Questions

What comes to your mind when you think of the Ten Commandments? A Hollywood movie? Stone tablets? Rules and regulations? Restraints to personal freedom? Please read Exodus 20:3-17 --counting the commandments as you go. (Compare Deuteronomy 5:7-21).

1. Some time ago, I saw a sign in front of a church that read, "They're Not Called The Ten Suggestions." It reminded me of a similar sign I'd seen which said, "The Ten Commandments Are Not Multiple Choice." What do you think the sign painters were trying to say with these signs?

2. According to Exodus 19:5-8, how did the Israelites respond to God's instruction and commands? Do you think they gave a good answer?

3. Is man able to keep God's Commandments?

• Jeremiah 13:23
• Romans 8:7

4. It sounds like we are being asked to do the impossible. Is God's law really important? Is obedience really required?

• Ecclesiastics 12:13
• Matthew 19:17
• Romans 2:13

5. Could it be that the Commandments were meant for the Old Testament people and no longer apply today?

• Matthew 5:17-18
• Revelation 14:12

Years ago, the state of Oregon passed a law that convicted murderers should die by hanging. Adam Winkle was the first to be hung. Some years later, the citizens of Oregon decided to change the law and Winkle's descendants said, "No fair! If you can change the law after he died, why couldn't you change it before he died?" If God could have ignored, done away with, or changed His Law, don't you suppose He would have chosen an alternative to the death of Jesus?

6. How did Jesus summarize the commandments in Matthew 22:37-40, Did He eliminate all but these two?

Jesus summarized the first four commandments as love for God, and the last six as love for man, concluding, "On these two, hang all the law." If I say, "On my two arms hang all my ten fingers," have I eliminated my fingers by describing what supports them.

Lesson 1 made the point that we are saved by faith without the deeds of the law (See Romans 3:20 & 28). Does this mean obeying God is not important? Romans 6:14 says we "are not under the law, but under grace." Does grace do away with the law, or the need to obey it?

7. Does grace increase or lessen our responsibility to obey God?

• Romans 6:15
• Romans 6:1-2

Suppose the Governor visits an inmate on death row and asks what he'd do if he were pardoned. If the inmate replies, "Kill the judge who put me here," do you think it likely he will be given pardon (grace)? Imagine he is pardoned, but returns to a life of crime, and winds up before the judge again. What might the judge say if the man, after being asked why he went back to crime, answered, "I thought if you were saved by grace you didn't have to keep the law anymore."?

8. Apparently God's law is still in effect. If we can't produce obedience what purpose does the law serve?

• Romans 3:20
• Romans 7:7
• Galatians 3:24

"Schoolmaster" (Gal. 3:24) is translated from the Greek word paidagogos, (pahee-dag-o-gos'); a name given to a person whose job it was to take children to school. Like a truant officer, such a person got the children where they needed to be in order to learn, but did not actually do the teaching.Part of the good news of the Sabbath is that not only will Jesus free you from the guilt of sin--He will free you from its power as well!

9. A thermometer does not cure a sick person, but it does show him that he is not well. Once he knows he is actually sick, he can go to a Doctor for the help and prescription he needs to become healthy. How could God's Law be like a thermometer? Who is the Doctor and what is His prescription?

10. Is obeying God's commandments something we do in order to prove we love Him, or something that results from loving Him? Based on what you have learned about Jesus and how He works in your life, is obedience a requirement or a response? Could it be both? Which is the cause and which is the effect?

• John 14:15
• John 14:21-24
• John 15:10
• 1 John 5:3

As you get to know Jesus better, you will love Him more. As you love Him more, you will find it natural to obey Him. His Law does not change, but KNOWING JESUS changes you and enables you to meet His requirements.

In pre-Civil War days, Joe, a tall slave with a physique like Hercules, was being sold at auction. With a sneer on his face and rebellion in his eyes, he kept loudly insisting that he would never work for any man! Finally the gavel came down and Joe was sold to a man who'd bid an astronomical price. As he was escorted in chains to the wagon, and on the subsequent journey home, Joe kept angrily repeating that he would never work. At last the wagon pulled up to a tidy cottage in a picturesque clearing beside a tumbling brook. The man who bought him led him inside and removed his chains. "This is your home Joe," he said. Joe looked around in wonder at the lovely home--beautifully decorated and fully furnished. For a moment he stood speechless, than suddenly shaking his head, he said, "Whether you beat or bribe me, its all the same, I will never work!" In a voice filled with compassion and love, the man who had bought him said, "That's O.K., Joe, this is still your home! I didn't buy you to make you work, I bought you to set you free." Again Joe was silent as he tried to grasp the meaning of those words. Then suddenly he fell weeping at the feet of the man who had paid so much and said brokenly, "Master, I will serve you forever!"

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