Heart Matters: Understanding the Ten Commandments

God reminds us that as long as we have parents, we are to honor them, seeing that their living is respectable and that they are well cared for. Honoring your parents is just not a matter of doing what our parents tell us to do when we're running around as little kids. It's a matter of showing lifelong honor to the parents who gave us life, who raised us, and who launched us on life's journey. [00:02:17]

But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or a sister will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, raka, is answerable to the court. And anyone who says you fool will be in danger of the fire. Hell. Now, raka means empty, wonderful. [00:03:22]

And so, he does this also with the next commandment. You know, he takes it into more heart than just having to do with an action. And it has to do with don't commit adultery, which, you know, the Greek words are having sexual relationships with a married person, what we thought it would be, you know. But Jesus takes it further. He says, you have heard it said, you shall not commit adultery. But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. [00:03:42]

Again, for Christians today, God's commandments are about what goes on in a person's heart, not just the outward. You shall not steal. That means for yourself, not taking something that's yours. I mean, you know, that's pretty much the law everywhere. [00:04:16]

And so if someone gave false witness, or to put it in other words, if they lied under oath during these proceedings to make the case go a certain way by not telling the truth, I mean, it was a really bad thing. I mean, and it could set in motion some really bad outcomes. I mean, judgment based on false testimony could destroy the life or property of an innocent human being. It could discredit their country's system of justice. [00:04:53]

And so the penalty for perjury, bearing false witness, lying under oath, however you want to refer to that, the punishment was very severe as it breaks, you know, one of the Ten Commandments. And so if you fast forward to today, of course, that's still the same thing, right? Lying under oath, committing perjury, that's a very serious criminal offense. I mean, you go to jail for that. And so, you know, that hasn't changed. But the commandment against bearing false witness really is broader than just in the court system. There's a broader application. [00:05:28]

outside the context of the courts. And we commonly call this slander or gossip, if you will. So it's possible to bear false witnesses or slandering by spreading rumors. And I was really trying to think of an example of this. And for some reason, I thought about Andre Crouch, who was a well-known gospel singer a while back now. But you may be aware that actually Andre wrote a couple of the hymns in our hymn book, The Blood Will Never Lose Its Power and My Tribute to God Be the Glory. He wrote both of those beautiful songs. But a number of years ago, and I'm talking something like 30, maybe 35 years ago. [00:06:04]

He was stopped in Los Angeles for a minor traffic infraction, and they searched his car, and they found white powder. And so they immediately took him in. They booked him on a drug charge, and that got out in the press, and it began to make the rounds. However, it turned out he was totally innocent. It wasn't cocaine. It was a white powder. It was a diet mix of some kind. And so, you know, he was discharged. Charges were dropped. But you know what? It was too late. It was too late to stop those false rumors that he was involved in drugs. And these rumors really hurt his career and reputation. [00:06:41]

to this day. I mean, you can still talk to people that believe Andre was involved with drugs because that rumor got to be such a common belief. And so those who spread those rumors were guilty of bearing false witness. You know, we need to check our facts. [00:07:18]

You know, when we say things that are untrue about others, I mean, lots of lives can be ruined when false information is spread. Reputations of honest and honorable people have been deeply damaged because of false rumors. [00:07:54]

Notice that the first nine commandments are fixated on what you do. They are about your actions, right? Think about it. All of the 10, you know, you shouldn't kill, don't commit adultery. You know, all of those things, false witness. They're actions. There's things that we do. Now, I showed you in the New Testament how Jesus made it more about. [00:08:45]

about the heart. But this one on coveting is the only thing where something that you think or feel in your heart, you know, God calls it sin. He says that coveting and thinking this way is a sin. Even though there's no outward action associated with coveting other than what happens in your mind, it's still a sin to think those thoughts. It still breaks one of the Ten Commandments. And it's different for the Old Testament, you know. But coveting or envying, you know, that is all too well known to us human beings. I think we all struggle with it from time to time. You know, we hear of a co-worker's promotion or we see somebody's got a new fancy car or... [00:09:06]