“THE ‘THOU SHALT NOT’ GOD”

EXODUS 20:1-18

20:1  Then God spoke all these words:

2  I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery;

3  you shall have no other gods before me.

4  You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.

5  You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me,

6  but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.

7  You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.

8  Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy.

9  Six days you shall labor and do all your work.

10  But the seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD your God; you shall not do any work--you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns.

11  For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it.

12  Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.

13  You shall not murder.

14  You shall not commit adultery.

15  You shall not steal.

16  You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

17  You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.

It is without a doubt one of the most hated words in the English language.  Do you want to guess what it is?  Here’s a couple of hints. It isn’t a racial slur or a word that you might say if you accidently hit your thumb with a hammer.  It’s a simple word that takes only two letters to spell it and those letters are n – o.  No. 

People hate that word; especially in our overly permissive society where the focus is on instant gratification and getting what you want.  That’s why people don’t like to hear someone say:

No.  You can’t stay out past 9 o’clock on a school night.

No.  You can’t park in that handicapped space even if you’re only going to be a minute.

No.  You can’t take that deduction on your income tax.

No.  You can’t smoke in this restaurant.

No.  You can’t ride your skateboard across the benches in the park.

No. No. No. No. No. That was the message in one of the old Calvin and Hobbs cartoons.  Can you still find that cartoon in the newspaper?  It used to be one of my favorites.  For those of you who might not be familiar with it the cartoon is about the adventures of a boy and his stuffed lion.  The boy’s name is Calvin and the stuffed lion’s name is Hobbs.  In this particular cartoon Calvin asks, “Mom, can Hobbes and I go play in the rain?”  When the mother says, “No” Calvin asks, “Why not?” The mother then says,  “Because, you’ll get soaked.”  Calvin doesn’t want to take no for an answer though and asks, “What’s wrong with that?”  At that point the mother says, “You could catch pneumonia, run up a terrible hospital bill, linger a few months and die.”  Calvin looks out the window and lets out a sigh.  “I always forget,” he says. “If you ask a mom, you get a worse-case scenario.”  Hobbs also lets out a sigh and says, “I had no idea those little showers were so dangerous.”

Children don’t like to hear the word “no.”  Adults also don’t like to hear the word “no.”   

The Biblical version of the word no, of course, is “Thou shalt not!”  Those words were made famous in the Ten Commandments, the commandments that God gave to Moses on Mount Sinai.  Eight of the ten commandments begin with those three powerful words.

Thou shalt not steal.

Thou shalt not bear false witness.

Thou shalt not covet, murder or commit adultery.

Thou shall have no other gods before me.

Thou shalt not make for thyself any graven image.

Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.

All those imposing imperatives help you to understand a comment that author HL Menken made once about the Ten Commandments. This is what he said. “Say what you will about the Ten Commandments, you must always come back to the pleasant fact that there are only ten of them.”

Thou shalt not. It’s pretty emphatic.  It also made me wonder they other day why God didn’t word the commandments differently.  Instead of making them negative why didn’t God make them positive?  Using more contemporary language, instead of saying “You shall not bear false witness” why didn’t God say “You shall always tell the truth.”  Instead of saying “You shall not commit adultery” why didn’t God say, “You shall respect the sacred bonds of marriage?”  Could it be that God likes to say “no?” 

The Ten Commandments seems to suggest that the answer to that questions is “yes.” God isn’t shy when it comes to saying “no.” God isn’t shy about saying “no” and to tell you the truth I want to worship a God who isn’t shy about saying “no” to me.

Can you imagine what the world would be like if God always said “yes.”  What would happen can be seen in the movie “Bruce Almighty.”  That movie came out a few years ago and it’s about a janitor who complains to God after he experiences one calamity after another.  The janitor’s name is Bruce and he tells God that he doesn’t like the job that he’s been doing.  So, God decides to let Bruce take over for a few days.  At first Bruce likes the arrangement but then things start going from bad to worse.  In one scene Bruce wakes up and discovers that there are several million prayer requests that he has to answer.  Those prayer requests are in an email account at the website called:  www.askgod.com.  Bruce decides he doesn’t want to spend the entire day answering all of those prayer requests individually.  So, with a simple click of his mouse he answers “yes” to all of the prayer requests.  The next day though while watching the news he sees a mob of angry people pushing and shoving each other.  While that’s going on the anchorman says, “Earlier today rioting broke out a the lottery headquarters in Buffalo, New York when thousands of people showed up with their winning tickets.”  The winners weren’t happy when they learned that each of them would be receiving a check for $17 for their share of the multimillion dollar jackpot.”

Can you image what the world would be like if God always said “yes.”  It would be chaos. The Ten Commandments make it very clear though.  The God who met Moses on the top of that mountain is a God who isn’t shy when it comes to saying “no.”

Now you can do one of two things when it comes to this God who sometimes says “no” to you. You can say “no” to the God who sometimes says “no” to you. Unfortunately, that’s what a lot of people have decided to do.  It’s the reason why so many people have drifted away from the Christian faith. They don’t want God telling them what they should and shouldn’t do.  They want to sleep in on Sunday morning if that’s what they want to do.  They want to jump from relationship to relationship if that’s what they want to do.  They want to eat, drink and be merry regardless of the consequences if what they want to do.  They want to do that and they don’t want to feel guilty about it because there’s a God up in heaven telling them, “No! You shouldn’t be doing that.”

Anyone can say “no” to the God who sometimes says “no.” If you do that though you’ll eventually end up in the same boat that an atheist over in Scotland found himself in many years ago. The atheist was rowing across a lake when all of a sudden the Loch Ness monster appeared out of nowhere and attacked the boat.  With one giant swing of its tail the monster sent the boat and the atheist flying up into the air.  If that wasn’t bad enough when the atheist looked down he saw the monster waiting for him with its mouth wide open.  Immediately the atheist cried out in despair.  “Oh God, help me, help me, help me please!” No sooner were the words out of his mouth when a voice from the heavens thundered, “I thought you didn’t believe in me.”  Undeterred the atheist cried out, “Oh come on God.  Give me a break.  Two minutes ago I didn’t believe in the Loch Ness monster either.”

If you say “no” to the God who sometimes says “no” to you, you’re going to end up with a shallow superficial relationship that isn’t going to help you get through life’s painful and difficult moments. On the other hand if you say “yes” to the God who sometimes says “no” to you, you could end up in a place similar to the one an Army Colonel found himself in one day.  The colonel was speaking to a gathering of medical professionals.  He told them how he had been a heavy drinker for 35 years.  Because of his heavy drinking he confessed that he was often angry and because he alienated so many people he was also lonely.  Then the colonel said that he had an encounter with the risen Christ. Because the risen Christ said “no” to his heavy drinking and he said “yes” to the risen Christ everything changed. He went from being drunk to being sober.  He went from being critical, mean spirited and selfish to being caring, kind and considerate. When a psychiatrist doubted that a person could change that much that quickly and that late in life the colonel had a simple answer for him.  “That may be true,” the colonel said, “but I am under new management now.  I answer to another authority – the highest and truest there is.”

God knows that love doesn’t mean saying “yes” all the time and giving us what we want.  Sometimes the most loving thing God can do is say “no” or if you prefer “Thou shalt not.”  Amen.

Rev. Dr. Richard A. Hughes

October 6, 2002