Exodus 20:1-20 St. Matthew 19:16-30 Psalm 91

The Ten Promises

One of the many goodies my mum and sister-in-law brought us from Africa was
a copy of the Ten Commandments re-written in the form of Ten Promises. We
all know that the Decalogue is basic to our faith. Indeed, in our Gospel
Lesson for this evening, our Lord said as much to the rich young ruler in
answer to his question, "Teacher, what good thing shall I do that I may have
eternal life?"

What's more, the Early Church Father, Irenaeus believed that, because of our
Lord's incarnation and His subsequent fulfilment of all that the Law of God
demanded, the Decalogue was extended in application, but never abrogated. As
such, they are indeed Ten Promises for believers.

In the first, our Lord promises that if He truly has first place in our
lives, we would not wish to serve anything else that purports to be a god as
we will know that there is no such thing. If God is really God, then any
other supposed deity is a non-entity. This means that there can never be a
"partnership" where our God is concerned as to place anything else on par
with Him is to essentially deny the concept of a Sovereign God altogether.
The promise is thus simple.place God first in your life and He will take up
permanent residence within.





In the second, God promises that if we serve Him properly, we will not need
images to worship of Him. To portray God by the use of images is to be blind
to the fact that we are His image bearers. Idols of whatever kind, whether
they be idols of stone, wood, metal or even idols of thought, simply distort
the purpose of God in conforming us to the image of His Son, Jesus, the
Christ. God must be worshipped as He is, not as we perceive or envision or
even wish Him to be. If we do this, He promises that we will not need
man-made images as He will increasingly remake His image within us.

In the third, our Lord promises that if we truly love Him we never seek to
defile His Name by using it in an idle fashion. There are many ways in which
the Lord's Name can be taken in vain. Many use His Name as an expletive, or
in the taking of an oath, but probably the most common is simply living a
life which is contrary to the Name we claim to revere. According to St.
Paul, the Name of Jesus is the Name which is above every other Name and all
should bow the knee at the mention of it. In our tradition, many take this
statement literally, but to bow the knee while not bowing the heart is
missing the point. The promise is if we really know the One Whose Name we
have chosen to take upon our lives and on our lips, we will always honour it
both in word and deed.

In the fourth, God promises that if we honour the day of the Lord.the day of
the resurrection.the day of the beginning of the new creation.then our
worship of Him on that day will be a joy and a blessing, not a chore nor a
duty. Many have the wrong view of the Lord's Day in that they see it as a
time of rest for themselves. This was the view of those who criticised our
Lord for doing good on the Old Testament Sabbath.

But being idle for one day does not render one godly (Justin Martyr). The
Apostolic Constitutions state that "the Sabbath is a rest in order to
meditate on the law; it is not a day for idleness of the hands".
Furthermore, it instructed that we were to have rest on the Lord's Day so
that we might "go to church for instruction in piety". Thus the promise is
that if we truly comprehend what it is the Lord has done for us on this day,
we will find that this is a day to look forward to.indeed, one of our very
own dear parishioners has been known to count off the days till the next
service.not because the services are so wonderful, but because he is so
thankful and grateful for what his Lord has done for him.

In the fifth, our Lord promises that if we understand His sovereign rule in
our lives, we will realise the great honour and privilege it is to have the
mother and the father He, in His infinite wisdom, chose for us to have. In
Psalm 139 we are told that it was God Who formed us in our mother's womb.He
even knew our name before we were conceived.He knew every single day of our
lives before there was even one of them.and all of this means that He also
knew who our parents would be and why we were their child and not the child
of anyone else. Thus it will not be difficult to honour our parents once we
see the greatness and the goodness of God behind them, knowing that He
specifically chose to lend them to us for a season.

In the sixth, God promises that once we realise that He is the Creator of
all living and that He Alone, as the Sovereign Lord of all Creation, has the
right to give or to take life, we will not want to hurt (much less kill)
anyone He has fearfully and wondrously made.

"If God is the one sole Ruler of man's destinies, and if He is to be the
sole Guide of all the deeds of men, then each and every one of your fellow
men, too, must be considered equally under His care in every aspect of his
destinies, and the eye of God will be upon any action you take against your
fellow man. It is by the will of God that each of your fellow men has been
placed where he is beside you. It is through God that each man becomes a
human being and, like yourself, endowed with human rights hallowed by God.
All that is his - his life, his marriage, his freedom, his happiness, his
honour, his possessions - has been sanctified to him by God Himself."
(Hirsch)

To take that which is not ours to give or take, is to place ourselves above
God and thus to break all our promises to Him. Only in certain
circumstances, prescribed by God because of the sinful world we now live in,
is it ever right to kill. But the promise remains true. If we grasp the
sovereign nature of our Lord, we will not want to destroy what He, in His
love, has created to fulfil His purpose for His world.

In the seventh, He promises that once we fathom the depth of His commitment
to us as His own, we will never want to cheat on the spouse He has
graciously given to us. If His Abiding Presence remains the unifying factor
in our marriage, and if the binding vows we made before Him and the Church
in the service of Holy Matrimony remain the guiding principle in the manner
in which we govern our conduct, and if God's intention at creation
concerning the uniting of one man with one women as one flesh is taken
seriously at all, we will never seek to damage in any way, shape or form
that which so gloriously yet mysteriously portrays our Lord's relationship
with us.

Thus He promises that in a marriage ruled by His Divine will, He will
jealously guard the love and the joy that is ours in each other.

In the eighth, our Lord promises that if He is our all in all.the sole focus
of our being.the aim and ambition of our lives.then we will never be tempted
to take that which is not ours. There is a wonderful prayer in the Book of
Proverbs which we would do well to make our own. Agur, the son of Jakeh,
wrote: "Give me neither poverty nor riches - feed me with the food allotted
to me; lest I be full and deny You, and say, 'Who is the Lord?' Or lest I be
poor and steal, and profane the Name of my God." Then, in a stunning passage
in the Sermon delivered on a mountain in Palestine, Jesus said, "your
heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the
kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to
you." You see, God knows our needs and He blesses us with abundance. To take
that which He has given to another would be to doubt His love and care for
us. Therefore, if we make Him our most precious and prized "possession", we
will not want more.rather, we will seek creative ways to give, not only of
our things, but also of ourselves as we follow in the footsteps of the One
Who lived the saying, "it is more blessed to give than to receive".

In the ninth, God promises us that if we use words as He used them.to create
that which is good.then we will never use that great gift of language to
break someone else down, or intentionally hurt them, slander them or gossip
about them. The saying, "If you don't have anything nice to say about
anybody, come sit by me", must not be ours.

Many people excuse their wounding words by quickly adding, "but I only spoke
the truth in love". However, when our Lord (whom we profess to follow) spoke
the Truth in love, He stretched out His hands and died on the cross so that
He might re-create broken lives, not break them any further. Thus, if we
spend our time dealing rather with the beams in our own eyes, leaving the
splinters in the eyes of others for God to take care of, He promises that we
will have no desire to speak ill, much less speak falsely, of our fellow
forgiven sinners.

Then finally, in the tenth, our Lord promises that if "the eyes of (our)
understanding (have been) enlightened (so) that (we) know what is the hope
of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the
saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who
believe" (Ephesians 1:18-19), then we will never covet the temporary and
transitory possessions of others. If we will strive to know the depths of
His wisdom, His love, His beauty, His glory, His mercy, His greatness, His
goodness.then our eyes will remain fixed on the wealth of His kingdom and
never stray to gaze upon the trinkets of our neighbours.

All these are great and glorious promises made to us by God in His Ten
Commandments. If we choose to apply these precious promises to our lives,
making the fulfilment of each one the object of our relationship with Him
and His creation, then He promises that since we have set our love upon Him,
He will deliver us, exalt us, answer us whenever we call, honour us, satisfy
us with long life and show us His salvation.

© Johann W. Vanderbijl III 2004