THE TEN COMMANDMENTS

Most of America knows that the Supreme Court of the United States has ruled the Ten Commandments cannot be displayed in any government courthouse. This landmark decision has been covered exhaustively by the media. But what does the ruling mean?

A courthouse is where laws are enforced. The Ten Commandments represent God’s moral law, which never shifts or changes. It is as fixed as the law of gravity. If you defy that law, it’s like stepping off a high building. You can deny that the law affects you, but there are consequences sure to be paid.

Simply put, the Ten Commandments are eternal laws designed by God to keep society from destroying itself. Yet, amazingly, many sand-blasting companies are at work right now grinding away those Commandments—as well as God’s name—wherever they’re engraved in courthouse marble or concrete.

What a telling picture of the state of our society. These unchangeable laws were originally engraved in stone by the finger of God. And now they are being erased from stone by the law of man.

Some Christians are saying, “What’s the big deal? We are not under the law. Why should this be an issue?” No, we are not under the Hebrew law, meaning the 613 additional commandments added by Jewish rabbis. But every Christian is under the authority of God’s moral law, which is summed up in the Ten Commandments.

I wonder what goes through God’s mind as these sand-blasters erase his laws from before our eyes. Some believers claim, “We don’t need these displays of the Commandments. All that’s really necessary is for us to have them written in our hearts.” That’s not what God’s Word says. Consider the very visible presence God intended for the Commandments as they were delivered to his people:

“These words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart… and [thou] shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thy hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates” (Deuteronomy 6:6-9).