"Sharing The Gospel" - Steve Wiggins Special Devotional Series

10 Commandments: 9 & 10

Today, we finish the 10 Commandments!!!!! (Cue the Pointer Sisters: “Celebrate Good Times”…balloons & confetti.) Good times, indeed. The beginning of EVANGELISM is the understanding that there is a G_d-imposed standard of conduct and worship, under which all mankind must live. We must be a people who are serious about knowing the Lord and seeking His requirements, which are not only for the people who bear His Name, but also for the whole World.

9th COMMANDMENT: Hold up a “High-Five” on one hand, and a “High-Four” on the other, and say, “Commandment number Nine: no lying!” “Nine” and “Lying” sort of rhyme…

“Do not bear false witness against your neighbor.” Exodus 20:16

Pretty much everyone knows that lying is a sin, but as with the other commandments, this one goes deeper than the general pedestrian understanding. God foresaw a time when the people of Israel would take each other to court and lie about the evidence. Surely, that would NEVER happen, today… We see this sin most prominently displayed in the trial of Yeshua before the Sanhedrin. Some of the P’rushim (Pharisees) convinced people to falsely testify against Yeshua, but none of their stories could be corroborated. When we consider the idea of what the modern Messianic community (the Church) calls “witnessing”, (or sharing your faith), the command to not “Bear false witness” carries extra gravity. After all, don’t we sin when we profess that we love Yeshua, yet our lifestyles bear witness that we really love the World? It is possible to bear “false witness” by diminishing our testimony of Yeshua in order to “fit in” with society.

10th COMMANDMENT: Hold up two “High-Fives”, and say, “Number Ten is the end: We LOVE IT…but we still don’t covet.”

“Do not covet your neighbor’s house; do not covet your neighbor’s wife, his male or female slave, his ox, his donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.” Exodus 20: 17

The correct understanding of coveting is somewhat foreign to our culture. Coveting is not, simply wanting something your neighbor has. That is no sin. If your neighbor gets a new car, for instance, and you want one too, all you have to do is simply work hard and buy one like your neighbor’s. Coveting is more like an evil craving to have something INSTEAD of your neighbor. Coveting is the deep compulsion to envy & hate your neighbor for having some “thing”, instead of you; and it generates the desire to destroy your neighbor, if necessary, to obtain that “thing”. It is the root of all spiritual and relational adultery. It is the root of all sorts of greed, thievery, malicious intent, and warring.

So….can you recite ALL 10 Commandments, by memory?

Blessings,
~Steve Wiggins, Associate Leader, Worship Leader
Shuvah Yisrael
Friday, January 10, 2014