July 4 Daily Devotional

Bible Reading

Exodus 20:1-17

¹And God spake all these words, saying,
²I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
³Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
⁴Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.
⁵Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;
⁶And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.
⁷Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.
⁸Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.
⁹Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work:
¹⁰But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:
¹¹For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.
¹²Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.
¹³Thou shalt not kill.
¹⁴Thou shalt not commit adultery.
¹⁵Thou shalt not steal.
¹⁶Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.
¹⁷Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's.

Devotional

Moses grew up. God used him to deliver His people from the bondage of the Egyptians and bring them to the mountain called Sinai. God today delivers the people, whom He chose before the foundation of the world, out of the bondage of sin into the freedom which is in Christ.

At Sinai God gave, in the form of a code of ten laws, standards for conduct which are man's guide for living. The Ten Commandments have been called a transcript of the divine nature. They are a revelation to man of what it means to be righteous! To be completely in harmony with God one would have to keep His law perfectly.

Of course we cannot do this. But God, since He could not have fellowship with unrighteousness, sent His Son to keep that law perfectly so that we by faith might be righteous in God's sight. It was not enough that Christ bore in His death the penalty for our transgression of this law! He kept this law perfectly so that we might by faith have His righteousness credited to our account.

Today the Decalogue still stands as a guide for our living. Not only this, but it stands as a guide for the teaching of our children. Let us not pass over verse 10 as a mere appendage to verse 8. It is also an amazingly strong enunciation of the principle of parental responsibility! The father is responsible for the conduct of his whole family, even the guests whose unexpected arrival might 'keep us from going to church.' God has made the father responsible for the honoring of His day by all the household.

And this goes for training in the whole law as well. How we should pray for fathers in Israel in their task!