1. Illus: In a large urban hospital just outside the doorway to the maternity unit somebody placed the following sign: "Research shows that the first five minutes of life can be risky."
   1. Which of course is a very proper reminder to all the nurses and doctors who labor around the clock with newborn babies: "Research shows that the first five minutes of life can be risky."
   2. A few days later someone came along and scribbled under the sign these words: "The last five minutes ain't so hot either!"
   3. Here we are tonight in the NeXt Millennium Seminar, crammed somewhere between the first five minutes and the last five minutes of life.
   4. But if the truth were known--and I believe that it is--there is evidence tonight that ominously indicates we are much nearer the last five minutes of civilization's history than any of us realizes!
   5. Illus: Are you acquainted with the name of Sir Arnold Joseph Toynbee?
      1. His name may ring a bell as you hearken back to your high school or college history classes.
      2. But while your recollection of him may be dim or even nil, after tonight I have a feeling we shall not easily forget him, as we carefully ponder his six evidences for the disintegration of our civilization.
2. But as a preface to that examination, listen once again to the shout of a lone midnight angel streaking across the heavens of earth's final civilization!
   1. Revelation 14:6,7 (p 1183 )
      1. We turned to the Bible's last book on our opening evening--we do so again tonight.
      2. There is some very good news in that very urgent message!
      3. Read vv 6,7.
      4. When does that message come to this planet?
      5. As we noted last evening, the very next picture is the symbolic portrayal of the end or harvest of human civilization!
      6. Read vv. 14,15
      7. Illus: Point out the stained glass window pix of Christ on the cloud high above this platform tonight.
   2. What does this urgent message have to do with Sir Arnold Joseph Toynbee? More than anyone may first have suspected!
3. For Sir Arnold Toynbee, an Oxford-University educated English historian who taught for years at the University of London, came to a most startling and foreboding conclusion fifty years ago, and I must share it with you.
   1. At the time he was writing his now famed and magisterial twelve-volume analysis of the rise and fall of world civilizations entitled, A Study of History.
   2. In this voluminous study he painstakingly analyzes the histories of 21 different world civilizations--from ancient Rome to imperial China to Babylon to the Greeks to the Aztecs to the Japanese and on and on.
   3. And on that basis he writes the 712 pages of volume five, which bears the subtitle, "The Disintegrations of Civilizations."
      1. I had actually read about his startling conclusions while working my way through Gene Edward Veith's book, Postmodern Times.
      2. But because Toynbee's conclusions were so provocative, I knew I had to read him for myself.
      3. And so I went to the university library here on campus and checked out volume five of his A Study of History.
      4. Sure enough--there they were--I examined them for myself and I want to share them with you now--SIX UNMISTAKABLE EVIDENCES FOR THE DISINTEGRATION AND COLLAPSE of a world civilization.
   4. What is so deeply troubling with Sir Toynbee's six evidences is that they seem so ominously prophetic!
      1. Are the six characteristics you are about to hear now all in place for the civilization you and I live in tonight?
      2. Is this civilization, our civilization about to collapse and disintegrate?
      3. Like the Titanic are we on a collision course with destruction?
      4. Could it be the final chapter of the Star Wars is upon us?
   5. I'll let you decide as we briefly examine Sir Arnold Toynbee's six evidences-- paying particular attention to evidence number 6 that is so startling and troubling tonight! (The six evidences will now be shown on the screen, interspersed with video clips that examine our civilization tonight. As we stand on the brink of the neXt millennium, is it also the eve of the fall of our own civilization?)
   6. Characteristic number one that identifies a civilization on the brink of collapse: According to Toynbee, societies in disintegration are seldom simply overrun by some other invading civilization--rather they commit a kind of cultural suicide, suffering what he calls a "schism [a breakage or fracture] of the soul."
      1. Prior to the fall of a civilization, something down deep inside of the corporate psyche of society snaps, something breaks, the soul of society turns upon itself.
      2. It is a form of cultural suicide, by which a civilization self-destructs by destroying its own soul.
      3. Has it happened before in history? Have we ever seen a civilization implode on itself? Of course we have!
      4. Illus: I have stood in the haunted shell and remains of the great Roman Coliseum [on screen]--its crumbled ruins still stand today as one of the most sobering but classic examples of this "schism of the soul" or cultural suicide.
      5. Inside that very coliseum, for the sake of entertainment--to wile away their leisure hours--the citizens of that doomed civilization gathered in the grand stands to watch and cheer as human life was slaughtered and slashed, gutted and gored before their gaping eyes and applauding hands.
      6. It was an orgy of blood and guts, whose only difference with Hollywood tonight was that instead of stuntmen or dummies with artificial blood and plastic entrails, the Romans opted to use "living cadavers" instead--men, women and children who were butchered for entertainment on a Sunday afternoon.
      7. Cultural suicide--IS IT HAPPENING AGAIN?
      8. Illus: I don't want to get side-tracked into an analysis of television programming seen globally tonight--and I apologize for the fact that it is my own nation that is the greatest producer and purveyor of vicarious blood and guts entertainment--but I can't imagine any thinking man or woman anywhere in the world tonight not being able to sense in our society's bloodthirsty hunger and voracious appetite for human violence-- and all of it for the sake entertainment.
      9. Who can doubt that we are repeating the tragic collapse of Rome tonight-- and we are doing it with utter class and style and subtlety, which is all the more deplorable and dangerous--because we can't even see our demise creeping up on us!
   7. Characteristic number two of a disintegrating society that is doomed to fall: Toynbee describes a sense of what he calls "truancy." Which is another word for "escapism," a mental running away from society's problems by retreating into a world of distraction and entertainment.
      1. Illus: The cover story of U.S. News and World Report said it all in a piece on the popularity of extreme sports, "Extreeeme": "The peril, the thrill, the sheer rebellion of it all. High-risk sports add spice to the humdrum of American lives." "Adored by a young America hungry for thrills, these sports, popularly known by the Madison Avenue-created moniker 'extreme sports,' are popping up on urban streets, off-road trails, and television screens....capturing an ever growing chunk of the $40 billion plus that America spends on sporting goods annually." (p 52, 6-30-97)
      2. From inline skating on earth at 30 mph to jumping out of a plane at 13000 feet for sky surfing or closer to earth jumping at night from buildings, bridges, antennas and cliffs with a parachute strapped to your free-falling back--extreme sports have become a global obsession.
      3. ESPN's week long X Games, the Olympics of extreme sports, brought in over 400 of the world's top "extremists" and was beamed by satellite to almost 200 nations "for wild thrills and epic wipe outs in prime time."
      4. None of us tonight, I know, is against physical exercise and exertion and the exhilaration of sports and recreation.
      5. Toynbee's point is simply that a disintegrating civilization succumbs more and more to "truancy," this escapism or running from reality through retreat into distracting entertainment.
      6. Add to the statistics the trillions of dollars that are spent globally in the East and the West on the escapism of alcohol, drugs and frenzied partying--and Toynbee could certainly rest his case for characteristic number three.
   8. Characteristic number three that evidences the impending collapse of a civilization: There is a "sense of drift," "in which people yield to a meaningless determinism [nothing we do can make a difference now, fate has decreed it], as if their efforts do not matter and as if they have no control over their lives." (Veith 45)
      1. Toynbee here describes a fatalism of the masses--a sense of helplessness and powerlessness.
      2. Illus: Low voter turnout globally is evidence enough that the public, the masses have not only become cynical about politics, but have succumbed to a "it doesn't matter/what can I do" mentality that reflects this "sense of drift."
      3. One of the favorite shrugs of this generation is, "Oh well!"--"after all, we inherited a messed up world, there isn't much we can do to change it, so we might as well max it out here and now--what good or difference can we make in the long run?"
      4. Illus: video clip of GenX on city sidewalks, in party mode, shot of masses of humanity crowding down nameless sidewalks, etc.
   9. Characteristic number four of a disintegrating society: There is a "sense of sin," a self-loathing and guilt that come from civilization's moral abandon.
      1. Illus: Watch "Saturday Night Live" or our late night talk show hosts and feel the sense of guilt that is cloaked behind the giddy laughter and ribald joking.
      2. Illus: Ask the psychiatrists and psychologists of the world how many of their clients are crushed by a personal sense of guilt.
      3. Illus: [start running video in #d here] Travel the religious pathways of this planet, and find men and women and children of every walk of life going through the liturgical motions of trying to cleanse themselves, absolve themselves of guilt.
      4. Toynbee noted from his meticulous research that this mass sense of guilt and sin preceded the collapse of the doomed civilization, because while the society bemoans its guilt and sin it seems paralyzed to extricate itself from that downward spiral.
      5. Illus: video clips of Hindu, Buddhist cleansing rituals--Catholic and Protestant and Muslim rituals and prayers and symbols, etc. Mixed with ribald comedy and laughter, psychologist office, couch, therapy, etc.
   10. Characteristic number five: Toynbee described it as a "sense of promiscuity" that infiltrated a dying society--which is not meant so much in the sexual sense--but rather describes a state of mind that indiscriminately accepts anything and everything in an effort to find meaning and perhaps stave the impending doom.
       1. This promiscuity is an uncritical tolerance, an unfocused embrace of the melting pot in religion, literature, language, art, manners and customs.
       2. Illus: [start running video in #f here] Enter now the New Age movement that is taking intellectual and thinking circles around this planet by storm!-- it is the most melting pot blend of paganism and religion, of spirituality and philosophy, of humanism and theism ever embraced by this civilization.
       3. Bright educated human beings grasping for meaning and hope and assurance from the most bizarre sources, blending their grasped straws into a strange concoction of magic and hope!
       4. It is truly, as one author described it, "the triumph of the mass mind" (Veith 45).
       5. Illus: video clips that collage New Age shelves at stores, cards, pyramids, trinkets, spiritism, Christianity, blended, voodoo, eastern religions, yoga, etc, etc.
   11. There they are five of the six--but it is the sixth evidence of a civilization on the brink of collapse that is so ominously familiar tonight across this planet-- Toynbee describes how disintegrating societies fall into a sense of "abandon"- -"a state of mind that accepts antinomianism [old English word for lawlessness]...as a substitute for creativeness." (p 399)
       1. Lawlessness.
       2. A rank disregard of morality, the rules of society, the abandonment of the law--lawLESSness.
       3. How else shall we describe the sudden, swift strike of terrorism--whether on a subway in Tokyo or Paris or London--or in a skyscraper in New York--or outside a pub in Belfast--or street market in Bosnia--or beside a government building in Oklahoma City--if that is not prime evidence of lawLESSness?
       4. How else shall we describe the genocides of Rwanda and Cambodia that have left millions dead or dismembered--if that is not prime evidence of lawLESSness?
       5. How else shall we describe the full-color, big-screen glorification by Hollywood of human brutality, murder, mayhem, violence--the inexplicable glorification of lawLESSness by our entertainment industry?
       6. Lawlessness.
       7. Revealed not just in acts of terrorism and genocide and Hollywood--but evidenced in the countless ways citizens daily wink and hoodwink their way through life--petty thefts from hotel rooms, small intentional inaccuracies on income tax reports--lying, cheating, stealing.
       8. Every civilization has learned too late the ancient truth that it is the little holes in the dike that precipitate the eventual collapse of the entire structure!
       9. 21 deceased world civilizations have undergone a postmortem analysis by Sir Arnold Toynbee and the unmistakable evidence we see tonight of rampant lawlessness in our own society is a final harbinger or sign of civilization's imminent doom and destruction!
   12. There you have it, ladies and gentlemen--Sir Arnold Toynbee's six characteristics of a doomed and dying civilization--are we on the brink tonight?
4. And what was it the lone angel cried out into the midnight heavens of earth's last generation? Reread Revelation 14:6,7 (p )
   1. Would it surprise you if this final appeal at the close of earth's history were perfectly matched to Sir Arnold Toynbee's six indicators of the end?
   2. Particularly indicator number six.
   3. And if we could turn number six around, could it be that in the process we would find the solutions to indicators one through five, and thus save our civilization before it's too late?
   4. Am I being too optimistic tonight? I think not.
   5. Illus: There is a matching verse, a twin pronouncement, to this angel's cry in the heart of the Old Testament, and in that match I believe we find the perfect antidote to Toynbee's ominous prediction--Ecclesiastes 12:13 (p 647 )
      1. "...the conclusion of the whole matter"--the words were written by aged King Solomon, reputed to be the wisest man who ever lived, but who tragically succumbed to his own successes until at the end of life he realized his terrible mistake--these concluding words to his last will and testament
      2. are a summation of all that his moral heartache had taught him.
      3. "...for this is the whole duty of man and woman."
      4. And what is the whole duty of man and woman? What is Solomon's success formula born out of the school of hard knocks?
   6. "Fear God..."--Oh, oh--there it is again--the identical words from the lone angel in Revelation--"Fear God!"
      1. But lest we misunderstand it's meaning, let's listen to what the gospel of Luke says was a major reason Jesus came to this earth--Luke 1:74 "To grant us that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies [Lucifer being our greatest enemy], might serve Him [God] without fear."
      2. Jesus came to reveal to us a picture of God that would free us to worship and serve Him without fear! NO FEAR!
      3. But you ask: Then what does Solomon mean--"Fear God and keep His commandments"--what does the angel mean who cries into the midnight heavens at the end of time--"Fear God and give glory to Him"? Because if we are to serve Him without fear, then why are we called to fear Him?
      4. The words obviously then cannot mean dread and panic they must then be simple but compelling language calling us to TAKE GOD SERIOUSLY TO NOT WRITE HIM OFF SO EASILY.
      5. Make no mistake about it, God's passion is not to intimidate us into cowering before Him in dread and fear, but to invite us to know Him and to enter into a relationship with Him characterized by love and trust.
      6. Illus: That's was Jesus was expressing in His prayer to His Father just hours before His crucifixion in these words from John 17:3 [on screen]: "This is eternal life [the very essence of what life is about], that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Crist whom You have sent."
         1. "Know Me, know Me, know Me."
         2. Over and over again this Book describes the passionate longing of God for us to get to know Him.
      7. And there is an urgency in this appeal tonight--an urgency born of the fact that we are living in a civilization rapidly running out of time.
   7. "Fear God and give glory to Him" (the lone angel shouts)--"Fear God and keep His commandments" (as the wise king Solomon writes).
      1. There it is--the perfect antidote to Toynbee's indicator number six of lawlessness and anarchy.
      2. In fact I have a hard time imagining any words more appropriately targeted for this generation living tonight in the shadow of Toynbee's predicted end.
      3. "Fear God and keep His commandments."
5. What commandments?
   1. They are incontestably the most famous commandments in the history of humanity--without question the most succinct but significant code for human morality ever recorded in human literature!
      1. There are ten of them, which explains why they're known as the Ten Commandments.
      2. Illus: It has been estimated that more than 35 million laws have been drafted by men and women through the ages to control human behavior.
      3. What you're about to read is less than 300 words long, and yet has been established through time and history as the most emulated code of human conduct ever composed.
   2. The Ten Commandments are recorded in Exodus 20 (p 70)--come read them with me.
   3. The 1st Commandment--v. 3
      1. Illus: The ancients all had their pantheons of gods, and so do we moderns, don't we?
      2. Illus: In an American newspaper this advertisement appeared: "FOR SALE --refrigerator, golf clubs, used sofa, 13 inch TV and other household gods." [In English household goods can become household gods by simply dropping one O!]
      3. How easy it is to turn our goods into gods!
      4. And if not our goods, then we are tempted to worship something else.
      5. Illus: Hans Kung, a German scholar and writer, put it this way:

         "We all have a personal God: a supreme value by which we regulate everything, to which we orientate ourselves, for which if need be we sacrifice everything. And if this is not the true God, then it is some kind of idol, an old or a new one--money, career, sex, or pleasure--none of them evil things in themselves, but enslaving for those for whom they become God." (Why I Am Still a Christian, p 47)

      6. "You shall have no other gods before Me."
      7. An arbitrary law with a mean streak?
      8. No! Lovers and friends have always know that no relationship can ever possibly deepen if has to play second fiddle to someone else.
      9. "I want you to get to know Me" is the passionate cry of the Lawgiver!
      10. "Please let Me be first in your life, your dearest Friend and your only God."
   4. The 2nd Commandment--v.4
      1. It's very interesting that God uses a truly RELATIONAL TERM in this commandment when He says that He is a "jealous" God.
      2. Again, hardly a selfish mean streak--jealously is the very familiar human language describing the passion of life's most intimate relationships.
      3. Toynbee says, [In] the sin of idolatry through a worship of the creature instead of the Creator;...we have found one of the causes of those breakdowns from which the disintegrations of civilizations follow." (p 412)
      4. Could it be that in the moral code of the Ten Commandments there is the antidote to the collapse and disintegration of this civilization?
      5. And at the heart of it all a very relational portrait of God who "jealously" longs to preserve and protect His friendship with us all.
   5. The 3rd Commandment--v. 7
      1. Illus: The unbelievable Associated Press headline caught my eye! Dateline: Agana, Guam.
         1. The dateline itself would have interested me, for as a teenager I spent three wonderful summers on that "Green Pearl of the Pacific."
         2. But the headlined story is what really grabbed my attention!
         3. Let me read it to you:

            "Bruce A. Strong, 40, unmarried, a computer programming instructor at Guam Community College, is waiting to find out if he can be God. Strong is officially making request that his name legally be changed to God. No last name, no middle name, simply, God. When questioned by Superior Court Judge John P. Raker, Strong indicated his reason for the name-change simply as, 'I so wish.' He plans to use God as his name in all personal and professional aspects of his life. His boss, Guam Community College Deputy Provost, Adolf Sgambelluri, has endorsed Strong's application to be called God: 'Maybe it will be a blessing for us,' the deputy provost said. 'This is a free country, and he is guaranteed his rights by the Constitution. I do know his name will be taken in vain a lot around here. I hope he doesn't mind.'"

      2. Maybe the question that should be asked is: DOES GOD MIND?
      3. After all, it IS His NAME.
      4. "You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain."
      5. Because friends always protect the other's good name in public and in private.
      6. Once again the relational heart of the Law comes shining through!
      7. The Lawgiver very obviously longs to protect His relationship with His children.
   6. The 4th Commandment--v. 8-11.
      1. What a beautiful, relational portrait of God in this commandment!
      2. "My friendship with you is so important I am giving you one day of every week to celebrate our relationship together!"
      3. Remember what we read last evening in Jeremiah? [show screen 9:23,24]
      4. "More than anything else in the world I want you to get to know Me even as I know you--Can we be friends?" cries our Creator, the Lawgiver.
      5. [show screen, Jer. 29:11 NIV]--"For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."
      6. "So spend the Day with Me every week and grow your friendship with your God."
      7. The Day for celebrating a FOREVER FRIENDSHIP with God.
   7. And there they are, the first 4 commandments with 6 more to follow.
      1. What's intriguing to note is that all ten commandments focus on relationships!
      2. Commandments one through four define, protect and nurture our relationship with God....while commandments five through ten define, protect and nurture our relationship with other humans, from family and friends to neighbors and strangers.
      3. It is precisely because of that reality that a heart-stirring portrait of God emerges right here in the Decalogue: THERE IS NO ONE IN THE UNIVERSE MORE DEEPLY AND TOTALLY COMMITTED TO PRESERVING RELATIONSHIPS THAN HE!
      4. You think about it--every possible relationship that matters to you matters to Him!
      5. The Ten Commandments leave untouched no human relationship!
      6. The shining truth of God's gift of the Law is that HE IS A GOD WHO VALUES RELATIONSHIPS MORE THAN ANYTHING ELSE IN ALL OF LIFE.
      7. And He gave Ten Commandments to prove that truth!
      8. Which is very good news for this generation that more than any previous generation places a very high priority on its relationships.
      9. So does God!
      10. And notice, by the way, where He begins the Ten Commandments-- He begins by prioritizing and protecting our relationship with Him-- and THEN He shows us how to prioritize and protect our relationships with others.
      11. "Don't run FROM Me, run TO Me."
      12. "LET ME BE YOUR FIRST RELATIONSHIP--THEN EVERY OTHER FRIENDSHIP WILL FALL IN PLACE."
      13. Commandments 1-4 have always preceded 5-10.
      14. LET GOD BE FIRST--THEN ALL THE OTHERS WILL LAST!
   8. All what others? The final commandments deal with our parental relationships, our societal relationships, our sexual relationships, our material relationships, our ethical relationships and our internal relationships.
   9. Commandment 5 deals with our parental relationships--v. 12
      1. God's law protects the human family.
      2. To even speak the words--divorce, latchkey kids, single parent homes, deadbeat dads--is to open within us all emotions of pain and guilt and sorrow.
      3. Could it be that Toynbee's predicted collapse of civilization would be averted were we to return tonight to the fifth commandment?
   10. Commandment 6 deals with our societal relationships--v. 13
       1. God's law protects human life.
       2. Illus: How safe can society remain in the face of growing, wanton disregard of human life everywhere on this planet?
       3. Illus: And to think that the movie and television screens concoct bloody, random violence for our nightly entertainment! How safe now is our civilization?
       4. Could it be that Toynbee's predicted collapse of civilization would be averted were we to return tonight to the sixth commandment?
   11. Commandment 7 deals with our sexual relationships--v. 14
       1. God's law protects the sacred and intimate relationship between a husband and a wife, and in doing so protects the health of society.
       2. Illus: He isn't being a Killjoy--He's protecting our lives, as these statistics from the New York Times editorial indicate! Let me read those statistics, while I hold a beautiful rose blossom in my hand as a symbol of the gift of human sexuality that God is trying to protect in the 7th commandment. [Tear off a petal as each statistic is read]

          "A country with one of the world's highest standards of living is not a country in which one expects to find a remarkable number of people afflicted with sexually transmitted diseases. But according to a study by the Alan Guttmacher Institute, 56 million Americans are infected with them, and at least one of every four can expect to be....Poverty, ignorance and the attendant lack of medical care are partly responsible for the rising rates of sexually transmitted disease; so is the tragic trade of sex for drugs. But a major reason so many Americans are prey to S.T.D.'s, as they are called, is that they are Americans. Which is to say: They initiate sexual intercourse early, marry late and divorce often. During the periods when they're not married, and sometimes when they are, many will have several sexual partners (adult Americans average seven over a lifetime)... Although public health programs concentrate on adult males, women and teen-agers are hardest hit. Two-thirds of those who contract S.T.D.'s are under 25, a fourth of them are teen-agers."

       3. I don't suppose the numbers are that different in any nation of the world tonight.
       4. Which is why we've been left holding the broken and barren blossom of human sexuality on the planet tonight!
       5. We can't break the 7th commandment, my friends, but oh how it can break us!
       6. When the Lawgiver declares, "You shall not commit adultery," can you not see that it is out of a passionate love for His children and His longing to protect our ultimate, lifelong happiness and security and peace of mind.
       7. "I want to protect you," the Giver of the Ten Commandments cries out tonight to an entire civilization in collapse.
       8. "Fear God and give Him glory and keep His commandments."
       9. Could it be that Toynbee's predicted collapse of civilization would be averted were we to return tonight to the seventh commandment?
   12. Commandment 8 deals with our material relationships--v. 15
       1. "What's yours in mine, and what's mine is my own"?
       2. No! God's law protects human ownership.
   13. Commandment 9 deals with our ethical relationships--v. 16
       1. Nothing stabilizes relationships more than trust.
       2. White lie, black lie, white collar, blue collar--it doesn't matter--the answer is NO--you shall not lie.
       3. God's law protects human integrity and trust.
   14. Commandment 10 deals with our relationship with our selves--our internal relationship--v. 17
       1. Long before any of the previous nine commandments could be broken, the act would by necessity be preceded by the thought.
       2. Guard even your thoughts is this commandment.
       3. Do not covet, but be contented on the inside!
       4. Illus: There was once a king who was very unhappy.
          1. His trusted counselor finally suggested, "Sire, if you would but wear the shoes of a happy man, you would be happy!"
          2. So the king promptly sent his servants throughout the kingdom to see if they could find a genuinely happy man, whose shoes the king could then borrow.
          3. Finally they found such a man--truly happy--and living in a distant corner of the kingdom.
          4. They asked the man: "May we borrow your shoes--the king would like to wear them for a while."
          5. But alas, the man had no shoes!
       5. Moral of the story: Be content with what you have, for human happiness is not dependent on what is outside of you, but what is inside of you.
       6. Guard your thoughts and protect your inner self.
6. There they are--the Ten Commandments--the one moral code on earth that could halt the breakdown and reverse the collapse of this civilization.
   1. IT IS FOR WANT OF THIS LAW THAT OUR CIVILIZATION IS DYING TONIGHT.
      1. Every marriage on earth could be saved were this Law respected by both partners.
      2. Every family on earth could be protected were these commandments observed in every home of that land.
      3. Every friendship on earth, every business partnership, every legal relationship, every institutional community, every city, every neighborhood, every land, every nation on earth tonight would be protected--would be safe--would be secure--would enjoy a deep and abiding peace and joy--if this Law, God's Ten Commandments, were honored and kept tonight.
   2. How is it then that our society has concocted such a distorted and jaded picture of the Ten Commandments as some sort of arbitrary, joyless, burdensome moral code of living?
   3. Illus: Fact of the matter is, if we're honest with ourselves--there isn't a one of us here--unless perhaps you're a lawyer or a judge--that doesn't react negatively when we hear words like law, commandments, statutes, moral rules or moral code, etc, etc.
      1. Because we are all independent-minded!
      2. And nobody likes the thought of having to obey or conform to someone else's laws or commandments, no matter whose they are!
   4. Illus: But what if we were living in a war zone tonight.
      1. And what if the enemy had stealthfully concealed all around us just beneath the surface of the ground life-threatening land mines?
      2. But let's say we had to cross a field full of those land mines--there was no other way for us to get to our destination.
      3. And then we learn that there is a person who knows exactly where every single one of those killer land mines is buried.
      4. In fact that person comes up to us and offers to lead us through that booby-trapped field.
      5. What are you going to say to him? "Forget it, buddy. I don't need anybody telling me what to do. I certainly don't need you to impose your ways on my life. I can find my way on my own. See you later."
      6. BOOOOOOOM! Adios/auf wiedersehen is right!
      7. I don't know about you, my friend--but I have a feeling I'd stick as close to that expert as I possibly could--I'd probably offer to ride across the field on his back--wouldn't you?
      8. Why? BECAUSE I VALUE MY LIFE--and if there is an authority who is also a trusted Friend who loves me and tells me, "Follow me and I will lead you through those land mines--don't you dare go that way--stay over here- -you'll get blown to bits if you take that path"--listen, whatever he tells me is fine with me--he has the map of the mines.
      9. I'll follow that Person any day.
   5. Illus: As Henry T. Blackaby has written:

      "God loves you deeply and profoundly. Because He loves you, He has given you guidelines for living lest you miss the full dimensions of the love relationship. Life also has some 'land mines' that can destroy you or wreck your life. God does not want to see you miss out on His best, and He does not want to see your life wrecked." (Experiencing God p 13)

   6. BECAUSE AT THE HEART OF HIS LAW FOR US IS HIS LOVE FOR US.
   7. If only our civilization could know that truth and discover the gift of His love and His law, what a very different world we'd be living in tonight in every nation, in every culture, in every land on this planet.
7. In closing I'd like to introduce you to a friend of mine who happens to be the chief of police in this town where I live Chief James Kesterke.
   1. Though he's not a member of my congregation, I have great respect for him, because he's the LAWGIVER and ENFORCER in this town.
      1. Oh yes, he has a team of deputies.
      2. But this is the MAIN MAN!
      3. And whenever I drive through town, I have my eye pealed for his unmarked car!
      4. Because I never want to cross the chief of police!
   2. But something happened on a winter's night not very long ago, and it changed my attitude toward this awesome, fearsome man.
      1. One of my members was in trouble real trouble.
      2. I got a frantic phone call one Friday night from a distraught wife who felt her husband was on the verge of suicide.
      3. She had already called the police, and would I please come right away.
      4. I grabbed a coat and raced out the door.
      5. But the police beat me to the home.
      6. Only it wasn't one of the deputies it was the chief of police himself.
      7. Who obviously had also come running NO UNIFORM, NO GUN, JUST A PAIR OF JEANS AND A FLANNEL SHIRT.
      8. But he was already inside quietly talking to the threatenng husband in the kitchen.
      9. I stepped into the house and seeing Chief Kesterke there, remained in the shadows and just listened....
      10. As this LAWMAN quietly, gently talked uninterrupted with the distraught gentleman.
      11. No show of force, no swaggering bravado nothing but a quiet and calm and caring demeanor as he stood in the kitchen door.
      12. He kept talking, earnestly but quietly.
      13. And after some time lo and behold--the tensions eased, the crisis receded, and the chief of police left as quietly as he came.
   3. And when I went home later that night I did so with a new admiration and respect for this man I had already known.
   4. What made the difference?
      1. I saw another side of him no uniform, no gun, no lawbook in his hand.
      2. I saw a man displaying a genuine caring and gentle concern for someone in trouble.
      3. He pulled no rank, he issued no ultimatums, he displayed no force.
      4. Instead in his jeans and flannel shirt he got up close to the one in trouble and shared the pain for awhile.
      5. AND SUDDENLY MY PICTURE OF THE CHIEF LAWMAN, THE CHIEF ENFORCER OF THE LAW CHANGED.
      6. His concern for a relationship made all the difference in the world.
   5. Ladies and gentlemen, so it is with the GREAT LAWGIVER, THE DIVINE LAWMAN OF THE UNIVERSE.
      1. The picture suddenly, dramatically changed....when He came to us without His uniform pulling no rank, issuing no ultimatums, displaying no force.
      2. When we saw Him, stripped down to His bare flesh as He hung on a Roman cross...
      3. When we heard His quiet plea--"Father, forgive them..."
      4. Ladies and gentlemen, then it was we knew the truth, beyond the shadow of a doubt, THAT AT THE HEART OF HIS LAW HAS ALWAYS BEEN HIS LOVE.
   6. With a LOVE like that, who wouldn't want to be friends with the LAWGIVER?

Further Study:

The Secret Of Happiness     (Lecture Study Guide from Discover Bible School)

Topical:   Obedience,   Ten Commandments.

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