Why the 10 Commandments Offend — Shane Idleman

The Ten Commandments and the Rich Young Ruler

You know, we've been in Matthew 19, and I've been talking about the Ten Commandments recently. We just started last week. Jesus told the rich young ruler what he must do to enter into life, and I don't want to go back on that and talk about that again.

This is an interesting day today, actually. I got up about 4 .30, 5 in the morning. I felt just God impressed me. The sermon wasn't really—it was all done, and I wasn't really excited about it, and that's not good.

If I'm not excited about it, you know, you're not going to be either. It kind of flows in that direction. You know, if you're just, well, let's see. Here we go. Let's get out of here. I'm hungry. And I was just praying about it, and instead of talking about Commandments 3 and 4, I narrowed it down to just number 3, hallowed be thy name, hallowed be thy name.

But even then, that wasn't really working, and it may, but I want to just—and I don't know why. Maybe this will make more sense later. But the Ten Commandments, the Ten Offend, you know that, right? The Ten Commandments offend our culture.

This is a little catchphrase there, the Ten Offend. They're going to offend people. And I want to talk about that for a minute, hallowed be thy name and the offenses that are going on here, because we're on a very slippery slope.

You see the direction everything's going, and we're wondering, where's the hope? Where's the answer here? And I want to speak to that briefly. But two things I want to recap last week. Keeping the Commandments does not save us.

Keeping the Commandments Does Not Save Us

I want to be crystal clear on that issue. Keeping the Ten Commandments does not save a person. And there are people today that will try to keep. You've got to keep that Sabbath, or you've got to keep, and you can't, you know, and that's how you are saved, by your good works.

And we know that's not true, because John 14, 21 says this. He who has my commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.

And this word, manifest, is interesting. It basically means reveals. God will reveal himself to us. So as we keep the commandments, as you begin to honor God and keep his law, not perfectly, but a heart that's set on keeping his law, he begins to reveal himself to you.

And to me, you actually grow closer to God by obeying him. Isn't that interesting? You grow closer to God by obeying him. Now so the first thing, keeping the commandments does not save us, but the commandments are fruit inspectors.

If a person wants to follow, so when you look at people and they don't want to follow God's word, and they don't want to follow his commandments, you can rest assured there's probably something wrong in their heart.

Not probably, there is. It's a fruit inspector. You look at the commandments of God, and do you love them or do you hate them? It reveals something. And also, this is an interesting point, especially in the church today, the Ten Commandments reveal our need for God.

The Law Reveals Sin and Our Need for Christ

I don't know if you're aware of that, but that's what they do, they reveal our need for God. Romans 7, 7, Paul said, I would not have known sin except through the law. For I would not have known covetousness unless the law said thou shalt not covet.

So the Ten Commandments is a beautiful picture of what God requires, and then a beautiful picture of what I can't measure up to, and then a beautiful picture of why Christ came. And it shows people their need.

And there's a big misunderstanding about the law. Some of you have been in the church a while, you know exactly what I'm talking about, some of you might not, but there's a big misunderstanding where when people like me who preach about the law, they say, you're preaching law, not grace.

You're preaching law, not grace. Well, we need to remind them that Paul preached the law. Jesus preached the law. He said, the young ruler, what must I do to enter the kingdom of heaven? Jesus said, thou shalt not, thou shalt not, thou shalt not, thou shalt not.

Oh, I can't measure up right, exactly. And that's what the culture really needs right now, is to show them the pure light of God's word. And listen, you can't measure up. We preach the law to show them they can't measure up.

But we've retracted from that, now we say it's all about grace, so we don't talk about the law of God, because that's preaching the law. You can't preach the law, Shane, it's about grace now, that was the Old Testament, that's the new.

Well, God's the same today, yesterday, and forevermore. Now that we live today, it doesn't mean the Ten Commandments are null and void. Is adultery still wrong? Is taking the Lord's name in vain still wrong?

Carved images, bowing down to idols, coveting, adultery, stealing, respecting, honoring your parents, what we're going to get into, those are still very valid today. So what we do is we show people the perfect law of God and say, I could never measure up to that.

Well, I haven't committed adultery, Shane. Well, what'd Jesus say? If you lust for a woman in her heart, you've committed adultery. I've never murdered. Well, if you hate somebody, you've committed murder.

And if you look at it that way, that would make a lot of us a lot less judgmental. Well, I would never. Oh yes, you would. It's in there, it's in there. So that's a beautiful thing about God's law. So when you see our nation going haywire and saying, you can't tell people that gay marriage is perfect.

Sure, show them God's perfect law. Show them God's perfect plan. Why can't measure up? I have these desires that don't line up with that. Shane, good, let me point you to a Savior who has the answer. How do we talk about grace and mercy without showing them the other side of what the grace and mercy is about?

Revival Through Preaching the Law

So that's the point of the Ten Commandments often is to reveal. We need to preach it so we see our need. And many of you know, I read a lot of books on revival and I love studying revival. And guess what they preached a lot on?

The law of God. That would spark revival. A sermon that sparked revival was by Jonathan Edwards. The title would not be very popular today, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. Very popular sermon. You can find it online and I bet most churches wouldn't even read one excerpt from it.

And people were said to be holding on to trees so they wouldn't fall into the abyss of hell. And the picture he was painting there. And the reason you do that is you show them, here's the law. But God.

See, if all I do, if all I do is talk, let's say to my kids for example, if all I do as they grow up is talk about the grace of God and the love of God and forgiveness of God, they're going to grow up thinking that he's a doting grandfather or a cosmic ball of love.

That's because, oh God's great, but you have to show them the other side. Jesus did. You show them hell, but you show them heaven. You show them grace, but you show them repentance. You show them mercy, but you show them the judgment of God.

See once I, and the word of God is supposed to penetrate the heart. We're supposed to read it and go, oh no. It offends. Yeah, the 10 offend. Because of that reason. And this is a real reason, this is one of the issues I want to speak to briefly.

This is the real reason why there is a moral divide in our country. Darkness is offended by light and the light is offended by darkness. We need to realize that. So when atheists are offended by the Ten Commandments monument, do you know that they moved them in Alabama a while back?

They've also moved them recently in Oklahoma. They go in by night. They removed the Ten Commandments because people are offended. Why? Because it has the perfect law of God, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.

I can't measure up there. Get it out of there. I'm offended. And I want to say I'm offended that you want to remove it. So when are we going to stop looking who's offended and start looking at what's right?

Because I'm offended is just an excuse. They don't care if Christians are offended. So it's not about offense. It's about removing the light that's convicting the darkness. They're in the military now.

Get God out of this. Get God out of that. What about abortion? They're not harvesting body parts. People on The View, I saw a clip. They're not, oh yeah, okay, what are they doing? That's exactly what they said.

They said, well, no longer charged for that. For what? It's like people are saying, don't confuse me with the facts. Don't confuse me with the facts. Why? Because they hate the light. What politics? The lady who's running for president, Carly Fiorina, I think I pronounced that right, and The View or Ben Carson on CNN, everybody's like, well, why don't they get along?

Because light and darkness cannot get along. The darkness hates the light. It hates what people stand for. And people have been emailing me, who are you voting for? I'm voting for God. I'm voting for God.

Oh, come on, Shane, what is that? That means we need men and women who fear God who vote according to principles, not along party lines necessarily. Vote for godly principles. Vote for people who fear the Lord.

Removing God and the Collapse of Moral Order

That's our only hope. I don't know how many of you saw the story this week, but I had to just sit down. Couple seeks right to marry. The hitch? They're legally father and son. Yeah, let that gasp, let that sink in.

Welcome to perversion, folks. This is a culture that doesn't want the moral code of God, and when you remove the moral code, sin takes over and gets perverted. Now, granted, I think the dad's 60 and the son's 40 and he was adopted, and that's how it reads.

The news outlets are picking this up. Couple seeks the right to marry. They're legally father and son. The headline is, you won't believe this. Oh, yes, I will. That's perversion. That's a culture without God.

You remove God, that's what happens. Why are there school shootings now all the time? Why are kids depressed? Why are we losing 22 veterans a day to suicide? Because you're removing God from all of those elements, and he's the only hope.

Peace has a name. Salvation has a name. It's Christ, and it's hope. It's a perfect law of God. We look at that and we say, I can't measure up. Right, you need God. So when we remove him, this is the ramifications of that.

What's next? Brother? Mary? Sister? Oh, my Lord. See this is the stuff that gets me fasting and praying and worshiping. This is what this should do to Christians. It should prompt us to move. I'd rather pray than protest.

Christ as Hope for Veterans and the Broken

You know, I do want to talk about that for a minute because I have a passion, of course, for veterans and defending a nation who no longer defends them, medically or anywhere. But when you lose 22 or 8 ,000 veterans a year to suicide, something's wrong.

Why does a person commit suicide? Hope. Hope is gone. I'm gone. I'm hopeless. So now you're telling chaplains that they can no longer mention Christ. You cannot mention Romans 1 about gay marriage. You can't have a body.

You can't. Let's get God out of everything. No, he's the arsenal. That's the arsenal. You can prepare the horse for battle, but victory comes from the Lord. A nation that begins to remove God will see the judgment hand of God fall.

So you have men and women killing themselves. More death, the death rate is higher from that than the war because they need hope. And I don't minimize any of those things in post-traumatic stress disorder and things, but I do want to remind you how powerful God's word is.

There's a book that was out. I don't know about the movie. I don't want to recommend anything, but I'm broken about the guy who's, he was a military, the military's plane went down and crashed in the ocean.

They survived. Then they're fighting off sharks on the raft for like a month. I'm reading this going, well, no wonder there's post-traumatic stress disorder. I mean, look what he went through. And then who picks him up?

The Coast Guard? Nope. The enemy. Then he becomes a prisoner of war. And what they went through, it was, was horrendous. And he suffered from those things. But then you get to the chapter where he, where he went to a Billy Graham crusade and went no more nightmares, no more stress.

He's been set free. See, that's the hope. That's the hope. You're not going to medicate. You're not going to psych, take him to a psych evaluation. You're not going to get him in therapy. They need the true hope.

That's the hope. Put your trust in Christ. But we have to show people the law of God, what he requires, what he desires, and then point them to the answer, the solution in Christ and Christ alone. Facebook just reported that approximately 800 ,000 Americans have updated their profiles to self-identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender in the last year.

Sexual Confusion and Suppressing the Truth

800 ,000, not 8 ,000. What's going on? When you remove God, when you remove his moral law, when you remove the commandments, the prayer, when you say, God, get out of here, he says, I will. And every man does whatever is right in his own eyes.

They suppress the truth, and they begin to worship the creation rather than the creator. And all types of ungodliness will break out. All these kids that are so confused, well, we see it in the media.

We see it at school. Everybody's promoting it. The president sure is, and now it's cool, and this and that. No, it's not cool. It's not cool. Sexual perversion is not cool. And then there's statistics on young adults who struggle with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, issue the suicide rate on that epidemic.

They used to say it's because they're making fun of them. Not anymore. Now the opposite's true. Now you're making fun of Christians for believing. But see, the interesting thing is, I just talked to two yesterday, some at the gym, gay, lesbian.

We love these people. It's, hey, I'm a sinner too. I don't struggle with that, I struggle with this. And I came to Christ, and he set me free. And that's the answer. See, you gotta point people back to the answer, but nobody wants to do that because they don't want to offend.

I'd rather offend somebody. I'd rather have them get up out of that chair and leave, but God, the hound of heaven will not leave them all week because a pastor dared to say there's power in the name of Christ.

You've gotta turn from that lifestyle. There's power in Christ. See the 10 commandments offend, and so will we from time to time. But that's genuine love. And I know most of you already heard this from me many times, but I believe God's put this on my heart for a reason because time is getting, I mean, these statistics, a father and son marrying, 800 ,000.

Can you even change now their identity to gay, bisexual, lesbian? They changed it on Facebook, 800 ,000. To me, that's only alarming. That's absurd. That's ridiculous. Why? Because of the culture and everything that's going away from God.

And when you remove yourself from the equation, that's what happens. You know, I was going to save this to the end, but for some reason I've been prompted to talk about it earlier. What the 10 commandments are, I brought something, I'm hoping I can tell the story.

The Shepherd’s Boundaries and the Danger of Straying

It's like, we're not on a leash, you know, a dog leash, right, we're puppets. God takes us off that leash. And that's what his principles are. You stay close to the shepherd, even though you have your own choice, you stay close to the shepherd.

Two weeks ago, I let my puppy off in the desert, seven month old puppy. And within five minutes, they're barking around some bush, next thing I know, she's crying and a coyote has got her in his mouth and he's gone.

Never saw her again. I had to go back and tell my wife and my kids, it's like, unbelievable. I mean, talk about, did that just happen? You can't catch a coyote in the desert. I mean, even me, there's no way.

I mean, it's just unbelievable. But she wouldn't listen. I kept saying, get back here, get back here. I knew what was going on. When they start running and they smell, they're running, they're barking in a bush, I mean, get back here, get back here.

You need this back on. You need this back on. And I just hear one little cry and it's gone. Little white thing in the coyote's mouth running. But that's a perfect analogy of what God's doing. And is it not?

He's saying, stay close, stay close. And that's what we have to tell young adults or old adults, stay close to the shepherd. Because there is a wolf. There's an enemy that's sent to kill, steal, and destroy.

He wants me to go off as well as you. And that's what happens when we let go. When God lets us free, here you go, but here's my safety. Here's my parameters. And we go prancing about and we don't listen.

We open ourselves up for that type of attack. That's why this is so important. I'll never forget that image. I mean, when you're standing, I mean, I even ran, I tried to throw rocks over, I mean, they're just gone.

That's when you need a 22 and, you know, 100 clip, I'm not going to go on that one. But that was a hard day for my wife and kids, but it's a good story of what happens when you don't listen, you stray too far.

And even though, you know, with the atheist, the gay marriage agenda, I'm not saying any of this to poke fun, I say all of this to show all of us our need and to compare a lifestyle to the perfect will of God, the perfect word of God, hallowed be thy name, hallowed be thy name.

Hallowing God’s Name and the Call to Revival

Jesus said, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And what we're going to talk about more extensively next week is the third commandment, taking the Lord's name in vain. It's interesting, taking the Lord's name in vain.

In vain means a useless, futile, false misuse of his name. God won't put up with the irreverent use of his name. So somebody's living like hell, living like the devil, but acknowledging God, they're taking it in vain.

And that's what I'm worried about. They're flying the rainbow banner and they're thinking God is pleased, they are taking his name in vain. And there's a reverend, I couldn't believe it last week, said, God bless Planned Parenthood.

God loves Planned Parenthood. It was on the news. I'm like, what? That guy is taking the Lord's name in vain. We have a culture now that is actually taking it, they're mocking God. They're mocking him.

And that's the message to the church to stop living in fear and saying America is in trouble and start worshiping God, start fasting, start praying and start loving. Now why'd you throw that in there, Shane?

Because a lot of us aren't good on the loving end of it. The love of Christ compels us to share his truth. But we have to church, we have to become worshipers again. We have to become back to God and although judgment starts in the house of God, so does revival.

See, that's always encouraging for me. Judgment starts in the house of God, but so does revival. God says, I'll judge my church, my people first, but I'll also revive them if they're willing, if they seek me, if they turn to me.

Examining the Heart Instead of Seeking Comfortable Christianity

And I know probably at some point many people are saying, Shane, I wanted to hear a wonderful exegesis of the Ten Commandments. Well, I think God wants us to exegete our heart first. There's too many people that just, in exegesis, that just means to explain, give practical application to expound.

It comes from the word expounding in the scriptures. Well, we need to examine our hearts. Don't get me wrong, I love theology, but we've got so much theology that it's just blowing out of the ears. We've got Bible apps and this and that.

We need men and women again on fire for God, examining our own hearts. Have we ever considered that we may have offended God by learning about him and not getting to know him? See, this is the trouble.

I'm going to shoot you straight up and shoot you straight all evening. This is the trouble with many people. They know a lot about God, but they don't truly know him. And often it takes brokenness, often it takes things like this to get us into the prayer closet.

When I read these statistics on Facebook, or this father and son legally, I mean, those things should propel us to the prayer closet, say, oh God, help us. Oh, awake from your slumber, church. That's what God would say.

Awake, awake. These things are signs, indicators that things are not healthy. These are signs of cancer. And the church, see, it's not the culture. We want the next president to change things. Change, real change is not going to come from the White House.

It's going to come from your house and my house, praying and seeking God. This is the real problem in the church. We want a comfortable Christianity. Hear me loud, hear me clear on this. We want a comfortable Christianity that doesn't offend our friends, doesn't affect my life, and won't challenge my lifestyle.

A Christianity that allows us to serve two masters.