I want to take you back, to take you forward, to the wonderful world tomorrow when this ethic will be replaced by another. I want to take you back to ancient Israel in Egypt and shortly thereafter.
Israel was ruled and oppressed by Egypt, the most powerful nation in the world at that time. The Egyptian robbed and stole from Israel’s productive labor through slavery. They interfered with Israel’s family life by murdering their children. Egypt physically abused and intimated Israel so that they could dominate every aspect of their lives. Economically, politically, socially and religiously Israel was enslaved.
Ex 2:23 The story of how God came to act on behalf of the Israelites and more importantly why He did what He did. vs 23-25 (read)
And if you read on you will see how God redeemed these people and gave them a certain type of freedom.
God acted on their behalf with righteousness as a motivation. He had made a promise to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, as we read in verse 24. He remembered that promise and He was faithful to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
That was His motivation for acting on their behalf. He set about to establish justice, by correcting the injustices that we just outlined. He had only one requirement for Israel, really, that because He acted with a righteous motivation on their behalf. They must now live as a nation, and their actions toward one another should be that same motivation that motivated God to act on their own behalf. Righteousness must be their motivation.
As a nation they were to act as their Founder and they were to do for one another as He had done for them.
The social, political and economical basis for this nation was to be righteousness. God spelt out the ethic of this righteousness in the 10 commandments. I am going to go through the 10 commandments with you in neither Exodus 20 nor Deuteronomy 5. I have recast them a bit to highlight the ethic that drive these commandments and from that show the ethic that will drive the world tomorrow.
1. God freed Israel to serve Him, found in Ex 4: 23. He was to be first in their thoughts; He was to be first in everything they did.
2. For the same reason, there were to be no idols.
3. God acted on His name and on His own behalf. Therefore, because of the power of this name it was to respected.
4. God’s acts of redemption, His restoration of the creation from Satan and his demons, were memorialized by the institution of the Sabbath. God reclamation of one faithful man’s family, Abraham’s, was likewise memorialized by requiring them to keep the Sabbath. Israel was to preserve the Sabbath as holy times, a memorial of their freedom; the freedom to serve Him. They were to be a light to the world. God had intended to use them as His instrument. This can be seen in Exodus 19 and many of the prophets.
5. God acted to preserve the families of Israel and had shown profound respect for their parents. Therefore, Israel must respect their parents and must teach their children to do so. And if they did, they would secure their future in the land; the first command with a promise.
6. God had freed them from a murderous civilization. He had stopped the senseless killing of children, and adults. Israel must respect life, life that God gave them; the life that He created. Therefore, they should not murder, not even slaves.
7. God had been, and would be, a faithful husband to Israel. They must be faithful in their marriages.
8. God would give them their own possessions; they would not need to take what God had not given them. They did not need to steal from others as the Egyptian had stolen from them. God would see to it, if they didn’t steal, that they would have possessions.
9. God had been truthful and trustworthy. He had proven Himself by what He had done. Therefore, be truthful and trustworthy with one another. They must not bear false witness against one another. If not, they would destroy the peace in their land and in their families.
10. God had provided their need by redeeming them. For 40 years they would wander in the dessert and He provided for all their needs. They had no need to covet anything that belonged to their neighbor. They had no need to fear want; even if they didn’t have as much as someone else. They simply need to remember the first commandment that God was first, and He would take care of their needs.
When God gave these commands to Israel, He asked them to enter into a covenant with Him, a promise. A promise that they would be like Him. This is a reflection of His mind. He had given to them first, which is important. He didn’t give them these principles and then said I would take you out of Egypt. He took them out of Egypt and then gave them these principles so that they could be like Him. The only thing He asks of them was that they learn to think and be like Him and act like Him on behalf of one another. That is the ethic that underlies these principles. It might be summarized this way: Giving for the sole purpose of serving the need of someone, regardless of the costs to oneself.
Let’s look at one example in Exodus 21, where God gives the law of persons, notice in verse 2 (read), and then there are various provisions given. But we will find that the institution of slavery was to serve a different purpose in Israel than it did in Egypt, turn to Leviticus 25. There it robbed people of their productive efforts.
Read Leviticus 25:39-41.
In Deut 15: 12-18 highlights another important point in this institution of slavery, which was that when this slave was released you had to give that slave, from the wealth of your house, a steak. It was suppose to be enough for that person to get started again and be economically sufficient. If you evaluated this situation based on the ethic that is driving this world today, you wouldn’t do it.
It would be like defaulting on a credit card account, having them hire you, stop the accruing of interest, pay you a salary so that in 7 years you could be out of debt and as well they would send you out with additional financial resources so that you wouldn’t need credit. Could you imagine MC, Visa or American Express doing this? I can’t. According to the ethic of today, it would be to costly for them.
The land Sabbath and the jubilee year are looked at the same way with today’s ethic; they are too expensive to practice. But, they will be in the not to distant future.
Let’s look forward to that time. But, in the mean time let us make sure that we are not using the ethic of today to guide our actions in how we deal with one another. Rather, let us be following the ethic that is spelled in God’s Ten Commandments. Let us give to one another, regardless of the costs to us.
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