IN TOUCH With the Ten Commandments
God is telling us something amid the pandemic, and we need to listen
by Betty Miller Buttram
And the Lord sent a great plague upon the people because they had worshipped Aaron’s calf. (Exodus 32:35, The Living Bible)
Moses led God’s chosen people out of bondage, and when they decided the road trip was too much for them, they lost their common sense and created a golden idol to worship and they let God go. Moses came down from that mountaintop carrying two tablets embedded with God’s laws, the Ten Commandments, in one arm and the staff of God in the other. He found that the people had sinned against God with the golden calf and threw the tablets down upon them. Those who had corrupted themselves perished, and the rest knew the power of God.
There are four challenges facing us today. We have been hit with a tablet etched with the words: Pandemic, Racial Injustice, Economic Depression and Voter Suppression. That tablet has been thrown at us, and we are dealing with it because God is talking. God is telling us something. We need to listen.
It has taken a pandemic to get our attention to the power of His Word. There are those among us who are believers, those who believe but have moved away from God and those who have not found Him yet. In this year of 2020, there are demons dividing us and killing us. On that tablet in today’s world, there are a few of the
Ten Commandments that some people have disobeyed:
Thou shall have no other God before me (greed and gluttony)
Thou shall not kill (our Black Lives Matter/racial injustice)
Thou shall not steal (our Black Lives’ heritage, ideas, contributions to our nation)
Thou shall not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain (do not use the Lord’s name to swear to a falsehood)
Thou shall not bear false witness against thy neighbor (the Ms. Karens of today who challenged people because of their skin color)
There is one Commandment I will mention here: Honor your mother and father, and for this article, your grandparents, too.
A couple weeks ago, I stepped into a young African-American man’s pride. I didn’t mean to offend him, but he had stepped into my space. It was at a large chain store where signs of social distancing were posted and the option of wearing a mask. The young man came up too close behind me at the checkout counter, and he was not wearing a mask. I asked him to step back to the blue circle painted on the floor. I knew in a second it was a bad move on my part, but I was acting like a grandmother. I have two grandsons in his age range, but I was not his grandmother.
He started with his Muhammad Ali (dancing in place) and Mike Tyson (flexing his muscles) moves. Then he said, “If I wasn’t a Christian,” and I said to myself, “Lord Jesus.” A voice behind the young man said, “Leave it alone.” He stopped moving a bit, then said, “If I didn’t go to church every Sunday…,” and I again said to myself, “Lord Jesus.” The voice again said to the young man, “Let it go, man.” Each time I called on the Lord, the young man’s buddy answered.
I am skeptical of people who, when their demons are confronted in public places, announce they are Christians and go to church every Sunday. That, to me, is as false as holding a Bible upside down in front of a church, pretending to be a Christian.
People, listen to God. There is a virus among us and some of us have decided to do our own thing by not following the advice of health officials. God gave them their gifts of healing and scientific knowledge so that they could take care of us.
We do not have a “Moses” to guide us through this chaotic time, but we can read and hear the word of God if we only listen. He is talking to us. He sent us a tablet of challenges. God restored the Ten Commandment tablets, and He will restore us, but we need to keep the faith, hope and love for one another grounded in our love for Jesus Christ, our Savior, who died for our sins.