We're back to object lessons in the Bible, and this morning we're going to take up one that is very familiar to most everyone, even those people who don't go to church, and who probably have never read the Bible, have heard of this object, may have even referred to it. It's mentioned in the book of Exodus, the 34th chapter, Beginning with verse 1, the Lord said to Moses, Here are the two tables of stone like unto the first. And if you recall, God had already given Moses two tables of stone. And when Moses came down from the mountain, he saw Aaron and the other people worshiping the golden calf and Aaron broke. I mean, Moses broke. the first set of tablets. So now much later the Lord says to Moses, I want two more tablets just like the first and I will write upon them these tables the words that were on the first tables which you broke. Now that's what I want to preach to them this morning. The stone tables, the stone tablets the two stone writings that God gave to Moses, which you and I normally call the Ten Commandments. Usually when you talk about rules and regulations and laws and statutes, most people say, I don't like laws. Probably the last thing in the Bible that people will memorize will be the commandments of the Lord. The first thing they will memorize will be the promises of the Lord. Somewhere in between, they'll learn the history and the doctrine, but if anything gets left out in their lifetime, it's usually the commandments of the Lord. You recall, I said some time ago, I heard of a preacher. Well, I heard him say this. He preached the revival. He said, I'll give $20 to anyone this morning in this church. who can stand up and say to me the Ten Commandments in order. He didn't have one person that could do it. Now, we've all heard the Ten Commandments, but chances are I would not embarrass anyone, nor will I offer you my $20. You might fool me. You might get it right. I'd be out 20. I'm not that sure you don't know, but chances are there are a lot of commandments in the Bible you and I don't know. Jesus said, if you love me, keep my commandments. Which ones? What are his commandments? And most of us probably couldn't tell you over two or three of his commandments. So, you see, we don't lay much stress on commandments because we don't like to be told what to do or what not to do. We don't like our freedom to be restricted, and that's what laws do. We don't like our pleasures to be denied us, and that's what a law will do. Johnny, you can't go out and play. That's a law. But that law has deprived Johnny of his evening anticipated pleasure. We don't like laws because they conflict with our wishes. They destroy our wish book. and make our wishes unable to ever come true because someone lays down a law. Now, the Bible says that man, by nature, is lawless. He can't get rid of the law. God established that. But he can't ignore it. And he can break it. And that's why he does. And that's the reason the Bible says man is lawless. You've all heard the saying, laws are made to be broken. That's the attitude man has towards the laws. Laws are bad. We want the laws to be repealed. There's so many bad laws on the books. So we are sort of antagonistic about laws. To us, they're more harmful than they are good. They're more costly than they are beneficial, and they're more distasteful than they are pleasurable. So if people are not too eager to hear you say, this is what you must do, this is what you cannot do. Now, I don't know your opinion of the law this morning, but I hope it's better than what I talked about. Because there are people in the Bible who had a very high opinion of law. If you really stop and think about it, if you have a very low opinion of God's laws, why do you want to go to heaven? It's a good question. And it may be the reason a lot of people don't plan to go there. And they don't want to go there. Because they just don't want to be tied down for eternity under His laws. And in heaven, we will do what He says. There will be no lawlessness in heaven. So a lot of people say, well, I don't know where I want to go to heaven on. I'm just not too sure I want to keep the commandments of the Lord. But not everyone in the Bible had that kind of opinion of the law of God. To them, it was not a bitter pill that they were forced to swallow to gain God's blessings. Jeremiah was one such person. Look what he says in chapter 10. Jeremiah chapter 10. Oh Lord, verse 23, I know that the way of man is not in himself. That is, it's not man's ability to be able to know really what's right, what's wrong, what's best, and what's good. It is not in man's ability, I'm putting that word in there, that walks to really know how to walk or to direct his steps. Man really doesn't know how to act, what to do, to be the kind of person that God says he was intended to be. And so Jeremiah admitted, I need someone to help me run my life. 24, O Lord, correct me. Correct me. The word correct means give me some laws. Tell me some do's and tell me some don'ts. Give me some laws. Therefore, you'll keep me out of trouble and you'll help me to produce the best that I'm able to do. The psalmist was another person who had great lofty thoughts about the law of God. Psalms 119, 97. Oh, how I love thy law. It's my meditation all the day. Verse 101. I have refrained my feet from every evil way that I might keep thy word. I have not departed from thy judgments, for thou hast taught me. How sweet. are thy words unto my taste, yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth. And it's through thy precepts that I get understanding. Therefore, as a result of that, I have come to hate the false way. Solomon was another person who expressed great admiration for the law of God. Look at Proverbs 2, chapter 6-9. Proverbs 2, chapter 6. The Lord gives wisdom. That's His laws, that's right and wrong. That's His commandments, that's His wisdom. Out of His mouth comes knowledge and understanding. He lays up sound wisdom for the righteous. He is a buckle to them that are walked uprightly. He keeps the paths of judgment and preserves the way of his saints. Then shalt thou understand righteousness and judgment and equity, yea, every good path. Now these three men associated the laws of God with something good, something enjoyable, something beneficial. And it's the Ten Commandments which make up the primary representation of all of God's laws. And if we could step back this morning a long distance from the Ten Commandments, where we couldn't read them individually, and just look at them as the law, what would they tell us? What is it that we would see? What would be the central theme of the Ten Commandments as you look this morning at a distance at the two tablets of stone? Go to Matthew 22. Matthew 22, 37. Jesus said in answer to a question by a lawyer, the question was, what is the greatest of all the commandments? And he had in mind the ten. So run through the ten, Jesus, and pick out the one which you think is the most important of all the ten. Jesus answers his question. Number one, thou shalt love the Lord thy God. He didn't pick out one of them, did he? Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. That's the first. That's the great commandment. Then there's a second. It's like the first. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. You don't find either one of those in the 10, but you find that all 10 summarized equals those two. On these two commandments hang all the laws and all the problems. If you step back and look at the 10 commandments, you know what they tell you to do? You know what they tell you how to do? L-O-V-E. And most people say, well, if I want to pick a course in love, I wouldn't go to the Ten Commandments. Well, where would you go? You can't find a better explanation of the subject of love than you can in the Ten Commandments. A girl may come home to her mother and say, Mama, Bobby loves me. She may say, well, that's a surprise to me. What makes you think Bobby loves you? Oh, he held my hand today. Is that all? Yeah. You know, folks, some idea of love is It's way out in left field in the minds of a lot of people. We don't know what love is all about. To a lot of folks, love is lust. Love is what they see on television. It may be puppy love, it may be carnal love, but it's everything but love. I guess about half of all the songs that are written today are written about the subject of love. But none of which tell anybody how to recognize true love. I think it doesn't take long for a child, or a father, or a mother, or a sister, or a brother, or a husband, or a wife, to begin to realize, they say they love me, but I don't believe it. Well, why don't you believe it, son? Why don't you believe it, wife? Why don't you believe it, daughter? Why don't you believe it, husband? Because love just wouldn't do like they do. Love just wouldn't act like they like. There's something missing. They say they love me. But I don't buy it. Now, you ask them why? They say, I really can't put my finger on it. Well, the Ten Commandments gives you ten places to put your finger. If somebody says, I love you, there are ten tests that you can apply to their statement of love for you to see if it's genuine. If I say, I love the Lord, The Lord said, okay, I can apply ten tests to your love to see if it's genuine. Just saying I love Jesus in a song does not make it so. So this morning we're going to talk about the ten ingredients, the ten elements that God has set forth in His commandments to tell you how to love people. How to love Him, how to love a mate, how to love a child, how to love a neighbor, how to love a Christian, how to love anybody. Remember that Paul gave us a list of 15 ingredients of love in 1 Corinthians 13, which is normally called the love chapter. Now, I'm not going to read that to you, but he mentions there 15 ingredients, 15 things that you can expect to get from love if it's real, if it's the godly kind of love. I'm not going to take up those 15 because long before Paul gave us the 15, God gave us the 10. And there is an overlapping. All of you have seen the young girl or boy who picks a flower. And to determine whether or not someone loves them, he pulls one petal. She loves me. She loves me not. She loves me. She loves me not. He goes all around plucking off all the petals so there's one left. If it ends up on she loves me, that's the way he tests your love. If it ends up on she loves me not, he calls it off and says, well, she doesn't love me. Well, that's not the way you discover if somebody loves you or not. Not the way at all. Yet all of us want some kind of technique, some kind of way to discover whether or not a person's love is real. So in a sense, I'm going to give you a 10-question examination this morning. You can apply it to your children, your neighbor, your mate, whoever you'd like to apply it to, all right? They come from the Ten Commandments. I don't have much time to mention these in detail outside. I'll just mention what is being taught and say a few brief words about each commandment before we have ten. The first commandment, as you know, is thou shalt have no other gods before me. And you have to do some thinking about these things to realize what God is saying. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Let's make it a little simpler. Thou shalt have no other husbands before me. Does that make it any easier for you? The law declares love will always be loyal. All God was asking for. God said, if you love me, You'll be loyal. You'll be faithful. You won't have eyes for other gods. You won't have eyes for other girls. You won't have eyes for other men. You'll be loyal. That's a great trait to have in marriage, isn't it? If you don't have that one, you don't have much of a marriage. It'd be bad to be married to a man who has 25 girlfriends on the side. Now, I wouldn't call that love. Love is always loyal. And if a boy or a girl is not going to be loyal, they don't love you. You can say what you want to, they don't love you. You see, love eliminates competition. It doesn't eliminate being friendly to people, but it eliminates competition. No girl can sneak in as a candidate for wedhood if I'm married. She can't do that. She can be a candidate for help, for mercy, for money, but she can't be a candidate for a bride. No way. Why? Because love is loyal. That spot's filled and there's room never to be for another unless it's dead. No way. Love is loyal. Love assures you that you will always be first if a person loves you. That's a good test for love. Loyalty. Second commandment that I shall make no graven images and bow down before them. By the way, these are all in chapter 20 of Exodus if you don't know where the Ten Commandments are. I'm just reading to you. Thou shalt make no other gods and images and bow down before them. Now what is this law declaring? Love is complementary. Love is complementary. When a man made an image, he was seeking to depict what he thought God looked like. This morning if you gave your child who's supposed to love you or your friend who says they love you or your mate a piece of paper and said I want you to capture what there is about me that makes you love me. I want you to capture my beauty or capture my loveliness. Draw a picture of me. I'm sorry, but that would not be a good test of my love for you. When I got through, you wouldn't look so hot. Why? Because I just can't draw. And so God said, anytime a man made an image, it always, instead of being flattering, it was insulting. He always made God look bad. Does that tell you something, folks? Love never wants to make somebody look bad. in public, in private. Idols were always public images. And they always made God look bad. There are people who seek to make their child look bad, their wife look bad, their husband look bad, look bad in the eyes of other people by ridiculing, making fun of them, saying rude statements about them, so everybody can hear. Hey, love doesn't do that. Uh-uh. No. Love is complementary. Complementary. Look at Romans, the first chapter, verse 21 to 23. I don't know of anything that can hurt a relationship quicker and deeper than this thing right here, that you have bad things to say about people in public. You make them look bad in public. That's the way to wreck your marriage, quick. Alright? First chapter, verse 21. God's talking. When they knew not God, they glorified Him not." Now notice, "...they glorified Him not as God. Neither were they thankful, but they became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. And they professed themselves to be wise, and instead they became fools, and they changed, made God look vain." They changed the glory of the corruptible God into an image made like the corruptible man, and to birds, and to four-footed beasts, and creeping things, and God gave them up. They insulted God. So love is not insulting. Love is very complimentary. That's the second thing you want to write down in your little memory pad. If you can't remember these in your mind, write them down on a piece of paper. It's the way to check out love, folks. Number three. Thou shalt not take the name of God in vain. That law declares that love is reverent. Love is reverent. By that I mean love declares that another person has worth. Another person is important. And thus love guards the tongue from insulting, cutting remarks. Love is reverent. It seeks to raise the value of a person rather than lower the value of a person. This act of love, this portion of love rules out sarcasm. A person, by being reverent, doesn't mean you worship them. It does mean you revere them. And they're important. Fourth Commandment was hurry on. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. What's that one? Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Love is sacrificial. Love is sacrificial. We normally associate making a sacrifice out of going to church. Oh, I got to give up my Sunday. Got to give up my time. Got to get dressed. Got to go up there and sit. Got to give up my trip. Got to give up this. You see, it's always when you think about church, it's a sacrifice. Love is sacrificial. Love is willing to give up what it wants in order for you to get what you want. Give up its pleasure that you might gain your pleasure. Love is sacrificial. In Isaiah 58 verse 13, 14. If thou turn thy foot away from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day, and if you will call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, and you shall honor him and not do your own thing, nor seek to find your own pleasure, then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord. And he goes on and says, then will I bless you. The Lord says, if you love me, you'll make some sacrifices. And that's another test of love. Are you willing to sacrifice your time and your wants and your wishes and your plans or the one you say you love when their desire conflicts with your interest. Love is sacrificial. The fifth commandment, honor thy father and thy mother. This law declares love is respectful. Love is respectful. Law recognizes that other people have rights. There is the right to be helped, no matter what the cost is. The right to be helped. Love says, of the one loved, you have a right to be remembered. That helps on birthdays and anniversaries, doesn't it? Love says you have a right to be remembered, to be helped. You have a right, if I love you, to be appreciated. For the things in your life that you have done, for my benefit, to be appreciated, to be thanked. No matter how many bad things, there are always a few good things you can find. Love tries to find them. Not doing the bad things, but love tries to find the good things. So there are rights. And love is respectful of your rights. Your wife has a right to sleep. So don't wake her up. Your children have some rights. They have a right to your time. So don't deny them. If you love your child, they have some rights. You see? Sixth commandment, thou shalt not kill. What would that one be? Love is harmless. Love is harmless. You know, real love just totally rules out the possibility of abuse. Just totally rules it out. There's no way that you're going to abuse someone, hit someone that you love. It's just not going to be done. Not going to be done. Love guarantees an atmosphere of absolute safety. That's why a child runs to the parent when they're threatened by some outside source of danger, a dog or something else. They run to their parent. because they think their parent loves them. And there's no chance in the world in that child's mind that that child will be thrown to that dog and be chewed up. No way. Love is harmless. Where that's missing, folks, there's no love. You know, the man who says he loves his wife hits her over the head with a brick bat. Hey, I don't know who he's kidding, but he's in love with her. No way. It's not love. It's not love. The seventh commandment. Thou shalt not commit adultery with any of them that be. Love is pure. Love is pure. In other words, love is very concerned about the reputation of the one who's loved. No way does love really want to ever get another person in trouble. First of all, with God. With the law. With other people. Love never wants you to get in trouble. To be made little love, to be made Less than you ought to be. Love is very concerned about your reputation. So love is pure. It's not going to suggest that you do anything that would destroy your character. That would make you cheap. Dirty. That's love. Quickly now. Eighth commandment. Thou shalt not steal. Don't be. Love is protective. Love is protective. Love is not interested in seeing that you lose what you own. That's what a thief does, he takes what you have. Plus, I'm not going to take what belongs to you. I have no interest. That would stop a lot of murders, wouldn't it? Somebody killing somebody for their insurance or something. Yeah. Or for their possessions. Hey, love is protective. I have no desire to take away your pleasures. I have no desire to take away your treasures. I'm not deprived of you of them. That's not my interest. Love is not concerned. Really, love makes everything you have a keepsake. It puts value on it and says, I'm not going to hurt you. I'm not going to take it. I'm not going to destroy it. It's yours. I want you to have it. And then the ninth commandment, I shall not bear false witness against thy neighbor. The law declares love is truthful. Love is truthful. And thus you can rule out gossip and slander and rumor and hearsay. about you by the one that loves you. It'll not be done, not be done. Love will make no rash judgments, but love is very truthful and will get to the bottom of things and there always has to be another side. Love looks for the other side of the story. And then last of all, the 10th commandment, thou shalt not covet what belongs to thy neighbor. The law declares love is unselfish. You know, a lot of people have trouble rejoicing over the good fortune of other people. But love says, hey, if you can drive when you can, that's fine with me. It doesn't bother me. It doesn't unnerve me. It doesn't make me think less of you. It doesn't make me jealous of you. I'm undisturbed by what you have. Now I want you to enjoy. Really, I do. Love is unselfish. And my love is not going to be based on having everything you have. You know, there are some people that can't get anybody to get excited over what they bought. And that's wrong. A wife comes, look at my dress. She didn't like it, she wouldn't have bought it. So love says, hey, if it's pleasing to you, it's fine with me. I'm not envious of what you spent. I'm not jealous of what you got. Hey, it's great. I think it looks nice on you. You ought to buy more of it. Now, love does that. Love is unselfish. I'm glad you got it if I can't have it. Father, we're thankful this morning. As we look at these Ten Commandments in a whole new way, we can come up with ten rules whereby to show our love to others and whereby to check their love for us. And if some of these ingredients are missing in our love for other people, may we begin to look for them, work on them, and make some changes. whereby our love will be able to meet all twelve of these conditions. We ask it all in Jesus' name, for his sake. Amen.