The blessings contained in the Ten Commandments




Exodus 20:17 You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor





♬ Hymn for scheduled worship: Korean/English Hymnal #434 I Have a Friend (#491 in previous version)





 The Ten Commandments were given to the Israelites by God while they were traveling through the wilderness as the solution to their problems. You may study well and live a good life, and yet you will ultimately fail if you cannot overcome your circumstances. If you rise above the circumstances that you are in, they will become the platform that leads to greater success. The resentment that arises when we are facing problems of our present reality can easily lead to greed. What is most important is the state of our mind and the spiritual state that exists beyond the state of our mind. That is why God provides us with His Word today. We just need to grab hold of His Word daily and have with us the assurance of salvation and guidance. This is the blessing that the people of the covenant who have received salvation ought to enjoy. Our present surroundings can be the start of that blessing.






1. The blessing and assurance of salvation
 The way of salvation that God granted to man is the one and only way, Jesus Christ. The Bible clearly reveals that we receive salvation when we believe that Jesus is the Christ. Whether or not we are people of the Holy Spirit depends on whether we have this faith or not. People of the Holy Spirit receive the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Now that we have become children of God, we are no longer the kinds of people who stumble over circumstances and problems because of resentment and unbelief, and ultimately crumble without overcoming our own greed. God has called us as a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that we may come to possess the promised land of Canaan (1Peter 2:9).






2. Holy and great hope
 Nevertheless, there are times when we are fearful of the future, when it seems as if the surroundings that we are in are our own problems. At a time such as this, the Lord God told the people of Israel, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery” (Exodus 20:2). God gave the same promise to Noah, Abraham and Joseph. God demands faith of His people, who cannot see the future within the wilderness and are about to give up. God is the Creator God, the Deliverer and the Almighty. He is the Lord, for whom nothing is impossible. He is God, who rejoices in having mercy on us. He is our Father, who knows everything. When we believe in and depend on God, we can have the true hope that He gives to us. It is the holy hope of declaring the praises of Him who called us out of darkness into His wonderful light. We come to have greater hope so that we can give glory to God through our future. This, too, is by God’s grace. The hope that God gives to us will make us more than conquerors, helping us overcome the problems of our circumstances and our spiritual problems.







● Forum Topic - Let us meditate on what circumstances we must overcome with the assurance of salvation and the greater hope of the Gospel.






Immanuel Church Sunday Worship 1st Service / 2009.9.20