Forward to the Kingdom!

1. Looking with lust is mental adultery.

Looking with lust is mental adultery.

“You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell” (Matthew 5:27-29).

Jesus used hyperbole here to make a strong point: if the only way to avoid lust were to pluck out an eye, that would be better than eternal death. Thankfully that’s not the only way!

2. Like all sins, the best way to avoid pornography is to avoid the source. Block such sites on your computer, etc.

“Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body” (1 Corinthians 6:18).

3. God’s Spirit can give us help to avoid giving in to lust.

“I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh” (Galatians 5:16).

For more on avoiding pornography, see “Pornography: Definitely Not for Adults.”

What Bible tips would you add?

Question of the week: How would you complete this sentence? Oh, how love I Thy law…

Join the conversation!

By guest blogger Whitney Smith

One of the most common phrases today among teens and young adults illustrates the fifth sign of the perilous last days in 2 Timothy 3:2: “For men will be…blasphemers.” Whether it is texting, chat or plain talking, God’s name is being abused.

Using God's name as nothing more than an exclamation is a common infraction of the Third Commandment.

According to www.hollywoodandgod.com, many of the top films in theaters today use God’s name in vain. It goes beyond the R-rated movies that we assume would contain blasphemy. Even movies aimed at kids like X-Games 3-D: The Movie, Shorts and Where the Wild Things Are all contain at least one reference to God in an unbiblical way, as do many prime-time broadcast TV shows.

It’s true that if we hear something enough times, we will begin to imitate it. I noticed this when I moved to Indiana from upstate New York and I began to imitate the sayings and dialects of those I went to school with. In the same way, if we are around those who use God’s name in vain, then we are more likely to pick up the phrases without consciously realizing it.

In Exodus 20:7 God gives us a direct command to “not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.” I’ve heard the argument that the phrases are merely filler words not intended to be taken seriously, but is that what God thinks?

When we use God’s name, we should really consider the context in which it’s being used. Is it in prayer, in God-centered conversation or is it thrown out to add emphasis to subjects irrelevant to our communication with God?

In Acts 26:11, Paul described how he persecuted the Church before his conversion. “I punished them often in every synagogue and compelled them to blaspheme.” If it took torture to force people to blaspheme God’s name, then why would we want to commit this sin of our own free will?

God gives us a great privilege to be able to come to Him and seek His guidance and advice. We are able to call upon His name whenever we need instruction or comfort. Let’s not take this great blessing lightly by abusing God’s name in daily conversation. Read more about this in “The Third Commandment: From Profanity to Praise.”

To see the other articles in this series on signs of the perilous end times, see the “Signs of Perilous Times” category.

Without Google, I wouldn’t have known that the Ten Commandments were on display in Toronto last week, and that because of huge crowds, a lot of people got “left out in the cold.”

Of course this wasn’t the copy of the Ten Commandments God Himself engraved in stone on Mount Sinai (though I wonder if some of the crowds thought it was). It was part of a fragile display of the Dead Sea Scrolls (parchment and papyrus scrolls mostly written before the time of Christ) that were at the Royal Ontario Museum.

Whether written on parchment or stone, human beings have shown a tremendous capacity to break these laws. And there are many misconceptions about these 10 principles of living given by God. That’s why I propose taking a new look at the Ten Commandments—looking at the “flip side,” as it were, of the superficial misunderstandings.

From the beginning, man has been good at breaking the Ten Commandments...

1. The Ten Commandments are positive. Though eight of them are stated in the “thou shalt not” form, the Bible shows how to think them through to their positive intent. For example, the apostle Paul wrote, “Putting away lying, ‘Let each one of you speak truth…’ Let him who stole steal no longer, but rather let him labor…that he may have something to give him who has need” (Ephesians 4:25, 28). The Ten Commandments form a fence to protect the sanctity of life, family, property, the truth and much more. (The chapter titles in our booklet The Ten Commandments are an interesting study in the positive statement of these laws.)
2. The Ten Commandments are spiritual. Though some people focus only on the physical aspects of the laws, the apostle Paul clearly states that “the law is spiritual” and “holy and just and good” (Romans 7:12, 14).
3. God intends the Ten Commandments to be written on, not stone, but our hearts and minds. “I will put My laws into their hearts, and in their minds I will write them” (Hebrews 10:16).
4. The Ten Commandments show us how to love. Paul lists five of the commandments and then says, “and if there is any other commandment, [they] are all summed up in this saying, namely, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (Romans 13:9).
5. The Ten Commandments lead to eternal life. Jesus Christ said, “If you want to enter into life, keep the commandments” (Matthew 19:17).

There are many more misconceptions and truths to uncover with a deeper study of the Ten Commandments. If you haven’t read our booklet The Ten Commandments, we urge you to take a look at it today. You can read it online or we are happy to send you a copy of this fascinating study through the mail. And take some time to check out other resources we have to help you improve your relationships with God and fellow man.

Related Resources:

Making Life Work

Marriage and Family: The Missing Dimension

Blog posts from a 19-year-old blogger about each of the Ten Commandments:

I Don’t Believe in That Kind of God Either

Silly Gods and American Idols

“I Dare Say He Never Swore Again Without…”

Working 24/6

How to Live Long and Prosper

If Thoughts Could Kill

Blockbuster Affairs

Rooting for the Thieves?

Are White Lies Really Harmless?

The Enemy of Contentment

ABC News is running a Ten Commandments quiz, “Saint or Sinner? Which Commandment Are You Breaking Today?” It’s part of their promotion of a Nightline series on the Ten Commandments beginning tomorrow, Sept. 24, at 11:35 p.m. ET.

I took the quiz, but will try to follow our family commandment of “go to bed before 11:35 p.m.” Someone will have to let me know if the show was any good.

I did leave a comment suggesting the Nightline crew contact 19-year-old blogger Jeremy Lallier about his great series on the Ten Commandments. No word yet…

I found the quiz interesting. It would be enlightening to see the results: How many people correctly chose the real Ten out of the list, and how many said they were keeping each one?

Here are some sample questions:

For the Fourth Commandment, “Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy,” the three scenarios are:

• I keep the Sabbath each week without fail.
• Day of rest? Yes. Keep it Holy. Not so much.
• I don’t keep the Sabbath and don’t really care.

For the Ninth Commandment, “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor,” the choices are:

• I cannot tell a lie.
• Maybe I’ve told a fib to get out of trouble or avoid harming someone else.
• I lie to get what I want. So what.

Not really in-depth soul searching, but I’m in favor of getting people thinking about these laws that Paul explained show us how to love (Romans 13:9). These are the foundational laws that will produce peace and prosperity in the Kingdom of God (Isaiah 2:3-4).

After you complete the quiz and they process your results and pronounce judgment, they even let you “Play Again.” Maybe this time you’ll have different results?

What do you think? Does this kind of quiz trivialize the subject? Or is it something we should be developing to preach the good news of the Kingdom of God?

(Just in case, I’m working on a quiz about the Sermon on the Mount…)

My mission is to spread the good news of the Kingdom of God as far and wide as I can. So I’m always trying to think of creative ways to cut through the clutter to catch some shred of attention in our media-saturated world.

How about this!

9: It’s about the truth…

I would put together a landing page, then try a viral e-mail campaign to get lots of people to send and post that message and URL to all their friends and followers on 9-9-09 at 9:09:09 in their time zone.

Maybe I could get a good deal on billboards...

Why stop there? How about billboards? I’ve seen a lot of empty ones, so they’re probably pretty cheap in this recession. Maybe signs on buses, in airports, above urinals…

Is this guy crazy? you ask. What does he mean by, 9: It’s about the truth…

Or maybe you realize what I just figured out. Tim Burton is releasing his new movie on 9-9-09, and guess what? It’s called 9!

No! My whole great idea down the drain!

By the way, my landing page would not have pointed people to that movie. It would have talked about the Ninth Commandment, the one about not bearing false witness. Or, on the positive side, the one about truth.

So, was it a case of “great minds think alike (and fools seldom differ)” that made me think of the same idea as Tim Burton? Or had I picked up his marketing campaign subliminally? I don’t know. I thought it was a combination of the review I did of Suzy Welch’s book 10-10-10 and the hype of the last couple of years with all the weddings on 7-7-07 and 8-8-08. In fact I was kicking myself that I hadn’t started with the First Commandment on 1-1-01.

Still, maybe I should keep the idea in mind for next year on 10-10-10 to promote our booklet on The Ten Commandments.

Oh, right. Suzy Welch already has that one…

What promotional advice and great ideas do you have for me?

Jeremy Lallier completes his series on the Ten Commandments. (See them all in the Ten Commandments category.)

It’s hard to look at the world and not start believing that it exists to cater to us. Companies like Burger King want to make sure you “Have It Your Way.” With the advent of credit cards and Internet commerce especially came the ability to get whatever we want, whenever we want. Sites like Covet.com (motto: “Shop Without Sin”) and We Covet (motto: “Because Sometimes Want Is Too Small a Word”) exist to encourage you to do just that.

And somehow everyone seems to be confused about why the U.S. economy is plummeting like a lead-filled bucket down a bottomless well. Financial irresponsibility on the individual and governmental level—fueled by the combined sentiments of “I want,” “I deserve” and “I need”—has contributed in large part to America’s staggering $11.5 trillion national debt.

It would take twice all the gold in the world to pay off the U.S. national debt!

(Having trouble figuring out just how big that is? With that amount of money you could purchase enough property and buildings to create fourteen and a half New York Cities. Alternatively, you could buy all the gold in the world…twice.)

In the last of the Ten Commandments, God instructs, “You shall not covet…anything that is your neighbor’s” (Exodus 20:17). And yet so much of advertising appeals to our desire to have what those around us allegedly also have.

Covetousness, the lust to have what does not belong to us, is the driving force behind many of the sins forbidden by the Ten Commandments. Adultery is fueled by the desire to claim intimacy to which we are not entitled; theft by the desire to own what we do not; idolatry by the desire to place less important things before God (Colossians 3:5); and so on.

The Bible records that Satan—originally “the seal of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty” (Ezekiel 28:12)—started on the road to becoming the twisted, evil being he is today when he began coveting God’s position as Most High (Isaiah 14:12-14).

This covetousness warped him into a bitter fallen angel who now makes himself the enemy of God, God’s people and humanity at large. His burning and insatiable desire to have what does not belong to him prevents him from fulfilling the purpose for which God created him (Ezekiel 28:14-16).

Likewise, if we allow our desire for the forbidden to drive us, we, too, will disqualify ourselves from the incredible future God intends for us. Paul, a servant of God who often found himself in life-threatening and otherwise trying situations, wrote about learning “in whatever state I am, to be content” (Philippians 4:11). He knew that “the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us” (Romans 8:18).

We, too, can find this contentment in committing ourselves to serving our God without reservation. It is a contentment that will not and cannot coexist with covetousness—and it is only with this contentment that we can realize the incredible potential we can have as members of God’s family.

Won’t it be great when the whole world finally keeps the Tenth Commandment?

For a fuller treatment on this subject, we encourage you to see our booklet on The Ten Commandments, and especially the chapter “The Tenth Commandment: True Righteousness Comes From the Heart.”

Jeremy Lallier shares another in the series on the Ten Commandments:

In a blog post on “Marc and Angel Hack Life: Practical Tips for Productive Living,” Marc explains “The 15 Most Common White Lies and Why.” He writes:

Crossed fingers don't make lying okay!

“Honestly, I think the world is probably a better place because of our white lies. As long as we aren’t hurting others or breaking the law, these innocent lies can make life more pleasant… Most of these white lies only stretch an interpretation of what the truth actually is anyways.”

I think that’s the most common justification I hear for what many call “white lies” (lies that are intended to shield the recipient from otherwise painful or uncomfortable truths): that because they are not hurting anyone and are told with good intentions, they are actually commendable.

Can a lie truly not hurt anyone? And can it really be told with good intentions? Truth is, all lies—white or otherwise—operate on the premise of deception. They take the truth and either shade, twist or completely deface it.

When it comes to honesty, God and Satan stand in two opposite corners. God “cannot lie” (Titus 1:2). His approach of complete truthfulness stands in stark contrast with the devil’s, who we know “does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it” (John 8:44).

God tells us not to lie in the Ninth Commandment (Exodus 20:16) and throughout the Bible because He knows that a lie—whatever its intent and however minor the subject matter—ultimately destroys trust, shatters relationships and creates unnecessary doubt and worry for all those involved.

The world, contrary to the views of Marc’s blog, is not a better place because of our white lies. White lies—and all other kinds—have resulted in the continual distrust and skepticism that plagues society. There are always alternatives. In many cases where our opinion could be hurtful, we can avoid saying anything. Other times, with thought and sensitivity we can find things to say that are kind and tactful—“speaking the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15).

Won’t it be great when the whole world finally keeps the Ninth Commandment?

For a fuller treatment on this subject, we encourage you to see our booklet on The Ten Commandments, and especially the chapter “The Ninth Commandment: Truth as a Way of Life.”

Jeremy Lallier shares another in the series on the Ten Commandments:

I grinned contentedly as the thieves made it out of the vault with $150,000,000 and the lead con man won over the girl. The credits rolled and I thought to myself, Good movie.

Three years later, I was smiling again as the same band of thieves made off with a Fabergé egg from a museum, again thinking to myself, Good movie.

Much later, I was considering how much I enjoyed these movies—this time thinking to myself, What in the world is wrong with me?

I really enjoy movies like the Ocean’s trilogy and The Italian Job because of all the subtle plot twists and clever planning that take place throughout the films. But now, looking back, I realize that I had become so wrapped up in just how clever the whole thing was that I completely overlooked the fact that I was rooting for thieves. Criminals. The bad guys.

God said simply, “You shall not steal” (Exodus 20:15).

These guys are witty, clever and really fun to watch when they get to work. But it doesn’t change the fact that what they are doing is a violation of the Eighth Commandment—or the fact that such movies glorify what God condemns. Sometimes it’s hard to immediately notice the great lengths they go to in order to make sin look okay. Take the Ocean’s Eleven crew. They’re a mix of funny, well-dressed, smart and quick-thinking guys who seem like pleasant and genial people to be around.

What God says is wrong is wrong. His law doesn’t contain escape clauses, and what He calls wrong we cannot allow ourselves to think of as right or even justifiable under certain circumstances. Theft in any of its forms—whether of a candy bar or $150 million—means depriving someone else of the fruits of their labor.

The world tells us, “If you want it, take it.” God tells us, “If you want it, earn it.” The things worth having often require effort on our part, but this is not a hindrance—instead, it helps us appreciate what we’ve worked for. We work to maintain friendships. We work to make the income necessary to live. We work to maintain our relationship with God.

A world without theft will be a world where locked doors, alarm systems and other precautions are no longer required for protection. Can you imagine a world focused on giving rather than getting?

Won’t it be great when the whole world finally keeps the Eighth Commandment?

For a fuller treatment on this subject, we encourage you to see our booklet on The Ten Commandments, and especially the chapter “The Eighth Commandment: Practice Giving Rather Than Getting.”

-or- Marriage: Sanctity vs. Cinema

Jeremy Lallier shares another in the series on the Ten Commandments:

Around the same time that the movie industry made the changeover from silent films to the “talkies,” the newly established Production Code Administration began to enforce strict guidelines on what was and wasn’t acceptable in films.

Retired detective Nick Charles and his wealthy socialite wife, Nora, for example (the star characters of a 1934 detective film called The Thin Man; described in Wikipedia as “a flirtatious married couple”), were shown sleeping in separate beds in the movie. The alternative—showing them both in the same bed—was unacceptable.

What's being acted out on the silver screen these days?

But, as has always been human nature, movie producers have continued to push the boundaries of the acceptable until the present day. Now it is commonplace to see all sorts of couples—sometimes unmarried, sometimes married (often to other people)—engaged in throes of passion on the silver screen.

Most no longer see this as shocking, but instead as something to be expected and even enjoyed. But what does God’s Word have to say about it?

The Seventh Commandment, thundered by God from Mount Sinai, states, “You shall not commit adultery” (Exodus 20:14). Straightforward enough. But when Jesus came to earth, He made it clear that the commandment was not dealing exclusively with physical actions, but also underlying attitudes. He said: “Whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:28).

That takes things to a whole new level. It’s not enough to just keep from sex outside of marriage, but to keep our minds clean of the lust to do so. Adultery destroys relationships. For the married man or woman, it can seriously damage the marriage relationship along with the essential trust in it. For the unmarried man or woman, it will heavily detract from the closeness of a potential future marriage relationship.

There are no upsides to adultery except for a very short-lived physical gratification. Even the lustful attitude leading to sex outside of marriage is condemned because its ultimate result is an ugly mess of lies, deceit, hurt, sorrow and anger.

Such things have no place in God’s family. He instead wants to see us find incredible joy and pleasure in a fulfilling, monogamous marriage—the same type of loving, enduring relationship that Christ has with His Church (Ephesians 5:25-27).

Won’t it be great when the whole world finally keeps the Seventh Commandment?

For a fuller treatment on this subject, we encourage you to see our booklet on The Ten Commandments, and especially the chapter “The Seventh Commandment: Protect the Marital Relationship.”