"10", Part 1: No Other Gods | The Standard for Right and Wrong

You're listening to A New Beginning with Greg Laurie, a podcast made possible by Harvest Partners, helping people everywhere know God.

Visit our website and learn more about Harvest Partners at harvest.org. It's from these commandments given to us in the pages of Scripture that we know right from wrong. What time is it? Really, what's the exact time? How do we know what the exact time is?

Maybe your clock is a few seconds different from mine. The de facto standard is International Atomic Time, a weighted average of time kept by over 400 atomic clocks in 50 laboratories worldwide. That's the source that's trustworthy. Well, when it comes to right and wrong, Pastor Greg Laurie says the trustworthy standard is God's Word, and we'll consult that standard today on A New Beginning.

This is the day, the day when life begins. I don't really even agree with the list, but it's interesting. And the Rolling Stones, number two, was Satisfaction. And the number one song of all time, according to Rolling Stone magazine, is Icky Breaky Heart by Billy Ray Sides. No, that's actually on the worst songs of all time list. Now, according to Rolling Stone magazine, the number one song is Like a Rolling Stone by Bob Dylan.

Good song, I don't think it's the greatest song of all time, but a good one. But other lists have Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen and Hotel California by the Eagles on the top ten list as well. But then there's a list of the top ten worst songs, according to Blender magazine, on the list is We Built the City by Starship.

Ever heard that song? It deserves to be in this list. Icky Breaky Heart by Billy Ray Sides is on this list.

Now, I don't know why this one made it on the worst. I mean, I don't love it, but I don't think it's one of the worst songs. The Heart of Rock and Roll by Huey Lewis and the News.

They say it's one of the worst. Don't Worry, Be Happy by Bobby McFerrin. I agree that I don't like that song. Ebony and Ivory is thought of as one of the worst songs ever done by Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder. And also, surprisingly, guess what song made it on the worst songs of all time list?

It's A Small World from Disneyland. I mean, I liked it the first time I heard it, but after you've heard it so many times, it gets on your nerves. And Macarena was on the list as well, so there you go. Okay, so God is a top ten list. This does not reach my consensus. Nobody gets to vote on this.

It doesn't change. Written by the finger of God in tablets of stone, his top ten list is known as the Ten Commandments. Barely 300 words long in English, the Ten Commandments form the foundation of our legal system and the foundation of Western civilization. You know, it's been said that humans have written 32,647,389 laws, and they still haven't improved on the Ten Commandments. Abraham Lincoln said of the Ten Commandments, quote, but for the Ten Commandments, we wouldn't know right from wrong. End quote.

Very true. Theodore Roosevelt put it this way, quote, no man is a good citizen unless he acts so as to show he actually uses the Ten Commandments. End quote. Now, we agree that they're important, so let me take a quick poll. How many of you know the Ten Commandments by heart? Raise your hand. Not so many. Now, why is that? We know they're valuable.

We know they're sent from heaven. Why haven't we taken the time to memorize them? A recent survey found that 14 percent of Americans, only 14 percent of Americans, could name the Ten Commandments. By comparison, a quarter of Americans can name the seven ingredients in a Big Mac.

Now, what's with that? Here's another interesting stat. Nearly one out of four can name all three Stooges, and one in three can name all six kids from the Brady Bunch. Is there anyone here who can name all six kids from the Brady Bunch? That's amazing to me. So basically, what we're saying is, I know that the Big Mac has two all-beef patties, but I don't know that thou shall not murder, thou shall not steal.

What's going on here? He said, well, Greg, it's hard to memorize those things. Well, how about starting with just the first four commandments? Well, I don't know if I can memorize that. Okay, tell me the names of the Beatles.

John Paul, George Ringo, Whitey West. Well, you can memorize stuff like that. You can't memorize these commandments. Actually, you can, and we should.

Why? It's from these commandments given to us in the pages of Scripture that we know right from wrong. They're the grid that we live by. They're the basis of all morality. Listen, the Ten Commandments are not obsolete. They are absolute.

Let me repeat that. They're not obsolete. They're absolute.

But not everybody agrees with that. A contest was launched by some atheists to rewrite the Ten Commandments for today. They called them the Non Commandments.

The contest drew 2,800 submissions, and it was decided by 13 judges. And there was not a single thou shalt not among them. In fact, commenting on this, there was an article on the CNN website that said, quote, if they lack faith in the divine, the atheists' non commandments display a robust faith in mankind as if Silicon Valley had replaced Sinai, end quote. And so here's some of the choices by atheists for their so-called non commandments. Number one, be open minded and be willing to alter your beliefs with new evidence.

Number two, God is not necessary to be a good person or to live a full and meaningful life. Three, there is no one right way to live. Four, every person has a right to control their own body. Five, leave the world a better place than when you found it.

Interesting. As Kevin DeYoung points out in his book on the Ten Commandments, how can you leave the planet a better place than you found it and exercise control over your body if there is really no one right way to live? These are our reactions.

They're a counterpoint to the truth of the Ten Commandments. You have to start somewhere. We can't say, well, we'll reach it by consensus. In fact, the people that put this together said that they wanted to keep this open ended because they believe, quote, in the wisdom of the crowds, end quote, who can go online to weed this out. The wisdom of the crowds. Online? Are you kidding me?

Are you on Twitter? I'm looking for the wisdom of the crowds out there. Here's an example on how the crowd can get it wrong. The British government wanted to name a brand new 287 million dollar polar research vessel. So they opened it up to the wisdom of the crowd, so to speak, online. And they suggested names for this new craft, like Shackleton, named after the famous explorer, or perhaps Endeavor or Falcon. But everyone got together and the people's runaway choice from the Internet for this 287 million dollar polar research vessel.

Are you ready for it? Bode McBoatface. I'm not making this up. Bode McBoatface.

One of the dumbest things I've ever heard. So the folks overruled him and gave him another name altogether. So this just reminds us that we don't arrive at truth by voting on it. God has given us this truth from his own hand, written by his own finger. In fact, the man Solomon, the king of Israel, the son of David, went on a binge, sinning against the Lord, breaking every commandment left and right. And he lived a miserable, empty life. He chased after sexual pleasure, chased after drunkenness, material possessions, everything one could want, he experienced. And here's his conclusion at the end of the book of Ecclesiastes. He said, here's the end of the matter. After all has been heard, fear God and keep his commandments, for that is the whole of man. That is to say that if a man or a woman keeps God's commandments, they are a whole man or a whole woman.

Solomon is saying if you violate these things, your life will be out of balance. Pastor Greg Laurie will have the second half of his message in just a moment. We really enjoy hearing when Pastor Greg's teaching and preaching touches lives. I just want to start off by saying I struggled with drugs and alcohol for a long time. I come from a broken home. I feel like I could relate to Pastor Greg a lot.

Life is hard and we all have our own battles, but I should have done better. Now I'm repenting and changing. And one day I happened to run across one of Pastor Greg's talks and, you know, his voice just captivated me and the way he preaches and everything. I just want to give thanks to him for his work towards spreading God's truth, because it is the truth and it's changing my life.

And Jesus is real. The peace and the love they offer us. I feel it in my heart and thank God for everything. We're so grateful to hear of the changed lives through Harvest Ministries. And if you have a story to tell, I hope you'll contact us today. Call 1-866-871-1144. That's a special number for this purpose only.

866-871-1144. Well, we're considering the Ten Commandments today from Exodus chapter 20. Pastor Greg's message is titled, Ten Part One, No Other Gods. Okay, so let's look now at these commandments together. Down here in Exodus chapter 20.

Let's pick up where we last left off. Moses has led the Israelites out of the bondage of Egypt. They're in the wilderness. The Lord is feeding them with supernatural bread from heaven called manna.

He's guiding them by his supernatural GPS system of a fire by night and a cloud by day. The people are thirsty so Moses is directed by God to strike the rock with his staff and water comes out. Now the Lord summons Moses to Mount Sinai.

And he says, I want you to go there and I'm going to speak to you. So Moses goes alone to this mountain to meet with God. And there the Lord gives to Moses these Ten Commandments from heaven. Exodus 20 starting in verse two, commandment number one.

I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before me. That's commandment number one.

No other gods before him. Commandment number two, you shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything that's in heaven above or earth beneath or in the water under the earth. Nor shall you bow down and serve them for I the Lord your God am a jealous God visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children of the third and fourth generations.

Of those who hate me showing mercy to thousands to those who love me and keep my commandments. So commandment number three, no carved image that you bowed down before. Commandment number three, Exodus 20 verse seven. Don't take the name of the Lord in vain. Commandment number four, verses eight to nine.

Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Commandment number five, verse 12, honor your father and mother. Commandment number six, you shall not murder. Commandment number seven, verse 14, you shall not commit adultery. Commandment number eight, you shall not steal. Verse 15, commandment number nine, verse 16, you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. In other words, you shall not lie. And finally, commandment number 10, verse 17, you shall not covet your neighbor's house or his wife or his male servant or female servant nor his ox or his donkey nor anything that is your neighbor's. There it is, the 10 commandments.

They're there to protect you. Years ago, I went into my backyard. This is when I had my German shepherd, and he was staring intently at something in the grass, and I leaned down and saw a brightly colored little bird just shaking away, terrified, knowing he was going to become an hors d'oeuvre for my dog, and it looked like somebody's pet bird. And so I stooped down, and I put out my index finger, and sure enough, this little bird hopped right in my finger. So I walk into the house, and Kathy's making something in the kitchen, cooking something up. I said, Kathy, look what I just found. So we took the bird, we threw it in the pan, we cooked it, and... No, we didn't do that. So I said, I wonder who this belongs to, and my son Jonathan, who was a little guy at that point, said, hey, there's a neighbor down the street that their bird just died. They still love the cage. I said, go get it, hurry. So he came back with the cage.

We set it on the counter. I opened up the door of the cage, and the bird flew from my finger into the cage, jumped on the perch, and was going back and forth and chirping away. That bird was happy to be in that cage.

Why? Because the bird did not see the cage as a prison, keeping him in. He saw it as a barrier of protection, keeping my dog out.

That's what the Ten Commandments are. They're there for your protection. You know what else? I was a kid, I remember going to Disneyland and going on the Autopia ride. Remember that?

It's still there. Drive the little cars. And when you're a little kid, that's very exciting. But you have these barriers around you. You really can't go very far, even if you hang a hard right or left. You're going to pretty much stay in the lane they put you in. That's what the Ten Commandments are. They're guardrails in life. But ultimately, as we develop our relationship with God, they come naturally.

As the Bible says, they're written on the fleshly tablets of our heart, so they're internalized, but they do give us absolutes to live by. They're like traffic laws. Now, maybe you don't always like traffic laws, but they're there for a reason, to keep you alive. By the way, somebody came up with some commandments for drivers, and I thought they were pretty valid.

Here's one. Thou shall not go slow in the fast lane. Prius drivers, are you listening? Prius drivers, why? Maybe it's because the tires on a Prius are the size of a little donut.

They're so little, I don't know. Here's another one. Thou shall not text while driving. That's a good one. Thou shall not text while waiting for the light to change. That's another.

Here's another. Thou shall not go 30 miles over the speed limit. Thou art not a driver in the Indy 500.

Thou art a dangerous idiot. I like that. There are people that drive like that.

Here's another. Thou shall not tailgate. Thou shall not pull in front of me and slow us down.

Why do people do that? They're cruising along and they come up, get right in front of me and slow down like, excuse me, you had all these other lanes. So then I tailgate them. See that?

Now it's payback. No, I don't. Traffic laws are there to protect us. Now here's an interesting thing. The order of the Ten Commandments is very important. If we were to rearrange them, I think some might say some are more important than others. A recent article I read pointed out that in general, people believe that certain commandments are still really valid, like thou shall not murder, thou shall not steal, thou shall not commit adultery.

Everyone agrees those are bad things. But people are fudging a bit, if you will, on other commandments like, well, less people thought it was that big of a deal to take the Lord's name in vain. And a very small percentage of people thought it was really that big of a thing to have another God before him. However, when the Lord puts the commandments together, at the top of the list is, you shall have no other gods before him.

For the Lord, this is a number one offense. Jesus summed it up this way. You shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all of your soul, and with all of your mind. And you shall love your neighbor as yourself. And then he said there are no other commandments greater than these. See, if you love God with all of your heart, soul, and mind, and you love your neighbor as yourself, the rest of the commandments will come naturally. Good insight on the Ten Commandments, one that sets the stage for all the others. And Pastor Greg Laurie has more to come from this presentation here on A New Beginning, including a final comment today before we conclude. Well, Pastor Greg, there are a lot of people who don't know the Lord, and they feel their life has been so troubled that maybe the Lord wouldn't want to know them.

But God's grace is bigger than our sin. And that's a message that comes through loud and clear in a new DVD we're making available. Yeah, it really does. And the title of that DVD is Johnny Cash, The Redemption of an American Icon. Now, as you may recall, I wrote a book by the same title, which you might want to order.

It's a great book. And then we made it into a first-rate documentary film. Incredible production value done by the same team that brought you Jesus Revolution. Beautifully done cinematic interviews with people that knew Johnny, like Marty Stewart, others that were influenced by Johnny, like Tim McGraw, Winona Judd, Sheryl Crow. And also you hear from members of Johnny's own family, including his sister, Joanna Cash-Yates, and his son, John Carter Cash, and others.

I was able to bring a perspective on Johnny's life as well. And so we want to send you this incredible DVD that tells a story of redemption. And it brings hope.

And maybe it's your story, or maybe it's someone you know. It's their story, and they need to see this film. And now, for the first time, it's available for you to have for good, for keeps, to share with others. You could even give the DVD away, if you'd like, to someone and download the film to your phone, or your computer, or your tablet, because we also provide you with a streaming code. And one other thing I would mention is there's bonus content on this DVD you will not find anywhere else. Now, you can find this film on the Apple platform, on the Amazon platform, but they don't have this bonus content. And this bonus content includes a message that I gave on how to come to Jesus Christ, sort of wrapped around the story of Johnny Cash. So let us send you Johnny Cash, the redemption of an American icon on DVD, complete with streaming code, and bonus content for your gift of any size.

Now let me say this. We bring these resources to you to be a blessing, but also to give you an opportunity to invest in the work of the kingdom of God. Here at Harvest Ministries, we want to teach God's word, but we also want to call people to Christ. And if you've been a listener for long, you will know that we often give an invitation for people to come to the Lord. And did you know that thousands of people come to Jesus every year listening to this radio broadcast? So when you invest in what we're doing financially, you play a part in that.

You share in the fruit of that. So be generous when you send your gift to get your copy of Johnny Cash, the redemption of an American icon. And in advance, let me say thank you.

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Get your copy of Johnny Cash, the redemption of an American icon. Well, next time, Pastor Greg returns with more insight based on God's top ten, the Ten Commandments. But before we go, Pastor Greg closes this way. I mentioned that we have our church over on Maui, and there are people who are locals who were born there, and they have their own interesting dialect that is described as Pidgin English.

You ever heard that? Pidgin English. So someone came up with the Pidgin English version of the Ten Commandments. So here they are, commandment number one, I'm the Lord your God, if no God's before me.

Their version is, God is number one, right? Number two, don't have any other gods before him, is make note of kind statues. Number three, watch your mouth, no sweat with God's name. Commandment number four, on Sunday you can do nothing.

Okay, I like that. Number five, listen to your mother and your father for honor your father and mother. Number six, no murder nobody, for thou shall not kill.

I like this one, for thou shall not commit adultery. No go mama with your brother's wahine. No go mama with your brother's wahine. No go mama with your brother's wahine.

Wahine is their word for a girl. Number eight, for thou shall not steal. No cockroach nuttin'. Okay, for thou shall not bear false witness. No lie, brah. No lie, brah. And finally, number 10, no be jealous one nutter person stuffs. So there you have it, the Pidgin version of the Ten Commandments. This is the day, the day when life begins.