel was sent for. He was very familiar with it. He knew his Father’s handwriting.
Now this is the inscription that was written out: ‘MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN.’ This is the interpretation of the message: ‘MENE ‘-God has numbered your kingdom and put an end to it. ‘TEKEL ‘-you have been weighed on the scales and found deficient. ‘PERES ‘-your kingdom has been divided and given over to the Medes and Persians. (Daniel 5:25-28)
If someone had told the king an hour before that the time had come when he must step on the balances and be weighed, he would have laughed at the thought. But the vital hour had come.
The weighing was soon over. The verdict was announced, and the sentence carried out. That same night Belshazzar the Chaldean king was slain. So Darius the Mede received the kingdom (Daniel 5:30-31). Darius and his army came marching down those streets. There was a clash of arms. Shouts of war and victory rent the air. That night the king’s blood mingled with the wine of the banquet hall. Judgment came upon him unexpectedly and suddenly; probably ninety-nine out of every hundred judgments come in this way. Death comes upon us unexpectedly; it comes upon us suddenly.
Perhaps you say, I hope Mr. Moody is not going to compare me to that heathen king.
I tell you that a man who does evil in these gospel days is far worse than that king. We live in a land of Bibles. You can get the New Testament for a nickel, and if you don’t have a nickel, you can get it for nothing. Many societies will be glad to give it to you for free. We live in the full blaze of Calvary. We live on this side of the cross, but Belshazzar lived more than five hundred years on the other side. He never heard of Jesus Christ. He never heard about the Son of God. He never heard about God except, perhaps, in connection with his father’s remarkable vision. He probably had no portion of the Bible, and if he had, he probably didn’t believe it. He had no godly minister to point him to the Lamb of God.
Don’t tell me that you are better than that king. I believe that he will rise in judgment and condemn many of us.
All this happened many centuries ago. Let’s look at this century, this year, and ourselves. Let’s come to the present time and imagine that now, while I am preaching, some balances descend from the throne of God. They are fastened to the very throne itself. It is a throne of equity and justice. You and I must be weighed. I venture to say this would be a very solemn audience. There would be no trifling. There would be no indifference. No one would be thoughtless.
Some people have their own balances. A great many are making balances to be weighed in. But after all, we must be weighed in God’s balances, the balances of the sanctuary. It is a favorite thing with infidels to set their own standard and measure themselves by other people. But that will not do in the day of judgment. Now we will use God’s law as a balance weight. When men find fault with the lives of professing Christians, it is a tribute to the law of God.
Tekel. It is a very short text. It is so short that I am sure you will remember it, and that is my point – to get people to remember God’s own Word.
God’s Handwriting
Let me call your attention to the fact that God wrote on the tables of stone at Sinai as well as on the wall of Belshazzar’s palace.
These are the only messages to men that God wrote with His own hand. He wrote the commandments out twice and spoke them aloud in the hearing of Israel.
If it were known that God Himself was going to speak to man again, what eagerness and excitement there would be. For nearly nineteen hundred years, He has been silent. No inspired message has been added to the Bible for over nineteen hundred years. How eagerly all men would listen if God would speak once more. Yet men forget that the Bible is God’s own Word, and that it is as truly His message today as when it was delivered long ago. The law that was given at Sinai has lost none of its solemnity. Time cannot wear out its authority or the fact of its authorship.
I can imagine someone saying, I won’t be weighed by that law. I don’t believe in it.
Now men may object as much as they like about other parts of the Bible, but I have never met an honest man that found fault with the Ten Commandments. Infidels may mock the Lawgiver and reject Him who has delivered us from the curse of the law,