Posted on 12/16/2014 6:21:42 AM PST by SeekAndFind
I have been devoting my columns this month to the Ten Commandments because we need a fixed moral anchor to solve the problem of evil. And nothing is as effective as the Ten Commandments.
Two weeks ago PragerUniversity.com released eleven five-minute video courses — one for each commandment and an introduction. The series has received over 2 million views.
Everything needed to make a good world is contained in these Ten Commandments.
Whatever your faith, or if you have no faith, I invite you to watch the videos at www.prageru.com. They are cleverly animated with text and graphics.
Here is the commentary on the Second Commandment as enumerated in the oldest, that is the Jewish, tradition. In Christian tradition it is the First Commandment.
The most common translation begins: “You shall have no other gods before me.”
The commandment then goes on to prohibit both making idols and worshiping idols.
Most people, when they think of this commandment, understandably think that it prohibits only the worship of idols and the worship of gods such as the ancient pagan gods of rain, of fertility, all the other nature gods, and chief gods such as the Roman Jupiter, and the Greek Zeus.
However, there is a major problem with this understanding of the commandment. Because no one today worships these gods, let alone worships idols made of metal, wood, or stone, most people think that this commandment is irrelevant to modern life.
The irony, however, is that this commandment is not only relevant to modern life, it is in many ways the mother of all the other commandments.
Why is it relevant today? Because today we have as many false gods as the ancients did. And why is it the mother of all the other commandments? Because if we identify false gods and avoid worshiping them, we will eliminate one of the greatest barriers to a good world.
So, let’s begin by defining a false god. The point of biblical monotheism is that there is only one god and that only this God, the Creator of the universe who demands that we keep these Ten Commandments, is to be worshiped.
Why? First, because one God means one human race. Only if we all have the same Creator, or Father, as it were, are we are all brothers and sisters. Second, having the same parent also means that no person is intrinsically more valuable than any other. And third, one God means one moral standard for all people. If God declares murder wrong, it is wrong for everyone, and you can’t go to another god for another moral standard.
When anything else is worshiped, bad things result. Not only things that can obviously lead to evil, such as the worship of power, or race, or money, or flag. But also things that are almost always seen as quite beautiful — such as art, or education, or even love. Yes, any of these often wonderful things, when worshiped, can lead to terrible results.
Take art. Many of the cruelest humans in history loved beautiful music and art. But, as a music lover, I learned early in life the sad fact that great music can be used to inspire people to follow evil just as much as it can be used to inspire people to do good. The great Hollywood director Stanley Kubrick vividly made this point in his classic 1971 film, A Clockwork Orange, based on the Anthony Burgess novel. In it, men rape and murder while classical music plays in the background.
The Nazis had prisoner orchestras play classical music while Jews were led to gas chambers.
Take education. We all recognize how important education can be — from preparing people to join the modern workforce to understanding the world. But education in and of itself, divorced from the higher ends of God and goodness, can lead, and often has led, to great evil. Many of the best-educated people in Germany supported Hitler and the Nazis. Professor Peter Merkl of the University of California at Santa Barbara studied 581 Nazis and found that Germans with a high-school education “or even university study” were more likely to be anti-Semitic than those with less education (Political Violence under the Swastika, Princeton University Press).
And almost all of the Western world’s supporters of the genocidal regimes of Stalin in the Soviet Union and Mao in China were highly educated. Education is morally useful when it is a means to the higher ends of God and goodness.
The same holds true even of love. Love, of course, is so often beautiful. But it, too, can lead to evil. In the 20th century people who put love of country or love of ideology — of an unattainable dream for humanity — above love of God and goodness often committed terrible evil.
And here’s a test for you: Imagine that the pet you love and a stranger — a person you don’t know and therefore could not possibly love — are drowning. Do you first try to save your pet or the stranger? Well, if love is an end in itself, you save your pet. But if you hold human life as a higher value than love, you won’t follow love.
This commandment made the ethical revolution of the Bible and of the Ten Commandments — what is known as ethical monotheism — possible. Worship the God of the Ten Commandments and you will make a good world. Worship a false god — no matter how noble sounding — and you will end up with evil.
— Dennis Prager is a nationally syndicated radio talk-show host and columnist. His most recent book is Still the Best Hope: Why the World Needs American Values to Triumph. He is the founder of Prager University
The Ten Commandments are all summed up in this: “Love God, love your neighbor.”
Roger that. And if we love God, we also fear Him, because we know the eternal consequences He promised for failure to repent and have faith in His Son. Therefore, if we love our neighbor, we’ll warn them to repent and have faith in Christ in order to avoid the terrible wrath to come.
It’s also critical that we love the God of the Bible, and not some “god” of our imaginations. We can’t say God said something He didn’t say, or didn’t say something He said. That’s engaging in false prophecy, calling God a liar. That won’t end well.
When I was young and our culture was not so up-side down and so crass, I found it easy to love people - even ones I did not know. I could love imperfect, even mean people because I knew I was imperfect, too. This is how I was raised at home and in church.
When I grew older and dealt with this conflict of opposing world views, humanism and Christianity, I found no problem with loving those I disagreed with for they had no power over me and we were free to walk our separate ways. It was between God and them; not me.
Then humanists began attacking and hating Christians and using power to erase Christianity from public life. They were acting as communists. That made me furious. How do you love someone who so hates Jesus that they live their lives to demean Him and harm those who love Him? How do you love someone who rejects the freedom this Nation was founded upon? My heart grew cold and it became harder to commune with Jesus in prayer. This was unacceptable to me and I knew it was me doing it (separating myself from God) and not the haters of me.
So for a some time I stopped reading about humanists and their culture war. In truth, they have no power over me nor Jesus. They have the power of pissants in the face of God. They are sinners; but so am I a sinner. And so I went full circle back to where I was as a child.
I know what humanists think and it is ugly in the face of God. But it is up to God to deal with their sin and not me beyond protecting myself, my worldview and my fellow Christians as best I can. If you have no hate inside of you when haters punch at you, they connect with air.
A young troubled man lived with his grandfather next door to us. Grandpa had to leave town for a week and asked my husband to handle the chemistry of his hot tub so it would not be ruined when he returned. This infuriated the grandson who felt he should be the one to do this chore for his grandfather. Even so, my husband dutifully went over to the house every day and took care of the hot tub.
One evening the young man had had enough and he followed around my husband screaming at him from behind as my husband walked without acknowledging him. My husband prayed for him and kept going about his business. I was sitting on the patio watching all this taking place in the side yard and I was praying, too. That young man began throwing punches at my husband from behind and not one punch landed on my husband. He was swinging like a wild man, but could not land a punch.
Israel had the Ten Commandments - and in fact the whole Law of Moses, and the prophets and their writings, etc...”the oracles of God” as the apostle Paul put it.
Did that “solve the problem of evil” in Israel, Mr. Prager? Did it “make a good world” for them? No one would claim it did.
No, God punished them by sending invading armies from foreign nations to destroy their cities, slaughter their people, and carry them away into captivity among heathen, unclean Gentiles.
And finally, when God’s chosen people had rejected their promised Messiah, He sent the prophesied “abomination of desolation” to destroy Jerusalem, the temple, the entire obsoleted system of Judaism.
Paul says the Law was “a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ,” and “these things were written for our learning.” So rather than looking to the Ten Commandments and the Law of Moses to “solve the problem of evil”, we instead ought to put our faith in God and in His Christ.
Messiah is the Rock
His Ten Commandments were written from stones carved out of His Sapphire Throne (Exo 24:10, Ezekiel 10:1)
He is the Law Giver and Life Giver at the same time.
That is why the prostitute in revelation isn’t wearing ‘blue’.. it is the blue that was to be worn that is a reminder of His Commands. (Numbers 15:39)
Blue is the one color that is missing from the colors the prostitute is wearing that the High priest was commanded to wear. (Exo 28:31)
And we have scripture telling us the patience of the saints are those who keep the Commandments of Yah and the Faith of Yahshua. (Rev 14:12)
We not only have a savior, we have our example...
And also an example of a woman prostitute to stay away from..
One that could pervert, change, ignore or forget His Commands that were written by His Finger from stone carved from His Sapphire like Throne..
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